Belle de Jour
5-4-06 How To Get Out Of The Dungeon
I woke up in the Place. But I didn't really wake up. Just opened my eyes and began to move about the general area. Began to take walking lessons. Read some books. Viewed numerous movies---always trying to alleviate the boredom that was threatening to devour me. The boredom came from all those postponed women. All of them. Thirty years worth of postponed women. I set up this terrific defense system. And here it is. I watch films every night. I get them from the library or the video store---usually Wherehouse or Hollywood Video. I became so adept at it (watching movies alone every night) I actually believed what I was doing. I loved these damned films after a while. I'd really settle in. Sit down on the sofa & let the presses roll. Sure, I thought about the beautiful one also. Wished she was here with me. But I had no hold on her. And I was slowly turning into a robot.
And when we would meet suddenly unexpectedly at the university after a while her eyes registered absence of knowledge. There was no recognition of me in her eyes. That was a shock to me. A form of terror that I instantly buried. I spoke to no one concerning any of this. And I continued to behave like a zombie. She had been in the center of my mind while I wrote & studied & hosted my television show. Now all of a sudden she appeared in my path & all I could think was God, her life is empty of me, her eyes are blank. And I couldn't thus express the intimate powerful feelings I had for her they seemed so out of place. I'd go home & then the old Conspiracy Theory would kick in place. THAT was the reason she was so non-involved. She had to conceal her real feelings for me or she would be punished by The Enforcers. I'm making up the terms here as I go along. But there was some script she must have been abiding by which I had no access to that made her so indifferent. Otherwise wouldn't she have written me a friendly acceptance to my written invitation to dine with her? It seemed rational. Yes, it certainly did seem rational. But no date in all these years. No longer weeks and months. Years! And the world goes crazier every minute.
So I didn't go to bed with any of them---the beautiful ones who loved me. That is correct----LOVED ME! We didn't even kiss the kiss of love. How can that be? It does not seem possible. Yet day turns into night turns back into day and back into night and weeks turn into months turn into years and the most lovely possibilities are still remote possibilities sitting in the closet of my psyche now & then leaping out. In the meantime (and much of it is MEAN time) these women have been accumulating memories. They have followed second or third choices. And followed what they believed to be their only destiny. While I waited. And waited and waited and waited and waited. And am still patiently waiting. I exuded Poetry there at the beginning. It exploded inside of me & came to a fullness. But then I got disillusioned with the game of poetry. And now I am happiest working in prose forms. These women no doubt have been eating and drinking, talking & working & thinking & also having sex & in some cases having babies. O yes. They go on with their lives without consulting me. I get no emails or post cards from them. Occasionally I meet a new one. And many of these are tender & friendly & they make me feel vulnerable---in the good sense, open. But only for a moment. For they rarely have time to sit with me & pause & gaze & speak. Haven't had lunch with a woman out here in 10 years.
And so I watched movies every night. And it became an established ritual. But it did not quite satisfy. It took me to bedtime, that's what it successfully achieved. But no more than that. I slept alone every night "knowing" that things would change soon. But things didn't change soon. A new female face occasionally. And even every once in a while intense attention from one of them---almost always when I was in love with another which makes the beauty of the challenge impossible to estimate. I stayed in my dungeon. Why? Because my imagination for change was so warped by inexperience. As strange, almost unbelievable as that seems. My mind was full of vigor and power and accuracy. Yet, I could not move my body in the necessary way to position myself for erotic success. So I wrote every morning of my life. And for a long time I played with the faces of the university women. But after a considerable time had elapsed I finally got the picture. We were not connecting. These women lived on a different wave length than me. I am slower than they are in the realm of the emotional and the sexual. And I am wary of transmitted sexual diseases. But mainly I was emotionally commited to one specific woman who had commited her eyes to me without reservation. That is the sum of it. Nothing else. She never gave me a verbal commitment. I just assumed at some point owing to the craziness of the incidents that this woman must be laboring under the terrors of the Conspiracy. Otherwise how could things be so goddammed mad? Unless the woman has a heart full of hate which obviously she doesn't.
And so 18 years passed and I am still living alone in the same apartment. I've met 25 new women in the past year. But I am not a presence in their lives as they aren't in mine. We pass eachother of a morning or afternoon at Starbucks. We might exchange several words and sometimes even an intimacy or near intimacy. So far no lunches or movies or long walks. No love seances. No sexual intercourse. Not even any kissing. Shall we begin by shaking hands? Shall we find a comfortable private place to have lunch or late dinner? And then meander to a movie.
