Diana,
it's been almost a year since we last saw each other at the Cindy Sherman exhibit up on the 6th floor in the MoMA. You were too busy prepping for New York Fashion Week, i remember, with your lacquered nails and bouffant hair, or was it a crown braid? i complimented you on your breast augmentation surgery, your black Tafetta dress from Coco Chanel, and your McQueen ankle-wraps; ah, how beautiful you looked! i wasn't sure, however, if i should call you Diana or Leonard or something else. if you have a preference, please let me know. i did not mean to offend.
i heard from Henriette, who i bumped into the other day at the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle first and then again at the Minskoff Theater on 45th Street by Broadway, that Susan isn't doing very well. i can imagine how difficult it must be for you -this change, this new identity, this new life, the stares you must get and the slew of explanations you are expected to provide. but Diana, if i can help in any way, please please don't hesitate to contact me. i'm here for you and your well-being is important to me. forget the nasty things they wrote about you on The Sophian; i've always disliked that group from Smith anyway. you deserve much better, and i know you will get out of this slump.
well, the reason i'm writing this letter to you today is that i wanted to let you know that i have been seeing someone for the past nine months. we met, shortly after Stacy and i broke up in San Francisco, at a library. it was kind of a weird encounter really; awkward and strange at first, but it glided into place within minutes! finding someone to love all over again, to rebuild a faith, to rebuild confidence and assurances is always really really hard. every time you're tossed away because there's someone else who's better than you, you tell yourself this is it. i want to lead the single life right now, drama-free, care-free. and things will eventually fall in place, if they're meant to be. and then the reality of your solitude hits you, the sporadic nature of your new found conviction bears its fangs, and it slowly depresses you, as it slithers through your veins, diffuses through your mind, perfuses and effuses through your moods and hypnotizes your satiety into a vacillating feeling of comfort and emptiness. you feel dizzyingly numb, you feel uncharacteristically hopeless; to a point, where you start questioning the worthiness of your self, the value of your contribution to this gimmick of existence. am i deserving of happiness? you ask yourself. and knowing the rhetorical nature of your depressive quandary, you feel displaced, like a swollen pendulum bob, swinging on the apices of emotional extremes, dissatisfied at once, ecstatic at once, spiraling in a rut of neurotic outbursts in between.
loneliness had become my dependable aphrodisiac. i had a love-hate relationship with it; mostly because it gave me the independence i always wanted, but pinched me to tears from time to time. when you are lonely, you have a lot of time on your hands and more often than not, find yourself mulling over personal histories, memories, day dreams and promises. it feels as if you're going through a catalog, a sheaf of paper, a bundle of circumstances, and re-living bygone moments. and you tell yourself that you were tired, utterly exhausted, of being the appendage, the second option, the could-have-been. and when that point comes at the pinnacle of your recollections, you recoil into a state of quiescence, where you exist without living. you survive without feeling. you continue without meaning. and then you learn to love this new existence, to live in the new reality, leading the cues to a complete makeover.
your mind begins to bark, slowly, at sounds of silence. it becomes a juxtaposition of the empty slots of a crossword puzzle; like the blank checkers of a scrabble board, filled and re-filled with alphabets of consolation. time and time again, you develop this strong companionship with your inner loneliness, a voice only you can hear, a voice that only makes sense to you. after you slide downhill, so easily, so smoothly on the course of negativity, it now becomes a new defense against accusation of carelessness, a new weapon, a new instrument of body politics. but you see the positive side of loneliness; the independence that comes with the lack of accountability and the focus on the self. for a while, you learn to live that non-committed life, the altruistic one, but then a craving engulfs you so suddenly, that you don't know what to do. this rousing voice unfurls within you, like an awakening tendril of a garden pea, and says, i want to be held, i want to be loved and i want to be wanted.
i was ready, both mentally and physically, before i met E in the library. you know, it felt a little awkward at first, a little forced and queasy; but we broke the shell within a minute. we shook hands, exchanged greetings, and smiled, for a while. who knew you could read so much from a simple smile? or maybe i had just forgotten what smiles meant anymore. but we ended up at a restaurant on 105 Street and Broadway, pouring liquor, clicking nails, brushing our legs under the table in gentle bumps and smooth glides. it was easy, despite the nervousness, to speak out again, to put myself out there again, to someone who would listen. and over the course of nine months, Diana, we have grown so much together, literally. with someone who has an open heart, an edge of crisp, a magnetism so smooth, you feel nourished when you enter to live a life together. i feel that with E, despite my occasional discomfiture. never in my life have i felt so loved, so cleansed, so beautifully held, and so richly infused with emotions not involving harrowing negativities, as i have in these months. the genuineness of a bound chemistry, seethed in trust, simmered in a spectrum of romantic notes, oozes in me a distinctive calm. like a powerful propeller, un-mechanizing the thrust of routine existence; it helps with a social evolution, even a personal revolution of turning over, of un-becoming and re-becoming a better person.
