September 22, 2005

10:56 p.m.

The Play within the Play

While cleaning up this morning for Dar's arrival, I found a box with about seven old hand-written journals, starting in the Spring of 1983 and going about 15 years. I did show some restraint, but read a portion from about November of '97 (a few months after my ex-boyfriend killed himself) through the following Spring. It was when I went north to work in the theatre, and then got the job there that lasted another year. I fell in love with a beautiful, strange young man named Elliott, and it was perfect for a brief time until he messed around with another actress (who also had a boyfriend), thinking it was his experimental "last fling" before really settling down and being monogamous, a new idea. He actually told me about this, because what he really wanted to illustrate was that he wanted to now get serious about me. However, things had gone far enough with us (high romance! professions of love! sighs and gazes!) that it was utterly inappropriate and stupid. I was crushed, he was severely remorseful, and though we patched it and stayed together maybe another year, the honeymoon was over and it never came back. That was early 1998. I was in love. It was wasted.

I do remember, though, in the period when things were finally waning but not finished yet, having the greatest gut-busting laugh session I probably ever had, with him. I can't even explain what we were doing, just being silly one night; but we were cracking each other up so bad we practically passed out.

It's odd that I remember that. It's odd that it even happened.

What finally came to pass, which had nothing to do with him messing around with Lunatic Actress, was that he drove me crazy. He was very, very eccentric, and sometimes couldn't explain himself, and that would make me nuts because then we couldn't have a conversation. Eventually there were a hundred annoyances. Eventually he was too close. We did a show and he stayed with me at the house where I was staying, and after four and a half weeks the show closed and I really was ready for him to go home, but each day came and he didn't leave. He couldn't explain why. It was five more days before he went home to Providence and by then I wanted to scream.

We broke up soon afterwards.

I felt, later, that I'd been cheated out of a great love. I loved him; I loved him deeply, I fell. And he did something really stupid and it seemed ruined. And I let him apologize and talk me into continuing, and I wondered sometimes if I shouldn't have.

But, reading my thoughts of 1997, which was, hello, eight years ago, I was asking many of the same questions I ask now, about relationships, how to choose wisely, how to act rightly, how to deal with being alone. It was a surprise to find that, in spite of all the experience I've had, these things aren't resolved and these questions aren't answered.

Mostly, though, I was stunned to hear myself talk about being in love. I've forgotten. There is nothing that makes one feel so sober as forgetting what love feels like. Here is what I wrote on Monday, December 8, 1997:

"Phyllis is home for a couple of days. She had a stroke last week -- a mild one. Coming back pretty well... I have to call Elliott. Elliott, Elliott, Elliott... there is no end to thinking about him. I get insecure over the women in his orbit... I want to hang a sign on him. I tell myself to be patient -- let the river flow, you can't push it. It will become what it is supposed to become, God willing...

"I was glad I could be there for him in some way during the wallet incident. I told him I was a guardian for his feelings. Why do I feel this way...? BECAUSE, I suppose, I want to make a difference, I want to be part of his epiphany. I knew that the moment he uttered the word. Why such a longing? What does it mean, that I can dive into his face, his eyes, his form, even get beyond the physical desire, be inundated with him, see the world flower just by being with him? How different from the way I felt a few weeks ago. I lost my train of thought a little in that last paragraph; I got distracted by a conversation. I was trying to describe what happens... last night I could have eaten him up. Taken him into my body through the skin, absorbed him and cradled him. What is it that is so precious about him? Is it that he came through such tough years? Is it that he's reconsidering his relationship choices and I'm flattered that I might be the recipient of something he's never given to anyone else? Is it the welling up of compassion I feel when he suddenly closes his eyes and tries to keep some overwhelming emotion from leaking out?

Or is it a continuum of discovery, each day something new? A piece of history, a touch, a truth; all go to my heart. I want to edify him, appreciate him, give him a haven in my breast. Truly one of the most generous-hearted people I've met."

And:

"I wish I could draw him. I would do partial sketches like da Vinci. I'd do his hands & forearms, his face, an eye; the shape of his head, his funny teeth when he smiles; his cheekbone & chin. May I be ever grateful for this day."

Oh, where have those years gone? The time when I could feel these things? When I'd come through trouble and trauma and could still love like this, articulate love like this?

Is there anything else as good, still, to be had?