the family configuration begins to change
“The family configuration begins to change” — in two small ways, at least.
Last night Performer and I, having returned from someone else’s performance, were talking idly while we sat over tea. The word ‘curator’ came up, and we discussed the fact that I pronounce it CUR-uh-ter, stress on the first syllable and the central vowel pronounced like a short a, so short it sounds like the u in put, whereas P pronounces the word cur -A-ter, stress on the middle syllable, with the central vowel sounding like the a in Coolade.
I know, I know: this discussion has less color, so to speak, than the one about barf v. vomit v. throw up .
Then I remembered what irritates me the most, the way announcers on NPR, supposedly a paragon of correct pronounciation, say entrepreNOOR — always, in all cities, all contexts, all announcers — rather than entreprenNEUR, with the French eu sound that is pretty easy for American voices to get around. If you can say the er in butter you can say the eur in entrepreneur.
But I didn’t quite remember it: I remembered the irritation but not the word I was irritated about, and Performer, not an NPR person, would not have known. So I phoned C1 (older child, age 21) to ask her.
At first I got her voicemail and left her a message.
Then, after I hung up, I remembered the word.
So I called her back to leave a message telling her she didn’t need to call me back, but this time I got her.
So we chatted a bit, and as we were talking Performer signalled that he wanted the phone.
I said to her, ‘Performer wants to talk with you’ and handed the phone over.
* * *
In that moment my new life made connection with my old life. They spoke!
P and C1 discussed the pronounciation of curator — earth-shaking topic — and it turns out that they pronounce it the same way, so they could teasingly bond against me….just teasingly. P’s face was lit up with a big smile, and he laughed a big rich laugh somewhere between tenor and basso. He said something like, I know we’re going to meet in person on Saturday, but I thought it would be good to meet you by phone now – or words to that effect. Very relaxed, friendly, sociable, poised.
It was just nice to know that it was happening.
Feedback: he said she sounded like me, but, I think he said, with a deeper voice. I emailed her for her response, which was,
yes, it was a very nice conversation. 
This is all utterly banal, I know, but for me it’s very important: this man whom I met in the middle of nowhere, Match.com, this man who materialized in cyberspace to become someone very close to me, has now made contact with my firstborn.
It’s odd. But good.
* * *
In the middle of the night, last night, I woke up to hear Performer saying, “I’m going to be anxious until my divorce is over.”
I can’t remember what I said. I think I just said “oh” and turned over and went back to sleep.
* * *
But his comment affected my sleep:
I dreamt that my ex and Sherry, his partner, were in my room — what house “my room” was in I can’t remember — and wouldn’t leave. I wanted them to get out of there quickly because I had a lot to do. I kept saying to both of them, but especially to her, “I have a shitload of work to do,” but she still didn’t budge from the chair she had installed herself in. And neither did my ex.
It was unpleasant and irritating to have them there, stubbornly not leaving and remaining where they were most in the way.
* * *
Based on my psychiatrist’s interpretation of a dream I had a few weeks ago (he’s old school and loves dreams….his eyes light up when he can use old-style psychoanalytic techniques), in which my ex was really Performer, I’d say this dream expressed my irritation that P and his not-quite-ex wife Becky are still “taking up space” in my life. The dream was obviously inspired by P’s comment that interrupted my sleep. Returning to sleep, I integrated it into my dreams.
* * *
When P woke me up a few hours later, I was still in the midst of this dream and very glad that it was ‘only a dream.’
In fact he’s doing everything he can to get the divorce over with, and one of these days it will be. Last night we were also talking about other people we’d dated, and he said one woman he talked to on the phone didn’t want to meet or date him because he wasn’t yet divorced.
I can’t remember when I found that out, whether it was in a phone conversation or on our first date, but it wouldn’t have deterred me if I felt he was otherwise right. I know that’s flying in the face of conventional wisdom, but (as Performer said, and I quoted, in a previous post), conventional wisdom is not always wise.
* * *
