i woke up one morning this week remembering a dream that involved a swedish thirtyish male somewhere in a kitchen half-naked à la Tyler Durden but without the attitude. needless to say that i woke up laughing and humbled by the thought that this is how old age is sneaking up on me. for my mid-life crisis i married a man eight years younger than i, so this dream, is clearly marking the advent of old age. it came sneaking by having a rather prototype male appear in my dreams in the absence of eros.
when the day starts with such psychological petty crimes and then the phone rings and a past lover is on the other side, life is taking its course. a colleague of mine has these days taken to hinting something or other about my men. oh, i get him loud and clear. i will need to face that one straight one of these days as it becames necessary, if it becomes necessary.
on wednesday i walk into my therapy session and the therapist happily announces that she has found my file again. again, i had to laugh, that internal laugh that is half irony, half satisfaction and two-thirds insight, because that very morning i had thought about this episode of the loss of my therapist's notes on my case a few months back. now, it is not everyday that a therapist and member of the medical profession loses a patient's file, and i remained most unconvinced of its loss, and took the view that it had been misplaced somewhere in the office and its many papers and shelves, and in due time it would surface again. it did, it was among the empty file wrappers.
that morning my thought of that misplaced file was that when i entered the therapist's office for the first time over one year ago, it was because i had more than just issues to resolve, i was in the throws of a depression that was choking my life; i needed help. there is here one person who clearly does not have her shit together - that is me - and goes for help to this other person - the therapist - and that together-person then looses the file containing all those notes about who is related to whom and who did what to whom, where and that whole relatory of recollections that get spewed during the course of therapy. ah! perfection is also not to be found at this address. what a delighful relief!
when a past lover rings early in the morning, i am barely awake, and he has good news for me. for a while back there while i was in the throws of some deep funks of depression a few months ago, i did worry about the state of affairs of his marriage following one long call with him. he is a good friend, our separation was a necessary step for both of us, we remain faithful to each other for there is nothing that can separate good friends. now it was easy to joke about the postulate that perhaps he did not need a maitresse, as is common in france, and a few other places in the world. in fact, having more than one relationship that involves copulation is very common among the human species. it so is that the invention of marriage and the preaching of some alledged morality principles within a few degenerate doctrines has caused this de facto practise to be one that is frowned upon. i know, how in our family the gossip of other people's affairs is often used to preach what should be. needless to say that in this very same family of mine, all sorts of overt and covert relationship behaviour is to be found, however nobody talks about it. that is what they call normal, and that is what i call hypocritical behaviour. but then, that is me, the moral me.
all social criticism aside, it was good to talk for a while with this dear friend of mine. it was especially good to remind him that he too is human, like the rest of us. and like the rest of us, he also does not always have all his shit together, and does not always behave ideally. he is a fantastic friend, and always was, yet he too is not perfect. i too often forget that i do belong to the human species and am vested with all the wonderful incongruities and caprices that so characterize the beasts whom we are.
recently i was visiting a friend and cousin for a week and we ended up discussing a lot of our private issues about lovers, loves, life, fortune and fame. she is the ever wise art historian, and i am the insane writer. while i was visiting her, i was also in the midst of a sweet confrontation with one of my dearest muses who was in town at the same time. at one point she declares that he is not up to my level and that i idealize him. i do idealize him and what pleasure that is! on the other hand, inspite of all my cousin's deep insights into french men's behaviour, this is not a question of levels or worthiness. when is another being worth another? never. we, human, we deserve nothing, have a right to nothing. we are alive, we breathe, we eat, we sleep and sometime in between sometimes we connect with each other. sometimes there is poetry, other times there is ease, and most of the time there is nothing at all. in all cases, i say there is life and relationship.
i return to my lovers. literally, i often do that. i return to them for the lessons learned and return to them for the caresses and the pleasure of their company. sexual copulation is not always involved. lover is a word that makes me wonder. lover is often riddled with meanings belong to some social canonry to which i do not subscribe. but then i already have trouble with the concept of falling in love, and certainly no understanding for that other concept that involves perfection when it comes to the object of one's affections. it was exactly to this point that my therapist and i returned on wednesday. if relationships fail these days, one reason can be sought in the idealization of the relationship itself, and the requirement that it has to be perfect and compliant to several concepts of social canonry, and that is so oblivious to the needs of our soul, spirit and psyche. we need dreams, ideals and angels on occasions. i do well surrounded by a few muses whom i love and respect, and who give me the raw pleasure of sincerity.
at this point i recall another french man in my life, another past lover, one whose tracks i have lost, one with whom i conceived a child. one man who was pure poetry. our child left us both before his farewell, and in the deepest core of my being there is this taste of life lived to the fullest that has stayed with me. he is one of the rare people that have departed to not be heard of again. i have no idea of where he is living now, or if he is living. does it matter? no. he enriched my life with his presence. what more could i possibly want? i have my peace of mind.
perhaps this is not old age at all. it can be that one night i dream of an unknown swedish adonis by the kitchen sink, and then the next night it is somebody whom i know, and it is something totally different.
