BottomDrawer

I have always pitied myself for not being able to engage in detached, casual sex life, the cold-blooded fornication where pleasure is derived solely from physical sensation and mechanics of intercourse.

I almost envied those who could indulge in random sex and receive some sort of thrill from it that gives them a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. For me there has to be emotional engagement, the feeling of love and tenderness, the yearning for his scent, his skin on mine, his desire for me, me and no one else, me as a whole: body and soul. There have to be feelings to release lust, but then the feelings go so deep that they touch the nerve. And it is bound to become damn painful. I guess though that is the whole, yet very subtle, difference between lovemaking and having sex. I'd much rather - only - love and make love, leaving simulated reproduction to emtionally neutred human rabbits.

And another quote from "Lady Chatterley's Lover": "I believe especially in being warm-hearted in love, in fucking with a warm heart. I believe if men could fuck with warm hearts, and the women take it warm-heartedly, everything would come all right. It's all this cold-hearted fucking that is death and idiocy."
I couldn't agree more.

I have been wondering today how much of my own feelings I superimpose on others thereby mistaking my feelings for theirs.

Such is the art of self-delusion.

I have been detached from reality for long enough, oscillating between fantasy and self-delusion, melancholy and relentless revisions of what had been, what had not. Neither dead nor alive, I was suspended in the neverland of self. I was unwilling to break out, move forward, shake off the insignificant coating of self-doubt and self-pity. I was wallowing in it - the reheated soup of misery and inertia.

And today, all of a sudden, the bubble has burst revealing a glorious world of normality. I was happy driving to work, thinking of nothing but allowing the music to absorb me and transport me somewhere higher, somewhere cleaner and better. I wasn't waiting for anything, for anyone, I was relishing the very moment of driving, listening, being.

The day at work engulfed me in a flurry of planning, creating, activity, genuine interest in my students' needs, news, smiles, giggles. I was excited, a bit crazy, a bit wacky, funny a lot, glowing, laughing,listening, speaking... it all was making sense, it was all worthwhile: me being there, being alive. My head was full of ideas, promises.

For the first time in many a surreal week I was looking forward to getting home early, making a nice dinner (including coleslaw salad in the process of producing which I grated in half my thumb), watching TV, nesting peacefully on the sofa without a care in the world, without looking over my shoulder, without dread.

The pigeon post has arrived - light, happy, humorous. It made me smirk. It was my cherry on top. I swallowed it whole, with the stone.

Sometimes, there is so very little to make one happy - just the random liberation from obsessions.

Lady and Her Knight
I thought I'd lost the man I love; I thought he had lost me. I wallowed in despair. I cursed his name, tore open my soul's arteries, sought humiliation so that my feelings could freeze into numbness.

But love cannot be lost.

He is here in my heart. Always.

I have his love, his pain of inaction, his yearning. I know his wounds. I dwell in his soul. His hand caresses my heart. It will, one day, touch my skin and my lips will merge into his like two perfectly fitted pieces of the puzzle. He will whisper, "I love you. I always have."

I am his lady, he is my knight.

Embroidery
So here I am, doing my elaborate embroidery and listening out for his steps as they echo up the spiral staircase leading to my chamber. Or maybe it is only the wind?

But the steps will become real and I will dive into his love to be engulfed by it, soothed by it and claimed by it. My breath is becoming shallower and more urgent with every minute. I will have to undo the knotted thread of my embroidery. Everything is falling out of my hands as I wait. And listen.

Numbness
It is a place where I don't know what to say. My conviction has abandoned me, eloped with my faith. I am frightened that this place will remain empty. Cold. It will fall into disuse, become neglected, covered in cobwebs and dust, musky mould will climb the chilled in darkness walls, vermin will crawl out of rotting floorboards, there will be nothing but decay.

I shan't let it happen! I will keep the fire burning in the hearth; I will bring in fresh flowers; I will change the bedsheets every night and scent them with lavender. I will sing to fill the place with the melody of life. I will keep it alive for him.

My strength is chipping away. I am weak. Scared. Doubtful. How will find the strength? Where?

