This is going to sound incredibly bad and I hope I do not have to eat my words, but I feel I must flag an epiphany I've just had:
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There is a world of difference between 'I love him, I'm happy when I'm around him' and 'I love him, but God, it sears my soul sometimes'.
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I used to think the first kind of love was what I wanted. The happy, quite comfortable kind. But I rejected it at every turn. People who ticked all the boxes in terms of compatibility, matching, kindness, gentleness, sweetness (one of them overticked this box, but never mind him for now), I simply rejected every time we passed a sort of invisible dividing line between the 'beginning' and the 'real thing'.
I was happy in each one's presence.
I smiled and laughed a lot, had tonnes of fun, and some great sex and brilliant conversations.
But.
I was never so deeply happy that it hurt.
And never so deeply hurt that it felt ecstatic.
I am now.
And I hesitate to say it that way, because every time I profess a certainty, it crumbles to dust. Such is the way of this universe. No?
But since this is just cyberspace and since technically I'm just writing this on a blog, on the web, virtually in thin air, I think it should be safe to sound certain, so I'm just gonna say it:
I'm so happy, it hurts.
And sometimes, so deeply hurt, I can't feel it at all, and just laugh (genuinely, laugh) when I really expected to dissolve into floods of tears.
Is it because I've found The one?
Or is it because I've found the version of me that can be so deeply affected?
I think you can't have one without the other, personally.
Showing posts with label Rambling.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rambling.. Show all posts
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Saturday, 7 March 2009
Melancholia
You know how sometimes that solitary space inside your head can have a full-blown conversation (ok now I sound coocoo on top of everything, but bear with me) or narrate a full-blown commentary to... absolutely no one?
Well today I imagined I was writing as I walked down the street to buy a computer chair for the Man who was severely desperately in need of one.
Specifically, this is what I thought to you, dear reader, sweet blog:
Picture this:
I'm walking down a crowded narrow pavement and there is a press of people on either side. Old people young people punks wheelchair users a policeman. There's a group of excruciatingly loud teenage girls in PIIINK! sweatshirts and overly tight jeans walking in the sunshine on the other side of the road. There's a girl wearing fuchsia hair and leather trousers and HUGE boots, walking arm in arm with her boyfriend. And there's an old gentleman with a walking stick slowly threading his way through this market yard of weirdness.
Remember My Fair Lady?
Remember Professor Higgins?
Think of an older, more sober version.
Perhaps I'm going too much by appearances? (But what an appearance!! Dark green hat, old looking tan leather gloves, a beige trench coat, shoes exactly the colour of the gloves, his back upright despite the walking stick, his gait perfectly controlled. The trench belted shut, I notice, not flapping all over the place. Every buckle done up just so. To suggest polish, not stiffness. Ten years younger and I'd have kissed him.)
He radiated class and poise and finesse. And none of it appeared put on.
And I wondered: What does he think?
And, (all hail, the inevitable cliche!) I felt sad. Who cares?!
And (all hail, the ego!!) I felt a tiny stab of holier-than-though annoyance at everybody else for appearing to not give a fuck.
I wondered:
What's he seen, where's he from? Such a long life! He still dresses like it's the '40s. Is that habit or taste? What can he tell me - or us - that we really need to know. What can he speak about, what issues can he comment on and still sound relevant? And what is 'beyond' him? What does he think of the fuchsia hair? What can he tell us about living through an economic crisis, a world war, bigotry, social movements, transformative social change, human rights, exploration, discovery. What does he think now, about heartache and loving? Would he recommend we waste our time on it? Did he waste his time on it? What can he tell us about living the best possible version of each of our lives? What would he have done differently? Does he recommend the experience of living? Or in retrospect, does it all seem like a jolly old (a phrase I guarantee he uses!!) waste of time? What can he teach me? What can I teach him? Is there anything I know that he doesn't. Is there anything he knows that I really really should? Anything he can say that we should all listen very carefully to?
I suspect he can say a lot.
Even if he says nothing, or very little. A life lived in such interesting, challenging and gut-wrenching times!! We should be celebrating him as a triumph of nature! He lived through all that! Any other species, an individual gets to that age and an ecologist would give it a metaphorical thump on the back and say well done, you! Our species, someone survives life and still goes for walks on Saturday afternoons, we should say well done, you!
And everybody was just passing him by, not even looking. Like they also passed by the sunset. The pinkest, most luscious sunset this week. The whole sky was aflame with it and wreathed in feathers as the doves settled down to roost. And they just passed, passed it by, looking at the pavement.
