You loved my last note? I'm touched and surprised. The "go away" part of your energy toward me has been so ascendant lately, that i was trying to shape that note as a goodbye. I worked all the sadness and selfishness out of it, and tried to make it a simple message of truth and love, to help you in your need to go.
Let me talk to you as though i don't know anything (which may make these the truest words i've spoken). I'm reminded of a beautiful spirit i once knew, named lakota. We met online, and exchanged our poems for months before we met. Our energy was sweetly romantic, and meeting in person did nothing to change that. Our first night together, we talked for hours, and she invited me to sleep over. We shared one of the most searing sexual experiences of my life. Holding and caressing in timelessness...yet not completely, as i retained the presence of mind to not penetrate her (even though i felt no such reservations from her). I was worried about getting in over my head though, as she was a single mother. I'd always tried to be so respectful of that, and not just out of consideration...in terms of freedom and creativity, parenthood changes everything. So i was doing what we all do - living inside my head. Sadly, it's a defense mechanism all too necessary in this barbaric world.
The next day, i wrote her a note trying to explain some of that, and asking for us to have no assumptions about where we were going. In my clumsiness, i may have even used the phrase "start over".
I never heard from her again.
I didn't think of her much for a year or two, but since that defense mechanism passed, rarely does a week go by when i don't dream of the beauty i felt holding her...of being in that loving moment again, and holding nothing back. Most of those fantasies end in blissful fertilization.
This society forces us to make horrible choices, ones that create tear after tear in the fabric of our spirit. Did i act foolishly? Yes - in the name of self-preservation. All that i denied myself through my fears - how many thousands of hugs, how many couplings of what could have been the best sex of my life, how many resonances of being accepted and loved...and yet objectively, i acted "rationally"! Would the tears in my spirit be even greater, had i foregone the freedom i've enjoyed in the years since? The freedom to try to understand what it means to live naturally, and all the explorations in writing i've been able to indulge and offer the world? Yet how can i do anything but mourn what i lost? I gave up what should have been a vital part of my life's landscape, because this life forces us into so many "either/or" choices. Particularly when it comes to parenting, you can either be free and alone, or consumed by domestic burdens that leave almost no time for "you". I was a fool, but this world doesn't offer non-foolish options.
When you're young, you don't appreciate how rare it is to feel whooshing openness for another human being. I wish i weren't focusing so much on a romantic example, but our need for physical connection is so damaged by this touch-deprived society, that sex takes on far more importance than it should. It is one of the bizarrest realities imaginable that our culture has found a way to both denigrate and elevate sex out of all proportion.
But as lonely years accrue, and i try to learn to not live in my head, i sometimes make a silent vow to myself that if i ever again feel something so strong and true for a woman who is holding and loving me, i will let go of all fear.
In the moment we met, i heard a whooshing in my head, and i was certain you were one such person.
I'm not telling you to drop all your fears - unless you live in a self-sustaining community where everyone lives to care for all others.
I'm not telling you that it may be a long, long time before you meet someone again who might love you without fear.
No, i guess i am.
Let me talk to you as though i don't know anything (which may make these the truest words i've spoken). I'm reminded of a beautiful spirit i once knew, named lakota. We met online, and exchanged our poems for months before we met. Our energy was sweetly romantic, and meeting in person did nothing to change that. Our first night together, we talked for hours, and she invited me to sleep over. We shared one of the most searing sexual experiences of my life. Holding and caressing in timelessness...yet not completely, as i retained the presence of mind to not penetrate her (even though i felt no such reservations from her). I was worried about getting in over my head though, as she was a single mother. I'd always tried to be so respectful of that, and not just out of consideration...in terms of freedom and creativity, parenthood changes everything. So i was doing what we all do - living inside my head. Sadly, it's a defense mechanism all too necessary in this barbaric world.
The next day, i wrote her a note trying to explain some of that, and asking for us to have no assumptions about where we were going. In my clumsiness, i may have even used the phrase "start over".
I never heard from her again.
I didn't think of her much for a year or two, but since that defense mechanism passed, rarely does a week go by when i don't dream of the beauty i felt holding her...of being in that loving moment again, and holding nothing back. Most of those fantasies end in blissful fertilization.
This society forces us to make horrible choices, ones that create tear after tear in the fabric of our spirit. Did i act foolishly? Yes - in the name of self-preservation. All that i denied myself through my fears - how many thousands of hugs, how many couplings of what could have been the best sex of my life, how many resonances of being accepted and loved...and yet objectively, i acted "rationally"! Would the tears in my spirit be even greater, had i foregone the freedom i've enjoyed in the years since? The freedom to try to understand what it means to live naturally, and all the explorations in writing i've been able to indulge and offer the world? Yet how can i do anything but mourn what i lost? I gave up what should have been a vital part of my life's landscape, because this life forces us into so many "either/or" choices. Particularly when it comes to parenting, you can either be free and alone, or consumed by domestic burdens that leave almost no time for "you". I was a fool, but this world doesn't offer non-foolish options.
When you're young, you don't appreciate how rare it is to feel whooshing openness for another human being. I wish i weren't focusing so much on a romantic example, but our need for physical connection is so damaged by this touch-deprived society, that sex takes on far more importance than it should. It is one of the bizarrest realities imaginable that our culture has found a way to both denigrate and elevate sex out of all proportion.
But as lonely years accrue, and i try to learn to not live in my head, i sometimes make a silent vow to myself that if i ever again feel something so strong and true for a woman who is holding and loving me, i will let go of all fear.
In the moment we met, i heard a whooshing in my head, and i was certain you were one such person.
I'm not telling you to drop all your fears - unless you live in a self-sustaining community where everyone lives to care for all others.
I'm not telling you that it may be a long, long time before you meet someone again who might love you without fear.
No, i guess i am.
And again, this isn't the voice of rationality speaking. Even if you were infertile and polyamorously-inclined, you'd still be a single mother with weighty psychological baggage, whose religiosity marks at least one of your core values as markedly different from mine.
But i know what pure, fearless loving can be. I've come close to it twice in my life. I've spent a lifetime in this twisted, fear-based world, and don't want to die having never been the lover i'm supposed to be.
That's my baggage.
And despite our differences, i sometimes think you might be able to understand me better than i've ever been. You're afraid now, as i've been before.
Do you let someone hold your hand, or push them away?
Whatever happens, in my dreams i will always love you breathtakingly and unafraid.
That, sweet friend, is not nothing.
Do you let someone hold your hand, or push them away?
Whatever happens, in my dreams i will always love you breathtakingly and unafraid.
That, sweet friend, is not nothing.
love,
wrob
No comments:
Post a Comment