Your Arms around me
When I feel your arms around me, I will shudder, I will press my whole body into you, I will put my head on your chest and hear your heartbeat. Your arms will squeeze the breath out of me and you will have to give me the kiss of life. Our lips will lock, your tongue will meet mine and they will be frantic and naughty, dancing with each other.

That kiss will be my rescue, I will need it to stay alive. I will need it to keep on staying alive.
By doctor's orders.

Wonderment
I know him inside out - his thoughts, his soul, his flaws and his beauty. I have it mapped in my head with the precision worthy of Captain Cook. And yet he is a mystery to me: the battlefields of his past, the bloodthirst of a hunter, the nightmares of his guilt.

I love every detail of him, every blank space.

Arrested
Sometimes words get arrested in your throat and you choke on "hello!" that cannot be uttered, you try to swallow back "Love you...". That hand's fingers tighten their grip on your throat and make your eyes water.

So it is with writing. You can retch on your own writing. Sometimes, like today.

Tomorrow is another day.

Small failures
Sometimes my intensity fails me. Sometimes my sincerity fails me. Sometimes I just want nothing more than that a dark corner where to curl up for the day and shut my eyes to the dazzling sun.

That mostly happens when I realise it is only with my eyes shut that I can see the hopelessness of this situation. With my eyes shut I can see in the dark.

Coincidences
Coincidences only happen when there is a path between our hearts - it may be well-trodden and open, or overgrown with weeds and shadowy, but it is there for him and I to bump into each other every time we step outside our own selves.

I find him there each time and he finds me, even when we aren't looking for one another - there is no one else to find, no one in that big, gloomy forest of people. Only us.

Coincidences only happen when two people love each other and the whole world comes to a standstill and watches.

Fear
I fear not. I shall not lose him.

It sounds like such an empty cliche and yet, when losing him came so near that my heart recoiled as it stared into the vacuum that had opened behind him,I could taste the despair on my tongue, I could feel it under my fingertips, I could do nothing but stare. And bleed inside.

And never lose hope though I believed I had lost him.

But now I don't fear for I know I shan't lose him - for I know he won't ever lose me. We have grown into each other's hearts. We can't be taken out without those hearts being torn to pieces. Our togetherness ensures those hearts keep beating, measuring our lives' aligned rhythm.

Contradictions
Did I say there was no fear? Would I write about there not being something if it weren't? Would I be describing sunshine outside my window on a rainy day?

The fear is there and I can stand paralysed with it, cringing inside, crying out but muted like in that nightmare where I scream in terror only to find out that sound got trapped in my lungs and is not - cannot - come out to save me.

Can I let that fear wash over me, can I withstand its weight, can I hold my breath until it ebbs to allow me to draw in air? Can I lie down on that wave of fear, flat on my back, relaxed, without a muscle twitch, and let it carry me like a drifting piece of wood? Until the wave subsides, until the fear dies out... until the sunshine dispels the rainy day, lulls the ocean torn by a storm back into its cradle.

I can. I must. So that the fear dies out - that un-bridled wave in a tranquil, peaceful, endless stretch of the ocean of our love.

Starvation
Can you starve love? Can you make it lose appetite - appetite for you? Can you force her into a hunger strike, make her lose weight, lose faith, lose the will to live?

It has been said to me - that my love would be - could be - starved to death. The means of starvation: distance, indifference, silence, longer and longer periods of silence until - presumably - there would be nothing to be said. And even when words would be spoken, they would start losing meaning, they'd be rushed and lustre, limited,repetitive and off-handed, words that would expect no responses, seek no responses, welcome no responses. There would be the air of impatience, blurred focus, distraction. There would be no arms reaching out to me, no lips seeking my lips, no desire. That's how, I feel, love is to be starved to death.

Nourishment. Love needs nourishment of warmth, touch, passion and intimacy, kisses, caring and insatiable curiosity for each other, yearning to be fulfilled without delay, hearts to be caressed with smiles and kisses, eyes to twinkle with joy of laughter, togetherness, meeting of minds, meeting of souls, meeting of bodies. Love needs its fill.

