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Gas masks and crazy-girls

Love makes us crazy, because we lose control of ourselves. Something within us takes over, and we lose ourselves. The center doesn’t hold. It is more like sailing than anything else, but often it feels like madness. I don’t mean to suggest that love and loving are not also acts of compassion, a withholding, or balanced and centered gestures of pure being. I certainly love my grand mother, and I love puppies. I love sunlight and beaches every bit as much as I love three a.m. and warehouses. I love exquisite restaurants and fine linens and I adore shabby little taquerias and my tattered old t-shirts too. But I have never known madness as the result of my heart’s contents with regards to any of these things.

In a sense, love is a kind of madness. Something science can now cure, as well as self-help, recovery programs, philosophy, and even exercise. I was sweating in the sun yesterday with my dear friend ‘A’ and he noticed that the stream of liquid running down my face wasn’t perspiration and asked me “How’s it going?”

I stumbled around a little bit and tried to explain where I am actually at, saying, “I liked the world so much better when the very sight of me made her heart beat so fast she couldn’t stay in her seat.”

‘A’ looked down, made a little sad smile and said,” It’s never been my experience that that kind of love lasts for very long.”

I sighed. ‘A’ smiled, and then we were quiet for a while.

It’s come to my attention that, generally speaking, women tend to be a lot more practical than men. Whoever decided that men are strong, sound in their thinking, and that to be manly was to be steady, logical, and prudent… that women were faire and delicate, irrational and full of foolish ideas of light, and texture was perhaps a bit of a bitter antagonist. Some bastard charged with the task of handing out stereotypes for the good of humanity. Some bizarro cliché for people to hate themselves over their whole lives. While I have met a few men in my life who were almost as rational and stoic as the women I’ve loved, they always seem to weep uncontrollably when they talk about their mothers, or become belligerent when the pot runs out. The furious hands and stony faces of these men has always been betrayed by the frailty of their hearts. This is not strength, it is denial.

The modern age is upon us. We live with stark contrasts unreconciled with our instincts. The roles we play, the positions we take… consciously or unconsciously… are at war with our hearts. When I am still, I say that all is well. The world is radiant and fine. I can exist beside my heart’s contents and watch as my heart goes up in extraordinary flames with a quiet disposition. Sometimes I am radiant with compassion and affection. When I am in motion it is rare I have any idea how I am, where I am, or what time it is until it is too late. I take the world at its word, at face value, and let my mind roam. I am often betrayed. When I am sitting with cute boys I am feminine and sarcastic. When I am sitting with strangers I am gracious and quiet. When I am confronted by the overwhelming emotions of others I am calm and strong, almost immovable. This mosaic grows. Each piece is unique. While I seem to always be at odds with whatever it is I am “supposed to be,” it is rare I am ever the right thing at the right time, or ever enough for anyone. Sometimes not nearly enough, sometimes much too much. Never the little chair, never the baby bowl, not once, not yet. Even so, it is rare that I can not see, or do not at least create the space to welcome all of my colors and smile, or cry if I must, until they turn to that mauveish grey of everything and fade into the day.

But what of love? Listen, I can no more fabricate devotion than I have any desire to fake it. I love intimate whispers, tender lovemaking, and sweet kisses — maybe more than anything else in the world — but I can not pretend. I do not wish to control these bonfires. These beaches run wild, there are no rangers, nor rules. And while the wiser of my friends would advise me otherwise — Let go. Grow up. Oh please — it has been my experience that to control my heart’s beating is to suffocate life. To douse love with lanolin and toss it out of the window of a speeding station wagon. If you look quickly, and have good vision you can see the little plume of dust as it hits the ground. See?

What choice remains? What happens next? I can take refuge in bitterness and fear… smoking too much, jeering at everyone, not sleeping, not eating, wandering around like Raskolnikov humming the Birthday Party to myself for about three minutes. What fun! I could set the pot to boil, and lower my heart into the broth with the onions and go out for a while and try to forget all about it. No. Perhaps I can find some way to simply be with this love, cry these tears out, vomit my breakfast, shiver and shake and be as still as possible… praying that this will simply run its course. Everyone says I’m doing great. Everyone is so proud of me. I can’t think, I can’t breathe. My heart is broken and I am no good at this.

I am very creative, and I have enjoyed a lovely dialog with a few of my favorite ghosts lately. In my kitchen, the waiting area of various airports, and alone at the side of the road we have talked and talked, but there is no real dialog. There is nothing to say which hasn’t already been said. The rules of the discussion change without notice, there are no follow up questions, and nothing is solved. I hear the simple words in my head, over and over. they snap at me, twisting around my throat without mercy. There is no mercy. There are no hugs, no more kisses, no more any more.

My love is fucking retarded. I’m sorry Clare, I seem to have stolen your wonderful title, but it’s true. If you love me, and I mean gas masks and crazy-girls love me, then you can be sure I will immediately run screaming from the room. If you will not love me– or perhaps i can tell that you do, but you refuse, or are so broken that you can’t, or don’t want to, or you’re afraid — then I can not breathe without you, and I will love you until the end of time.

The compromise… whatever that horrible word means… is so vague and loveless that to imagine myself in a practical home, full of practical appliances, blending blueberries at six thirty in the morning just before I shower, shave, and greet another day at the office, in bed and alseep by ten, sex on wednesdays, take the dog out, let the cat in, quit smoking, pay the credit card bills, turn the volume down, pay the credit card bills, speak my mind in that old familliar, manipulative, non-violent manner, accept my fate, pay the credit card bills, pay the credit card bills, makes me wish I was dead. There must be another way, another life without fear, full of love and kinship, delight and affection without taking a ride down the drain of the twentieth century.

Somehow, in spite of all I suspect, I believe. somehow I have survived in this world. Most of the time I am wise enough to never ever reveal the contents of my heart of hearts to anyone but my son, puppies, and people I will never see again in my life. It’s true, I am irritatingly famous for hugging complete strangers stumbled upon in tears, softly kissing strangers at 2 am in closed bart station entrances, and dancing with middle age women at weddings. Occasionally I make a mistake. I let it slip and my heart gets away from me. She stumbles and falls, crashing on the floor at my feet and then its fireflies and brilliant lights, followed almost at once by the fire alarms, thick choking strands of blue and black smoke, gas masks and crazy-girls. Run for your life.