(A follow-up to WOMEN 57, 74 -
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2011/02/blog-post.html
http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2013/04/a2.html)
After that seminal visit, things quieted down. I remained a thousand-some miles away, enjoying a nice visit every two or three years. We shared e-mails and occasional calls. Finally, she and E hadn’t had sex in years, and the stress was diminishing them both. I was sad when she finally left, though i knew it made all the sense in the world. They shared custody of V, with E happily taking the lion’s share. He remained cloaked in misery for a long time. We shared one or two phone calls in which he cried. I loved him, and knew he wouldn’t release his white picket dream easily. Did i think that events were moving toward she and i being lovers? Yes, particularly when she told me about lying naked on the shore, as the waves caressed her. She said it was startlingly sexual, and looked forward to having me there with her. But given how paralyzed i was at the thought of doing anything destructive, i was happy when i learned she’d taken a lover. Good…i didn’t know whether there was any way for me to be her first post-E lover, that wouldn’t go badly. Also, i was glad to know she hadn’t built me up as the man she had to run to when she was free (though a part of me wanted that). Finally, she made an offer of which i’d dreamt…would i come live with her during the last month of her lease? We decided to rehearse a two-person play of mine, then produce it back in New York. At that point in my life, i’d spiraled into a wounded place. In an effort to better understand human nature, i’d opened my emotional walls so much that i had a hard time dealing with the stress of loneliness, plus all the fear and aggression that permeate this world. I’d even fallen into mild clinical depression. I hadn’t had a lover in years with whom my spirit had been entirely present…a horrible, soul-sucking feeling. Our society’s dysfunctional treatment of romance added fuel to my depression. The needs we expect our lover to fill, the possessiveness (like E)…things that no relationship should ever be forced to bear. It had gotten to a point where i wasn’t sure i’d ever feel totally present as a lover again. And worse, i wasn’t sure i could pull myself out of this darkness. I knew what i needed – to be stress-free, loved and held, in a life full of laughter and (sexual) healing. One name rang out – A. Even if the time wasn’t right for all of those things, just one of them would do more for me than all my healing failures in the cold city. To finally have the time we’d denied ourselves…a thousand conversations, a thousand silences…not that i didn’t want it all - when you’re wounded, you become feral. But whatever she wanted, i doubted i had the word “no” in me. Perhaps my recklessness was also fueled by knowing that my choice to love them both meant i might lose them both. That choice had been forced the moment she’d become pregnant. I already loved E, so backing out wasn’t something i even considered. But i knew that their time as a couple would end…at which point he would either shun me for becoming her lover, or i would become the elephant in the room (Splitting couples divvy up possessions, but how to divide me?). Having a child meant they’d always be connected, so they might both abandon me, as the only way to resolve the discomfort. And V, who loved me, would be punished for his parents' stupidity. I’d lived with those thoughts for a decade. In the meantime, she was having stress with her new lover J…she’d found him in flagrante with another woman, and reacted with jealous anger. I knew she must be terribly conflicted, because her view of romance had been evolving in the same non-monogamous way as mine (she had shared my dream of being her “co-husband”). So i imagined that i was perfect for her now…not seeking to replace, but supplement. A refuge of love and acceptance, wherein i not only tolerated her other lovers, but encouraged them. To live either with her, or close by. The wounded beast in me said, “Enough nonsense, A, you’re ready. Your romantic history has been comprised of a whole bunch of selfish idiots and a tiny handful of selfish good guys. You’re past ready for something better.” It seemed a fair bet though, that she and J were in the attachment phase of hormonal love. Combine that with jealousy, and i knew her thoughts would be obsessional. Yet too, there were other factors pushing me toward Florida. My mom had retired there, to live close to my nutty aunt joyce. The chance to spend real time with them was not something i wanted to take for granted. And i’d always felt peaceful and happy around warmth and water. So i knew i’d be going regardless…but A was in the center of my dreams. Shortly before i left, i changed my e-mail password, and was able to resist incorporating her name – reminding myself that investing too much of one’s happiness into one person is this society's key relational pitfall. Plus, i sensed that her stability was iffy, as she'd started not responding to e-mails. My old self would have called her on it, but i was too wounded to care. She’d mentioned that ours was her oldest friendship (in a later moment of gallows humor, i reflected that this was due in no small part to the fact that i’d never asked for anything). Yet i knew she’d come so far in terms of loving herself. Is it possible i was rushing all this? Was there some part of me willing to herald a new era, simply because the thought of us finally becoming intimate when i was, oh, seventy, didn’t appeal to me? Sure. Mind you, i wasn’t taking our attraction for granted – but i had long joked that i’d been in love three times in my life, and two of them were her. All the wisdom and skill i’d cultivated as a lover had never yet been fully realized. Heck, my marathon sex habits were partly a response to knowing how frustrated she'd been with E's beautiful (but brief) bonings. I knew that loving her selflessly was almost second nature. She had summoned - i would go. I wanted our spirit time. Massages and music. I wanted her to be the first person i ran to when i’d written something that felt beautiful or important. Even in my wounded state, i knew that the core of my devotion remained unbroken – a core that had always been measured by the mantra “There Is No Reward”. Finally, i arrived at her door. It was sweet at first. Being around her made me feel like a puppy, and there were moments when her spirit almost poked through. She talked about wanting to move with me to the home i had waiting across town. I met J, and could feel the damage they were doing to each other. He seemed a friendly person of some potential, but i didn’t need her to tell me that he was uncomfortable with my presence. I thought that might be healthy - bring them closer to the balance they’d lost. A was busy - i soon realized i might stand a greater chance of sharing time with her if i were anywhere but her home. In the two weeks i was there, she slept at home four times (half of those with other guests around). She told me she’d never been able to “own” that home, spiritually. But i didn’t doubt that her absences were also about not knowing what to do with me. Particularly revealing was the toe story. I broke some toes in a ballgame accident. They turned darker and darker...but she never once asked to look at them. I even joked about the possibility that my injury had happened because of a subconscious need to be cared for. Undercurrents aside, that first week culminated in one of the most beautiful days of my life. On a long bike visit to Lakes Park, she told me that all those years ago, when i’d cast her as a romantic lead opposite me, she was sure i’d intended to get in her pants. She laughed at the memory, and once again it seemed that she really understood me. That week, i also found something i’d no longer been sure was possible – measurable healing. For most of my life, i’d always been able to lay my head down and wake up happily eight hours later, but i’d slept restlessly the past year, with occasional insomnia. That week? I slept through the night, every night. Being naked a lot helped…spending most of my days alone in tropical warmth, i had more naked time than the previous couple years combined. I was gentle and supportive with her, the very picture of non-demanding. Part of her darkness included E and V, wondering whether it were unforgivably selfish to not return. In general, whenever we came together, i sent my hopes off into some other reality. I knew she was starting to feel awful about ignoring me, but i told her to go through whatever she had to. She knew my hopes, as i’d been completely open. She shied away from intimacy, though. I understood why we weren’t having monkey sex, but was less clear on why there was no holding. One day, she suddenly cried, telling me that this was what always happened - she disappointed people. I told her that that kind of expectation/recrimination was NOT what was happening…that her hurtful experiences were more about other people loving her badly, and that she didn’t need to enact a disappointment drama with me. But it was almost like she had a pathological need to disappoint me, no matter the facts. She asked what she could do. I said just hug me once a day. How revealing, and sad. Here were two relatively evolved people, one of them reaching out for the most basic human kindness…and in retrospect, it felt like begging for table scraps. I felt no blame or anger. And there were nods toward possibility. One night before going out, she gently brought our lips together. So beautiful. I remained perfectly still and accepting. Another night when she was leaving (sense a pattern?), she came into my room. I was naked, face down on my bed. She had oil, and started rubbing. She remarked on my cute tush, and regretted that she wasn’t more massage-skilled. I told her she had the right energy to be as wonderful as anyone. She whispered, “This is just the beginning.” On our park day, we showered after biking home. She remarked on a sign she’d seen that said “Save Water – Shower Together”. The wounded beast in me suddenly came so close to the surface. I considered tossing her in and giving her the scrub of a lifetime. But how much of her flirtation was just emotional flailing? One night, after going out, she said she’d gotten to J’s and almost turned around, implying that it would