I admit it: I do love [ ]. I've only known him about five months. We're in some sort of relationship, but it's irrelevant. He is leaving the city terribly soon. I might be going mad.
My mood changes. Sometimes I make a concerted effort to live in the present. I want to enjoy the remainder of my time with him. I don't want his last memories of me to be of a broken, crying fool. To worry about the future would ruin everything.
Other times I cry - in the car, at work, in my bedroom before sleep. I've cried in his presence several times. That I've been able to crack in front of him is telling. That he still speaks to me afterward ... well, the significance does not escape me.
There is something different about him. If I were ten or fifteen years younger, such a statement wouldn't mean anything. But I'm older now. The fact of the matter is I might be at the halfway point in my life (if I'm lucky). I've been through a lot, I've moved around a lot, I've visited a lot of places, I've encountered many different people. So at this point, when I say there is something different about him, I'm inclined to believe there actually is.
Goddamn it.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Es ist Zeit
One of my favorite books:
Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan. Trans. John Felstiner. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.
Two favorite lines, from two different poems:
Wahr spricht, wer Schatten spricht.
Speaks true who speaks shadow.
Schwerer werden. Leichter sein.
Growing more heavy. Taking on lightness.
The poem "Corona" from the book Mohn und Gedächtnis (Poppy and Memory) - and yes, "Corona" appears in Felstiner's book - is my favorite love poem, ever. Happiness tinged with autumn, which is the only happiness many of us ever know. But it is still happiness. I confess I can't relate to the speaker of this poem, but I want to, and to admit that is weakness. Nevertheless. Es ist Zeit.
Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan. Trans. John Felstiner. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.
Two favorite lines, from two different poems:
Wahr spricht, wer Schatten spricht.
Speaks true who speaks shadow.
Schwerer werden. Leichter sein.
Growing more heavy. Taking on lightness.
The poem "Corona" from the book Mohn und Gedächtnis (Poppy and Memory) - and yes, "Corona" appears in Felstiner's book - is my favorite love poem, ever. Happiness tinged with autumn, which is the only happiness many of us ever know. But it is still happiness. I confess I can't relate to the speaker of this poem, but I want to, and to admit that is weakness. Nevertheless. Es ist Zeit.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Lovvve
One of the many poems I like in Marie Howe's latest, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, is "After the Movie," in which appear the following lines:
Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at someone / you want to eat and not eat them.
I think this is the best definition of love I've encountered.
Yes, I've loved, and I suppose most everyone has. But I have a very specific definition of what it means to be in love, and based on that I can say I've never experienced it.
In my definition, to be in love is a mutual experience. You both want to eat each other, but you don't. "Both" is the operative word here.
And never being in love, never being content in a relationship has become so much a part of my identity that I feel like a stranger to myself when I start to think maybe such contentment is possible. But I snap back to reality soon enough - not necessarily because I want to, but because reality reveals itself to me.
One of the challenges in life might be to come to terms with the realization that some of us may not get what we want. And we have to learn to cope with it. We are not born entitled to anything. The Big Love, the being in love, where you want to eat him (or her) but don't, and he (or she) wants to eat you but doesn't ... well, not everyone gets to experience that. Some people do; some don't. Perhaps in another life, a parallel universe, or... I don't know... if you believe in that sort of thing.
Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at someone / you want to eat and not eat them.
I think this is the best definition of love I've encountered.
Yes, I've loved, and I suppose most everyone has. But I have a very specific definition of what it means to be in love, and based on that I can say I've never experienced it.
In my definition, to be in love is a mutual experience. You both want to eat each other, but you don't. "Both" is the operative word here.
And never being in love, never being content in a relationship has become so much a part of my identity that I feel like a stranger to myself when I start to think maybe such contentment is possible. But I snap back to reality soon enough - not necessarily because I want to, but because reality reveals itself to me.
One of the challenges in life might be to come to terms with the realization that some of us may not get what we want. And we have to learn to cope with it. We are not born entitled to anything. The Big Love, the being in love, where you want to eat him (or her) but don't, and he (or she) wants to eat you but doesn't ... well, not everyone gets to experience that. Some people do; some don't. Perhaps in another life, a parallel universe, or... I don't know... if you believe in that sort of thing.
Monday, January 26, 2009
History
It started with C, a guy whose motto - who needs foreplay if you have water-based lubricant? - still rings in my ears. He was health-conscious (didn't even drink caffeine!) and exercised with weights. He thought I should too and bought me 10-lb. dumbbells. I just really, you know, needed to get in shape. Maybe someday we'd be that perfect jogging couple in color-coordinated shell suits.
No.
I dated M many years later. He liked poetry, but I knew more about it than he did, so I exposed him to more poets. I liked classical music, but he knew more than I did, so he exposed me to more composers. Oh, the give-and-take! I pictured white nights at the opera during our St. Petersburg honeymoon. It seemed perfection until he confessed he usually went for thinner girls. My intuition had failed me. I asked him to elaborate, and he said he liked girls thin to the point of delicacy, but not waif-like. Oh, I said, you mean like the young Mick Jagger? Bonne chance.
Non.
And then there was P, who said after three years of dating: ya gotta lose the cellulite.
Let me be honest and say that I've weighed more than I should once in my life, when I was taking Paxil. It never fails with Paxil, it seems: you won't have panic attacks anymore, but you will gain at least 20 lbs. and never, ever have an orgasm again. Until you stop taking it.
Otherwise I am normal. (5'8" and 145 lbs.)
If I could go back in time, would I present C with a copy of Tibetan Arts of Love and withhold sex until he presented me with a notarized document stating he'd read it from start to finish? Would I tell M to cut his effing hair because it wasn't 1990 anymore and he was no longer the AlternaBoy in high school? Would I tell P ya gotta lose that smallish c_ck?
Probably.
Why didn't I have the balls back then?
Later there was G (God bless that boy), who encouraged ice cream atop the peach cobbler because well, girl, you're just too thin.
No.
I dated M many years later. He liked poetry, but I knew more about it than he did, so I exposed him to more poets. I liked classical music, but he knew more than I did, so he exposed me to more composers. Oh, the give-and-take! I pictured white nights at the opera during our St. Petersburg honeymoon. It seemed perfection until he confessed he usually went for thinner girls. My intuition had failed me. I asked him to elaborate, and he said he liked girls thin to the point of delicacy, but not waif-like. Oh, I said, you mean like the young Mick Jagger? Bonne chance.
Non.
And then there was P, who said after three years of dating: ya gotta lose the cellulite.
Let me be honest and say that I've weighed more than I should once in my life, when I was taking Paxil. It never fails with Paxil, it seems: you won't have panic attacks anymore, but you will gain at least 20 lbs. and never, ever have an orgasm again. Until you stop taking it.
Otherwise I am normal. (5'8" and 145 lbs.)
If I could go back in time, would I present C with a copy of Tibetan Arts of Love and withhold sex until he presented me with a notarized document stating he'd read it from start to finish? Would I tell M to cut his effing hair because it wasn't 1990 anymore and he was no longer the AlternaBoy in high school? Would I tell P ya gotta lose that smallish c_ck?
Probably.
Why didn't I have the balls back then?
Later there was G (God bless that boy), who encouraged ice cream atop the peach cobbler because well, girl, you're just too thin.
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