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Edited on Thu Feb-11-10 08:21 PM by Fly by night
Several years ago, a new friend emailed me to ask for advice (from someone she hardly knew) about a new relationship she was entering into. This essay is what she got back. I have shared it with a number of people since, including a beautiful woman (flaxen hair, swimmer's shoulders, slim hips, soft lips) who showed up unexpectedly in my deep hollow during our snowstorm here two weeks ago, shared a hot sauna and a clawfoot bathtub, spent the night ... and then was gone. We have corresponded on the meaning of words and feelings, and sudden urges, ever since.
So in honor of those of you who gifted me with hearts tonight, here is my remembrance of why St. Valentine helps make the world go 'round, even as our older and wiser feet stay firmly planted on the ground. Love all y'all. FBN
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Montana Jenna asked:
“What's the distinction between romantic love and romance
and what might be the other thing?
Perhaps, playful love?
"Distinctions I need to clarify
-- perhaps developing a new friend here --
some of those words are very loaded.
I know what I wouldn't want
but not what I would --
and how would I name that?”
Well, talk about the bloody facts of life.
And when I got this note from you earlier, I thought .... many things.
Like why do people go to priests to get marital advice?
Or ask someone who’s been so unlucky in love that he once asked that his tombstone read:
“He was good at leaving, and experienced at being left.”
But only after years of saying that the phrase
“There’s only one thing worse than a hopeless romantic, and that’s a hopeful one”
described him to a tee.
Someone whose first marriage was on Friday the 13th,
whose second marriage was noted by having its wedding photo and divorce announcement
featured in the same issue of his hometown paper (two pages apart),
and whose third marriage ended seventeen years ago (ed. note, actually 23 years ago now),
though the pain of that loss lingered for more than another decade.
It’s even a little eerie for me to be discussing romance in the third person – that’s how spooky the topic can be for me. But really, at this point in our lives (or at least in mine), it’s really not that hard to talk about. Because the word “romance” no longer seems relevant to what I want and need and have (to some great and satisfying extent) in my life. To me, the word “romance” even sounds like it belongs only in that section of the bookstore where the book covers are in primary colors, their models cliche-ish. It’s probably appropriate that the word even sounds a bit like “fantasy” -- soft, curvy, surreal. Not real.
Back when the major synapses in our developing brains fired best when triggered by sex/heat hormones, romance sounded like a good word to justify... what? Our urges, our desires, our needs? Notice that the only word those thoughts had in common was the word “our”. Which in this context is truly the royal conceit. As our bodies were warming up (when was it for you – for me, the summer I went from 14 to 15, holding on so tight to a blond beauty in the public swimming pool that even the lifeguards had to ask us to take a break so the water could cool down), our minds had to put some words around our behavior (real or imagined) that would make proper what felt like everything but. So we thought we were “in love”(again the royal “we”) when what we really were was “in need”.
In need of some understanding, in need of some release, in need of some affection, in need of some hot, sweet saliva, in need of some relief. From the confusion and the heat, from the wonderings and the wanderings, of our hearts and minds (not to mention our lips and hands.) Back then, as Tina Turner said so aptly, what did love have to do with it? Or romance? Except to give us language that we could use in polite company to express feelings for the objects of our pent-up energy.
Writing this now, I can remember my first love – Nancy – a year older and many years more experienced. Willing to let me do anything I wanted from the moment we met, but too gentle to tell me straight out how little I knew. The girl/woman who brought me to my first big decision – to leave my brothers and sisters (and mother) to move to Mississippi to be the only live-in child of my father. And then, the night before school started, to “break up” with Nancy because I didn’t want her to be embarrassed at school by dating someone a year younger. Not being able to hear her “it doesn’t matter(s)”, over and over on the phone. Regretting the decision, later and now. But not the feelings behind my boy/man’s effort to do what was “right” by her, because I “had feelings” for her that were real – though undefined – and certainly more than I could understand at the time. Love... maybe.
So forgive this dusty walk down memory lane, because the thoughts of “romance” took me back there. If I had only known then what I know now, that relationship (and all the ones that followed) could have been so satisfying ... and more lasting.
I say that because, being single and alone with my thoughts and memories tonight at the end of my country road on this first night of false spring – warm enough to sleep with the windows open so soon after our only snowfall – I have never been closer to so many women as I am now. Women who I care about, and respect, and enjoy, and am concerned about, and share a laugh with – and think of often.
