It's odd this being burned thing. When someone does a number on you ("fuck that guy" says my lovely friend who looks out for me, but to be completely honest, I'm sure I did a number on him too, and I'm sorry for that) it makes you frailer, more sensitive, stretches your antennae out even further, sometimes around corners, feeling out for dangers that maybe don't exist. You want to let the "soft animal of your body love what it loves" as Mary Oliver would say, but the robotic, metallic armor gets in the way, makes you too wary, stops the child that wants to love and be loved, protects too firmly, makes your body rigid instead of buttery.
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| with my favorite soft animal belly |
There is a very nice man, someone who I believe may have been hurt deeply as I have been, someone elegant and kind and funny, sharp as a tack, and I like him -- and he is sexy -- but I can't allow myself not to be protected. I have seen him once and he made me laugh, which is no small feat, as I tend to be irritated by most people, especially those who think they're comedians. Texts are imprecise in plan-making. Texts boast efficiency, but leave no room for tenderness, for human emotion, for understanding that everyone is fighting a hard battle. Texts demand you give them the benefit of the doubt, but still, I feel my hackles rise, as they did before, and I feel the old familiar pull of the feisty/fighty/tension, half really sexy and half scary as hell.
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| Thanks to my friend Curt for this... |
People need to be in a room together and looking into each other's eyes, and touching each other to fully understand the other.
I regret so much the misunderstandings in the tentative dance one does with online dating, but the reaching out, and stepping back, and the dosey-dos, and the weaving, and the twirls, and the occasional, beautiful human contact is what brings me back again.
Vivien and I discuss David Bowie on the phone and she gives me advice. As Caitlin Moran says, most things in life can be resolved by listening to Bowie. Here's Quicksand:
"I'm not a prophet or a stone age man
Just a mortal with the potential of a superman
I'm living on"
I will persevere and I will try not to be a twat. That's all we can do really, isn't it?
It takes everything one has to remain open and soft and kind. But, by God, we need to keep trying to do it.
2 comments:
sigh...a great post. you always get it spot on. here's some blake to add to the conundrum of love... x j
'Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair.'
So sung a little clod of clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a pebble of the brook
Warbled out these meters meet:
'Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite.'
William Blake
Long time..no see.
I have been going through my own hell this last year, and I have occasionally gone back into your archive to re read some of your wonderful writing. It always brought joy to me. Still does.
Things haven't changed much up here, I have just learned to manage my emotions better.
Thank you for your inspiration
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