Scratched by Elizabeth Tallent

Scratched by Elizabeth Tallent

Author:Elizabeth Tallent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-02-24T16:00:00+00:00


Down through Illinois, into the snowed-silent corner of Missouri. Even if all went well—unlikely, given the car’s propensity for breakdowns—we were barely going to make it to New Mexico in time for me to show up for the first day of the new semester. When I got there I would be sitting down at the seminar table with others who would already have each other figured out—alliances, rivalries established; my arrival would make me the last addition to a cohort midway through its first year. I could get as far as picturing my intimidated self coming through the door of the seminar room—taking a seat, opening my notebook—but where we would have slept the night before, what kind of job he would have a chance at, how we would manage to pay for first and last month’s rent plus deposit, those were unknowns. Perfectionist interiors, perfectionist planning are not supposed to have a lot of loose ends. The messes she makes can fool those around the perfectionist into believing she’s no such thing, but a paradox of perfectionism is its nurturance of haphazardness, disarray, and negligence. In perfectionism a task can be done two ways: flawlessly, or not at all. The charm of not at all lies in yielding to the guilt-infused sensuousness of procrastination. Letting things slide is an erotics of dread. If you haven’t even made a start on some task facing you, there’s zero chance of your having done it badly—according to perfectionist (il)logic, you’re blameless, and since blamelessness is your preferred psychic state, you don’t mind generating a fair amount of chaos to sustain it. Thus, rather than being neatly packed, the interior of the old car was a shambles in which it was impossible to find a toothbrush or clean pair of Levi’s; thus, rather than having planned to arrive in Albuquerque with plenty of time to settle in, we—mostly I, my fault—left it to the last minute.

But I loved his blitheness regarding last minutes in general: it freed us to take chances. He never minded having to compensate through quick-wittedness for preparations left till almost too late, the same needless little crisis that would have driven a more orderly person crazy with vexation turned him blithe, as if it was a particular pleasure to be called on for some ingenious fix, and also as if only then, when we ourselves had invited chaos, could his quickness and deftness emerge as unambiguous grace. Then it showed: the incisiveness of his least movement, his way of judging exertion precisely, the trim execution, the eloquence his body would always have shown, if allowed. He was not usually willing to let it show, and it interested me how gracefulness so extreme could be dissembled, but it was, it mostly was—for the sake of masculinity, was my assumption, as a defense against ridicule, but also possibly due to the Midwestern dislike of standing out.



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