The Last Time I Saw Love
6-14-06 Wednesday Evening
The last time I saw love. That's a good title. For my next novel. Which I am working on this very minute. Parts of this will no doubt be in my master copy. She had lovely skin and her hair was very long & soft & fluffy and feminine & shampooed. She was walking in the parking lot at 7-Eleven and I could see immediately she looked cleaner than anybody else within ten miles. Clean and beautiful eyes. She was chewing on something small because her teeth seemed to be nibbling. And I walked up to her I wanted to kiss her at that moment but this was only our third brief conversation in public. I said to her what are you chewing on? And she said tic-tacs. I think she said that. I didn't hear it exactly I was thinking of her eyes & lips but that's what it must've been. Then instead of saying what was really on my mind which was going to bed with her that night she began walking to the bus stop. It is not easy to break out of any patterns in the game of love. I mean by that the habit of making irrelevant conversation about school & books or nature or the this and that of social events. But I haven't had any conversations whatsoever about anything in a few months.
I guess then this is it. My life my career and also my wife & family---until The Real Thing comes along. As it says in some song whose singer escapes me at the moment. Don't know the rest of the song. I do know this. She was beautiful and from Asheville, North Carolina. I just mailed some poems to Asheville. It felt romantic. And that I've decided is the best way to feel when you mail out a manuscript. I am a businessman when it comes to writing. This is what I do with authority: write. But it is also an immense & complicated game. In the very largest and most generous sense of that term. I didn't kiss that beautiful sensuous woman that morning in the parking lot at 7-Eleven. Nor did I kiss her any of the other times we met all of a sudden on campus mainly---not a very comnfortable place for the first kiss. But as players say after the game---I had my opportunities. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Did I ever blow every one of them. And now I'm here at this screen speaking in cyberspace to the world telling the story of my life.
How will I ever get true love back in my life? That is my major question and the central theme of every word I write. Somehow this Confession in its own digressive way will tell what I believe will turn out to be an Astounding Story. It's a tough row to hoe. Because I got myself isolated over a period of twenty-five years from all of women and society. And I have not given a public reading of my work in a long time aside from individual pieces---and even that rarely. OK. I'm just putting this down in front of me. Laying my task on my plate for you to see ahead of time or in the middle of things. Because this is a Novel you are reading. It is autobiographical. And it is true, mainly. I do stretch the truth once in a while. I make up things. Anybody who doesn't is a bore. But I do not lie or defame. Which is a more malicious program. I entertain you. But that entertainment is at least half pain and nightmare and pathos & tragedy. Like I said the other night I've been fighting Nietzsche since 1967 when I first began to read him. And it looks like he's here to stay. That does not mean the end of true love or romance or sexual pleasure between woman & me. It better not. What it does mean is I have no control over outcomes any more than you do. I do hope to recover that grand sense of comedy that for many years was the fuel of my very life. But for many years now it has left me out in the cold. I don't know what came first the unrequited love or the loss of the humor. It seems to me love and comedy sleep in the same bed and eat at the same table. They even take a bath together. They laugh at the same jokes. I like that part. And they are quick to forgive eachother for little slights and mistakes. Love is forgiveness---with Pleasure.
RLG Copyright 2006
The last time I saw love. That's a good title. For my next novel. Which I am working on this very minute. Parts of this will no doubt be in my master copy. She had lovely skin and her hair was very long & soft & fluffy and feminine & shampooed. She was walking in the parking lot at 7-Eleven and I could see immediately she looked cleaner than anybody else within ten miles. Clean and beautiful eyes. She was chewing on something small because her teeth seemed to be nibbling. And I walked up to her I wanted to kiss her at that moment but this was only our third brief conversation in public. I said to her what are you chewing on? And she said tic-tacs. I think she said that. I didn't hear it exactly I was thinking of her eyes & lips but that's what it must've been. Then instead of saying what was really on my mind which was going to bed with her that night she began walking to the bus stop. It is not easy to break out of any patterns in the game of love. I mean by that the habit of making irrelevant conversation about school & books or nature or the this and that of social events. But I haven't had any conversations whatsoever about anything in a few months.
I guess then this is it. My life my career and also my wife & family---until The Real Thing comes along. As it says in some song whose singer escapes me at the moment. Don't know the rest of the song. I do know this. She was beautiful and from Asheville, North Carolina. I just mailed some poems to Asheville. It felt romantic. And that I've decided is the best way to feel when you mail out a manuscript. I am a businessman when it comes to writing. This is what I do with authority: write. But it is also an immense & complicated game. In the very largest and most generous sense of that term. I didn't kiss that beautiful sensuous woman that morning in the parking lot at 7-Eleven. Nor did I kiss her any of the other times we met all of a sudden on campus mainly---not a very comnfortable place for the first kiss. But as players say after the game---I had my opportunities. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Did I ever blow every one of them. And now I'm here at this screen speaking in cyberspace to the world telling the story of my life.
How will I ever get true love back in my life? That is my major question and the central theme of every word I write. Somehow this Confession in its own digressive way will tell what I believe will turn out to be an Astounding Story. It's a tough row to hoe. Because I got myself isolated over a period of twenty-five years from all of women and society. And I have not given a public reading of my work in a long time aside from individual pieces---and even that rarely. OK. I'm just putting this down in front of me. Laying my task on my plate for you to see ahead of time or in the middle of things. Because this is a Novel you are reading. It is autobiographical. And it is true, mainly. I do stretch the truth once in a while. I make up things. Anybody who doesn't is a bore. But I do not lie or defame. Which is a more malicious program. I entertain you. But that entertainment is at least half pain and nightmare and pathos & tragedy. Like I said the other night I've been fighting Nietzsche since 1967 when I first began to read him. And it looks like he's here to stay. That does not mean the end of true love or romance or sexual pleasure between woman & me. It better not. What it does mean is I have no control over outcomes any more than you do. I do hope to recover that grand sense of comedy that for many years was the fuel of my very life. But for many years now it has left me out in the cold. I don't know what came first the unrequited love or the loss of the humor. It seems to me love and comedy sleep in the same bed and eat at the same table. They even take a bath together. They laugh at the same jokes. I like that part. And they are quick to forgive eachother for little slights and mistakes. Love is forgiveness---with Pleasure.
RLG Copyright 2006
posted by rlg at 9:25 PM
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