https://www.flickr.com/photos/185141238@N07/?
The video art in above link and the below story are two separate pieces but if you watch and read them both, hopefully you will see the link. It seems in so many ways really uncool to write about love. Unacceptable sometimes to write about sex (especially as a woman) but still, at least has an edge to it that renders it acceptable in the world of contemporary art and culture.
The video art is essentially erotica, albeit in a macabre almost grotesque fashion but it speaks of love, of passion, desire, yearning and uncontrollable, beyond reason need for intimacy with another. Not only have most of us felt that at some point in our lives but actually, I believe that underpins much of how we move through life. Wars have been fought in the name of love, both in the micro and macro.
The story below tells of a love affair that spans decades and that although never quite manages to take a hold in the way we are socialised to believe love should be made real, IE a formal relationship, was probably more real in terms of pure instinct than most marriages ever are... That feeling many of us have had at points that we should let something, a situation go because it seems unhealthy but...we can't...yes, sometimes there is a joy in repetition that goes beyond reason and just has to be followed...
THE LAST KISS
I knew the very first moment I felt your presence, before we spoke even, that there was a chemistry between us, deeper and more primal than I had felt for quite some time (like, millennia perhaps) and one that meant something beyond the usual flutter other mere mortals had been capable of inspiring. I knew it and so did you, but yet here we are, all these years later, separated by 1000’s of miles, only managing to bridge that gap sporadically under the guise of just good friends and still looking the same in each other’s eyes. Unaware almost of the lines on each other’s faces, the weight we have put on or the greys. Because ultimately, what we both felt in that moment, that first moment we met, was so beyond reason, it transcended the standard, bawdy physical, that often underpins lust at first sight, or in our case scent...that which we have struggled to hold back from engaging in for so long... so long I almost forget... but not quite.
Old age took a hold stronger than our respective sham marriages and family lives did in that respect. For me, I rarely think about sex nowadays, in my 30’s and 40’s, 50’s even it was an uncontrollable burden, wild and unpredictable. But these last few decades have seen that feral beast within tamed somewhat. Yet still, when I think of you...of us...the intensity I feel runs deeper than any blue... it goes to greens and reds and causes that painfully familiar, almost synesthesiac flutter beyond beneath...burns hotter than any menopausal flush could ever dare. So, I choose not to, anymore.
I will remember many wonderful moments and anecdotes about this us we have created over the years always, but one that stands out most clearly is the taste of your lips in the mid-summer rain, as we kissed on what was to be our last time for many years. We have had so many last kisses and goodbyes over the years, that I have lost count, but that one and the urgency of the lovemaking that followed, in hindsight, has always struck me as being tinged with an understanding within us both that our liaison (that which both of us were too afraid to call a relationship) was coming to an end, of sorts…that what we were doing was saying goodbye. You had been angry with me, for not paying due attention in the rocky and slippery terrain upon which we walked. In so many ways, too many perhaps, we were polar opposites. I (too reckless and free for you) barefoot and courting disaster, you (too measured and pragmatic for me) weighing up the probability of an accident resulting in a trip to the local hospital. The final and most dramatic waterfall on this walk in the Welsh countryside was also the most inaccessible and ignoring your tuts and suggestions that I put my shoes back on and to stick to the path, I slipped beneath the sheath of her cascades.
I remember feeling exhilarated by the power and force of the water upon my face and body and wishing you would, just this once throw caution to the wind and join me…make love to me behind the watery curtain that separated us. Instead, you just stood there, obscured by the torrents so I couldn’t make out your expression. But those torrents did little to dilute the temperature between our souls…I couldn’t see you but I felt your torment, your ardour, your fear and I eventually emerged, wet and smiling and you…consumed with a myriad of feelings kissed me unusually deep and full and hard…Robert Doisneau was in the wrong time and wrong place because if ever there was a fairy tale, Hollywood kiss to end all kisses, that was it. That was not the last time we kissed but indeed the last time we made love. There, against the rocks of the waterfall, it was more than just your sex that moved inside me, we were one and in that moment understood all we needed to about the nature of our dynamic. WE. WERE. NATURE, we were beyond stardust, we were the beginning and end…the crashing sound of the waterfall bleached out our cries and the water beating down upon us drowned out my tears… I understood much later why I cried at that point, too late to do anything about it though.
We didn’t see each other for years after that kiss. So burnt and broken were we (both) by our inability to reconcile our differences and make love work, that we aimed to live the lie of pretending it didn’t exist that so many of us humans evidently try to. I’ve seen it happen so many times over the years and find it a disturbing facet of human nature, that ability to lie to ourselves about our true feelings for the sake of an easier life, because sometimes it is the simplest way to move on. No, love alone is not enough to hold two people together but its presence, when it has not been dismantled by the normal ‘falling out of love’ that so often is the reason for parting ways in relationships, acts like gravity, as in it is undeniable, unavoidable and goes nowhere. So when we met again, purely by chance years later, both of us married with children, despite trying hard to be just good friends, that gravity would not let our souls rest easy. Our families met, we broke bread together and reminisced on days gone by, laughed at our dwindling youth as our children created their own stories and watched on with their own perspectives. My eldest daughter said recently that she always knew there was something beyond platonic between us, that they all did.
