3 - intimacy so profound
… counting time by the closeness of death. The illusion has been broken, the metronomic illusion, the comforting thought that, tick tock, everything happens in its proper time.
—Philip Roth, The Dying Animal
~~~
Prostate cancer? Couldn’t have fathomed the effect of androgen-suppression and the resulting “medical” castration. My reaction to the diminishment of libido and a once vibrant sensual/sexual life, even more unfathomable: an unsettling message, mind to body, that I didn’t care, that it was not disturbing but a necessary end. We no longer loved each other.
We were already struggling when I was diagnosed; that we stayed together for two more years was a pivotal mistake. Thinking back, ending it then would have been so much easier. I’d have been able to lessen the pain by having to buck up against the disease, to fight for my life. I didn’t have it in me to fight for her love.
For so long we were on the rails, dead-alive. We’d say the words “I love you” but they were empty. The attraction and interest, the engagement and the mystery gone. The realization first hit when I left the theater after seeing the film Séraphine (A 20th century cleaning lady enrapt, fearless and a touch mad, painting out of creative compulsion, in reverence of and devotion to the “higher power of art.”).
I was walking home at dusk and came round the bend heading down the hill on Villa La Jolla, and I could see the mountain ridge and the lush green hills, and just above the ridge, the skyline, the azure blue, darkening as the sun disappeared, and it was large, so much to take in, like standing before a fresco, and I paused, feeling connected and intimate, an intimacy so profound I had to keep myself from crying, yet again; tears not of loss but joy.
Joy in realizing that the larger love was still alive. And now, in a kind of exile, without testosterone, separated from my body—from love elemental,… and I’m beginning to remember, to understand what the elemental was with her, the solidifying and making real, the affectionate touches and closeness, and I can’t imagine it, that I might never again stand before another, naked and vulnerable, face to face, toe to toe, trusting, enrapt and aroused, this the animating force, ludicrous to try and express it, only reminders; at a luncheon, coworkers gathering for a photograph, and a young woman, a gentle soul, steps in behind, puts her arm on my shoulder, a comrade, and it’s as if I’ve never been touched so kindly, so innocently, and I wanted to scream, YES!, YES!
And I begin to remember the touch, how it happened with Maya, we were working together, behind the counter, late shift in a quirky downtown bookstore, and we both reached for the same book, and our hands touched, and there was a lingering and a quick glance, a recognition, and a looking away; this the incipient “crystallization” of Stendhal, no better word for it. That this may be it for me, that my compromised physiology will,… well, honestly, I still have hope, that the right woman will come along, and I’m smiling at this, the smile of an idiot; death’s all round and it’s riotous....
It’s like whatever poetic and extra-sensitive feeling I had before cancer, when the "philosophe"/poet in me was under wraps and restrained, I am now even more attuned and sensitive to things that are precious and ephemeral.
I can be sitting in a café, writing, listening to music, staring into the screen, and I’ll look up, see the hubbub, the people, the faces, their lives, begin to feel connected in a more expansive way (and see and feel more than I should), and the waves of emotion come. I have to slap my hands to my face to keep from sobbing.
I think this is ground for something new. I’m seeing too deeply, feeling too much and I am certain it will find expression. It might destroy me.
All of mind; so intensely unsettling and stirring. Don’t know how to manage being awake and lucid, day in and day out.
The other morning I get out on the freeway, and out of the hills I turn east on the 52 and the “red sky at morning” dominates. The cloud formations and colors overwhelm. I’m in tears all the way to work. One can’t function thus and maintain composure in the daily round.
This is my life; this is what’s real. Pure spirit I am. Can’t get over how amazing it feels.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at 6:08AM 
Reader Comments (10)
Well crafted, vividly described. Keep 'em coming! Go MKB.
Thanks for the entry. Just beautiful!
Nice. Ouch. Nothing like taking some draino and a hank of steel wool to the soul. Keep cleaning. Please.
My, my, my...
Raw honesty. The best kind of writing -- stripped away of everything superficial, just baring the soul as it is. Love it!
I am captivated by the pureness of your voice and your willingness to express emotions that we (most people) hide from. living on borrowed time ...
No, not borrowed time--time bought and paid for in full.
You touch my heart..........
So honest. So beautiful.
Raw, poetic, and brutal. Looking forward to the next installment