I sit here, thinking of my love, the one that has been denied me for so long, the one that took me by surprise and swept me off my feet, the love that is in danger of being starved to death. I want to protect it. I did protect it when life dealt it a near lethal blow. It is too beautiful to die, too unique, too once-in-a-lifetime irrepetible. But can I, on my own, preserve it?

As long as I believe in it, know that it is here in my heart and there in his, I will keep on nourishing it, protecting it, but what if... My fingers refuse to type the end of that sentence, as my mind refuses to compose it, but at the back of my mind, where no controlled thought enters, there is that wide-eyed, frozen fear. It wrenches my heart, it is killing me slowly with the soft, silent weapon of anxiety.

I'm hiding upstairs, keeping busy shuffling papers, clearing and amassing them to throw them away. I shrink in and listen each time I hear his steps on the staircase. You will be ok, I tell myself. It will be fine. Just keep yourself occupied. Don't think. Crawl under the bed and pretend you are not here. Don't come out. Not yet. Not until you're sure the sun is out too.

Weakness of a small heart
It must be my heart - too small, too frail - that makes me lose hope. It muffles my imagination. It weakens my resolve.

Perhaps I've been waiting for too long, allowing doubt and false gods to sneak in.

I read his words. I feel his words. I know he loves me. I know his mind is in more turmoil than mine. I know that despite his wounds he is coming back to me. He is staring at the blank, white ceiling, and dreaming. He will bring that dream back to me and immerse me in it, bathe me in it, wash away my pain, my sins, my tears. Perhaps tonight... Perhaps he will send me a letter first, by pigeon post, like he used to. And then my heart will grow big again.

Pigeon post
The pigeon post has arrived filled with warmth, understanding and love. How could I have ever doubted him? Do I deserve him?

I will recover from this, as will he. A few tablets, lots of rest in bed, discarding negative thoughts and bad memories, waking up from nightmares before they begin, eating properly and, most of all, relishing his love - that's my therapy. His hasn't killed his love for me, and that is all that matters.

I will write to him and then I will have a long, peaceful nap, dreaming.

Crossing paths
Isn't it odd and unfair of the cruel Fate that as he begins to make his way back to me, heals for the sake of us and is almost within a reach, only a week away, so close that I can feel the breeze of his breath on my lips, I crash like a Chinese vase knocked off a table by a reckless hand?

In pieces and yet I must pull myself together and be whole for him when puts his arms around me. I must not crumble. I will not crumble. I will draw strength from him and he from me.

The Other He – Other Me
He rises from his righteous sleep, with a smug grin. The staircase groans under his footsteps. My heart groans. I wish he slept.

A peck into the space surrounding my cheek. It feels like a slap. It’s only air, I tell myself. He peers into the pot and his grin widens – hearty stew is being cooked for the man of the house! I wish I could muster the courage to pour it all into the sink, bits of that hearty beef, the carrots and onions – all of it. But I stir instead. I tell myself it isn’t for him. It is to take my mind off my fear of losing the man I love, of staying with the Other Him for the rest of my life.

How has my day been? Fine. He asks no more, not what the content of my day was, not of what may have happened. He needs not know. I need not tell.
Has he slept all right? He has.

I watch as his jaws chew slowly. The sound of it, grinding the fibres of meat, grinds my brains to fine powder. I cringe at the way he pushes the mushrooms to be rim of his plate, at the way he shuffles the rice and floods it with sauce, at the way his fork travels to his mouth, at the way he starts grinding again and his eyes roll with the pleasure he derives from eating.

The smug satisfaction... when he eats, when he achieves sex, when he bursts into those throaty, spasmodic roars of laughter at things, people and jokes I recoil at. He has nothing to say to me. I have nothing to say to him. How long has it been?

