Perfection...a Thing to Avoid!
What killed Francis Macomber?
This piece was written (well, started anyway) during the last monsoon season here in SE Arizona. I finally was able to edit it to perfection today. Wait, I withdraw the word perfection! Read on to find out why… :)
***
“My God!” muttered the atheist, metaphorically.
According to Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast, “All thinking men are atheists”.
Eyes still closed, my raspy early morning voice was muffled by white cotton sheets, freshly washed and sun-dried the day before. Only the sensitive ears of my dogs heard and understood, there being no one else in the room anyway. The clean smell of those sheets, enhanced by the warmth of slumber, combined with varying amounts of petrichor coming from the open bedroom window. Joining those scents, the sweet smell of Whitethorn Acacia, the subtle, nutty smell of Desert Senna and pungent Creosote bush, created a cacophony of olfactory input and encouraged a growing wakefulness. A welling cup of happiness enjoined by such an awakening was only slightly dulled by the humidity of the Monsoon season. I love the green this time of year. Monsoon season in Southeastern Arizona reminds me a bit of Oregon, from where I moved some time ago, but I like it drier overall. Crackers tend not to get stale.
The lyrics came momentarily into my head. (Cue Eels, “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues”)
“Uh-huh, goddamn right, it's a beautiful day
Uh-huh, goddamn right, it's a beautiful day
Uh-huh”
And so it was.
Moving through the morning, I finished a Hemingway story before coffee, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”. Why I waited so long in my life to read Hemingway I can’t say, but this story somehow resonated with my current inner dialogue.
Before coffee? Yeah, I’ve come to realize through caring about my health and wellbeing that coffee ingested much before an hour into the day has an inverse effect on long-term alertness. Drinking coffee first thing is a wonderful wake-up buzz, “paddle starting one’s heart” as Rob, my last long-term lover’s father would say, but drinking it first thing is followed by a crash. I won’t try to relate the chemistry involved; you must just trust me on this or look it up yourself. Waiting for an hour or so gives one’s body time to adjust and settle into the day and coffee ingested after that first 45 minutes or so may give less initial buzz but it is still lovely and doesn’t necessitate a late morning nap.
So maybe like being patient for coffee, Hemingway’s story coming into my life is better now than it would have been at any earlier time. I would have been less prepared to get something out of it.
Not surprisingly, his writing seemed dated, written nearly a century ago. The pace of the world is picking up, what with words and ideas entering the lexicon franticly. Personally, I’ll stick with the pronouns I was born with, but I do have room for new words that add to the nuance of the language. Like everything, language evolves.
Take the word parasocial, for instance, a word added to the Oxford English dictionary in 2023… “designating a relationship characterized by the one-sided, unreciprocated sense of intimacy felt ... for a well-known or prominent figure…”. Particularly relevant since the advent of social media and “influencers”. Knock on wood, I try to not allow my inner dialogue to concern itself much with “prominent figures”.
But my inner dialogue…A long time ago, many decades ago, it occurred to me that maybe when a person achieves perfection, they die. I guess this implies that perfection is attainable, but maybe not without peril. I don’t mean enlightenment, I think that may be achievable if you stay alert and open to evolving, like language. You know, a “chop wood, carry water” sort of enlightenment. Occasionally you can even run into a seemingly enlightened being. But think about it, did you ever meet anyone that was perfect? No? Me either.
In a few sentences, Hemingway’s “Short Happy Life” is about a fellow that comes of age, (briefly, as you will see in the second sentence following this one) by losing his cowardice and finding his manhood, finding his voice as it were. Maybe he achieved his perfection? Seemingly, since minutes later, his calculating, domineering, cuckolding wife kills him. Told you so; you heard it here first!
My fear of death by perfection has been a great excuse for living a life that fell well short of it, BTW. Have fun with your day!
***
Thanks for reading! If you like what I do here please let me know with a “like” here on the story. And as always, I’d love it if you would tell your friends about my Substack site.