“Isn’t it romantic?”
I find myself saying that to myself almost exclusively.
The sentiment I’ve perhaps schooled myself on the most is something that I keep close to me, if not exactly private. It’s been more theoretical rather than practiced than I’d like to admit. It’s another ‘Valentine’s’ season but it’s another year I sit out what is more ‘normal’ about it. I’m not gonna be at either end of gifting or receiving chocolates and flowers. There’s no candlelight dinners planned. The only sex that’ll happen will most likely be solo.
I don’t say this to elicit pity. I’m saying this all the more to do a honest inventory. I’m curious to figure out why I find myself in such a state. I do think it’s highly important for me to do so now. Fascism needs love to fight it. I’m also sure some would be curious about such an excavation. I know there’s a few people that look at me perplexed by my isolated state. There’s even some that have said if they weren’t committed elsewhere that they’d give me a spin around the block. I think of some that have openly stated, even written down that they hope I’ll soon find an outlet for that pesky romanticism and soon.
I’ve been rarely brave enough to turn to someone I sincerely enjoy sharing time with to say one of many sentiments that would establish a safe container of mutuality. Somehow I’ve always stopped short of clouding the proceedings with the heaviness of a never-ending French Kiss I initiated. I’m sincerely not lying about that. It’s been a host of very brave men that have allowed me to go this far in life being kissed and caressed. As easy as I may look, I’m a lot of work.
I’d be lying if I said a hefty bit of what you see when I do landscape photography is more of a yearning straight out of a Danielle Steel novel than not. There’s so much of this world that’s beautiful. I actually, contrary to the evidence at hand, don’t really like spending that much time alone in it with my own devices. Or the reality is I’ve spent a lot of time in it alone by force. I wasn’t exactly raised to depend on human companionship. Some would say it’s a flaw of only children. I’d say that there’s a lot to be said about learning from relationship patterns you observe as a kid.
I’ll say, even years before my parents divorce, they made the mere 1,100 square feet of our lil 1950’s atomic rancher seem three times as big given how much space they put between themselves. My maternal great grandparents didn’t even bother to share bedrooms. I never saw anyone truly yearn for companionship. More often than not, excitement exploded at the review of the TV Guide. What was on at 8pm on NBC Must See TV carried more interest over any interpersonal excitement. There’s complex reasons why I can’t stand The Cosby Show.
I wonder do I make enough time and space for someone to join in. I can be remarkably willful and random in the frequency and abandon that I enjoy the beautiful world around me. I would have thought I would have sold someone on being in the center of a few frames of my delight at this point. I worry about the rear legroom in Gracie; it’s not as robust as her sister, Frankie. A Corvair sedan frankly has more space to have someone come along for the ride.
The only examples I had growing up really came out of songs from the past and contemporary to my childhood. They gave a healthy hint of what my desires might blossom into. There’s so little example elsewhere if I think of other unique conundrums to being Black and Queer that I have done a lot of interpretation over the years. Without real-to-life examples, can you ever forgive me for not getting it exactly ‘right?’
What I’ve listened to all my life always seems delightful, if a pure anomaly to my actual day to day existence. I couldn’t for the life of me envision my parents having a romantic spark. A lot of settings lend themselves to one of my favorite golden oldies rendered first by Mary Wells. It found its place and space on the airwaves as 1963 turned into 1964 with these Smokey Robinson sentiments showing him at his most poetic:
Let’s get together and go for a walk in the park
And while we’re walking we can steal a little kiss in the dark
I wanna walk with you (I wanna walk with you)
I wanna talk with you (I wanna talk with you)
But it’s up you to say “Come on baby”
If you don’t hurry up I’ll go crazy
‘Cause a walk in the park all alone is just no fun
There’s a reason it’s been covered so often despite its meager showings on Pop radio during the winter doldrums of 1964. It’s a interesting active plea for someone else to, without an ounce of irony, make the first move. Of course, whenever I’ve sung along, I’ve decidedly cast myself exclusively in Mary Wells’ shoes. I’m sure I’m not the only human being that’s been passive aggressive in their yearning for disrupting their own solitude via the emotions developing within someone else. Love and affection aren’t necessarily something I think I need to take action and responsibility for.
Blame that pesky Venus in Taurus dominating my birth chart. Quite a few astrologers have honed in on that being the sole cause of my dilemma. I’m rarely the initiator when it comes to love and affection. The arrogance that papers thinly over deep vulnerability is remarkable in its strength. I’ve wanted someone, anyone to test how paper thin it actually is. From the distance I maintain (or others keep) it seems like a statue carved out of marble.
The lie detector finds that a lie!
There are some places are places I revisit very much in the spirit of a heartbroken song. I don’t mind haunting a space once mutually enjoyed if someone I long to see again is on my heart. It’s always worth the quarter-to-full tank of gas to torture myself into feeling some emotions. I don’t end up running any real risk. Chances are I won’t actually see the person prompting the retroactive action. Yet I can envision why we shared the place nonetheless.