How many years have I gone on hoping for the best, reconciling with the reality of what had come my way, what I had had no strength or motivation to resist? How long has it been that we had not been speaking the same language, or at all? How long since we had made love, not just had sex, the F11 function on the keyboard of our marital union? How long had I been convincing myself that he was a good, decent man, who loved me, needed me, been with me through thick and thin? How long since I had stopped believing in what I was saying to myself? How long since guilt had become the only feeling between us? How many years have I been dead? When was it when he said the only way out for him from our marriage was through killing himself? A few years ago. Those few years ago I started growing numb with resignation. And now, the indifference... I don’t care what he does – I am already dead.

Would I be different now had I accepted ten years ago that he was a mistake, not quite the man I loved without a doubt, without hesitation, not quite the man I would ever come to love? Would I be different now had I torn myself away from him the moment I saw there was no understanding, no connection, no passion between us, only mild attachment, mild affection, mild nothingness... Would I resent him less now? Would I be able to stand his presence and not wish for him to be gone? Would his habits, his laughter, his clothes, his scent, his voice, his silence, his smugness, his self-assurance, his self-righteousness, his self-image, his expectations of me not irritate me as they do now – to distraction, to desperation, to tears...

And yet, he is a good, decent man, caring, responsible, solid... I just don’t belong with him. I am dying day after day, suffocating in the grip of his reliance on the sanctity of our “union”. Is it evil of me to want to escape, to save myself, to save my sanity, to love someone else, to claim love and life, to seek happiness? Is it fair on me to prostrate myself for the rest of my life on the altar of my stupidity, for the sin of giving in to the convenience. I only didn’t want to hurt his feelings – I ended up almost destroying my soul. Is it evil of me to run away now?

Why do I feel no more remorse, only plain conviction of what I know I have to do? Is it because I have found love now and know how it tastes, how it elevates me and makes me alive again? Is it because I have a reason to live? Or is it because I am bad and selfish? The other Me.

Open Book
It seems my focus has shifted. No wonder though as I am facing two weeks of "togetherness".

Two weeks of togetherness are advancing fast: sharing the same, confining space, not a particle of air all to myself, not a square inch of privacy. I am shrinking inside, fast.

When we have a time-share on the house, I can cope. I can live a parallel life in it; he can live his. But days and days of togetherness?... Will they break me, make me or will I just survive, lick my wounds afterwards, bring myself to myself later with some chicken soup and internal escapism?

For a minute there, what seems like an eternity ago, I thought those two weeks wouldn't matter as they would be my time for talking the truth gently to him, making plans, preparing to go away and at last start living my life. Alas...

He could ask. I am an open book. I shan't lie. I don't know how. Lies destroy me, unhinge me, belittle my soul, turn me into a self-hating coward. So I don't do them. It's all out there: if he looked on my laptop he would find all the truths there are to tell - I don't hide them, don't delete them, don't fear him finding them. The truth is meant to see the daylight, but does He want to see the Truth? If he asked, I would tell him. But he doesn't.

How much I crave to shed the layers of silence, remove the shackles of lies from my lips, my wrists and my ankles, to be free, to be happy, to be honest at last. But instead, I am facing two weeks of togetherness in which to hold myself back, pretend, smile false smiles, go to bed, find him there... cry in the pillow without tears, without a sound.

Idol
How much did I used to idolise my father! Even now I won't accept the word "idolised" in reference to my father - after all, there is no idolising someone who was ideal. I was simply acknowledging his attributes.

A man of principles, a man of action, a man of service to the community, a man of integrity, a man of utalitarian idealism, a man who never lied, a man who enjoyed life. Above all, a man who loved me.

Is it true that subconsciously we search through our lives high and low to find and replicate our paternal idols in our lovers? In that case, God help me and the man I love for he will have mountains to climb. But hell, I will love him beyond the line of duty, beyond eternity, beyond belief. I will idolise him.

Goodbye Dad
It feels odd to start a diary with an ending but dealing with endings, closures and capitulations has been my motto over the past two years – since I came back to my cradle, to my own beginning.
It seems those I once left behind had only waited for my return with the sole intention of giving me the taste of my own medicine. Bitter taste.

