I think what scared me the most was being dead. I mean, dying while still breathing, maybe like being buried alive or something. I was so scared of making a decision that would last forever—one that would mean that I can never, ever change.
I was so scared that nothing more would be at stake. I mean, I complain a lot about us not having the same stakes—the same things at stake, but if I am honest, it was more than that. It felt like that if she was the One—if I chose One again—made another one the One—began to believe and hope and believe in a One—well, nothing at all would be at stake. I mean what is at stake when the decision has been made? What is at stake when everything is settled—when the most important, intimate things have been paid up? What can possibly still be at stake when the question of who I am and how I will be and if I am loved and if I loved is decided? It feels like death. It feels like dying.
I couldn't handle the idea that I would never arrive again, at least not for a new person. I know that I would, could arrive for her a million different times. I know that she would see me show up—see me arrive—be born on top of her again and again—and then disappear, again and again. I know each time, or most times, or some times, it would reaffirm our oath to one another; it would revitalize our connection; it would re-sign our contract.
But, that was the problem. How do you re-sign time and time again without resigning? How do you re-sign without resigning?
I want to resign—want to be able to commit time and time—to give myself—lose myself—over and over. I want to sign that signature and then keeping signing it in every moment, every hour, every day.
However, I don't know how to do that without resigning myself to death. I don't know how that works without resigning myself to being a dead person—a person for whom nothing more is at stake.I feel like re-signing the oath over and over . . . even in the ecstatic moments of the little death . . . at the height of frenzy . . . it feels like resigning myself to pounding my stakes into something—into a surface and a ground—a foundation and a place—that is permanently fixed.
When your stakes are forever—when they aren't at risk—when they don't move—when they are decided; when your stakes are buried and covered over—when they don't get looked at or thought of—when you don't have to think about moving them, mulling, pulling, pounding, sounding, or resounding them—they aren't stakes anymore. They are boards—floor boards—foundation boards—building boards. When you bore something—when you participate in the act of boring—twisting, turning, and fixing in order to harness for good—well you are on the road to boredom. I didn't want to die. I didn't want to die by having my stakes—her stakes--bored through me so that I was so bored I was dead. I didn't want to die while still living.
I mean, you realize that about love, don't you? It is supposed to be forever.
That is a huge difference between anything else we do. We all have something at stake. All day every day we are involved, committed, thrown, into situations, and circumstances, and places where we have something at stake. We don't get to choose to have something at stake—every time you take a fucking breath something is already at stake—you just have to deal with that fact, sorry.
And, so, we have to figure out what is worth it—who, or what, or how, is worth pounding your stake into something in order to erect at tent—a temporary dwelling where you make life, make love, make people happy, or make the world better. Some people use tents to hide from other people; some use tents to hide from themselves; some make tents—pound their stakes over and over and over—in hopes that just once someone else might notice and join them in the tent. But, when we pound stakes it is always temporary—even the stakes we pound for survival's sake are temporary—they aren't meant to last forever; they are meant to last long enough for one or more than one to survive the night or the winter or the storm.
You see, the only stakes meant to built permanent dwellings—ones that last forever—ones that last beyond the personal forever into eternity—into the Infinite—are Holy Places: churches, temples, pyramids, mosques, and so on. The only stakes used forever are the ones that build places of worship.
What about one's home? What about the need to create shelter for a family or a pack or a tribe being thrown about by nature's cruel, fickle feelings? I tell you what, creating a hut or a teepee or a fucking track home with a view of a golf course is never about forever—at its most rudimentary and bare levels, it is about survival.
Homes are for living; churches are for dealing with both death and the dead.
Love has never, ever been about survival—not one time.
Love has always—from forever—for forever—been about death. It is a matter of a very human need to somehow die while remaining alive. What do we say about love? “She takes my breath away . . . With her, I am lost . . . I am blind in love . . . I was lost in love . . . I couldn't see—I was blind—for love's power . . . I didn't know what I was doing because of love . . .”
