I dreamt the other night about laura, a college friend. I had an epic crush on her that lasted at least a year, but she never responded. Attraction can be easy to deconstruct, sometimes in ways that aren't flattering. Something about chasing the ones who run away? I'm not saying i wanted laura because i couldn't have her...but the way my crush played out, unfulfilled, it would be stunning if she hadn't burned into a corner of my spirit like few ever have. I do think it's possible to fall in love when there's no initial attraction, but thinking about my dream, which was intimate and naked, i fall back on that flash of instant desire. Most humans are too complex and unpredictable to be understood through generalizations (and nowhere is this more true than with sex), but from the second i met laura, i wanted her. Despite the occasional imperative for rationality in the face of irrational desires, there is a part of me that thinks we're fooling ourselves if we disregard the instant rush of attraction we feel for some people. Where does it come from? Body chemistry? The playing out of stimuli programmed into us while we're infants? Genetic memory? Shared human consciousness?
We can go years wishing for a taste of that rush, we can even leave lonely trails of rejection and frustration fooling around with those who don't measure up...but in a moment of truth like the one that played out in my dream, the lesson echoes: abandon rationality, ye who seek to steer the course of desire. Our desires may be shallow, frustrating, or illicit, they may make us happy or miserable or both, but perhaps the only path to happiness is embracing desire without censor or guilt.
Like almost everyone, i've walked away from romantic opportunities in my life. Having once tasted a healing intimate relationship, the thought of settling for less became laughable. I don't regret that path, but it curiously flies in the face of one of the songs that touched me deeply when i was young, "A Better Place To Be", by harry chapin:
It was an early morning bar room
and the place just opened up
And the little man came in so fast
and started at his cups
And the broad who served the whisky
she was a big old friendly girl
Who tried to fight her empty nights
by smilin' at the world
And she said "Hey Bub, It's, It's been awhile
since you been around
Where the hell you been hidin'?
And why you look so down?"
But the little man just sat there
like he'd never heard a sound
The waitress she gave out with a cough
and acting not the least put off
she spoke once again
She said, "I don't want to bother you
Consider it's understood
I know I'm not no beauty queen
But I sure can listen good"
And the little man took his drink in his hand
and he raised it to his lips
He took a couple of sips
and then he told the waitress this story
"I am the midnight watchman
Down at Miller's Tool and Die
And I watch the metal rusting
I watch the time go by
A week ago at the diner
I stopped to get a bite
And this here lovely lady
She sat two seats from my right
And Lord, Lord, Lord she was alright
You see, she was so damned beautiful
that she could warm a winter frost
But she looked long past lonely
and well nigh on to lost
Now I'm not much of a mover
or a pick-em-up easy guy
But I decided to glide on over
and give her one good try
And Lord, Lord, Lord she was worth a try
Well I was tongued-tied like a school boy
I stammered out some words
It did not seem to matter much
'cause I don't think she heard
She just looked clear on through me
to a space back in my head
It shamed me into silence
as quietly she said
'If you want me to come with you
then that's all right with me
Cause I know I'm going nowhere
and anywhere's a better place to be
Anywhere's a better place to be'
Well I drove her to my boarding house
and I took her up to my room
And I went to turn on the only light
to brighten up the gloom
But she said, 'Please leave the light off
oh I don't mind the dark.'
And as her clothes all tumbled 'round her
I could hear my heart
The moonlight shone upon her
as she lay back in my bed
It was the kind of scene
I only had imagined in my head
I just could not believe it
to think that she was real
And as I tried to tell her she said 'Shhh...
I know just how you feel
And if you want to come here with me
then that's all right with me
'Cause I've been oh so lonely
Lovin' someone is a better way to be
Anywhere's a better place to be.'
Well the morning come so swiftly
as I held her in my arms
And she slept like a baby
snug and safe from harm
I did not want to share her
or dare to break the mood
So before she woke I went out
to buy us both some food
I come back with my paper bag
to find that she was gone
She'd left a six word letter saying
'It's time that I moved on.'"
You know the waitress she took her bar rag
and she wiped it across her eyes
And as she spoke her voice came out
as something like a sigh
She said "I wish that I was beautiful
or that you were halfway blind
And I wish I weren't so goddamn fat
I wish that you were mine
And I wish that you'd come with me
when I leave for home
For we both know all about emptiness
and livin' all alone"
And the little man
looked at the empty glass in his hand
And he smiled a crooked grin
He said "I guess I'm out of gin
And I know we both have been, so lonely
And if you want me to come with you
then that's all right with me
'Cause I know I'm goin' nowhere
and anywhere's a better place to be."
This song touched the part of me that perceived how sex was treated as a conquest, or a reward for beauty or wealth. The part of me that thought love should be given, without asking "What's in it for me?" The part that saw sex simultaneously degraded (cheapened by people using each other) and undeservedly elevated (an idiot could perceive that it was a bodily function no more or less special than breathing or crapping).
I always wondered how harry reconciled the sentiment of the song with his marriage. As a white boy from the suburbs, i was a long way from hippie free love...but that's where i intended to go.
Somewhere along the way that train jumped the rails, but a little part of the dream always refused to die. I always believed it might live again, were i but to find people capable of loving as a gift, not a negotiation.
In my current rawness and loneliness, the resonances of this song ring anew, but in ways confused. There is a young person i know, who wants my love much like the love in this song...and though i've never felt that rush of chemical/spiritual love for her, i like her, i respond to her sexually, and just want to give freely. But when we get too close my spirit fractures, knowing she and i are probably incapable of caring for each other in the deeper ways we need.
And then i go back to the song, and think about an element that didn't make much of an impression on me when i was young...how the woman, after loving the little man, disappears, almost as though her act of giving made her as sad as it did happy. Perhaps the truer interpretation is that she was so damaged that nothing touched her. It would be nice to think of her as an innocent who understood love, but had been spiritually isolated and destroyed by an uncaring society.
But that's probably reading far too much into it.
Would i have wanted laura back then, knowing she didn't love me as i did her, and if having her meant i would lose her?
I think i would have.
Yeah...hell yeah i would have.
As life went on, i came to a place where i wouldn't have wanted someone who didn't want me equally.
But now, in this sad time, i think of another woman i want who is unavailable, and think that if i could have her, i would, and forget the consequences.
To be good and noble requires almost superhuman effort in this society...to elevate yourself to a place of pure giving is almost impossible when all around you are focused on nothing but their belly button, and never give without a price tag.
I love you all, said the smiling, sad fool...
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