I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me
And every step I take recalls
How much in love we used to be
Oh, how can I forget you…
Perhaps one big reason I’m looking forward to Philadelphia so strongly is because it is land I’m not haunted by heartbreak on.
Yet.
I am a creature of habit. I can hope for the best that I won’t drag patterns with me but hey. I hope that, because I’m literally in mid-life, it won’t be as many heartbreaks. California is littered with them. There’s too many telltale hearts if I sit somewhere too long.ng.
I’m feeling the winds of life starting to carry me east. With some longing to hold onto my past, I’ve started spending more time in some romantic playgrounds that held abortive romances at the most weirdly inspired times. In mid-January, I felt a random pull to go to Baker Beach. Somehow, the ambitions of some nudists to let it all hang out and not have a tan line seems romantic to a degree. I’ve been known to join in on the display to enjoy the full body warm caress of the sun. It was only in the low 60’s a few Saturdays ago. The ocean breeze was a little too brisk for me to air out my more sensitive bits.
That particular playground has had a few moments. I remember a best friend going in for a kiss after I actually, not by choice, lost a loose-in-the-hips pair of swim trunks to the Pacific. I have to guess 5 years of curiosity engaged a split second of not chosen vulnerability. It ended up answering quite a few questions I didn’t know needed answers in the first place. What else, besides time spent together, was possible? I had no clue there was a layer of depth to the friendship that, well, could get pretty deep into warmth that’s 98.6 degrees when the body is healthy.
Demurely I accepted the affection with an almost immediate repudiation. I quickly reminded the two other paramours that said Leo had on the line. I didn’t want to make a further mess, knowing I already had two eyes on me wondering why I was so easily able to spend that much time with. Both of those men thought the subject at hand was their full possession.
Baker Beach exists barely 10 blocks from where the seemingly ultimate will-they/won’t they of my whole life nests. The one that people wonder if its faded, the candle wick spent. The one too many, perhaps myself included, hope has kind of an longevity that outweighs the trials. I’ve spent the last winter, spring, summer and fall examining all the literal points that point to the later. Somehow I have the hardest time trusting my own desires.
My desires seem simple; I’ve just looked for someone that felt like warm, crumpled silk. There’s probably a reason the vulnerability of being naked on a beach has always appealed to me. From that brilliant vantage point, you can see that they feel that way. You can look before you commit to touch. I delight when that softness and tenderness is slyly nuanced by some signs of excitement and elation as well. That tenderness that breeds that special strength is intoxicating. Despite all of the denial, I love having my full range of senses activated. While in the process of discovering this truth about myself, I always delight when it extends to to helping someone discover that inner truth about themselves.
That random Baker Beach day some 17 years ago isn’t the only triangle of tension I’ve found myself. After a gout flare started to subside 2 weeks after venturing to Baker Beach, I found myself not able to sleep in on a Sunday morning. It was even more obscenely warm and sunny a morning than the Saturday jaunt to the edge of San Francisco was the weeks prior. I initially thought of just grabbing some waffles in Westlake. As I slid down the Foran Freeway as it snakes on the southern end of San Francisco, something prodded me to keep going.
Santa Cruz called to me. At bare minimum, testing my ability to needle my old rear engine wonder up and down the roller coaster of Highway 17 in light day of rest traffic seemed like fun. I wasn’t clear exactly what I wanted to do once I arrived yet. Besides eat breakfast; I had driven almost an hour longer than I intended. I was hungry.
I remembered as I came down the hill I had missed that drive. It had once been a normal shuttle over the San Andreas Fault created spine separating Silicon Valley from the sea. Once upon a time, I thought that circumstances would make the seaside hamlet turned UC college town into ‘home.’ I wondered what my life would be had I made a choice to make a life in a 4 bedroom house on the far west side of the city ‘home.’ Would I just be cracking my own eggs to make breakfast for the family I started 12 or so years prior this Sunday? Would I be staring out the kitchen window looking at this gauzy light filtering over Lighthouse Field instead of the Boardwalk?
I wonder if I would have been happy. I would have been well resourced. I would have had access to all of this because of the inherited wealth I would have had to commit to. To a degree, I could have also been a prisoner in a very wealthy white family. All of the things that I hold dear to being an individual; where I come from, how I cook, how I sing and dance, who I call my extended family, would have clashed severely with this perfect, prescribed existence.
Santa Cruz is even more frozen in being a tourist trap than it was the last time I spent the night over in that house. I had my own little special bedroom. Whenever there were other guests, they were subjected to sleeping on the couches downstairs. I already had full control of the kitchen, baking up adjusted, simplified versions of what I was already known to make to satisfy a sweet tooth. It was my lap that was sat on to give reminders of the warm, crumpled silk that lay hidden behind a few layers of fabric. The claim of my excitement was more robustly displayed whenever there was a group gathering in the back yard hot tub.
