you changed your pattern? a little; yes, I was starting the day often enough with a love poem, a sonnet, and a general poem, if not an installment of a book-length poem, followed by song-writing, followed by math and physics (for a lesser amount of time), followed by a painting, followed by this book; so maybe she’d been trying to find me; well, she was back, we found each other. It’s not unusual for things to change from time to time—or to focus on some things over other things for a while—that’s all part of the process. Maybe you do it, in part, to keep people guessing, or because you can reach different people at different times of day—effectively getting another side of them, a more complete picture of who they are.
what are you going to do without me? what did she mean? where was she going? Did she know something that I didn’t? or was she joking? Did she mean what would i do without her once I accepted that we would never be together? once she’d been replaced by someone else? Maybe she was teasing me—which was a little unpleasant, if that’s what was happening. Or maybe she meant once we were together and i could no longer shut her out and idealize her. If that was the case, well, we’d see about that. It was certainly possible, given my condition, that she’d never feel as desirable as a blond—which, i think, is the kind of attention she expected from her lover—she wanted to be more attractive, to her lover, as a Puerto Rican woman. A woman with dark eyes and dark skin.
A woman wants to be looked at in a certain way from time to time; to be seen as the irresistible creature she—to the right person—imagines herself to be. She wants that truth—she wants to feel that she is desired to a point that makes her almost—not quite, but almost, an object to be devoured. I didn’t feel that way about anyone—not even Ursula; instead, i trusted that, when I emerged from my virtual cocoon, and found acceptance, either in this life or the next, I would feel that. i would be able to experience the high—the change of perspective—that comes after climax, after going with someone in a certain direction, toward some future event, together, in the deepest recesses of our backs. But maybe she was old enough now to be a realist, and accept that people came, not with baggage, but with experience, experience that tells them what’s worth making a fuss about—what is acceptable, and what isn’t.
Nobody here is in there twenties anymore; and, frankly, i don’t see myself going steady with someone that can’t relate to my experience—someone that simply hasn’t lived long enough to experience setbacks, situations that go beyond our control and our idea of who and what we are. Only setbacks can bring us to analyze ourselves in a serious way and get us to reflect on what works for us—and what, ultimately, is a function, simply, of trying things out—trying to fit in, as opposed to reuniting with a modicum of innocence, the people that we are, when, as children, we know little else but love.
A thirty-five year old was perfect for me, but a forty-four year old was not—as long, that is, that I remained without an heir, or as long, that is, that I felt no desire. Love might cure everything, though, and you never knew how you’d react if you found yourself drawn to someone that didn’t fit in the age-bracket that you deemed, on average, to be best for you. So yes, it was highly unlikely that i would be “discovered,” for a very long time—Ursula would almost certainly be over fifty—which wasn’t going to work, unless, of course, I fell in love—real love, the kind that does feel passion, the kind that does appreciate desire; the irony, of course, is that by the time Ursula was fifty and we might’ve met, well, if i were discovered, and, perhaps, a little understood, I would have more than one intelligent woman to choose from—and some of them might very well be thirty-five. I can imagine, of course, that Ursula would ask me who i thought i was if she read this, and, well, I might say, “I am the person that people will remember as the greatest artist that ever lived.” That, of course, would be a joke, but, naturally, it would be a good joke, meaning that, well, I believed, at least a little, that I really was that person.
you’re a real lady’s man and i know, i know—but the irony of this is that, while my condition might prevent me from devouring a woman, my creations might reach down deep into their souls, and, having done that, a great amount of desire, once appreciated, might break free. So yeah, the part of my body that defined me as a man might not have been working as it might otherwise should, but there was nothing wrong with the ability I had to speak to someone’s emotional core—not a place of lust or anxiety or a desire to be viewed by a beast of prey, but, on the contrary, a place where love and desire worked in tandem—a place where our emotions and our feelings could synchronize such that we’d want each other in unison, and, when using our intellects and serving others, we wouldn’t be distracted by something as meaningless and incongruent as lust.