my pride does remain in the identity of a sex radical, and this point has caused a lot of altercation between the two of us. i am a proponent of sexual exploration, even in the midst of a conventional tie, learning and experiencing ways and cravings of the human body, the human mind. there is love, and there is lust. the two intersect in the caricature of a Venn diagram, but their identities do not meld. and neither does mine -in my role as a practical anarchist, in using my body to test the limits of sexuality. i have no shame, and i do not blush at the ideology of body-selling. i have no judgment reserved for the hoochies and hustlers. through breaking the limits of operational elastics, the normative dicta of institutional morality, i take pride in myself, in, what i consider, extreme liberalism. the cross roads of love and lust is not clear-cut, and the quest to self is highly unwarranted. we need a middle ground, Diana, and we will work towards it. with E, talking is easy; and conversation flows. everything feels so natural, and so delicately together, that i sit and tell myself -i'm glad the hollowness ended.
i hope that sometime in the future you will get to meet E, the person who brings so much contentment in my daily life. that gift of thought, that gift of desire, that gift of being wanted -oh how enriching it is, i cannot explain in words. to think about, in moments of silence, that someone else is thinking about you, is the greatest gift i could ever have.
i hope you have a wonderful valentine's day, Diana. i'll stop by Cheryl's tomorrow night to drop off a few envelopes and tell her you said hello.
all the best, T.
your mind begins to bark, slowly, at sounds of silence. it becomes a juxtaposition of the empty slots of a crossword puzzle; like the blank checkers of a scrabble board, filled and re-filled with alphabets of consolation. time and time again, you develop this strong companionship with your inner loneliness, a voice only you can hear, a voice that only makes sense to you. after you slide downhill, so easily, so smoothly on the course of negativity, it now becomes a new defense against accusation of carelessness, a new weapon, a new instrument of body politics. but you see the positive side of loneliness; the independence that comes with the lack of accountability and the focus on the self. for a while, you learn to live that non-committed life, the altruistic one, but then a craving engulfs you so suddenly, that you don't know what to do. this rousing voice unfurls within you, like an awakening tendril of a garden pea, and says, i want to be held, i want to be loved and i want to be wanted.
i was ready, both mentally and physically, before i met E in the library. you know, it felt a little awkward at first, a little forced and queasy; but we broke the shell within a minute. we shook hands, exchanged greetings, and smiled, for a while. who knew you could read so much from a simple smile? or maybe i had just forgotten what smiles meant anymore. but we ended up at a restaurant on 105 Street and Broadway, pouring liquor, clicking nails, brushing our legs under the table in gentle bumps and smooth glides. it was easy, despite the nervousness, to speak out again, to put myself out there again, to someone who would listen. and over the course of nine months, Diana, we have grown so much together, literally. with someone who has an open heart, an edge of crisp, a magnetism so smooth, you feel nourished when you enter to live a life together. i feel that with E, despite my occasional discomfiture. never in my life have i felt so loved, so cleansed, so beautifully held, and so richly infused with emotions not involving harrowing negativities, as i have in these months. the genuineness of a bound chemistry, seethed in trust, simmered in a spectrum of romantic notes, oozes in me a distinctive calm. like a powerful propeller, un-mechanizing the thrust of routine existence; it helps with a social evolution, even a personal revolution of turning over, of un-becoming and re-becoming a better person.
my pride does remain in the identity of a sex radical, and this point has caused a lot of altercation between the two of us. i am a proponent of sexual exploration, even in the midst of a conventional tie, learning and experiencing ways and cravings of the human body, the human mind. there is love, and there is lust. the two intersect in the caricature of a Venn diagram, but their identities do not meld. and neither does mine -in my role as a practical anarchist, in using my body to test the limits of sexuality. i have no shame, and i do not blush at the ideology of body-selling. i have no judgment reserved for the hoochies and hustlers. through breaking the limits of operational elastics, the normative dicta of institutional morality, i take pride in myself, in, what i consider, extreme liberalism. the cross roads of love and lust is not clear-cut, and the quest to self is highly unwarranted. we need a middle ground, Diana, and we will work towards it. with E, talking is easy; and conversation flows. everything feels so natural, and so delicately together, that i sit and tell myself -i'm glad the hollowness ended.
i hope that sometime in the future you will get to meet E, the person who brings so much contentment in my daily life. that gift of thought, that gift of desire, that gift of being wanted -oh how enriching it is, i cannot explain in words. to think about, in moments of silence, that someone else is thinking about you, is the greatest gift i could ever have.
i hope you have a wonderful valentine's day, Diana. i'll stop by Cheryl's tomorrow night to drop off a few envelopes and tell her you said hello.
all the best, T.
1 comment:
the point where solitude and isolation meet, entwine and then part ways
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