Don't talk to me about surviving with love. Don't talk to me about needing love to go on—we all can get up in the morning and find some food in the forest, in the desert, or the cupboard. Survival never depended on love.
No. Love is about pounding stakes that turn into relics. Love is about pounding stakes somewhere where once they are in the ground they are sacred—they are sanctificed—holy--and thus, not to be touched. Love is about pounding stakes that become altars, idols, minorets, and minorahs. Love is about killing its builders so the spirits can live. We pound stakes all day everyday because we have to. But the only time we pound stakes that kill us are when love is involved.
I didn't want to die. I didn't want to sanctify the building of another One—I hadn't believe in Ones for a long time, and honestly, the thought of it scared me to death.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Encounters (redux)
At the bottom of all our hopes lies a yearning for encounter. -Ivan Klima
What depressed me were certainly not doubts about the rightness of my choice, but the knowledge that I'd made a decision once and for all. I suspected that for me the most blissful prospect was not so much having the person I loved permanently by my side as a need, from time to time, to reach out to emptiness, to let longing intensify within me to the point of agony, to alternate the pain of separation with the relief of renewed coming together, the chance of escape and return, of glimpsing before me a will-o'-the-wisp, the hope that the real encounter was still awaiting me. -Ivan Klima
At the bottom of all hope--that endless circle, the one like all circles--without beginning and without end--is the desire for an encounter. It is the desire to know an-Other, and more importantly, to be known by an-Other. What is strange about this desire is its whence--its originless origin. We fight, scratch, claw, paradoxically, even to the death, to be recognized as an irreplaceable, singular one. Without one's irreplaceability, they are as good as dead--a subhuman entity incapable of true living. Without one's singluarity we are just a machine carrying out meaningless functions within a mechanical world. "NO!" Even the non-believing souls cry this--bellow it from a hidden place--"I am more."
This desire--the one for an encounter--is born out of this fierce defense of singularity and irreplaceability. It is that singular, non-replaceable infinity that longs to be found. It is like an egg waiting to be pierced by that one--one in a million--one of trillions--swimming head--to be punctured so as to give birth to life. We believe--in a place so secret not even we have access to it, from a past we were not privileged with experiencing, in a present we did not choose, in a future we will never see--that if we can have one encounter--if even one eternal moment --that life will be born; life will be experienced; we will become what we supposed to be all along.
But, what is paradoxical, excruciatingly paradoxical, about this desire--this circle--is that it is its spinning that makes life possible. If the circle doesn't spin there is no desire for encounter simply because there is no "is". If the circle stops moving the conditions for any encounter are vanquished. Yet, as long as the circle spins--as long as that desire burns within one's soul--searing scabs and scars along the outer membrane of the secret space--the place where an encounter might take place--it will long to be understood, to express, to try to explain the secret that has no words.
Escape and return. Longing and fulfillment. Yearning and rest. This is the circle. This is the pendulum in which desire swings.
To choose once and for all? To claim I've had an encounter? What kind of fool would I be to make such a claim?
A greater fool for never trying? A greater loss for never trying to somehow lead another down the winding, impossibly hidden, spaceless space of the infinity in which I reside?
I can't answer that. Can you?
Thus, it is no coincidence that eros and revelation are two sides of the same coin. Revelation--the Word being communicated. Eros--communicating something so secret--so precious--so vulnerably personal--without words. Both involve the uncovering of the Infinite. Both claim to lead to an encounter--to a meeting that couldn't, wouldn't otherwise be possible. Revealing the Word with special words, and revealing one's self with no words. Revealing--physically and not. All of it is in hope for an encounter. And, both spawn words--writing. Which is itself the only way to life--the immortal kind, that is.
