Saturday, April 25, 2009

U.K. Holiday Part Two

Any time someone newish enters your space, a certain amount of tailoring must occur, if not to eclipse any assumptions that your life is not “together” enough, then at least to afford them some comfort. It is not difficult when England comes your way to pull something holidayish out of the sandy surf and to make like (fake like?) your every day consists of reaching for a banana right from the tree*. Easy enough, I suppose, to sweep the lizard turds under the stove for those few days that guests stop by. In the end though, a closer friend comes with a certain amount of abusability reserved normally for family and particular electronics, and all bets for preserving the image of that sunkissed life are off. Underwear finds its way once again strewn on the floor, you condescend (embarrassingly) to your gardener, let produce rot in the fridge. It’s undoubtedly the less enjoyable experience for this visitor, who differs from the others only in his ability to maintain some space in your life long enough to wear down your defenses and expose his own Tesco-working warts as well. Somehow, though, you like to think that showing your slightly more sustainable side, a middling okayness with your existence, could, if he were able to stretch that far, be seen as a compliment to the evolved state of your friendship.


*Though often very stately and tree-like, the banana and its fruit are, in fact, delicious mutations of an otherwise seedy, inedible herbaceous plant and not actually a tree.