This is the conclusion to a short story called The Antique Cradle that I posted on March 14th:
At the same time that I was consumed with my doll removal project my interaction between The Dentist turned Astronaut took a highly unusual turn. One day while driving through a small town en route to a mobile home park we passed a large sign in front of a church:
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Some plants need to be uprooted in order to maximize their potential and so it was with me. After an initial withering, my roots began to take hold in our transitory environment, and much to my surprise, I began to thrive.
No, I am not suffering from The Stockholm Syndrome, at least I don’t think I am. You won’t see me holding a semi-automatic rifle in a bank lobby somewhere like Patty Hearst. The Dentist turned Astronaut may be accused of many things but he is not a violent man, and there was nothing to stop me from leaving. He would never hurt me.
The routine (if you can call it that) of our life was noteworthy in that there was no routine, or none to speak of. I, who lived my life following a certain schedule, found that I had none. Sometimes I stayed up most of the night only to wake up, look out the window, and see farmland, cows with calm eyes, looking back at me. I envied them, I envied their serenity. I would go back to sleep and wake up to find us entering the parking lot of a super market in a small town somewhere in the Midwest.
You must hate me. How could any woman allow herself to be trapped, imprisoned by such a man? Why don’t I extricate myself immediately, go back home and sue the bastard for every penny? I really don’t know - except to say that as time went on I began to discover myself, and the more I discovered, the happier I became.
You have seen the bumper sticker: God Is My Copilot? My bumper sticker would say The Dentist Is My Copilot. We actually got along quite well. Much to my surprise, I found that he didn’t want to talk to me any more than I wanted to talk to him. The surround sound in our cabin was silence. We both loved it. I had no reason to leave, at least for the time being.
I began to think of myself as one of those Russian stacking dolls, the outer doll became abhorrent to me, she was such a superficial twit. With no possessions to occupy my time, I realized that most of those possessions served only to help me to avoid removing the outer doll, the shell I had become. It wasn’t easy. Those outer dolls had a very hard veneer, they didn’t want to go. I became obsessed with what I called “Operation Doll Removal.”
"If you want to be sad, no one in the world can make you happy. But if you make up your mind to be happy, no one and nothing on earth can take that happiness from you." Paramahansa Yogananda
Neither of us commented on it, I did not think he saw it, but after several miles he turned to me and asked me if I was happy.
“Happy?” This simple question took me by surprise, I felt like a deer in the headlights.
“No. I don’t think so. I’m not sure. Maybe. Are you?”
“Yes, although I am beginning to miss the sound of the drill.”
“Really? Did you know that most people hate that sound?”
“I didn’t know that.”
It amused me that he could be oblivious to something so obvious, yet at the same time I found his reaction rather endearing. It struck me that The Dentist was without guile. Boring, yes, but he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He would not find the need to peel his Russian dolls down to the core, his outer doll was his core, and I envied him for that.
And then I began to think about his question. Am I happy? Well, I certainly wouldn’t call myself euphoric, ecstasy is hard to come by, but much to my amazement I found that I was content. Even without all my possessions, even without that antique cradle I clung to so desperately, I was content. And I knew, deep inside, that if I continued with my “Operation Doll Removal” one day I might even be happy. All I needed to do was to keep digging, and in some strange way I needed The Dentist turned Astronaut to be at my side.
It's All Temporary
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