... Onward to my rock, because I remembered, that was once the place I sought when life threw curve balls at me. Decades due, this visit. I clambered my way down the slippery thin ribbon of dirt and mossy rocks leading to the famous air crash site then cut upwards, to an even thinner, slipperier one (how the hell did I remember the route?) panting and doing the usual cursing. I was almost there, the manual exertion very much needed... the shift from the mind to the body, to movement and the possibility of physical danger. (Sheer drop hundreds of metres below and the prospect of finally coming to rest on someone's roof- only you're no Santa, and you're gonna need more than milk and cookies?)
It was then - when I neared the rock from below - that I spotted the new wide path up top. Seemed the world had discovered my secret space. And bloody littered it!
A young couple sat on the rock- I felt a mix of indignation and... regret? I'd left it alone far too long to now claim it for myself. Others- countless others had succeeded me on its surface. (We do this don't we? Return full of nostalgia to a place left behind only to find it not frozen as it sits in our memory but changed by time -and mostly not for the better - much as we have been- else why would nostalgia exist?)
I watched them staring out at the vista below and maybe dreaming their own dreams and thinking their own thoughts... and doing their own loving on it? No! (The young guy had leaned in and kissed her... And, there I went again, mind ever hovering in the new state of disquiet, aka frustration, lust and a seething, frothing, anger.)
... I remained unsettled for many days after meeting Marie and Daniel. Suddenly everything in my world- the world I'd carefully crafted around me this past year and some- it was no longer as shiny? Resentments I'd ignored or shoved to the shadows came to full light- I was forced to confront them, line up all the lists of purported slights and evaluate them... As I was also compelled to cast a more critical eye over this entire life of mine. I had something 'concrete' to compare it to now- not films, not books nor songs, not fantasies and imaginings and shared words- no, I held LOVE in my head. But did I hold it in my heart?
Did I love? Was I loved? My entire world had for almost sixteen months now contracted to this premise: I loved and was loved back. (Yes, I pretty much 'fell' into it after our first exchange- the online version of 'love at first sight' perhaps.) Most of me stood by 'us'; the man and the woman who connected in an unconventional way and discovered something otherworldly, something uncommon. But what to do with all I'd learned that fateful 24 hours? That too was in my brain now. I couldn't very well rewind time and place me in a B&B run by a homely and appropriately un-sexy retiree. (Who incidentally played lawn bowls and invited me to the next Barefoot Bowls night?)
Love in the digital age, that's what I honed in on, staring out at the landscape spread out below. Distance irrelevant, technology affording an almost-there feel- senses therefore adequately accommodated. In fact, love in this digital age suddenly revealed its unique, unprecedented bonus to me; since when this love died it could easily and without physical messes or awkwardness (mid of the night knocks on doors, stalking and pleading, running into them in the supermarket ye ye) be disposed of, via a few typed words. "... Sorry dear. Bye."
Poof! (This time for real.) Social Media blocked, email blocked, phone number blocked... all other digital dual footprints erased/ignored. "Who was that person?" Voila! (Don't pardon my French.)
There's a vulnerability to this, I understood, sitting on the finally vacant rock: There are no physical memories to evoke and/or cling to- memories aroused by senses: touch, taste, smell, feel, hear... even see (not simply view pics of carefully chosen moments). Words bind us but these same words can sever us as surely as they once bound us. In fact, they can disappear us altogether. Because we only retain virtual sensations, not physical petitions.
NO plethora of shared emoticons can arouse any of the above. Nuh uh. Yet a single touch - not even that - a simply being in close proximity and making eye contact for a brief moment- it could sustain one for a lifetime. One could live comfortably within that tangible memory and say "I loved and I was loved."
Hmmm. Our twin reluctance to do just this, meet in the real world and 'consummate' our presence in the other by sharing space/time- what did it say about us? Or was this then the new definition (or rather the evolution) of the concept of love? Were we two holding on to an anachronism? Were we stuck- back where it was far preferable and acceptable to regret in hindsight and suffer in silence than to act on impulse/grab at the moment? (I've been a coward many a time- I know the taste of regret well.) That was a staple back then, regret.
... A letter arrived about ten days later. A real, written-by-hand letter. Pale, creamy-yellow envelope addressed to me, and on the back, an oval picture of the B&B I'd stayed at stamped in grey tones; the same pale yellow single sheet of paper inside. I didn't tear into it like I do with bills. I carried it upstairs to my room and I sat and I stared at it for some time. The irony not lost on me: I'd received the hand-written letter I'd yearned for- only not quite penned by the desired hand. (Part of the 'difficulty giving' contentious thingy. Details below:)
If my love and I have one contention, it is this: His inability to give of himself easily. (I had the grand notion early on that I would be the one- you know, to break through, to break in and bring out the beauty and the richness and the wordiness of the self I supposed in hiding. What arrogance, right?) Then I went through a period of "Who the fuck am I to assume such a status as achievable let alone deserved?" Followed by, "Who the fuck he think HE is? Vacuuming up MY being but giving little back? Fuck that!" QUICKLY followed by, "Elise, you are riding the pendulum rather too vigorously. Ease up, woman. Life is for fun." (The last bit tacked on now obviously but I think that's what I meant.)
... Ending in the now... "I'm going to sit across from you one day and tell you exactly why you don't give." (I'm back at the arrogance cycle- tenure brings this around apparently? And what's even worse? Look at what's next in the cycle... this too exacerbated by the same tenure!)
... Prior to the letter's arrival, I'd gone through all the various stages of grief. Maybe not in the right order, but I'd surely dealt with the lot of them. And, I'd come to yet another conclusion: Maybe I needed to live out my retirement - or what will be left of it - not in my Combi van, but running a small B&B? Made perfect sense, I could SEE me: Every morning lovers enjoying breakfast, - screw the impact on my veganism, I will cook them sausages and those eggs and that bacon - a constant stream of love... surely this would infuse me with love and therefore sustain love in me?
Slight and only hitch: I am alone in this retirement. There's no Daniel, therefore I cannot be Marie- the Combi van and my veganism uncompromised it is to be, then? Oh. Oh? Ohhhhhhh!
I lit a smoke. (One of the special ones- hey, I had no idea what was coming at me, but my gut said something was gonna impact it so the weed was like a preventative for any possibly "ouch" moment- therefore allowed! The cure by comparison? Ha ha ha! I got myself the equivalent of a bunker 'seed bank'. Combi a-la Cheech and Chong...)
I took a first drag. I read:
YOU ARE READING
BED & BREAKFAST
Non-FictionWhen you don't know what you don't know- you just don't know! Take love. You know you love and you know yours is the best possible love because it IS what you know. But when you meet LOVE love... Suddenly you know what you didn't know before. And in...