One summer night when the moon was full, we met, quite randomly outside the all night Tesco’s. You were on your way to get milk and I just wandering the streets listening to Miles Davis and trying to dispel the now very familiar feeling of angst and restlessness in my soul... we stood there, either side of your bike, as the rain fell down in buckets of memory and the wordlessness that so often underpinned our emotional interactions ensued. We just stared at each other, silently through the monsoon like raindrops that did little to dilute the temperature growing between our mouths. I don’t know who kissed who first, neither, both, I don’t really remember…perhaps gravity just took hold. We touched, deeper than most folk do when they fuck on their wedding night that night... and it was just a kiss, we told each other (and ourselves) in the virtual discussions and dissections that followed in the weeks after that it was meant to be a goodbye kiss. One for the road... after both deciding we were no good for each other, that it, this faux and dangerous friendship had to end. That too many people (ourselves included) had been hurt and done wrong by in the name of this instability between us. It was meant to be goodbye. But all it did was... well... history really. His story, her story...our story. One of the many pivotal points in this relationship that is going into its fourth decade and we are still both too scared to accept that, perhaps we have made a royal mess of love. Perhaps we have missed the boat but cannot stop reliving it...still feeling the desire to board. Is this love? I barely know anymore. It just is what it is what it is...
Both in our 70´s now, and neither of us settled in life. Both of us in and out of dodgy liaisons dotted with periods of solitude. Most of my single peers have given up on love and romantic entanglements and did so many years ago. Maybe we are both still trying to erase that heavy ghost of gravity. Currently we are both newly single. Unusually for us we both ended our respective and most recent intimacies at about the same time and I just happened to be in New York for an exhibition. It is always the same when we meet for the first time in a while. Some years we manage to meet up 3 times... some years not at all. So when there has been a gap of more than say, 6 months. That first hour or so is always steeped in each of us trying to figure out where the other is at... we know it’s coming and have gotten better at dealing with it, but it’s hard.
Yesterday when we first met, after 13 months of not seeing each other, it took hours to get past that. We had both been anxious and there had been a significant amount of allaying going down. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time and I had to go, an important meeting with the curator of a gallery. But things had only just levelled. And we needed more time, but really, we’ve had well over 30 years and if that’s not enough time, I don’t know what is.
The funny thing though, is that the moment it all did level out and fall into place, it didn’t come gradually and then slowly release. It just popped. It wasn’t a gradual procession of trust and openness through talking. It was a moment. It was you asking me if smell was important to me, because we had been discussing some scent artist we both knew back in the day and then, realising what you had said and knowing that it probably bought me straight back to that first time we met... and how I smelt your soul, picked you out in a room full of people and you, despite not knowing how or why, opened up wider than you ever had done before. Straight back to the reality we both had spent almost half of our lives hiding from but are somehow finding ourselves through. You looked at me and spoke an inconceivable amount of words, silently with your eyes and...there...we were back.
Will either of us ever tackle that very old and fragile white elephant, who has sat between us for almost 40 years? In days gone by it would be tackled by us heatedly falling into each other’s flesh, somewhere inside of us thinking that this was where the wealth of our connection must surely lie. I don’t know if you did, but I always knew, even in the very beginning my love, that it went so much deeper than skin. Love, as they say, is far more pornographic than sex.
But meeting you today is different. I feel distinctly that you have something to say and are deliberating. I am not listening to your words. I am focusing upon your gait. You are a tall man but often do not stand up erect and as I have noticed over the years, this becomes more exaggerated when you are struggling with words and feelings. Your command of the English language also becomes slightly less than perfect in these times too... I’m not fully engaged with the small talk words you are spilling but on your third grammatical mistake I make a sharp intake of breath and put my hand upon yours...
We speak in subtexts so much, still. But we both know I can always be relied upon to cut through those murky waters of woolly communication. Two words.
“...what’s wrong?”
Love is not like they say it is in the fairy tales. DON’T believe them. And unfortunately, you don’t get to create your own, they create you and you either sink or swim. This is life. The beautiful tapestry that she is. I think, in the grand scheme of things, we my love swam. We may not have embraced love in the traditional way... it may not have been made concrete and official like it is supposed to in these fairy tales. But our love for each other has been deep and true and lasted out over most marriages and couplings. And we have both experienced profound comfort in knowing it exists... but it would appear that the white elephant has slightly different proportions to my initial imagining.
I often used to fantasise about me finding out I was dying and how I would tell you and it would break the spell of wordlessness and subtexts. That fairy tale love would ensue once an end date was made clear... but alas, life and death do not work this way.
You have 3 months left... you don’t want me to stay in New York and see you deteriorate. These are the instructions you have also given to your children and ex-wife. You want to die alone and this will be the last time we see each other. You deliver these words calmly and easily. And I accept them surprisingly well. That one man island you have so fiercely guarded your whole life, which has kept not just me but everyone who has ever attempted to be close to you at arm’s length is the one you wish to end your days upon.
I want to cry and scream that we’ve wasted all these years and beg you not to allow us to waste these last few months but an inner voice stops me. This is how it must be. This is how it’s always been, it is the nature of our dynamic. And when you give me the brown box and tell me not to open it until I am informed of your passing, I know too that I will respect that.
As we kiss upon parting. I allow my tears to flow... they do nothing to dilute the temperature between our mouths... and yet again I am struck by the intensity of feeling we have between us. This wordlessness we have created will never die...and this gravity we have battled with and against for millennia, despite you telling me years ago was going nowhere unless one of us exited the planet will remain long after you have gone too, of that I’m sure.
If I knew then what I know now... would it have changed anything I wonder? Possibly... but maybe not for the better.