My evenings are full of vulnerable moments. In the absence of daytime's social facade and no longer surrounded by things that I am trained to care about, I become more naked than I want to be. The strain from the inelastic wool of the work clothes starts to disappear the moment I drive off from work and fully recedes a couple of hours after dinner, after all the dishes have been done. Revealed in its place are a pair of fleshy unadorned legs which are only covered near its top by a sliver of sweatpants. The underlying legs have remained pretty much consistent for as much as I can remember, as the layers covering them switched from school uniforms, pajama bottoms, jeans to suit pants, each indicating a slightly different era with its own corresponding mood. In the evenings the whichever layers that were on during the day are temporarily shelved onto the side, along with what the layers are supposed to represent, student life, career, pomposity or the lack thereof. Left behind is just simply me in the most rudimentary form, stripped of history and probably also dignity.
The anguish, affection, eloquence and restraint that have provided me with ample air cover during the day vanish. But increasingly I am less certain whether the things that do remain are intended to be at the forefront at all, or exactly what those are. For many people as they traverse farther in their lives these concerns matter less as they accumulate layers to cover up what is underneath. But I have never been fully comfortable with this idea: covering up the thing that I do not understand with more understandable layers does not quite aid in the understanding of anything; it aids in its postponement or even concealment. When the layers are plentiful during the day and there are many people with the same, I blissfully focus on making money through looking at the screen, greeting the lady at the bend of the staircase, and attempting to further my chances both in career and in life. In the evenings these seem remote and almost idyllic, and indeed everything seems more remote and hence idyllic, aside from the revealed legs and the slippers, which look like rebars sticking out of a derelict building which still looked fine in the morning, or the backside of the laptop when it's shiny anodized aluminum backplate has been removed and dust is coming out. They are certainly telling, but I mostly do not understand what is said.
There are very few things I really understand, and even fewer things I'll accept. The evenings, however, do not even offer the pretext of understanding or acceptance. They encroach on the recital of the day like the pause before late Beethoven's last movement. In the evenings I take a look at the lustrous day past, perhaps bidding its farewell, perhaps waiting for its sequel.