When I can't write anymore I'll die. But I'll die loving. -Ivan Klima
What depressed me were certainly not doubts about the rightness of my choice, but the knowledge that I'd made a decision once and for all. I suspected that for me the most blissful prospect was not so much having the person I loved permanently by my side as a need, from time to time, to reach out to emptiness, to let longing intensify within me to the point of agony, to alternate the pain of separation with the relief of renewed coming together, the chance of escape and return, of glimpsing before me a will-o'-the-wisp, the hope that the real encounter was still awaiting me. -Ivan Klima
At the bottom of all hope--that endless circle, the one like all circles--without beginning and without end--is the desire for an encounter. It is the desire to know an-Other, and more importantly, to be known by an-Other. What is strange about this desire is its whence--its originless origin. We fight, scratch, claw, paradoxically, even to the death, to be recognized as an irreplaceable, singular one. Without one's irreplaceability, they are as good as dead--a subhuman entity incapable of true living. Without one's singluarity we are just a machine carrying out meaningless functions within a mechanical world. "NO!" Even the non-believing souls cry this--bellow it from a hidden place--"I am more."
This desire--the one for an encounter--is born out of this fierce defense of singularity and irreplaceability. It is that singular, non-replaceable infinity that longs to be found. It is like an egg waiting to be pierced by that one--one in a million--one of trillions--swimming head--to be punctured so as to give birth to life. We believe--in a place so secret not even we have access to it, from a past we were not privileged with experiencing, in a present we did not choose, in a future we will never see--that if we can have one encounter--if even one eternal moment --that life will be born; life will be experienced; we will become what we supposed to be all along.
But, what is paradoxical, excruciatingly paradoxical, about this desire--this circle--is that it is its spinning that makes life possible. If the circle doesn't spin there is no desire for encounter simply because there is no "is". If the circle stops moving the conditions for any encounter are vanquished. Yet, as long as the circle spins--as long as that desire burns within one's soul--searing scabs and scars along the outer membrane of the secret space--the place where an encounter might take place--it will long to be understood, to express, to try to explain the secret that has no words.
Escape and return. Longing and fulfillment. Yearning and rest. This is the circle. This is the pendulum in which desire swings.
To choose once and for all? To claim I've had an encounter? What kind of fool would I be to make such a claim?
A greater fool for never trying? A greater loss for never trying to somehow lead another down the winding, impossibly hidden, spaceless space of the infinity in which I reside?
I can't answer that. Can you?
Thus, it is no coincidence that eros and revelation are two sides of the same coin. Revelation--the Word being communicated. Eros--communicating something so secret--so precious--so vulnerably personal--without words. Both involve the uncovering of the Infinite. Both claim to lead to an encounter--to a meeting that couldn't, wouldn't otherwise be possible. Revealing the Word with special words, and revealing one's self with no words. Revealing--physically and not. All of it is in hope for an encounter. And, both spawn words--writing. Which is itself the only way to life--the immortal kind, that is.
When I can't write anymore I'll die. But I'll die loving. -Ivan Klima
Lately
Lately, i don’t think you of you at all
Or wonder what you’re up to or how you’re getting on
I never think of calling you or how things could have been
Or wonder where you sleep at night or whose arms you wake in
I mean, this is pretty true. I don't. I haven't, not for a while now. I mean, I don't really care. I am sure you are fine, sure you are more than fine. But, yes, if I am honest, it isn't all true. You probably knew that; others probably knew that, too. I'd say it was mostly true, and kind of not true.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Lately,
I mean, this isn't really true. I don't feel like I am living alone. There is plenty of love, of all sorts, in my life. There are plenty of people, of all sorts, in my world. I don't need you; I never needed you. That is all true--all true.
I don’t get lost in daydreams
I never lay awake at night staring in my bed
And i don’t think about your face or anything you’ve said
And i don’t think twice when someone says your name
I mean, I don't anymore. I did a while ago, about this time . . . on numerous occasions . . . well, yeah, I did. I did for various reasons, too. I would lay awake quite often, sometimes with you next to me, and most times with you not. But, lately, I don't--I don't lie, don't lie awake, don't think of your face, or even your name.
Or wonder when the day will break or when the tides will turn
And i don’t break down when someone says your name
Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame
I mean, the day broke a long time ago. And, then it broke again. The day keeps breaking, over and over. The day turns to night, and then to day again. You know? I don't love the dark as much as some people think.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore.
Lately, i don’t think you of you at all.
