I was reading a novel, Mostly Dead Things, by Kristen
Arnett. In the final chapter of the book, the protagonist Jessa is
having a heart-to-heart with her mother, and the mother tells Jessa that
she feel she doesn’t really know her anymore, and Jessa replies “nobody really
knows anybody”.
It’s not a new sentiment, writers have repeated it dozens of
times, it’s almost a cliché. But it struck me how simple and true it is, not to
mention how tragic.
I still remember a relative (an older lady) telling me how
shocked she was when her husband of thirty-five years told her that he preferred
firm greenish tomatoes, not yet ripe. I’ve been married to him for Thirty-five
years, and I’ve served him tomatoes in all kinds of daily meals, and never once
did I know that he preferred them unripe, she said smiling in astonishment.
Sure, people change their minds about how they like their tomatoes;
our taste in food is always changing. But it remains a mystery how we don’t
really know one another. I claim that I know my daughter who is turning
fourteen-years-old next December, but I’m baffled by some of the things she
says, and does almost every other day. I used to think I at least knew her
moods, what she likes to read, how she likes to dress, her favorite color, and
what she likes to eat. But there were many incidents when I guessed wrong.
People change, people grow, and the things we refuse to share
with each other are – unfortunately – a lot more than the things we do share.
Why is that? Why do we only scratch the surface of those we love and cherish? I
don’t know the answer to this. We are mysteries, to others and in many ways to
ourselves.
