All is Vanity

The Zen idea of transiency tells us that not everything is what it seems. Happiness is often misery. Bad is good, and good is bad. As a Jew in the culturally diverse city of New York, I can be in awe of the intrinsic mystery of such an Eastern principle while also dismissing it as a bunch of pagan bologna.

Still, it isn’t until now that I’ve come to understand with pristine clarity the beauty of something so backwards, so ironic, that it could be desirable. This week, I have seen good appear bad and bad appear good. Like explorers old, it is possible to go so far west that you’re actually in the East, although you might end up feeling like a dog chasing his tail.

Until this summer, I never could have imagined that my mother would have to be a single mother again. Her recent messy albeit serendipitous divorce has her parenting my baby sister with virtually no help. I’ve been drowning in guilt for months for not rushing to move home. Although she says that it’s not what she wants, why should she have to do this alone? Since June, I’ve been leaning toward Austin like a paralyzed and sun-starved houseplant leans toward a window. The Noo York has taken its toll. Why not consider a move home? I can only imagine the help that I’d be. In fact, it’s all I can think of lately.

One would assume, then, that more children are exactly what a single mother needs least. But, this is exactly what my mother got this week when my other sister finally left her LOSER boyfriend of seven years. After a trial separation, she’s finished with him. It’s frankly about time. He and the litter he calls a family are horrible inside and out.

So, my sister and her two children have now filled my mother’s house, giving my baby sister the closest she’ll ever get to siblings her age. My mother now has another adult to help around the house. Early-release days and national holidays observed on Mondays will no longer have her panicking for childcare with my “older” sister at home with her baby. Suddenly, sistaz doing it for theyself has liberated two women from the shitty situations in which they formerly found themselves. Ironically, it’s working, and I couldn’t be more relieved.

And, as one relationship crumbled, mine was headed in a different direction for once. Daniel (yes, my boyfriend) finally suggested that we move in together. I mean, we’ve only been dating two years; I was admittedly getting a bit restless, and it was probably starting to show. You know; we were becoming one of those couples. Honestly, it’s not my fault. The tick-tock of my biological clock is palpable even for the noisy NYC.

At first, I was elated. He even emailed me a few leads for places on the Upper East Side. But, I’m not easily fooled. Oh, no. Who would I be if not cleverer than the men I date? I got to thinking, and I’m a bit baffled. Before you peg me as the pessimist that I probably am, please hear me out.

Only days before his offer, I signed a year-long lease that began on Thursday. I just moved into my latest apartment in early October. In context, this seeming suspicious step forward may be, in fact, more of a symbolic gesture than a bona fide advance in relationship status. Where was he in August or September when I really needed a place to stay? What about last January to April? Why now? What is this, a autumnal audacity arousing a new animus? I’d be a fool if I weren’t the least bit … curious.

It’s true; I’d be less neurotic if I were a Buddhist with a cigarette. I think back to that bit of Eastern wisdom that I first mentioned, and I can’t help but think of transience in my own Western way. The famous Charles Gilbert illustration that I posted here reminds me that all is not always as it seems. Slowly, I am coming to recognize that beauty may truly be skin-deep disguised as ruin and death. Tragedy, I must never forget, is sometimes just vanity with a bad hair day.