RLG COPYRIGHT 2006
I woke up in the Place. But I didn't really wake up. Just opened my eyes and began to move about the general area. Began to take walking lessons. Read some books. Viewed numerous movies---always trying to alleviate the boredom that was threatening to devour me. The boredom came from all those postponed women. All of them. Thirty years worth of postponed women. I set up this terrific defense system. And here it is. I watch films every night. I get them from the library or the video store---usually Wherehouse or Hollywood Video. I became so adept at it (watching movies alone every night) I actually believed what I was doing. I loved these damned films after a while. I'd really settle in. Sit down on the sofa & let the presses roll. Sure, I thought about the beautiful one also. Wished she was here with me. But I had no hold on her. And I was slowly turning into a robot.
And when we would meet suddenly unexpectedly at the university after a while her eyes registered absence of knowledge. There was no recognition of me in her eyes. That was a shock to me. A form of terror that I instantly buried. I spoke to no one concerning any of this. And I continued to behave like a zombie. She had been in the center of my mind while I wrote & studied & hosted my television show. Now all of a sudden she appeared in my path & all I could think was God, her life is empty of me, her eyes are blank. And I couldn't thus express the intimate powerful feelings I had for her they seemed so out of place. I'd go home & then the old Conspiracy Theory would kick in place. THAT was the reason she was so non-involved. She had to conceal her real feelings for me or she would be punished by The Enforcers. I'm making up the terms here as I go along. But there was some script she must have been abiding by which I had no access to that made her so indifferent. Otherwise wouldn't she have written me a friendly acceptance to my written invitation to dine with her? It seemed rational. Yes, it certainly did seem rational. But no date in all these years. No longer weeks and months. Years! And the world goes crazier every minute.
So I didn't go to bed with any of them---the beautiful ones who loved me. That is correct----LOVED ME! We didn't even kiss the kiss of love. How can that be? It does not seem possible. Yet day turns into night turns back into day and back into night and weeks turn into months turn into years and the most lovely possibilities are still remote possibilities sitting in the closet of my psyche now & then leaping out. In the meantime (and much of it is MEAN time) these women have been accumulating memories. They have followed second or third choices. And followed what they believed to be their only destiny. While I waited. And waited and waited and waited and waited. And am still patiently waiting. I exuded Poetry there at the beginning. It exploded inside of me & came to a fullness. But then I got disillusioned with the game of poetry. And now I am happiest working in prose forms. These women no doubt have been eating and drinking, talking & working & thinking & also having sex & in some cases having babies. O yes. They go on with their lives without consulting me. I get no emails or post cards from them. Occasionally I meet a new one. And many of these are tender & friendly & they make me feel vulnerable---in the good sense, open. But only for a moment. For they rarely have time to sit with me & pause & gaze & speak. Haven't had lunch with a woman out here in 10 years.
And so I watched movies every night. And it became an established ritual. But it did not quite satisfy. It took me to bedtime, that's what it successfully achieved. But no more than that. I slept alone every night "knowing" that things would change soon. But things didn't change soon. A new female face occasionally. And even every once in a while intense attention from one of them---almost always when I was in love with another which makes the beauty of the challenge impossible to estimate. I stayed in my dungeon. Why? Because my imagination for change was so warped by inexperience. As strange, almost unbelievable as that seems. My mind was full of vigor and power and accuracy. Yet, I could not move my body in the necessary way to position myself for erotic success. So I wrote every morning of my life. And for a long time I played with the faces of the university women. But after a considerable time had elapsed I finally got the picture. We were not connecting. These women lived on a different wave length than me. I am slower than they are in the realm of the emotional and the sexual. And I am wary of transmitted sexual diseases. But mainly I was emotionally commited to one specific woman who had commited her eyes to me without reservation. That is the sum of it. Nothing else. She never gave me a verbal commitment. I just assumed at some point owing to the craziness of the incidents that this woman must be laboring under the terrors of the Conspiracy. Otherwise how could things be so goddammed mad? Unless the woman has a heart full of hate which obviously she doesn't.
And so 18 years passed and I am still living alone in the same apartment. I've met 25 new women in the past year. But I am not a presence in their lives as they aren't in mine. We pass eachother of a morning or afternoon at Starbucks. We might exchange several words and sometimes even an intimacy or near intimacy. So far no lunches or movies or long walks. No love seances. No sexual intercourse. Not even any kissing. Shall we begin by shaking hands? Shall we find a comfortable private place to have lunch or late dinner? And then meander to a movie.
RLG COPYRIGHT 2006
posted by rlg at 5:31 PM
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