My old friends may remember my Mum lost her short but violent battle with cancer a year ago. It was harder to watch her deteriorate, shrink slowly but surely without hope, wince in pain, fade into the ultimate surrender than to accept her final defeat. Death came as a relief, and she was beautiful again when at last she was at peace. I was happy for her.

A year later, nearly to the day, out of the blue, my Dad decides to up and go.

Now, that wasn’t quite in the cards, apart from the single one he hid away up his sleeve. His German auntie, who is about a hundred years old but commands energy levels of a goat in its prime (as is the case with everyone on that side on my Dad’s family), arrived dutifully and waving her walking stick announced my Dad had died of a broken heart. The fact that my Dad had a heart of an ox was of no consequence. He had missed his wife painfully (“people don’t love like that any more”, were my Grand-Auntie’s words) and would go to hell to be with her. I’m sure though that wasn’t necessary. Being a walking-breathing Saint my Mum had had a reception party waiting for him up in Heaven with St Peter doubling as a doorman.
I dug up a few over half-a-century old pictures of her from the days when my Dad fell in love with her. Just trying to understand why he would leave me and my brother so readily – I think I do understand. This is how – I imagine - my Dad always saw his wife.

Can’t blame him. He was always a free spirit, unpredictable, fighting for causes, with his finger in many pies. I found plenty of ancient photographs, and I chose a few most representative of my Dad’s greatest passions: his passion for football, his passion for aeroplanes and his passion for skiing.

And finally there was his passion for the community, his people and our little town. Our family had lived there for generations, since the XIV century when early German settlers started arriving and cleared vast depths of Polish forest to build a town. Places changed hands, the wheel of history rolled several times over leaving no stones unturned, but the little town survived and its people stood up for themselves. My Dad was that town’s soul – he lived for it. And they all came to thank him at his funeral – the town’s Voluntary Fire Brigade (of whose my great Grandfather was a founding member) arrived in full force and sirens went on wailing for a good five minutes. The town’s very own brass band walked my Dad to his final resting place, playing so soulfully that my heart went into a spasm of grief. The Town Council’s delegation was there to pay their respects and I saw faces from the past so remote that I thought them ghosts. Maybe they were. I remember the past through gauze of time.

Childhood memories are always part reality, part fantastical fantasy. I was glad to see those dusty old characters like fairies floating in the fog over the moors, like reflections in a rusty mirror. It’s been so long. My Dad couldn’t live without them for more than a few nostalgia-filled years, he ran back to them. He was the lord of his world. But I stayed in a different, alien world and only came back to see the old one had not changed but for one thing – my Dad is no longer here.

In the name of love
From the snippets of information offered by neighbours and family, I have glued together my father’s last day. Even though the anniversary of my mother’s death loomed over that day like a huge black raven, my father acted with surprising calm. Surprising? Rather premeditated.

He went to visit the “apple strudel wifey” in the morning and spoke freely, lovingly about “his lady” – my mother. The wifey told me yesterday he would not refer to mother by her name, only as “my lady”. He would speak of her constantly, sometimes with tears in his eyes. He then left, looking nostalgic but strong and smiling. There was a spring in his step.

In the afternoon he went to his friend’s birthday party. Again, it was strange considering the… circumstances. But he knew something no one else could guess.

I spoke to him in the evening on the telephone. I must’ve been the last person to speak to him. He sounded at peace, as if he was smiling, as if it was only a matter of time before…

I asked if it was okay to book his flight to stay with me for Christmas. It was the umpteenth time that I had asked that question. And as on previous occasions he had very softly, but in tone bearing no dissent, told me to “give him more time, now only just a little bit more time.” I told him next time we would be speaking it’d be to make a firm time for his travel. He agreed to that. There was lightness to his voice.

That night he died. Suddenly. Unexpectedly to us all. He was the only one who had expected it. He went at last to be with “his lady”. He knew it was going to happen that night. He was looking forward to it. He had missed her way too much to be without her another day.

How far would you go to be with the person you love? How far would you go to follow the person you love if you lost them? Where does the line between love and fleeting affection lie? Does it lie in the inability to live without them?