Ebook Things I Would Like To Do With You PDF
Ebook Things I Would Like To Do With You PDF
Ebook Things I Would Like To Do With You PDF
Things
I would like to do with You.
Way l o n H. L e w i s
A collection of loneliness & love.
4.
To my mother
To Chögyam Trungpa
And to all those who find joy through service
I dedicate this story.
5.
Words and illustrations © 2015 Waylon H. Lewis. All rights reserved.
6.
Author’s Note.
We no longer long for “happily ever after.” We no longer believe
in “you complete me” or Mad Men gender roles.
May it be of benefit!
~ Waylon H. Lewis
Boulder, Colorado
Autumn 2015
7.
8.
Contents.
preramble.
Things I would like to Write to You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
chapter one.
Things I would like to do with You in the Woods . . . . . . . . . 15
chapter two.
Things I would like to do with You this Evening . . . . . . . . . 20
chapter three.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss . . . . . . 28
chapter four.
Things I would like to do with You in Time . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
chapter five.
Things I would like to do with You Before I Lose You . . . . . . 48
chapter six.
Things I would like to Hear from You when You are Afraid . . . 58
chapter seven.
Things I would like to Whisper to You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
chapter eight.
Things I would like to do with You when You Visit my Home . . 74
chapter nine.
Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You . . . . . . . . 85
chapter ten.
The Last Things I would like to Say to You . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
9.
chapter eleven.
Things I would like to do this Cold Season without You . . . . . 105
chapter twelve.
Things I would like to do After our Fall . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
chapter thirteen.
Things I would like to do Before I Return . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
chapter fourteen.
Things I would like to Let Go of Before I See You . . . . . . . . 131
chapter fifteen.
Things I would like to do with You when I am Drunk . . . . . . 138
chapter sixteen.
Things I would not yet like to Know about the Future . . . . . . 141
chapter seventeen.
Things I would like to do with You Beneath the Ocean . . . . . 148
chapter eighteen.
Things I would like to do with You on a Snowy Weekend . . . . 154
chapter nineteen.
Things I would like to do with You on Valentine’s Day . . . . . 157
chapter twenty.
Things I would like to do with You Indoors . . . . . . . . . . . 162
chapter twenty-one.
Things I would like to Read at the End of my List . . . . . . . . 168
chapter twenty-two.
Things I would like to do with You this Springtime . . . . . . . 174
chapter twenty-three.
Things I would like to Sing with You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
10.
chapter twenty-four.
Things I would like to See when You Open to Me . . . . . . . . 191
chapter twenty-five.
Things I would like to do when I feel Alone . . . . . . . . . . . 202
chapter twenty-six.
Things I would like to do Before I Leave You . . . . . . . . . . . 209
chapter twenty-seven.
Things I would like to do when I am Away . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
chapter twenty-eight.
Things I would like to do with You in the End
just Before the Beginning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
afternote.
A List of Things I would like to do with You . . . . . . . . . . . 257
11.
Preramble.
A cabin that is not a cabin begins this story that is not a story—
though I do not yet know where I will find the cabin that will
finish this story.
I have written this story out so that it will forget me; I leave our
precious past in the stream beneath the trees.
12.
preramble.
As Fitzgerald said,
13.
preramble.
14.
chapter one.
15.
chapter one.
I would like to love you, but I do not know you, and I value
space more than even love, for in space we can play. I would
make a fort in our cabin out of sheets and we can go inside and
just lie there. I am looking at you, into you, and you are looking
at me, into me. And we could read a paperback. I have a good
reading voice. And we could have a fire, though it is not cold,
but it would light up the fort, flickering, warmly, with shadows
of our future. I would like to love you and you love me, for love
can only be shared, but my luck does not run that way, these
days, or for awhile, and I have a feeling that I will not love and
be loved again until all my luck is run out.
I would like to talk with you about things I care about that
others do not care about because they do not care about me,
and hear you care, not because you care about me, but because
you care about the things I care about.
16.
Things I would like to do with You in the Woods.
stop.
17.
chapter one.
flames, the shifting warm light, are the best light for talking,
endlessly, as if we were at camp, and sex is not the only thing we
humans can think about. And perhaps I could hold your hand.
There is nothing better than holding a hand…feeling your
fingers, your nails, your calluses, your palm. And your hand,
held yet holding mine, feeling the stress and bruises of life, your
strong fingers cautioning: rest now, you are cared for.
18.
Things I would like to do with You in the Woods.
I would like to see you again, though I know you are, already,
in love with another and so your love is not available to me. And
the funny thing is, I do not mind. Perhaps when one has come
over a long mountainpass, and is hungry, happy, beaten, and
sad, and finally humbled, and lonely, perhaps then, sunshine
is enough.
And perhaps, next time we could go for more than ten days,
and never return.
19.
chapter two.
Let’s go to a play. You told me you have picked out your dress,
it is old. I have no idea what I will wear, and do not care.
I do care about your face, and your walk, and your voice, and
whether you read, and what. And that is the point of going out.
Getting to know. I want to know, among nine other things,
whether you have the guts to do your own thing.