have been a momentous dissolving...and that she’d wanted to come back to ME. She asked whether i were rooting for one course or the other with them. I told her i was manifesting the correct spiritual choice, which was to love them both and root for neither path. Was i still attracted? Oh, yes. In the better moments, her spirit had far fewer rough edges, and her life had also become more athletic. Back when i first fell in love, i remember a friend commenting on her “beer ankles”…such a strange phrase i couldn’t forget it. There were no beer ankles now, and there were moments when i had trouble pulling my eyes away from her hips, draped in summer skirts. I did allow myself to be more openly sexual…not flirting, but having no compunction about talking of myself as a sexual being. During our second week, i experienced one of the most startling sexual moments of my life. I woke up well before dawn, restless and aroused. I masturbated for an hour or two, on the brink of orgasm the whole time. My room door was open. I was feeling so damaged and feral, that i determined to not stop until she left for work…in effect, inviting her to see me at my most primal. I had been so herculeanly in control of all my desires, sexually and spiritually, for so long…there must have been an incalculably huge THIS IS ME that had lain dormant and denied. I was beyond caring whether it were impolite. Just before she left, her feet seemed to turn in my direction. It was as if i could feel each of her padding steps vibrate through me in a way that was measurable on the Richter scale…like she was treading across my every nerve ending. The beast in me was paralyzed, and on her seventh step my control dissolved into an orgasm (an even more primal image than i’d planned). But the acoustics of the house had tricked me - her turn toward my door had only been in my head. As our second week began, i could feel that not only was i not alleviating her misery, i was making it worse. I decided to hold on for a few more days, because she’d invited me to share a social gathering with her new teacher friends. That night, i instantly felt that these friends were better for her than any group i’d ever seen her with. The only time i’d been prouder, was in how she’d loved E. I spent that second week deeply invested in the spiritual practice of selflessness…trying to make myself almost literally disappear in plain sight. Selflessness is probably the most unachievable spirit goal. Never mind how daunting the practice is in a society fundamentally constructed on its opposite, it also fails if ANYONE PERCEIVES what you’re trying to do (give that a whirl sometime). There was but one moment when i felt shame – she mentioned how she’d liked it when E let his beard grow, so i stopped shaving (it soon felt like an unforgivably selfish manipulation). I had an occasional impulse toward self-pity (the working title for this chapter was “Caught Being Selfish”). On my last day, i tried to leave while she was out, to avoid the chance for her to have no idea what to say. She later called to say she wanted to visit my new home that night. It was like water in the desert (never mind that i had to tell her i wouldn’t be there, and that she ended up not visiting for a month or two, and only ever did so once). Even with all my awareness, there may have been no way to prepare for the damage to come. I can encapsulate it in one fact – within a week i went from living with her, to not knowing where she lived. In our time together and the years that followed, knowing that i’d come to Florida broken and wounded, she never once said, “Hey…you want to talk about that?” During our second week, my poor sleep had returned…as did the occasional stomach-sickened feeling that had been the other most obvious manifestation of my stress. I soon learned that she was drinking a great deal, like she hadn’t since before V was born (my gallows irony made me smile, as she was turning to drugs to escape from sexuality’s hormonal drugs). The first words we shared after i left came when we chanced to meet on top of a bridge. I asked if she were ready to be full and true friends. If i hadn’t been so wounded, i probably wouldn’t have been so foolish as to ask. But i did, and she said “yes”. The genie was out of the bottle - her actions were now measurable against real friendship, and she crucified me. The only thing i asked was that i not become someone she didn’t talk to…but for the next three years, we never shared a real conversation. In another fleeting meeting, she told me she’d believed i’d had expectations. Had i been more sharp, would i have been able to keep her from making such a calamitous error? Did she even actually believe that? Early in my stay, she’d asked dead-on whether i had expectations. I told her no, unequivocally. How her brain turned me into a liar, or lacking in self-awareness…if her suspicion were true, i would have been guilty of betraying everything i’d held sacred for almost my entire adult life. Beyond that, if she’d taken the time to talk to me, she’d have known that people this wounded don’t live in ANY kind of expectation – we’re barely capable of hope. Before another accidental meeting, i’d found out that one of my