Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.

[raybear]

Or something. So yeah, I saw Auntie Mame in the park last night and it was a good time with folks. We had a nice little picnic, too, and as I told Damon on the way home, this really felt like summer, because of the crowds, the evening heat, going home late and not caring, sitting on airconditioned trains talking loudly to friends while nearby passengers assume you're drunk but you're not -- it's just the giddyness of stories and knowing laughs and making up jokes on the spot. And at one point while laying in the grass watching Rosalind Russell queen around her glorious New York apartment, I imagined someone laying her head on my chest and draping their arm across my waist, settling into my "nook". And knew I wouldn't complain even with the heat. But instead of feeling sad that it wasn't happening, I was grateful that it would be happening soon enough.


And this is related to my weirdness from the weekend. I didn't want to do things like hug and kiss in public, or stand close and touch shoulders. Hell, I don't even want to have another experience on the couch. Those things aren't really about sex for me. They're about comfort and intimacy and cuddling. These things come from friends without strings of expectation, or from the one person who does them best with me.

I need a t-shirt that says "I'm not polyamorous, I'm nonmonogamous. There's a difference. Inquire within." Not that my explanation necessarily does any good....

Oh, and then at one point last night Co___ busts out with "I could have told you not to get involved with her". What's that supposed to mean? Well, whatever. Grain of salt.

But if I don't trust the words of unrequited love, why did I expect certain people to believe anything that ever came out of my life?

The truth?

They shouldn't have. All of it lies. The words you say that you want to be true, so you utter them hoping they will conjure reality out of the sand of fantasy.

But my heart is big enough to hold it. Especially from someone for whom I've given slices of fantasy. It's the deep and sweet connection of mutual understanding.¹

Maybe I am polyamorous. With each emotion specially hand-crafted and fitting perfectly into the spaces between us. The difference is the elasticity of the emotion and how much space it needs to fill. The spaces between me and Melanie are small, so the feelings are compacted. Between others, it must stretch and expand to fill the vast place that occurs the other 6 days and 19 hours of the existence that happens outside of each other's presence.

Then you have people who are separated by physical space as well as the theoretical space of time. But the connection is static.²

Then you have people who have left the literal proximity and the emotional material has been purged, and when they turn away from you in the bookstore, ignoring your presence, there's not a genuine ache or pull of material -- it's the ghost limb of an amputee. My heart has been replaced by something stronger, but I still feel a cellular connection to the former organ. It's too much. I understand the desire to avoid the sensation. But I don't want to admit it or even submit to the temptaion -- I want to push and pick at the contusion, slowing the healing perhaps, but also fully experiencing and understanding the pain.³

(I know why we called the animal hospital that day.)⁴

Like a tattoo, I want to be present when it's happening. It's a permanent mark. I don't want to gain scars accidentally.

But it's hard to negotiate the amazing feelings of being with someone who is not leaving marks....but also feeling threatened by the permanence of those others scars. Why does one feel compelled to compete with a brokenheart? Or an unfulfilled fantasy? I should be striving for the opposite. But it doesn't seem as lasting. That thought makes me nauseous. I'm not a cynic. I'm just insecure. Happiness is an insecure and unsure state. Too precarious at times for my taste.

My journey of self-discovery begins with the simple idea of me wanting to be a certain way also means to a certain extent that I must already be that way. I don't have to learn anything.
____________________________

¹Lest I get confused later, this is NOT about El___.

²Of course this applies to many, but was inspired by her

³Maybe I shouldn't have written an e-mail to my ex saying she's acted shitty. But I sure feel better now.

⁴Yes, I help stalk other people's (i.e. Melanie's) ex.

Comments

>>Why does one feel compelled to compete with a brokenheart?

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

i don't THINK this is what you meant, but.

have you read anne carson's autobiography of red?

Somehow Geryon made it to adolescence.
Then he met Herakles and the kingdoms of his life all shifted down a few notches.
They were two superior eels
at the bottom of the tank and they recognized each other like italics.

...

Water! Out from between two crouching masses of the world the word leapt.
It was raining on his face. He forgot for a moment that he was a brokenheart
then he remembered. Sick lurch
downward to Geryon trapped in his own bad apple. Each morning a shock
to return to the cut soul.

and NOT static. this, here, is new. again i turn and find you, again in new ways and forms. again, still, always. we were barely, badly lovers all those years ago, and then again we were friends. and across this distance we find new things to make of those.

Bi-location

[brucebanner.livejournal.com]

not to offend, Ray, but I read that part about spaces and elasticity of bonds and I thought to myself (and now to you) "hmm, it's like I live in two places at once" that is exactly my problem: negative space, and the outline of contours and the elasticity between silohettes. I know what you mean, or else, I think what I mean is what you mean. One or the other.

Way to read my mind and make me all embarrassed.
As for competition w/ brokenhearts & fantasies: I ask also: why would anyone want to compete with death? But that's just my third observation along those same lines. I never understood. One cannot imagine the amount of energy waisted trying to become BIGGER or BETTER or MORE THAN death. I know a little too much about that, so I will shut my mouth now.

for rizzle my nizzle,
Joe

Re: >>Why does one feel compelled to compete with a brokenheart?

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I have not read Autobiography of Red, though it was near plagarism.....

and...

and NOT static. this, here, is new. again i turn and find you, again in new ways and forms. again, still, always. we were barely, badly lovers all those years ago, and then again we were friends. and across this distance we find new things to make of those.

yes, yes. my use of the word static was sort of wordplay. in one sense, I did mean "fixed". but I also meant in the physics sense of the word, which is defined as "of or relating to bodies at rest or forces that balance each other." We are bodies at rest and bodies in motion, but mostly forces balancing each other.

If it made sense to you, than it makes sense.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

Joe, I don't think I could ever be offended by you pointing out similarities between us. Just don't tell anyone else about our secret twin language....especially the hand signals.

That's the dizzle for rizzle.

Re: >>Why does one feel compelled to compete with a brokenheart?

[wearemany.livejournal.com]

oh, you and your physics. me and my literary allusions.

you MUST read the book, and also her newer one, all failed marriage and Keats.

at rest and in motion, and balanced. there are far worse places to find ourselves.