from Broken//Open
Yesterday, as I was entreating an entry, a flash lightning storm arrives overhead and that long forgotten, longed and wonted feeling of ions in my palms returns to me to make me laugh.
Joe R.R.R. Judge] picked me up in his long black imperial and we went for a pleasant Sunday drive through the north, looking at rich people’s houses and the green lush backwoods landscape mystified by the wetness of lowly-sweeping clouds.
A beach, a lighthouse and some score driven miles later we stop for Italian food at a little Italian diner somewhere in Evanston or Wilmette. A very pleasant day spent between us. Friday night we resolved a conflict that caused him to completely loose it on the phone – its never happened over the phone – in fact, that is the fourth time he’s broken down, the third being most easiest for us – he may be progressing, but has lapses into a violent depression still during unfavorable conditions. I am the only one to be exposed to that side of him – of every friend and family member, psychologist or massage therapist or “partner” or “best buddy” it is me, the twenty-one year old starbucks employee, who comes into contact with the thoroughly lost and childish Joe.
I believe I have matured much through such exposure and responsibility but that last time was so uncontrollable – and I realized that it is not my words or thoughts necessarily or even primarily that gets us through – it is the stability through presence and eyecontact that sustains us through the storms he has – while I was away (in Pennsylvania for a month) he called me all too much, about every other night, and worried and fretted and clung and repulsed me, annoyed me, and – was it Wednesday? it was – I told him how uncomfortable he makes me and No, we will never engage in any sort of physical activity, and he lost it so much and attacked me (verbally, which is quite effective, if your attacker is a Judge) and then himself and then me again – such fear does he have of being alone and unloved! An hour of arguing sufficed to entrench him in depression and me in anxiety –
after we ended the phonecall, I walked around with Lilly and talked to her until two – walking around and in her bed – we made love the first two nights we were together (again), but since, I found myself not wanting to go through a laborious amore – not that I’m disinterested, but more disinclined – on Friday night Joe and I went to a rug dinner and afterwards to the beach where we talked for a long time and touched – I consented – the moment was right though after ten minutes of him massaging my back and concentrating all too low I had him stop and we went back to talking. It was good, a relief, and now things are quite calm.
Last night I drew as the conflict surged up and into me – not choice or decision, but pulses of not-knowing. Do I know yet? Either love a lover that nolonger fits as such, or loose her to freedom and emotive-energetic-authentic exchanges with others – if not with Lilly, the problem of Other is sure to arise again and again and what do I want?
Listen to my heart – how quickly it is revolving. I feel a taught morality coming to the for that I must either harden myself against and overstep or let pass through me, as guilt, and be sapped of my will to confidence. But accept it? Do I want it? Is it best? Et cetera?
I drew, and lost it on one page – the furiousness, the sensitivity – I will not harden or blunt myself – but I must be strong. ‘STRENGTH’ I said to myself, pulling it together, and I went to a new page, controlling, still feeling and not yet centered, but able to touch and be touched and not loose myself to desire – what I’d have is who suites me, who I am able to exchange with and regard in kindness and care and above all love in a pure sense – still innocent. (impossible?). I would, you must know that, and still, unresolved, but I won’t concede to one’s hold over me – I will not promise Lilly more than… trust – is it possible –
I weary to say, ‘more than’ here or now or good company. Too shallow, disconcerting – STRENGTH IN FOLLY, AS WELL
Don’t I waste myself? But is there not gratification in a sense of touch? Even that is not the point… what’s at stake here is more. I must not loose control of my actions of my desires, I must weather ----- it will come. Is it an escape to render this dynamic in me, this turning-through the rows, this amnesiac-pose – this discontinuity --- two perspectives: from here, in me, and from the moral agent outside me, that moral agent who nods his disapproval while I simultaneously cringe, question and wonder if I must prove myself… it is clear how this catch catches me?
Lilly, why mistrust what is not with you, why want what I give jealously and sadly, quietly, havingly? Christina asks if I will be making advances on the people around us and I shrug – what? were we not together just last night and is there not still care in me for what is not with us – who is not with us – the more you accept of me, the more you will really have of me – the object in my hands still changing.
To unweave is easier than to from there find the thread and conjure a reknitting.