dearest friends had died. She asked whether i wanted to be alone. I said no, not at all. She didn’t visit or call – and i was almost too numb to be surprised. She decorated her new yard with a “clothing optional” sign, and i chided her (too gently?) for her cojones, as one day when i was staying with her she came home, found me naked, and asked me to put something on, as J mightn’t be happy to find me in that state. Knowing how much we both adored nudity, that was the only moment i was tempted to say something biting, like how she was letting pedophilia take over her life. I didn’t, because i knew she knew she was being a shitheel. But i know she never grasped the full scope of her hurtfulness (How could she? She's a sociopath, like all of us...just a wee bit more.). She spoke emotional words of apology, and of making amends. Later, she said she wanted us to “start over”. She seemed angry that i didn’t understand. I finally realized that she didn’t want to ever talk about what had happened. I knew that there are moments for a “start over”…but that ours didn’t qualify. We were in no sort of balance, and hadn’t processed anything. Treating someone awfully, then ignoring it, is just cowardice. I wrote that if she were to treat any other person the way she was treating me, i would be livid. Another time, she said that i didn’t really know her. I tried to point out that that’s exactly what I’D pointed out…that we’d never yet known each other in a daily, intimate way. She offered no context for her comments, and i sensed she said them only because, when unexpectedly faced with me, she felt she had to say something. That first year, when i finally knew again where she lived, i very occasionally dropped by with a gift...a book, or fresh coconut. But she didn’t want my company. We did share one amazing moment that (for me) made any amount of suffering worth it. I'd stopped by, and we chatted. As i donned my bike helmet to go, she stood on her porch and whispered that she’d never really let anyone into her life. That she was able to understand and admit that, will always be one of the most beautiful moments of my life. It bookended her comment fifteen years earlier about me being the only person who never let her get away with shit. But there would still be two more years of the most brutal limbo, in which we shared puddle-deep notes or calls, and maintained the notion that this was just something she needed to go through, and that it wasn't about me, that she occasionally needed to turn away from ALL her friends for years at a time. There may have been truth in that, and a part of her may have truly believed that we would be real friends one day. But after three years, the unrelenting inhumynity broke me, and i asked for us to stop pretending. I told her that had she come to me a week or two after our moment on the bridge, and explained exactly WHAT she needed and why, three or four sentences would have made us fine. After a few months, it would have taken a few minutes to fix. After a year, it would have taken a few hours. After three years, i couldn't wrap my mind around what it would take. On some level, did i know that her demons had wanted me gone for eighteen years, and that i was perhaps finally letting them win? Maybe. But those years were the most brutal negation of my human worth i'd ever experienced. Occasionally the words “Omigod, she HATES me” escaped my lips. If she couldn't release both of us from that, someone had to. On the lighter side, one of our chance bridge encounters provided one of the more perversely funny moments of my life. I saw a bicyclist approach from the opposite direction, and there was something about her i found attractive. I’m a little nearsighted, and was prepared to give this stranger some meaningful eye contact…only to realize it was A! I got the gallows humor immediately - after all those deflected moments when she’d invited me to initiate something sexual, the one time i almost made a pass at her was when i thought she was someone else! Where i come from, that’s pretty fucking funny. During that meeting, my spirit froze when she offered a hug - a part of me was afraid that she would try to literally hurt me. There were other oft-irrational darknesses…the thought that perhaps she subconsciously felt she could never love me until she’d hurt me…or that i'd been a pawn in her love life with J, or that her goal all along had been to take me out of her life (and E’s and V’s). What seemed undeniable was that she banished me to make J happy (never mind that in doing so she was inviting him to treat her like a doormat). I began to hope she wouldn’t be home when i dropped off my occasional gifts…just approaching her house started to make my stomach hurt. I even imagined punishing her emotionally, to shake her out of her funk. I imagined leaving town without telling her. That wasn’t all martyrdom…i truly didn’t want to make her stand before me again with NO idea what to say. After that first year of waiting for some glimmer of compassion, i'd asked her to treat me like a human being, or acknowledge that she’d felt pressured on that bridge into saying something she didn’t mean. She wrote back that she “didn’t know how to communicate” with