18 - eloisa to abelard

And the threat of what is call'd hell is
little or nothing to me,
And the lure of what is call'd heaven
is little or nothing
    to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged
you onward with
    me, and still urge you, without the
    least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or
utterly quell'd and
    defeated.

    —As I Lay With My Head In Your Lap Camerado, Walt Whitman

~~~

In the midst of the turmoil and tumult in the world, in these trying times where religions attempt to reclaim their glory in the corridors of power, where faithful fundamentalists vilify, maim and murder infidels to their gods, where magnates and moguls on Wall Street bamboozle and fleece a clueless and gullible citizenry, where day to day homeless men and women push shopping carts up and down Main Street, it’s a wonder gentle and loving souls can turn away from the ugliness, cruelty and sorrow, if only for a moment, and sequester themselves in the healing caresses of tenderness and joy.

On the day the Chilean miners were lifted one by one from their collapsed mine, as each of them came up and out of their near death experience, the celebration of life palpable and real, I walked into the Moores Cancer Center for my routine blood draw and treatment. As I have for over three years I followed a nurse into a small room, dropped my drawers and received a 90-day injection of Lupron.

I didn’t see Camille right off. Another nurse had done the deed. As I was about to leave, I heard her call out, “Max, hold on.” She followed me out of the treatment area and into the hallway. “I’m off in fifteen, you up for a drink?”

“I am, “ Gave it some thought. “You know where Rock Bottom is at the entrance to the University?” She knew.

Happy hour had just begun and we found ourselves a booth. Seared Ahi tuna and edamame slaw. Two Bloody Marys.

She was all giddy, excited. Something I hadn’t seen before. At the Infusion Center she’s matter of fact, with a bit of gentle humor. Warm, stern and forthright. She inspires confidence and trust, in the eyes, in the touch. Here now, getting a glimpse at the wild side, yes, kind of wild-eyed, and it’s like I didn’t have time to over think it, to freak. “I’ve got something for you.” She jumped up, disappeared for a few minutes, and came back with a present, wrapped, looked like an oversized photograph.

“Where’d you go?” She had left it in the car, wasn’t sure about giving it to me. She wanted to sit down first, get a read on the moment. “Open it!”

Have always been a tough one in public, in such situations, stoicism comes easily, but with the Lupron coursing through my veins these past few years I am more apt to tear up. Seriously. It has been a pretty fucked up couple of years, and she knows all of it, she understands. When I unwrap the present it’s a framed parchment-paper (Old World) copy of Alexander Pope’s Eloisa to Abelard, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

She had recommended this poem after we first met, said to google it. There was a sensitivity and insight in the recommendation that I hadn’t gotten until now. She knows that impotence is a challenging factor for those with prostate cancer. She knows the story of Heloise and Abelard. She had taken a long view, had empathized. Camille the poet had imagined what it was like, and she had found herself drawing closer to me. When she said I should check out the poem, it was a message, subtext, and I was too mystified, too doubting and insecure to get it. Kept reminding myself of the improbable, imagination overwrought, need to stay grounded, need to stay sane, don’t pine away for the impossible.

No tears when I gazed upon the most profound and glorious gift I have ever received. What testosterone remained in my body got a boost. I flushed red and looked up at her. We locked eyes in that that eternal freeze frame, nothing to say. All feeling, warmth, connection—LOVE. Absolutely nothing to say…

We sipped our drinks and she shared that Martin had moved out. Said she wasn’t sad, said she felt free and easy for the first time in a long time. “I want to feel bad, but I don’t. It’s weird.”

I think I was stunned, shaken a bit. “You’ve been together four years. You sure you’re okay?” She exuded confidence. “It’s like when I was kid and my mom moved us from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. It was an adventure, new, a challenge, the unknown. Mom was all worried that I was too enchanted, too raring to go. That’s how I feel right now.”

Enchanted and enchanting. She so gets to me. We talked about the upcoming elections, the looming changes to come, President Obama under siege. We talked of going to see Notes from Underground at the La Jolla Playhouse. We talked of our mothers, Juliette Durand and Martha Frances Kinney; how seeing them die, changed and transformed us. That was something I had been reluctant to share with others, not even Maya. Kept it under wraps.

After two hours, engaged and secluded in our corner booth, we paid the bill. I hesitated, then went for it, “You interested in some Turkish coffee? I just bought all the paraphernalia. I have the Ibrik, the cardamom, and the elegant cups. I even bought a table, and chairs. Finally. Took me a year.” She chuckled, said she was.

“I’m just up the hill and around the bend off Villa La Jolla. It’s a live-work studio, not for guests or entertaining, but it’s sweet, it works for me. No one has seen it.”

As we were leaving the restaurant she surprised me, gently slipping her hand into mine, and I cannot detail for you the interior fireworks that went off: think electrons, photons and positrons in a subcutaneous meteor shower pulsing up and down. I squeezed her hand hard, touched by her tenderness.

We held hands all the way to my car. When she turned to go get hers, I pulled her back, reached up with both hands and kissed her. “Are you…” and she stopped me from asking, she kissed me back. I watched her walk away, still stunned, exhilarated by what I could not see clearly, what I could not predict, what seemed a dream….

Comments

[A Artan]

Certainly, Max is in the midst of another chapter of his chronicle. Best to Max.