I had this dream about the Legend last night, about our first real date when we were dressed up, cufflinks and heels and pomade and lots and lots of red lipstick and spicy cologne. A swank event with his wide smile and my gap-toothed grin, then a midnight midtown walk and drinks in a secret bar we stumbled upon when most everyone was asleep. In the dream, we moved closer together in the cab at the end of the night–not, as it really happened, with me leaning timidly against his bound chest but with us kissing kissing kissing as the car soared high above the city, a kiss that didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. A kiss we could trust. Me climbing on top of him, he reaching into me, buttons unbuttoning, zippers unzippering, fingers and mouths everywhere on a bridge hurtling us somewhere better–somewhere I wouldn’t panic just when the going could get good, somewhere he had plenty of time and inclination, somewhere no one would jump off, somewhere we could flourish together. It was a dream of the we that didn’t happen, and it was tough because things felt so sweet and got so sour. Waking up was brutal.
Archive | Age Matters
Morning Without Venus
Detail from “The Persistence of Memory” by Salvador Dalí.
Sad and lonely, that’s how I wake during this Venus Retrograde in Scorpio. The regret of what should have been said, could have been done. How love was failed, how missed opportunities loom–that dropped ball, unacknowledged joke, declaration unmade. How doors were shut and labors were lost and hopes were shattered. Again. Again. The so so so many ways we missed each other because of scars already sustained, burdens already borne. The clock ticking-ticking-ticking–no time, no space for the messy, complicated ways of wounded people who still want love. To give it, to receive it. To improve, to learn. It’s not just you. It’s not just me. It’s just sad.
And lonely.
I open social media despite best intentions and a Yuseff Lateef quote gleams:
Loveless moments are to be avoided.
I nod twice, fast. Then fight back yet more tears. Because: how? Love thrives in kairos, not chaos. I flash on the first time we had coffee. In his 1940s rasp, chewing gum no less, he’d said: “We’re all broken!” And that foxhole solidarity, so cheerfully delivered, made me sure we could fulfill the promise of our shared smiles.
When will I learn? We cannot protect our hearts by protecting our hearts. The only way forward is to open, wide.*
—————————–
* There’s a joke in that.
I’m Healing as Fast as I Can (Neon Sadness)
The phrase had been blinking in my head all day like a neon sign. I saw it as I woke, it kept flashing as I wrote.
I think, I think, that you carry heartbreak until it carries you.
Don’t get me wrong. I worked on my book today as promised–1300 words, thank you very much. B even says they pass muster. Then I had therapy–can we say it simply ran its course? But when I came up for air, I felt sad knowing the Legend was back in the neighborhood and we no longer were in contact. Until this week we could just pretend we were just in different places, on different schedules.
Not different frequencies.
Just as I was starting to feel really rudderless, K pinged for coffee, so we met up and ran into a friend and then another and another, and the conversation kept bobbing along, one thread into another like that last luxuriant day of school in Dazed and Confused.
K is a legend in his own right. Continue Reading →