I pick up your hand, and pay attention. I caress your finger tips. If you notice me, respond! You breathe lightly and quietly. I notice no response.
-Go back a day!
-No, this moment too is precious-
I would like you to know I am here. I would like you to know I love you. I would like you to know that I admire you, and care about you- everything to build you up, everything to make you happy. There is nothing to fear, now, what’s past is gone, but it too, now, may be beautiful for you. It was alright, really, even then, even when the rain lashed down and you gritted your teeth and put your head down and trudged on- though others saw the sunshine, and danced.
I would like- nothing. I would like this moment, now, while it is, while you breathe and I am here with you. Each human being is a beautiful thing. There is no ideal for skin, no perfection excluding others, for all is perfect: wrinkled dry skin is all it needs to be. We have managed you as you might like: we changed the pad under you, and the covers are neat, not too heavy, warm enough, the sheet ironed. I am glad your hand is above the covers. It is so beautiful, the bruises cannot disfigure it.
I would like it to respond. Some answering pressure. This has to be enough, but-
Go back a day. It is your birthday, and Dad has a dozen red roses in the vase on the windowsill. Go back a day, because I can, because this time is mine, in my control. I see you and not you. I can make of you anything I like, any response, and I can respond in the most perfect manner, for this is that time in bed when the perfect repartee comes too late- no, analysing the job interview with a view to answering better next time- or, healing the past, for though it is too late to heal your hurt it is not too late to heal my own. So as little fantasy as possible: you as real as I may imagine or remember you, though of course there are the bits I shy away from, perhaps without knowing it.
We are alone, for Dad has reasons to be elsewhere, and Elaine is with her children who are too young to be here much. It is just you and me. Now, several things happen, at once. I take your hand, and you give mine a light squeeze- we are both holding hands, both here, now. A tear escapes your eye. I kiss you. All is Love. Or there is an imperfection, something for me to regret or resent, for part of Everything is Perfect is the effort, the reconstruction, the acceptance, the seeing, and these are not easy or instantaneous. Or there is again no response- I think there was little response by then. I have all the time I need.
Picture by metmuseum.
Clare Flourish 
I found it… In my defence, I was only 21!!! Slightly ridiculous 😀
To me all of this is plainly love, not male or
female, not object of my societal burdens nor the
guilt inflicted upon me by the ignorance of
others. I have come to some very integral epiphanies on
love over the past year. Yes, I believe I am making
progress. Let me express , then, the power and
intensity of love as I see it. Nothing better comes
to mind than “Orlando”, by Virginia Woolf. If you
have not read it, just attempt to absorb the
sensation. I will establish first that the subject of
my love is neither male, nor female, animal, or
object, or any classification of physical being. It is
something extraordinary, that with which I have been
able to connect to as no other mortal person I have
met. Men repulse me, women disappoint me, but in that
being, I find an essence that parallels my own soul.
Sexuality in my mind is something of
more primitive ages, in which animals mated and
procreated by instincts- being brought to modern days
by religion, models and mentalities which have not
stopped to question if perhaps the love of their life,
the one person who they may search for during their
entire existence- the one who is capable of making them
better than they are alone- may be someone of their
own sex, maybe not, maybe one who is 30 years older,
perhaps 20 younger- How are limits imposed? Who is to
question the intricacies of one’s tastes and desires?
I can only speak for one, but for that one I say that
my sexuality was developed in consciousness, by
attaining and seeking characteristics that please
me- the beauty, the mind, the tone of voice with which
one chooses to speak, the depth of a glance. Sex and
it’s world are but a secondary compliment which acts
only as an enhancement of the bond between the
proprietors of that emotional attachment, pleasure
which can be attained by touch and understanding.
Should one base his entire existence on his sexual
behavior? Has society not achieved a point of mental
awareness in which people have minds and opinions? In
the book ‘Orlando’, the main character–Orlando–is a
man that one day awakens as a woman, the character
lives eternally through the centuries, experiencing
the hatred and patronizing women were subjected to
over the course of time. In the end, Orlando has
searched endlessly for love, but through death, human
perfidy, or the sheer fickleness of feeling, she is
not able to retain a lasting love. Finally, in her
state of eternal awareness, at around 1860, she runs
from her country estate, and through the heaths of the
English countryside, entrapped in her hoopskirt and
whale-boned bodice, the constricting costume that man
has forced upon woman, as it rains and the heaths turn
muddy, Orlando flings herself to the ground and
screams, “The earth shall be my bride!”…. No man, no
woman–but an essence shall be my bride. Despite the
constrictions of my latticed societal burdens, despite
the bodice of guilt I fling myself to the ground to
scream that this being is the element that is eternal
and essential to my soul, not a mere mortal. He
transcends the physical, and gives me something no
person could give me, and thusly do I fling myself to
him, and claim him as my bride, in the rain and the
cold-entrapped in feverous agony, fingers clenched
into the eternity of the earth. The him I speak of is
someone who I have never met, but who inspired the
feelings of security, admiration and curiosity no one ever
had before. The him I speak of is you who I do not yet
know.
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Thank you.
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Beautiful, Clare.
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Thank you.
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Such a lovely post. Thank you, Clare, for your refreshing thoughtfulness. XXX 😀
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Thank you. It is, as I said, a “sketch”- I hope the ideas are part of a longer piece, and I imagine myself rewriting completely, which I have not done before. I explain about this tomorrow.
I hope you had a lovely holiday.
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Thank you, yes, we had a wonderful holiday. I can’t stop fantasizing about two weeks in Italy now. Maybe next time….. xxx
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Okay, so I’m reading backwards, I read your most recent post before this one. This is beautifully written and it stands on it’s own, but of course there is always more that can be said and approaching it from different vantages in your own journey offers so many possibilities.
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Thank you.
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