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I claimed to be a seeker.
They asked me what I was seeking and of course, of course, I was sure it was important but. I'm sure I couldn't say. These were the days of studio apartments and casual nudity, of immortality and chocolate- days of the most confident insecurity. The old saw about: There are always at least two of us: the one that is seen and the one we imagine seen, and the distance between ourselves varies with weather, appetite, hormones, new shoes, current reading material, recent sexual encounters, eye contact with strangers, moon phase, dental hygiene, in the short term- but describes an arc or oscillation-with-trend over a lifetime. When I claimed to be a seeker the space between ourselves stretched vast as two mirrors, blind corridors offering no exit, no disengagement, a detente with the absent.
You see, darlings, I was sure I was an impostor. I knew I wasn't good enough, cool enough, artistic enough, free enough, weird enough, strong enough, tender enough, vulnerable enough, rough enough, hard enough, orgasmic enough, polyamorous enough, passionate enough,
I was sure that someone would eventually find out. I was sure I was the outsider, and that all this inside-ing was going to crash around me with that familiar contemptuous laughter.
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, there are two characters- Tomas and Franz. From Wikipedia:
Tomáš: A Czech surgeon and intellectual. Tomáš is a womanizer who lives for his work. He considers sex and love to be distinct entities: he has sex with many women but loves only his wife, Tereza. He sees no contradiction between these two positions. He explains womanizing as an imperative to explore female idiosyncrasies only expressed during sex.
Franz: Sabina's lover and a Geneva professor and idealist. Franz falls in love with Sabina, whom he considers a liberal and romantically tragic Czech dissident. He is a kind and compassionate man. As one of the novel's dreamers, Franz bases his actions on loyalty to the memories of his mother and Sabina. His life revolves completely around books and academia.
To then me, Tomáš was someone I wanted to be(secretly, guiltily): the seducer, the desired one, the winner- To then me, Franz was who I was- the pushover, the one who's missing out on all the fun stuff, the one whose partner is seduced, the one who isn't first, the loser.
I remember confessing, after a few bottles of wine one night, almost tearfully to my then-partner how distraught I was, at being Franz.
She laughed, stopped, looked up at me, found me serious and laughed again, shaking her head. "You're kind of an idiot, but you're not Franz," she said, "You are Tomáš. How could you possibly not see that?"
The seen, and the imagined-seen.
Of course, of course I didn't believe her, not really- Franz wouldn't, couldn't bear to cut himself on a truth that sharp.
They asked me what I was seeking and of course, of course, I was sure it was important but. I'm sure I couldn't say. These were the days of studio apartments and casual nudity, of immortality and chocolate- days of the most confident insecurity. The old saw about: There are always at least two of us: the one that is seen and the one we imagine seen, and the distance between ourselves varies with weather, appetite, hormones, new shoes, current reading material, recent sexual encounters, eye contact with strangers, moon phase, dental hygiene, in the short term- but describes an arc or oscillation-with-trend over a lifetime. When I claimed to be a seeker the space between ourselves stretched vast as two mirrors, blind corridors offering no exit, no disengagement, a detente with the absent.
You see, darlings, I was sure I was an impostor. I knew I wasn't good enough, cool enough, artistic enough, free enough, weird enough, strong enough, tender enough, vulnerable enough, rough enough, hard enough, orgasmic enough, polyamorous enough, passionate enough,
I was sure that someone would eventually find out. I was sure I was the outsider, and that all this inside-ing was going to crash around me with that familiar contemptuous laughter.
In The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, there are two characters- Tomas and Franz. From Wikipedia:
Tomáš: A Czech surgeon and intellectual. Tomáš is a womanizer who lives for his work. He considers sex and love to be distinct entities: he has sex with many women but loves only his wife, Tereza. He sees no contradiction between these two positions. He explains womanizing as an imperative to explore female idiosyncrasies only expressed during sex.
Franz: Sabina's lover and a Geneva professor and idealist. Franz falls in love with Sabina, whom he considers a liberal and romantically tragic Czech dissident. He is a kind and compassionate man. As one of the novel's dreamers, Franz bases his actions on loyalty to the memories of his mother and Sabina. His life revolves completely around books and academia.
To then me, Tomáš was someone I wanted to be(secretly, guiltily): the seducer, the desired one, the winner- To then me, Franz was who I was- the pushover, the one who's missing out on all the fun stuff, the one whose partner is seduced, the one who isn't first, the loser.
I remember confessing, after a few bottles of wine one night, almost tearfully to my then-partner how distraught I was, at being Franz.
She laughed, stopped, looked up at me, found me serious and laughed again, shaking her head. "You're kind of an idiot, but you're not Franz," she said, "You are Tomáš. How could you possibly not see that?"
The seen, and the imagined-seen.
Of course, of course I didn't believe her, not really- Franz wouldn't, couldn't bear to cut himself on a truth that sharp.