ALMOST LIKE BEING HERE
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Almost Like Being Here opens with the two lovers, Sandy and Ansil, learning of their shared sweetheart’s death and attempting to fathom the reasons. Since both are artists currently mired in boring and compromising jobs, with all the dogged egocentricity required to exist in such a state, each assumes that her suicide was sparked by some unperceived transgression on his part. When a final epistle from the late beloved seems to confirm Sandy’s guilty suspicions, he sets out to discover the nature of his crime.
“You have to unstick yourself from other people–then you’ll have the time to find out who you really are,” Mary’s therapist advises him. “We’re all alone in this world, and that fact can either depress you or it can set you free.” But Sandy, a struggling actor with more than his share of adrenaline, cannot unstick himself so easily. After a week of obsessive searching–during which he loses a job opportunity and a discontented girlfriend and comes close to losing his vocal chords when Dr. Rawlings, Mary’s estranged father, nearly strangles him during an examination–the mystery of her enigmatic farewell is revealed. It brings him relief, not comfort, but Sandy’s review of his past forces him to evaluate his present and to realize that his duty is to change what he can and accept what he cannot. “Don’t be sad that you didn’t invent happiness,” says the voice from the grave.