me...and i finally realized that my leaving town might not even register in her mind. The fact that all this happened when i was at my most wounded, was…singular and regrettable. Certainly my feelings for her had been colored early on by sweeping hormones. Was my love in any way selfish? Did i love the “idea” of her, and the image my life would project with her loving me? A little, yes. But i fought to hold on to the underlying truth, that from the start i had recognized her damage, and knew the kind of love she needed…not as a lover, but as a friend. And i knew i’d never failed in denying my own wants and needs, for her. My life’s choices had made me an undesirable mate for the vast majority - how many women would be eager to cherish a non-monogamous non-materialist? From that pool, how many could make me feel like a puppy? It’s probably no exaggeration to think that A was one in a million – by far the most “sensible” potential lover i’d known. I’d been ready to give myself unqualifiedly. She had herpes? Fine, i'd have herpes too. The one friend of hers i talked with in those first months, urged me to confront her…demand she start loving herself, and maybe me too. I felt the echoes of another A friend from another decade, urging me to reveal my love. But even if my battered spirit had had any taste for confrontation, i felt i had to rely on the possibility that i understood her better than anyone, including her. So i continued protecting her as much as i could, even from herself – my brief notes of love and encouragement avoided anything that might require an answer. I never told her about my public speaking engagements, so she wouldn’t feel any obligation. As that first year went by, i went through stages of separation. The first thing i lost (which was probably healthy) was the fear of losing her. Then i became comfortable with the thought of never seeing her again (essential to that was the thought of her never reading this). The final stage was losing the fear of what she might become without me. Even buffered by the awareness that anything coming out her mouth was a reflection of crippled self-love, her “expectations” comment was the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to me. Nothing comes close. For eighteen years, i measured my life by how well i loved her. If that sounds heavy, it’s not. I equated love with selflessness, and A was my touchstone, because i knew if i could love her the way i ought, anything else would be easy. It was sometimes hard to make people understand that romance wasn’t the reason i’d moved to Florida. I’d come for a friendship deeper than either of us had known. Sex fades (although maybe just maybe, it doesn’t have to). It’s a fair bet that you’ve never seen, or even imagined, a healthy sexual relationship. A had imagined it. How could she treat me the way she did, when all i’d offered was kindness with no expectation? I’m sure part of it was the realization that this was perhaps the worst time in her life to have someone around who could “see” her. She was entering the dating pool for the first time in a decade, self-conscious over breasts that had lost their pre-motherhood perk. She had hooked into a lover half a generation younger who flattered her vanity, gave her good sex, and couldn’t challenge her on a spiritual level. Be truthful – wouldn’t some of you throw your oldest friend under the bus for that? At least it’s understandable. What’s not so understandable is the degrading mindfuck, when the infinitely kinder dismissal was always at hand. All i can offer is the knowledge that how we treat others, is a reflection of how we treat ourselves. Or maybe, just maybe, did she turn her back on me to shield my life, and all i have to offer the world, from her torrents of dysfunctional destruction? On another level, she may have decided that i truly was no longer her kind of person, or maybe never was. At the end of that first year, i asked for one thing, thinking it might be vital to both our healing (if she’d been able to notice, she might have realized it was the only thing i'd ever asked of her). I said that if she couldn’t talk to me, would she listen while i tell her of my emotional journey? She declined, implying that my “heavy” energy was inappropriate to her life. I had to smile, as i’d come to her with all the heaviness of a feather (for her, anyway). I learned what i’d already known – that in this broken world, it’s possible to do everything right and still be savaged. That’s no surprise, but the more disturbing thought is that if i’d acted selfishly, i’d have gotten a little of the love i’d needed. And maybe "love" isn't the right word...but i'd have gotten some physical healing, and who knows how many more of her walls we might have been able to break down? Part of me is grateful i didn’t betray one of my core understandings – you can’t make love when your spirits aren’t fully present. And yet…the wounded beast in me was so tired. In my last words to her, i wrote that nothing was changing between us. That when she was ready for real friendship, i'd be right there. But i also said that we couldn't go back to being the almost-friends we once were.
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