I see her coming from the train. I see her long stride and her slim face. Eastern, white, stoic. She has learned something. I want to hold her tight and keep her far from me at the same time. Look at her and then hold her. Push her away to look her over again.
I want to paint her, love her and be with her. I want to place her somewhere I'll always find. I want the world to open like an egg so I can tuck her inside where it's warm and then bring her out into the quiet solace of winter. To wait until she wakes. To wait. To wait.
When you love someone you take them as they are. When you love someone, you don't forgive. You go on. When I traveled to China I painted and wrote for two years. I learned local legends and rode the bus with the poor, the young, the beaten and the hungry. Two small dogs slept in my doorway all throughout the winter. I did not take them in. I had read of people taking them in and then losing them to poachers, to restaurant owners, to the cruel asian roads. I wasn't going to fall prey to predictable heartbreak. If I was going to break my heart, I swore when I was a young boy that it would be an extraordinary event. I would be invigorated with a beautiful new and lose myself and love until one day I woke up a different man.
I have memorised this passage about lovers:
Sing and dance together and be joyous
But let each one of you be alone
Even as the strings of the lute are alone
Yet they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
My grandfather gave me a copy of Gibran's Prophet when I turned 18 and said to me: "Live well - here and in between worlds"
I never understood why I needed to long for separation in togetherness. Maybe it is when you love and love purely that you understand the fragility of it. This is how I love Jocey, I think. I love her steadfastly and sincerely. There are so little moments of nuance. The love sits at our table with us, watches over our slow dance and retreats when we gain self-awareness again and the spirit of our individual domes beckons. Beckons our individuality to return home, to the shores inside it, to the mountains it wrestles with alone under the naked moon. And the love waits or becomes suspended as in an ancient time, another life, a distant world until we cannot bear but come together again with dignity and grace.
I wish for this distant togetherness to continue in the same way because it is the only way I can be happy with Jocey.
Jocey is finding herself. Jocey is coming home. Jocey is home.
*
I see Paul waiting for me at the train. I see his proud gaze and beautiful patience. I see his strength. He has taught me something. It happened in the beginning. In the tumultuous madness of change, he remained steady but enigmatic. I fell in love without really knowing I was falling love. I was falling in a dreamlike pattern I had memorised lifetimes ago in my face and hands. A familiarity I had drawn on myself to recognise again when I saw it. This familiarity offers no palimpsest you see. Paul cannot be traced on me nor I on him. We have to stand apart to recognise that this distant echo is what I've wanted to hear. And stand apart I do; with him before me.
And happiness sparks. Then, life. It all becomes scattered until the next moment.
I have waited a long time to love someone the way I love him. There is this life to go through now. And the mysteries it keeps. I meet Paul halfway. Across the matted, scorching plains of the savannah of my existence I meet Paul.
And he waits for me. Alone, curious, calm, excited. I take his hand. It's been so long.
Ada is having a small dream of Adam. It was the time Adam and her were reading in the garden. He was holding her foot on his lap. This was happiness. The cherry trees had not bloomed yet but the buds were so promising and full. On the cusp of intoxication, on the cusp of fleshy flower.
I want to paint her, love her and be with her. I want to place her somewhere I'll always find. I want the world to open like an egg so I can tuck her inside where it's warm and then bring her out into the quiet solace of winter. To wait until she wakes. To wait. To wait.
When you love someone you take them as they are. When you love someone, you don't forgive. You go on. When I traveled to China I painted and wrote for two years. I learned local legends and rode the bus with the poor, the young, the beaten and the hungry. Two small dogs slept in my doorway all throughout the winter. I did not take them in. I had read of people taking them in and then losing them to poachers, to restaurant owners, to the cruel asian roads. I wasn't going to fall prey to predictable heartbreak. If I was going to break my heart, I swore when I was a young boy that it would be an extraordinary event. I would be invigorated with a beautiful new and lose myself and love until one day I woke up a different man.
I have memorised this passage about lovers:
Sing and dance together and be joyous
But let each one of you be alone
Even as the strings of the lute are alone
Yet they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
My grandfather gave me a copy of Gibran's Prophet when I turned 18 and said to me: "Live well - here and in between worlds"
I never understood why I needed to long for separation in togetherness. Maybe it is when you love and love purely that you understand the fragility of it. This is how I love Jocey, I think. I love her steadfastly and sincerely. There are so little moments of nuance. The love sits at our table with us, watches over our slow dance and retreats when we gain self-awareness again and the spirit of our individual domes beckons. Beckons our individuality to return home, to the shores inside it, to the mountains it wrestles with alone under the naked moon. And the love waits or becomes suspended as in an ancient time, another life, a distant world until we cannot bear but come together again with dignity and grace.
I wish for this distant togetherness to continue in the same way because it is the only way I can be happy with Jocey.
Jocey is finding herself. Jocey is coming home. Jocey is home.
*
I see Paul waiting for me at the train. I see his proud gaze and beautiful patience. I see his strength. He has taught me something. It happened in the beginning. In the tumultuous madness of change, he remained steady but enigmatic. I fell in love without really knowing I was falling love. I was falling in a dreamlike pattern I had memorised lifetimes ago in my face and hands. A familiarity I had drawn on myself to recognise again when I saw it. This familiarity offers no palimpsest you see. Paul cannot be traced on me nor I on him. We have to stand apart to recognise that this distant echo is what I've wanted to hear. And stand apart I do; with him before me.
And happiness sparks. Then, life. It all becomes scattered until the next moment.
I have waited a long time to love someone the way I love him. There is this life to go through now. And the mysteries it keeps. I meet Paul halfway. Across the matted, scorching plains of the savannah of my existence I meet Paul.
And he waits for me. Alone, curious, calm, excited. I take his hand. It's been so long.
Ada is having a small dream of Adam. It was the time Adam and her were reading in the garden. He was holding her foot on his lap. This was happiness. The cherry trees had not bloomed yet but the buds were so promising and full. On the cusp of intoxication, on the cusp of fleshy flower.
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