The Map Is Not the Place

On crying at weddings, ineffable experiences, and confusing the map for the territory.

My father arrives first, making his entrance with the peculiar mix of stiffness and confidence that comes to men of a certain age called on to perform certain proud duties. My father’s stoicism is somehow all his own, recognisable, the way you recognise the sound of a loved one’s footsteps. He stands at the back of where we’re sitting, in a small room given grandeur by the glow of sunshine through tall windows and by the occasion itself. We stand, twisting in our crisp suits and flatteringly tight dresses to watch for the person he waits for.

My younger sister follows him into the room and stands at his side. She gives truth to every cliché of glowing brides, radiating happiness, and for a second — because I can’t ever turn my writer’s mind off — I think maybe Martin Amis was too rough on clichés. He was mostly right to melt them with his indignation, but maybe, I think, there are instances where clichés are all we have. How could I ever describe how my sister looks right now and not supply an ersatz effigy? And wouldn’t any attempt at originality here be nothing more than hubris and showing off? Maybe, then, the answer is silence.

I watch my father walk my sister down the aisle.

But the writer within won’t be quiet for long. Words are all he has. Am I supposed to take certain experiences off the table, to decide these things fall outside the remit of things I can write about? There must be some use to the effort, even if it will always be flawed. Maps, as the saying goes, are not the territory — but maps are still instructive about the nature of the territory. They can be useful guides to the terrain. I have to hope that’s true, as I continue attempting to describe the seemingly indescribable.

As my sister reaches her fiancé and my father takes his seat, my vision becomes unexpectedly misty. I’m surprised: crying is a form of self-expression that usually evades me. I’m perpetually on the edge of tears; I’m unable to speak, a tremble in my chest, whenever I so much as glimpse a fundraiser for starving children or the homeless — but the tears almost never come. I wish for them, sometimes, convinced I’ll feel better if I have a good cry, the way vomiting brings relief from sickness. Sadly (but not sad enough to make me cry) that facility in me is faulty. Yet here I am, holding back tears.

Sitting next to me and my wife is our brilliant and sensitive sixteen-year-old nephew. He watches his mum stand beside the man who today officially becomes his stepdad, a welcome formalisation of the place he’s held in our family for a long time. I glance over at my nephew: he’s sobbing. He’s trying to stay silent, but his shoulders shake violently. I reach over and put my hand on his arm. He looks back at me and, with his voice strained and slightly amazed, as if bemused at his own reaction, he whispers, “I don’t know why.”

It occurs to me (the writer’s mind at work again) that my nephew and I could be described with a line from Eliot’s Four Quartets: “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” My attention bounces from one idea to another. Eliot was once asked (the story goes) about the meaning of a line in one of his poems: “Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree.” Eliot replied huffily, “The line means ‘Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree’.” Like any good myth, this story might not have actually happened, but it is true.

The truth it shows us is that there are things for which language can only ever be a diminishment. The reality is replaced with a simulacrum. In this case, we miss the meaning of the experience not because we didn’t think hard enough about it, or find the right words to replicate it, or come up with a theory that could contain it — we miss the meaning because the experience is the meaning.

There’s a story about a composer playing a new composition for a friend. When it’s over, there’s an uneasy silence before the friend asks, “What does it mean?” The composer says nothing; he simply turns back to the piano and plays it again.

Then there’s Alan Watts (citing someone who in turn might be quoting Kierkegaard) saying that the “mystery of life isn’t a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced”.

My nephew and I know why we’re crying, but we know it in a way that precedes language. We don’t know how to talk about it.

After the wedding, one of my nieces, four years old, will tell her dad that her aunty got married. She’ll be repeating words she’s heard all day, and though it’s phrased as a statement, it comes with a question mark. She trusts the infinite wisdom of her father to resolve what’s puzzling her infinitely curious mind. He’ll nod and say that, yes, her aunty got married. “Where’s married?” my niece will ask, looking around as if for a person, an entity, a thing as concrete as her toys. My brother will have to carefully choose the right words to explain the abstract concept of marriage.

It’s not much easier to define marriage for an adult. All right, the basic concept, especially in its legal sense, is fairly straightforward — but getting to the heart of what truly matters about marriage is something I’ve spent hours discussing with friends. Some of them have asked the question that’s been asked of so many other married couples and will be asked of them soon enough. “Do you feel different now that you’re married? Has anything changed?” Very little has changed and everything has changed is the shorthand reply.

When I’m pressed for more, I sometimes tell them about The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I read it a bunch of times when I was a teenager, then I left it for many years. After I got married, I gave it another go. The novel is divided in two parts, and the division never meant anything to me when I was young, before I was married. This time, I noticed the two parts are separated by a wedding, that there is life before marriage and then married life. Like a minor epiphany, I understood that, yes, this is what it’s like. The book hadn’t changed, but I had. The world doesn’t change when you get married, but you do.

This often doesn’t suffice as any kind of explanation — at best, it’s interesting but opaque — and I have to shrug. What can I say? Nothing. Words have nothing to do with what the experience means. All I can do is provide some kind of guide with my language. If you want the territory and not the map, you’ll have to go there for yourself.

My sister and her partner say their vows, and I’m happy knowing that they’re about to understand for themselves, to have the experience and all of its meaning. They exchange rings; they’re announced as the new thing they are. Though nothing changes, everything changes for my sister and my brother-in-law. They are married.

---

---