Over dinner the one last time that hinted that I was about to be claimed, I admitted someone that liked what I did without restriction to fresh apples was wooing me. They wanted me to consider the reality and ambitions that were possible in Sacramento. The fumble I can only say is that neither of us in the romanticism of Santa Cruz made an effort to share some silkiness in the same bed. Had we done so more often would have prevented even the possibility of me considering the actual hell Sacramento is. We also needed more time out of the view of prying eyes and ambitions to have space and possibility that we’d work out.
We needed the tenderness of our own mutually chosen vulnerabilities away from the picture perfect resort atmosphere that doesn’t allow realities to seep in. We needed perhaps at least San Gregorio, or the immediacy of the experiences I’ve had on Baker Beach. Frankly, the lust needed to temper into consistent loving. The full irony is it couldn’t happen somewhere so ‘perfect.’ It was far too sterile.
I’m only brave enough to say this 13 years after we shared one last kiss after Beyoncé reunited with some of her former singing partners. Those were the only reasons the both of us attended my potential brother-in-law’s Superbowl party in the pied-à-terre that trust fund kept for the both of them in Pacific Heights. It was such a bizarre place to be when I was wondering why my Benz was burning a quart of oil every 500 miles. I had to admit that I couldn’t even let him buy me dinner after 3 years of will they-won’t they. What would I be giving up if I let him help me take care of my car?
I can now say that I made my own desires for perfection locked me away from any potential for happiness that could be shared. This refresher under the harsh Santa Cruz winter sun is just one instance. I’m weighing torturing myself with an alternate universe of spending a day in Sacramento to test out that other. The polarity between those two cities reflect that I spent the most of 2013 creating triangles of comparison. I was none to happy with the results I wasn’t sharing with the test subjects. I need to take ownership that I’ve expected love to be perfect and happily ever after without giving space to develop the durability of discussing shared needs provides.
I have to admit that conflict almost immediately makes me cry.
I have to admit that its taken me a long time to actually show up in my emotions and desires.
I remember the first time I consciously noticed that I put my arms over my heart when I feel cornered. I was 42. I remember exactly who I noted that I was doing that with. I tried valiantly to talk with my arms at my side. He responded to me being vulnerable by saying he wanted me there; in that moment and in the future.
I still doubted it. I still pay the price of that lack of trust. Every text based argument is me pretending to be a *big bad wolf* when I’m actually trying to be the turtle retreating into their shell. I tell you this so you have the talks that matter with all of you present. There’s plenty of ways to hide, but you shouldn’t hide how much someone matters to you.
This all filtered into to driving by that big ass house. I needed evidence of the divergent paths because I couldn’t show up. I had to face the limits of perfection. I had to face the denial of possibility to ever have hope I’ll still get another chance, even if not with this one.
I was surprised to see an ADU where there was front yard now. I wasn’t bold enough, wild enough, in these times of Ring cameras to pull over, park, never mind potentially knock. I wasn’t exactly surprised by the deep gray gray wash paint stark in the blazingly harsh winter sun. I hate to think I dodged a bullet. That paint definitely said the front door now has a Ring camera.
These divergent politics, the conflicts with white in-laws that have no problem complying with state violeThese divergent politics, the conflicts with white in-laws that have no problem complying with state violence, would have been massive arguments. Arguments I would have lost. After all, I would have been sitting in the bastion of wealth created by the compliance to the state while screaming about it.
No matter the container, a hypocrite is a hypocrite. No one needs to document my vulnerability as if you’re living in “Until You Come Back To Me” in real life. There’s a restraining order waiting for such behavior. I thought it better if I remained an unknown blur of chrome encased classic car just a little lost a block away from the Beach.
I wonder how many of those decisions I would have been overran on. How few of them would have been joint ones because I didn’t have generations of capitalist wealth to make those choices with swiftness and ease? I tell myself despite the longing for a different outcome, the right thing happened. I looked at that dark house from the brilliance of my Artesian Turquoise conveyance, none too different than the Adriatic Blue of the Benz I had when we were together, and wished the monied well. It wasn’t good enough for me. Gold indeed does not buy you happiness.
One can build a love affair slowly
Two can build a love affair fast
One can make a love get started
Two can make it lastSo come on and take me by the hand
Lead me up to the preacher man
Together we can do all the things that should be done
I can proudly proclaim, at my big age that I want romance that’s mundane. The kind that looks at paper paint samples against natural light and comes to an agreement towards which color might look right against the shifting light. The kind of love that delights in the seasonal bounty of apples at its peak. The kind of warm, tender home that has enough life rolling through it to do all sorts of things with lord knows how many pounds of apples.
Someday soon. I’ve been patiently waiting.
My heart cries out
Pain inside
Where can you be?
I wait patientlyWhen you’re alone
Going gets rough
Come back, come back, come back baby
I’ve had enoughMake me a queen
Happy again
Hear my cry
And ease my pain
