One has a moment in life when the horizon comes into view. Unable to hold onto old ideas we strive to recreate ourselves as perfectly as we can. I am in Malibu looking over the sea and I am not driven to look at porn nor throw a warm wank blanket over the day. My American spell check doesn’t recognize the word wank-but you all know what that means don’t you?
I am listening to Joni, her words either fill me full of hope or throw me into a terrible funk-thankfully I am happy today. There is a cool sea breeze to remind me that the ocean is just there, at the bottom of the hill. Sadly in the Gulf of Mexico avarice is ruining the water. More oil, more goddamned oil from which we refuse to wean ourselves. Sarah Palin has kept remarkably quiet about this environmental disaster that she said could never happen.
I have spent the past few nights with my 18th Century Man and it has been such a delight. Of course it’s hard not to compare what one had with what one has. The most significant difference is the proximity. I will never have a long distance love affair ever again. I am simply too fragile.
I will never again make the mistake of falling in love with a man who is not available. I am not the sort of person who can keep a secret, especially when it is steeped in shame. I have, in the words of my deceased Grandmother, lived a shameless life. She used the word pejoratively but actually she was right, I have been shameless and I am proud to be so. My proximity to the toxic shame of others is just as bad as experiencing ones own.
Even though I was born into shame I was a shameless boy. When I was a shameless boy they tried to tell me that I should be ashamed of who I was, the colour of my skin, my flamboyance, my birth, my teeth, my love, my understandable mistakes.
I hoped that I might meet a beautiful man and I have. It is wonderful to just experience the spontaneity, to drive to a coffee chop in Venice, to reach out and run your fingers through flaxen hair.
Last night we cooked dinner at his house in Venice with his super cool room-mate who incidentally knows Anna and Gwen and my lesbian art contingent. The night before we ate dinner at Axe. Roasted beats, huge chunks of halibut.
Of course I miss talking to that boy in NYC (of course I do) but I am enjoying the simplicity of what I have found here-the eagerness, the delicacy of his touch. The difference between men. I have no idea what I miss about what was. I think it was the rabid intensity that kept me diving into those choppy waters expecting not to be battered by the huge waves.
The moment I have any sort of expectation I am doomed. I feel battered from the last few months. Battered by doomed love. Battered by not knowing. Battered by resentment.
So, here I am-just as I have always been-on my own but with my eyes wide open. I have to read the treatment Ms Turner has sent me. I have to make my peace with writing once again. Writing and reading. I have to make peace with myself.
I am fast approaching a huge birthday and don’t really know how to celebrate it. I dare not ask fifty people for dinner but that’s what I think I would like to do.
On another note I have two sponsees in the 12-step programme I belong to and they give me such joy. Joy. Spent Sunday with one of them trying on hats and celebrating his birthday. The other keeps in touch daily reminding me why I am sober. It is time to keep the door open on recovery and all that means.