Getting Over It

Listening to NPR while passing the time I hear a doctor describe loneliness as a disease. I suppose. It doesn’t really feel good. Ever.

Then he begins to reflect on his feelings when his father died. He was thirteen at the time.

I was thirteen when my mother died. I know how I felt at that time. I lost all faith in God then. He got a large part of my soul during that time. I claimed my right to disbelieve, and to hold Him in contempt.

I remember several particulars: the last time my mother left the house, in tears and stating that she would never again see her home; my father standing by the car in our suburban driveway, telling me my mother was dying; my mother’s incredibly brave, sad smile as she embraced her children for the last time in the hospital, her skin bright yellow with jaundice; the one teacher in my junior high who called me aside in the hallway to express her sympathies.

These things happened a lifetime ago. Forty-four years. I’m really not sure how this event colored my life. I’m not sure what scars it left. If forced to guess I’d say it probably reinforced an older inclination to solitariness, a desire to keep people at a distance which I learned early from a peripatetic life as an army brat. Also, it reinforced a distinct disdain for the world and all its doings.

Somehow, it just doesn’t seem all that important.

Midnight Cowboy

It’s been more than three years since I lost the person I loved. As she lay on the cot beside me she turned her eyes toward me and asked, “Is it tonight we’re supposed the go out to dinner with Judith and Don?” I fought hard to reply, “No, sweetheart. Not tonight.” “Good. I’m just so tired.” And she closed her eyes to sleep. Half an hour later she slowly opened her eyes and gazed at some place beyond me. The recognition had left her eyes. She let go her last breath. Her fingers relaxed.

I do believe it true that when one loses the person they love, they lose the better part of themselves. They lose the only part worth living. For a good two years afterward so many things struck me as deeply sad. Any reference to the loss of a loved one, even the memory of such a loss, would leave me crumpled and in tears.

I’ve gotten better since then. Some things still strike me as quite sad, but I’m less inclined to shed tears. Much of my optimistic stoicism has reasserted itself, and I regard life in general as a sort of silly absurdity made more dangerous when human beings insist upon the seriousness of their own views.

So the other night I was watching Midnight Cowboy on DVD. The film appeals to me for so many different reasons. The story is an achingly poignant one, a sort of variation on the theme Of Mice and Men. Hoffman’s realization of Ricco’s character is an astonishing thing to watch. All the little verities. How he lifts his bum leg onto the chair when he climbs on it to pull the ragged window shade, a pathetic gesture in order to help his friend to sleep. The way he casually picks at the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger after pricking it with the point of a can opener. Truly masterful touches. And the remarkable scene before the window of the jewelry store, just as Buck begins to doff his hat in preparation for a naïve attempt to proposition a woman who has stopped to casually gaze at a brooch on display in the window. Buck’s gaze instinctively also turns toward the brooch in the window. The woman moves on. Buck glances up to see her go. Simultaneously an arm removes the brooch from the display. Buck glances back at a now empty window. The woman is gone, and the jewelry is gone. All in a silent moment. In that simple scene, those few seconds speak a volume about how our expectations can come to naught so quickly, before we can do anything, and leave us a little dazed and confused.

But it was the end that got to me in a particularly powerful way. I knew it was coming. I’d watched it on my own the night before, and I was a little surprised by the strength of my feelings. I’ve seen the movie before, and anyone with a heart cannot but be moved by the bitter sadness of the ending. But this time I was watching it with an acquaintance, and I didn’t care to parade my private hurt in front of this person.

When Buck reached out and closed his friend’s eyes it immediately reminded me of the moment I’d placed my hand over my wife’s eyes and closed them for the last time. It bought my heart into my throat and my eyes began to water. There is an awful finality in that moment.

Then and There

Life’s like that.

It comes for you, and bids you come along.
You awaken to sounds and sights, dance and bustle.
Then it passes on, leaving you wondering.
What the . . . ?
Why?

No reason.
No reason at all.

Life’s just like that.

Je Ne Regrette Rien

I regret two things.

Well, I suppose regret is really not the proper term, since neither of these things is actually my fault.

I suppose it’s better to say that I find them to be unfortunate circumstances visited upon me.

First, that I am a cripple. Second, that being so I’ll never be with the woman I love. Actually, there’s more to that second circumstance than simply a disability, but modesty precludes any further exposition upon the matter.

Still, were I not confined to a chair, were I free and fluid as a breeze, what would I do? Ask her to go out with me to dinner and a show? Run to be with her so we could visit her friends? Plan vacations as lovers? In sum, date her?

It seems to me unlikely. The reason would be obvious were I to be frank.

Which simply highlights the importance of being earnest.

Tra-la!

Sometimes

Sometimes you want to let go,
But you don’t.

Sometimes you want to break free.
But you don’t.

Sometimes the letting go
Has a higher price than you care to pay.

When the longing can make so sweet the misery,
Out of love we enslave ourselves to hopelessness,
And sit in our darkened rooms at night
Loving and longing without hope,
Savoring the sweetness of our misery.

Sometimes you want to let go,
But you just don’t.

The Highway Of My Dreamtime

I rise from my rest and walk to my car,
Where I take my seat with such ease;
And move upon the darkened highway,
The highway of my dreamtime.

I feel the wind on my face;
The high beams, there in the distance.
Above, so far, the stars glide idly,
Still in the vast, silent darkness.

They cannot know. Or perhaps they can
Hear my heart pounding at the memory
Of her that I love, who dwells beyond,
Out there, somewhere in the distance.

And who now drives me to be here,
Here behind the wheel, rushing in the dark,
To her whose name I cannot say, but who
Dwells at the end of this dark highway.

The highway of my dreamtime.

Dark Women

Dark women enchant me. Women such as have a gaze which is fixed and strong, and which communicates an understanding of things beyond the ordinary. Things I do not know. From whom I must softly petition to know their secrets.

You’ll note I didn’t say I love dark women. I’ve been truly in love one time in my life, and the woman I loved wasn’t dark in any sense of the term. And I’ve come to know, perhaps belatedly, that one can never really know with whom they’ll fall in love. It’s a thing that happens for reasons we don’t really understand. Like the Tao. If we think we understand it, it probably isn’t love.

Yet, there is love, and then there is that other thing. That fierce madness which consumes one, that unreasoning obsession, that fire in the mind that keeps one awake at night and dominates all thought during the day.

I know two such women. One knows how I feel, but it’s hopeless. The other doesn’t know, and it’s even more so. But I think of them always. And it is them I have in mind whenever I write of how a man feels about a woman. I think of her dark, languid eyes; the gentle line of her lips; the brilliant flash of a smile directed at me; the smoky melody of her words; the color of her skin, as pale as Carrara marble. I simply want to place my mouth upon her arm to feel its cool translucence upon my lips.

And, of course, her dark, dark hair hanging to her shoulders. It evokes reveries that are not merely erotic. I don’t know why, but it bespeaks of things of which I am but vaguely aware. A knowledge that goes beyond my understanding. And I must know of these things.

Each woman would regard me as an absolute fool. I’m certain neither has patience with a dreamer. Which is basically what I am. A writer. A dreamer. A poor lover in love with improbable visions which cannot be in this world.

And yet, . . . somewhere. .