Well today I imagined I was writing as I walked down the street to buy a computer chair for the Man who was severely desperately in need of one.
Specifically, this is what I thought to you, dear reader, sweet blog:
Picture this:
I'm walking down a crowded narrow pavement and there is a press of people on either side. Old people young people punks wheelchair users a policeman. There's a group of excruciatingly loud teenage girls in PIIINK! sweatshirts and overly tight jeans walking in the sunshine on the other side of the road. There's a girl wearing fuchsia hair and leather trousers and HUGE boots, walking arm in arm with her boyfriend. And there's an old gentleman with a walking stick slowly threading his way through this market yard of weirdness.
Remember My Fair Lady?
Remember Professor Higgins?
Think of an older, more sober version.
Perhaps I'm going too much by appearances? (But what an appearance!! Dark green hat, old looking tan leather gloves, a beige trench coat, shoes exactly the colour of the gloves, his back upright despite the walking stick, his gait perfectly controlled. The trench belted shut, I notice, not flapping all over the place. Every buckle done up just so. To suggest polish, not stiffness. Ten years younger and I'd have kissed him.)
He radiated class and poise and finesse. And none of it appeared put on.
And I wondered: What does he think?
And, (all hail, the inevitable cliche!) I felt sad. Who cares?!
And (all hail, the ego!!) I felt a tiny stab of holier-than-though annoyance at everybody else for appearing to not give a fuck.
I wondered:
What's he seen, where's he from? Such a long life! He still dresses like it's the '40s. Is that habit or taste? What can he tell me - or us - that we really need to know. What can he speak about, what issues can he comment on and still sound relevant? And what is 'beyond' him? What does he think of the fuchsia hair? What can he tell us about living through an economic crisis, a world war, bigotry, social movements, transformative social change, human rights, exploration, discovery. What does he think now, about heartache and loving? Would he recommend we waste our time on it? Did he waste his time on it? What can he tell us about living the best possible version of each of our lives? What would he have done differently? Does he recommend the experience of living? Or in retrospect, does it all seem like a jolly old (a phrase I guarantee he uses!!) waste of time? What can he teach me? What can I teach him? Is there anything I know that he doesn't. Is there anything he knows that I really really should? Anything he can say that we should all listen very carefully to?
I suspect he can say a lot.
Even if he says nothing, or very little. A life lived in such interesting, challenging and gut-wrenching times!! We should be celebrating him as a triumph of nature! He lived through all that! Any other species, an individual gets to that age and an ecologist would give it a metaphorical thump on the back and say well done, you! Our species, someone survives life and still goes for walks on Saturday afternoons, we should say well done, you!
And everybody was just passing him by, not even looking. Like they also passed by the sunset. The pinkest, most luscious sunset this week. The whole sky was aflame with it and wreathed in feathers as the doves settled down to roost. And they just passed, passed it by, looking at the pavement.
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Up at six, having slept 15 hours straight (only waking once to turn over, kiss him deeply and long and then drift back into the stars). She feels rested and can smell the air outside even through the closed window. It's fresh. But too cold to stand in, even with warm pyjamas. The birds are wide awake and there's a riot of them outside.
She walks through the house, switching on lamps, opening the front door to get a whiff of that freshness. She makes toast with cheese - a childhood ritual breakfast, unshakable. And a mug of tea. Tea, not coffee. There is no lemongrass, alas. But there is still freshness in the air and birdsong. Even, for a brief second in the darkened parking lot outside, a prowling cat for company.
What is different:
Not much, even halfway across the world. The essential elements have been brought within me: the morning air, the mug of tea, a cat's quiet company, birdsong.
This, I now realize, is how I make myself at home; it has very little to do with the exact point on any map. Collecting the impressions of a morning, I'm oriented. Hello Earth, I'm home.
She walks through the house, switching on lamps, opening the front door to get a whiff of that freshness. She makes toast with cheese - a childhood ritual breakfast, unshakable. And a mug of tea. Tea, not coffee. There is no lemongrass, alas. But there is still freshness in the air and birdsong. Even, for a brief second in the darkened parking lot outside, a prowling cat for company.
What is different:
Not much, even halfway across the world. The essential elements have been brought within me: the morning air, the mug of tea, a cat's quiet company, birdsong.
This, I now realize, is how I make myself at home; it has very little to do with the exact point on any map. Collecting the impressions of a morning, I'm oriented. Hello Earth, I'm home.
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