Home Alone

Home Alone: There is something charming about the dual life that some of us live, and simultaneously there is something acutely melancholic. The confusion about the place is continuously evocative. A lovely evening with the dog, walking down a street that many would consider a "holiday getaway" with the constant reminder that the other place is alive with the sounds of the evening, the cars driving by, or the imminent arrival of the groom at the marriage hall across the street. The comfort of refusing the tea at 5:30 in the evening at the local market and driving off with people who will never judge you to another market to get the better tea and the samosa fried in front of you while the taste of the succulent Easter ham hangs at the back of your tongue. That is the dual life. Where each moment reminds us of the other, and the joy of the moment is interrupted by the melancholy of what could have been - opportunity cost. The banter over tea about the neighborhood girl who none of us were able to woo to the rain that poured into the living room in the poor house that another neighborhood girl and I could afford - they all blend together in the excitement of getting off the plane and getting on the right side of the car while the driving appears to be on the "wrong" side. Sitting on the spring porch with a person who taught me never to live on my knees to another who would look up in awe because I appeared to always stand tall. People with dual lives have dual people in their lives. Waiting at Time Square for the person to come back from a quick walk around 42nd street to looking sheepish with the other person at the Grand Hotel until the platinum card comes out. This is a rare pleasure where the lives diverge and converge, where the tensions mount and peace follow. The ecstasy happens when one life blends with the other - when the person from one life enters the other - a drive up to Grandfather Mountain with a person from one life while contemplating the walk through the flower market by the Hooghly with a person from the other life. Schizophrenia cannot hold a candle to this. Hearing the cicadas in the depth of the Virginia pines in the forest next to the home sitting on the screened porch while the sound of the crows crowds the mind at twilight as they come home to roost on the Krishna Chura trees across the street. The constant montage of life often takes away the weight of memory while the next moment beckons - when one will again be home alone in the tiny room in Wandsworth as the March sun peeks in through the silky curtains and the Church by the Thames declares the six tones of the morning bell. One is always alone in whichever of the multiple lives one lives because the constants are few, and they rarely cross over from one life to the other - and when they do - the moments become precious - because at that moment the lives converge and one is no longer home alone. One is everywhere with everyone but still at the end it is what Neil Diamond said, "It's life's illusions that I recall."