I have a small group that I call “my girls” and most often, when I write one, I write them all. Two are married (one a former lover; the other brushing up against, but never joining in, that dance), one a widow (my father’s first, and perhaps only, love – and not my mother), and two are divorced. Of the last two, one counts me still as her only lover besides her long-gone husband; and the other counts me as her courtly Southern friend, too proper to ever have lifted her skirts, despite a decade’s worth of subtle invitations and no lack of interest on my part. Not regretting that decision though, because we have boundaries that we’re comfortable with and because we have somethings we don’t want to lose -- the comfort of each other’s company, even if only every other year, for single nights in small towns on the edges of open deserts. Or in our occasional dreams, colored by the magic of her people, and of mine.
So if I were to be at a point where someone new was entering my life, crossing over the bar from acquaintance or co-worker to that rarified air that friends share, I guess I would not be looking for romance – at least not at first. The change in the relationship with that new someone would have begun because all of the elements were in place within her – air (bright and expressive mind), earth (deep soul substance), fire (clear convictions that kept her and everyone she lets near warm), water (a nurturing spirit). And she would be coming closer to me because she liked what she saw in my elements – air (room to breathe), earth (the strength of dirt-soiled hands), fire (a protective nature), water (enough to quench both our thirsts, to satisfy us yet keep us sober).
And there would still be wants that could be fulfilled. The desire for good company, the need to laugh often, the knowledge that this new one brought even more to learn that was worth knowing, the quiet comfort of another who could linger long yet still seem fresh. And there would be time, because we would insist on it. Time to take time to know each other at a pace not driven by anything but the pleasure of our company. Room to move, drawing circles that intersected often enough to bring energy to share, to make our solitary journeys more pleasant for the times when our paths met and (oh so briefly) intertwined.
And there would be no expectations of the other within us, only expectations within ourselves for how we would respect and care for and support and cherish this new friend. And show that with arms and ears open wide, with hands strong and stable, but with a loose grip on the reins of the new colt that our friendship would represent, running freely between the two herds that would be our own homes, not bound by either but welcome in both.
With all of that to build on, anything else would be possible. If sexual moments were possible and desirous, they would be. But that would not be the basis for anything – it would be the result of something. Something more important, more lasting, more meaningful, more valuable. More elemental. So, since you asked my opinion, you now have it. For what it’s worth. And for this hopeful romantic, after many decades of saddle sores and spur-marks, it is worth a lot. The love of any woman, or of a select few, is worth everything that is necessary for me to build within myself in order to provide a soft and secure resting place for her, or for them. And, in return, within them for me.
So now, I believe it’s time to consider a new epitaph. After all of the hormonal floods of youth and the regrets of young adult relationships built on soft sentiment and little substance, I can give thanks for the living, though distant, loves in my life at this moment and celebrate them for eternity with a stone that might one day read “He was (finally) good at loving and experienced in being loved.”
As I was writing this note, I got an email from Irma, my Dad’s first love, now in her mid 70s. I wrote her back, thanking her for her continued prayers and telling her that I was trying to answer your questions this evening. And I said to her,
”These days, I honestly feel that I can feel the prayers, helping me float through my days and sleep soundly more nights than not. It's good timing that you wrote just now. I'm answering a letter from a Montana friend who has asked me to give her advice about distinguishing between romantic love and the other kind. And I'm in the midst of remembrance of being young and in lust, and comparing that time with where I am now -- held in the hearts and prayers of several women who I care for greatly (and, as you know, you're one of my ‘girls’.)
“It's hard to tell where things will end up. But right now, I am where I need to be, and happy for that. It's warm enough tonight to stand in the yard in my bare feet, looking at the clear sky, all the way to the other side of the celestial mystery that we're all a part of; and to enjoy the dark, starry beauty between here and there. Thanks for your thoughts. I do hope we see each other soon.”
And so to bed. Thanks, Montana Jenna, for asking me to write this. It may not make things any clearer for you, but it certainly has made me more thankful for everything that has come before, because all of it brought me here. Good luck with whatever comes, and whoever you let into your life, in whatever way. In the end, it’s all a great mystery and we are just soul-sparks, seeking our balance in the stars, above and around us. Have a good Montana evening, as I will in the quiet, starry hollow that is my home.
Take care. FBN
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