| 2:57 am |
Responding to Ian
It's wonderful that you want to find someone JUST LIKE ME to explore the inner reaches of the outer limits.
I am flattered. You are a fascinating and articulate man - the kind upon which I can easily impale myself if I am not careful. A year ago i might have even been intrigued enough to fling myself into this dance with you - but today I am just cynical.
Have you ever actually attained with another person the state of utter and absolute sexual/emotional/metaphysical incoaction you so elaborately describe? If so, what was it like to function in the real world of gainful employment, life and other relationships, not just in the midst of it, but in the time which followed? If you have attained this state, are you still in relationship with this person who shared it with you? If so, is there any way I can hear directly from her what it was for her, and what remains of her psyche in the aftermath?
There are good reasons for me to ask these questions. In "the real world", I live as an composer/musician, a parent and a married person. I have spent the past 9 months in a clandestine affair with someone with whom I DID experience those exquisite periods of surrender which you so eloquently describe. The result has been both life-changing and inconsolably painful.
As a person who lives by her ability to articulate and craft in musical and poetic form the fruits of her mind, soul and creative intellect, I never realized just how integrated and fragile the balance was between these elements within me. I learend just a little too late. The realization came in the form of an emotional and sexual awakening which was devastating and disabling to my artistic process.
I trusted, lay down everything I was - and opened myself like a wound. I poured every ounce of my body and soul - indeed, everything I needed for my art - into this other person, my lover. At the time it was
happening, it was clear that this was the most important, liberating thing I had ever, and would ever, experience. It have to believe it was, at least for a few months, equally profound and life-changing for him. The sexual aspect of this relationship went on for 4 - 5 months. But in the days which followed those first months, I became unable to access the heart and soul of my creative voice. The creative heart and voice of me continues to be silent, and the profound and irreversible emptiness in my life is, at times, deafening. I
have been unable to focus enough to compose new music. I have missed important deadlines with my publisher, blown off major opportunities to really get my music heard, and plunged myself into a series of deep, recurring depressions. I cannot even begin to tell you what this has done to my relationships with my husband, my son and my circle of friends and extended family. My total secrecy about my actions leaves me with no support, no one in whom to fully confide. I do know some of what my husband sees: that I have become isloated, non-communicative and unable to reciprocate his love for me.
I tell you this because I know what you seek - and I AM that kind of woman - one who is open and fearless in loving. I am also unavailable for another stint of this sort. But there are many out there like me, so I can tell you what she is like: She is also going to be a person who has established a personal dynamic of generosity in other aspects of her life, with other people who love her - people who have come to treasure her fully alive and abundant presence in their lives. She will have a great deal to offer - but also a great deal to lose by pouring herself into the kind of relationship you want.
I am not in any position to "preach" on the moral dimensions of infidelity - I am an enthusiastic, lusty and unrepentant adulteress. I have had dozens of lovers, and I was always able to have my fun - then get away with my soul intact.
So it was for me until I found someone who opened me in precisely the way you describe. This is a man (also in a committed marriage, as I am) who now has no use for the beautiful, expressive and priceless heart of me he now owns. MY heart. The only one I have. I have dismantled myself and rearranged the pieces, hoping to be more fascinating to him. I have poured the ocean of my soul and affection into his teacup. I would give anything to go back to being the free, open, clear-sighted and sexually joyous woman I was just one short year ago. |