Monday, March 31  

Fidelity

Vic believes in fidelity. She accepts the fact that it's a difficult principle to achieve and maintain. That's perhaps why she believes in it. If it were easy, she would probably think it was a sham.

fidelity: noun 1. Faithfulness or devotion to a person, obligations or duties. 2. Correspondence with fact or truth.

Vic goes to the video store down the street with the intention of renting Breakfast at Tiffany's because she's feeling very Audrey Hepburn with her hair pulled up into a twist. But on a whim she rents High Fidelity.

Now, she's seen this movie before and read the book at least twice. In fact, the copy she has, battered and tattered on her bookcase is the first edition from long before it came out with John Cusack on the cover. Before it was ever going to be a movie.

She and William bought it one afternoon when they were at the Chapters on Bloor. They both read it, her first, then him, and agreed that it was the best book they'd ever read. Not just for the british humour, but because they both felt strongly identified with the feeling of it. But clearly, they did not understand it’s meaning. Clearly.

Though perhaps they do now.

It's not actually about faithfulness. It's about knowing when it might better to call the game than to keep slapping around in the mud. And that's the secret, Vic figures. The cold, hard facts. If you will.

She likes the expression "cold, hard facts" because that's what facts are. Hard. Facts are very rarely easy to swallow. They're not cuddly or nice. Because accepting the facts is about correspondence with truth.

Vic would like to think she's capable of corresponding with the truth.

Dear truth, (she would like to write)

You really had me fooled. I thought you were big and bright and easy to find and the reason I couldn't see you was because you hadn't come along yet. So I kept moving, hauling ass all over creation trying for a glimpse so I'd know the right path to get on. Then I deked and ducked and turned back fast to see if you'd gotten behind me somehow. And you had. But I didn't see you there either.

Because the truth is, truth (and I’m just starting to put this one together) that you’re a sly bastard, slippery like a fish. You're not big or bright. You're not handsome and you're not attractive. You're small. You're cold. Like a little stone in my shoe. Cold and hard like the facts I've always liked so much.

I worry that you're not good for me. That you don’t have my best interest at heart. And it's true, truth (as if I need to tell you what's true and what's not), you probably don't. You probably have your own devilish plan in play and my part is to just sit here and let it happen. Not to struggle to much against it. Accept it. Strive for high fidelity with the truth.

I don't mean to say that I'm actually ready to do it though, truth. Not entirely ready to see you yet.Just kind of waving hello across the supermarket aisles of life. I get you, I think. And you get me. Or at least, you will in the end.

Vic