Lately, lately, oh lately.
Lately . . . for the first time in a while, I have thought of you . . if I am honest. I thought of you and what it would be like to meet again, not for any reason or expectation beyond a meeting. But, I have wondered. I wondered enough to think old thoughts, ones I had fooled myself into thinking were no longer inside my head. I have thought long enough to even read old words--yes, word I truly thought were no longer there--ones I had erased, but not erased good enough. And, man oh man, . . . lately, oh lately . . . those words stung once again. I found words there I am not sure I even registered the first time I was supposed to have read them. "I'm his." Man, a night after . . . hours after . . . the pain . . . the hurt . . .
Now? Now, all the intrigue--the rosy feelings--the ideas of steadily meeting for an encounter--the vague, undeveloped, unacknowledged thoughts of friendship . . . well, I think the lately will now turn to . . . too late? Too late?
Now that is the question, right? If we are going to bring thoughts and wonders and cares . . .
Well, who was too late? It was always supposed to be me, but in reality . . . man, the revelations, the remembrances, the admissions, the guilt . . . all too late.
Man, oh man . . . lately, oh lately . . . I have stayed up wondering about if it is too late to even see--meet--shake--one more time, just for fun or to close or to leave it warmer than the last time--and now, oh now, it is too much.
Or wonder what you’re up to or how you’re getting on
I never think of calling you or how things could have been
Or wonder where you sleep at night or whose arms you wake in
I mean, this is pretty true. I don't. I haven't, not for a while now. I mean, I don't really care. I am sure you are fine, sure you are more than fine. But, yes, if I am honest, it isn't all true. You probably knew that; others probably knew that, too. I'd say it was mostly true, and kind of not true.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Lately,
I mean, this isn't really true. I don't feel like I am living alone. There is plenty of love, of all sorts, in my life. There are plenty of people, of all sorts, in my world. I don't need you; I never needed you. That is all true--all true.
I don’t get lost in daydreams
I never lay awake at night staring in my bed
And i don’t think about your face or anything you’ve said
And i don’t think twice when someone says your name
I mean, I don't anymore. I did a while ago, about this time . . . on numerous occasions . . . well, yeah, I did. I did for various reasons, too. I would lay awake quite often, sometimes with you next to me, and most times with you not. But, lately, I don't--I don't lie, don't lie awake, don't think of your face, or even your name.
Or wonder when the day will break or when the tides will turn
And i don’t break down when someone says your name
Or twist my mind in circles wondering which of us to blame
I mean, the day broke a long time ago. And, then it broke again. The day keeps breaking, over and over. The day turns to night, and then to day again. You know? I don't love the dark as much as some people think.
I’m living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore
Living alone living alone i don’t need you anymore.
Lately, i don’t think you of you at all.
Lately, lately, oh lately.
Lately . . . for the first time in a while, I have thought of you . . if I am honest. I thought of you and what it would be like to meet again, not for any reason or expectation beyond a meeting. But, I have wondered. I wondered enough to think old thoughts, ones I had fooled myself into thinking were no longer inside my head. I have thought long enough to even read old words--yes, word I truly thought were no longer there--ones I had erased, but not erased good enough. And, man oh man, . . . lately, oh lately . . . those words stung once again. I found words there I am not sure I even registered the first time I was supposed to have read them. "I'm his." Man, a night after . . . hours after . . . the pain . . . the hurt . . .
Now? Now, all the intrigue--the rosy feelings--the ideas of steadily meeting for an encounter--the vague, undeveloped, unacknowledged thoughts of friendship . . . well, I think the lately will now turn to . . . too late? Too late?
Now that is the question, right? If we are going to bring thoughts and wonders and cares . . .
Well, who was too late? It was always supposed to be me, but in reality . . . man, the revelations, the remembrances, the admissions, the guilt . . . all too late.
Man, oh man . . . lately, oh lately . . . I have stayed up wondering about if it is too late to even see--meet--shake--one more time, just for fun or to close or to leave it warmer than the last time--and now, oh now, it is too much.
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