On Reading Marx

With a quiet rain at the open windows behind me, I stretch out on this old iron bed, my head and feet propped on pillows—just the way I like—and set about reading Marx. It's a Friday night, and that’s what sad and lonely women like me do on a Friday night: we read, watch TV, listen to the radio. And it’s nearly 10:00 when my phone rings. Ruthanne is in the city, with nimble voices in the background, the sound of people living their lives on a summer night in Manhattan. I can hear in her voice that she is feeling me out, trying to see if I will come to the city to join them. I tell her I am doing school work, that I am reading Marx—and she understands right away that I am not coming, that I am still in retreat. What she does not know is that being around happy people, people in love, and people falling in love, only makes me feel lonely. I see only the ways that they have managed to figure out what I have not. Their bliss only reminds me of how poorly I have handled things. How wrong I have been… And I would rather be alone. On a Friday night. In my quiet bedroom with the rain at the window. And a candle flickering on the nightstand beside me.

As soon as I hang up from Ruthanne, the phone is there again. It is the unexpected man from last week. The tall, dark man in the black hat, the noisy smile. I liked him last week—as a distraction, as a dance partner to celebrate carnival Brazil. But the music has faded, the night is over, and I am thinking only of the man I have lost. The phone goes to voicemail…

And I return to Marx. The 940-page Penguin Classic. I am earnest. And determined. But right away, I am confronted with words, with symbols, set up like dominoes on the page—and they begin to fall one into each other, collapsing neatly along each row until I cannot recognize their meaning. What I take away from this chapter is that everything is fluid, everything is in motion. And I understand that tonight. How things can change from one day to the next, how relationships change, that there is an inter-relation between so many things... But Marx is not interested in "this causes that"—like I am tonight. I know that I am here alone on a rainy August night because of things I have done, things I have said. Because I was not patient. Because I was not me.

So I continue. And read about commodity--the thing that meets a human want or need--and it makes me think about him this way. He has value to me—in his intellect, his smile, the way he adjusts his glasses when he’s working to make a point—and I see that his value is always in motion—depending on how we are relating to each other, and who else is waiting to claim him. Value, Marx says, is subject to a wide array of forces, and I see that so clearly tonight…. This commodity is useful to me in so many ways—as lover, as friend, as someone to tell my secrets to… But Marx says that exchange values are incoherent, that they are all over the place, because the commodity is perpetually in motion, and all things are commensurable in exchange. And as he orbits his circle of friends and family and acquaintances, colliding, melding, moving on, we are all finding and taking different things in and from him, and he with us... But I took too much. And now my use value is gone—at least to him. And that is all I can figure out tonight from these long rows of collapsed dominoes on the page…

The other night Rita and I have dinner in the city; we have not seen each other since last fall. She is there first, lovely in her blown-glass choker, and black & white sandals brought back from Spain. I sit across the table from her. What are you drinking? I ask. The drink looks familiar, and of course she names the cocktail that he often drinks. So I order one, too. Rita is brilliant—the smartest woman I know—and I like to watch how her mind works, how she goes about things. We talk, laugh, catch up. Finally I tell her how these past months have been. Her face declares shock, surprise—and I know the questions will come. We have been longtime friends, this woman and I, and I watch her struggle to recognize the me I describe: needy, demanding, impetuous. For the first time, she labors to make connections, to draw her conclusions. I am a stranger to her, this me I describe… Just last week my mother had cautioned that I will have a hard time with men. It will take a special man, she said, to give you the space you need, the alone time you require. And yet I revealed a different woman to him, and felt a tumult coursing through my hot veins. Gone was the size 10 foot that plods quietly along, sure-footed, content, in charge… Rita reaches across the table and says, you are in pain. And indeed I am. The bitter pain of regret—which I swallow that night with a big gulp of the drink that he so often preferred.

Yet there is nothing to be done. I have tossed my mistakes into a bag that I take out at times to look at and examine… And he is a disappointed man. With expectations and ambition that the choices he made got in the way of. He told me recently that he is on the path to the Zen of Fuck It. But he doesn’t see that he is closing himself off, shutting things down. He is a man without a home, as he moves back and forth, feeling not quite right anywhere. When he’s angry or hurt, he dreams of a place with mountain breezes and the ocean stretched out before him—a place where he will belong. He doesn’t see that the walls he’s constructed keep him isolated, unanchored. Doesn’t see that those walls prevent him from finding that home…

And so today is a new day, another beginning. The morning filters in at my back. I will shower, and pack. Get in my car, with the radio riding shotgun beside me, and drive out to where all the rich people are. But he will make me laugh, my brother—because he knows where my humor is stored. Always on the surface, ready to erupt, just needing the right thing to provoke it. And we will have one last feast together, and drinks over an open fire. Because I am losing him, too—to a lifelong dream, to a new ambition that will take him away from here. I’m getting too good at saying goodbye…

And after that, I will drive north to a room where we will discuss Marx in cool, measured tones in a brightly lit classroom with no place to hide. And from there, I will drive through a long summer night up onto the Cape—along a quiet Route 6, the sand welcoming me from the side of the road. And somewhere out there, the sea will be shrouded in darkness. I will roll down the window and listen to the ocean, rushing in and pulling away in a determined whisper. The air will be alive with the smell of all those creatures living in a prehistoric world under the water. And eventually on that long summer night, I will get to that place, way out on the tip, and hear the crunch of my tires along the gravel. I will stop. Get out. Stretch. Seventeen years of coming to this place—and it is still waiting. To heal. To restore. And, I hope, to forgive…
***