20.
chapter two.
you are still not available, and I am not sure. I was wounded,
and while I have soaked and healed and cried and talked and
dated…I am a hardened young man, now, and no longer all so
very young. I am not scarred: I am not scared of failure. But I
am beaten, beaten, beaten like a sword in the fire. And as the
smoke of karma has dispersed, I find that for the first time in my
love life, sex is not a goal. Like a confettied champagne-soaked
tickertape parade at the end of a great victory, I know it will
come with, if the rest happens.
The rest begins now, though it may end in the next moment.
Or this moment. That is how first and second dates are.
First dates are thin, eager, weak, sweet, young…full of real but
ephemeral love. The tired heart warms again and, childlike,
a naive hope of love buds up.
21.
Things I would like to do with You this Evening.
I would like to see how you dress: you like stripes, you like belts.
You like silk, you like wool, you like cotton, cashmere, angora.
And I would like to remember the color of your eyes before the
dusk comes, and I would like to know whether to say your first
name this way or that, and how to say your last name.
You like white, you like turquoise, you like buck-tanned boots.
22.
chapter two.
And that may seem saccharine, but think: touching for the first
time is the moment of—the passing from—“you are a human
and I am a human and there are thousands of millions of others
like you and me” to “you are a human and I am human and
we are Us.” This is an intimate moment that, like smoke from
clean Japanese incense, is easily dispersed by a wave of the hand.
Fate or a brief moment of argument or a chilling of insecurity
or a lapse of presence and the spark of our enjoyment of one
another may cool. It has happened before. And no one wants
cold; everybody wants warmth. But I cannot hold your hand,
not yet.
I want to know how many brothers or sisters you have, and are
your old parents loving to you and one another, and how well
do you love your friends, and how do you discuss ex-boyfriends
who you still care for, or do not care for, or like, or do not like.
And do you need drugs, legal or illegal, and why. And what
music do you listen to, and a thousand other things like: your
neck. Do you have integrity and an old soul, a mother’s wisdom,
and yet do you smile readily, like the jump of a deer, startled!
23.
Things I would like to do with You this Evening.
I want to see you from the right, and from the left. You prefer
your left side. I prefer both (good god). I want to keep my mind
and desire at bay: beauty demands focus, early on. Later, one
can relax into it…
I would like to want you, but I do not know you, and I finally no
longer want what I do not know.
24.
chapter two.
I would like to slowly walk back to my house with you. I will kiss
you good night, chastely, on the cheek, holding your left shoulder
with my right hand. Later, not now, I would like to know (and if
not, I would like to be true friends, and that would be a gift, too).
25.
Things I would like to do with You this Evening.
I would not like to: argue, but to debate. I want not to push you,
but to be encouraged by you; I want not to be bored of you,
but to laugh at myself. I want to walk behind you, closely
following your golden shoulders and pregnant mind.
26.
chapter two.
So does a youth.
27.
chapter three.
I would like to be able to look back, some day far away, and
remember these things. So I write them down, here, for me,
for you.
28.
chapter three.
Having known each other since I was small, and you were
smaller, our parents know each other, and we speak the same
familial language, the same dialect.
29.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss.
I would like to remember you walking up. Pale blue dress, tan
corduroy gold cap with orange letters embroidered on it. You
are new to me; all grown up. We knew each other here when we
were younger, but it has been many years. And now you are tall.
Light eyes, expressive lips. Golden.
You go in and get food and you come out and sit on the old
wide white farmhouse front porch where you can watch me.
You sit with the tall thin gardener who we have both known
30.
chapter three.
I walk up above to the main house and shower in the same men’s
locker room I used to use when I was fourteen. I shower in three
minutes without soap or towel, grinning at the memories in
this sprawling old house.
A tall young man is talking to you, and the tall thin gardener and
you and I, we all talk, and I eat and make jokes, and compliment
the young man, and relax with you.
The young man wants to join us for our swim, later, and I look
down at my food as I eat and wait—waiting to see if you are
weak in your politeness.
You are not. But you are not rude, either, you simply demur.
I am relieved at your strength and surprised by your skillful
kindness. I gently smile at the young man and say that you and
I would like to see each other one on one— “it’s been years.”
31.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss.
We meet well.
We ping pong back and forth, talking and sharing, learning and
listening and interrupting…getting to know.
You change in the woods because the old bathhouse with the
old changing rooms is locked, while I stare ahead at the timeless
view of a wide lake with wooded hills framing a sandy beach
on which children play and parents sit beneath tall green
mountain trees.
32.
chapter three.
I would like to remember this Lake, with you. How we find our
halfsunny, halfshady spot beneath two trees, and you sit up in
your bikini and I lean back in my trunks and we talk, laugh,
laugh, talk, talk more and listen, and talk more and listen, and
laugh more and listen…getting to know. So many questions.
“So how do you like me, so far?” I ask, out of the blue. I am serious,
but relaxed now, and confident. You laugh at me. I appreciate
your eyes, and your lips, and your voice, and your mind.
33.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss.
not to look. “No one will.” Your bra and your underwear are
dark. But just to be safe, “I’ll distract everyone.” And so I run
in, as I am wont to do anyways, knees high so I can run as far
into the water as possible, and I splash and run and joy! And at
last I jump and dive and slide into the still shallow water, and
with practiced big broad strokes I swim out underwater just
about as far as I can, which is far.
At one point you take out a sharp, perceptive knife and smoothly
core my heart, “You get ahead of yourself. You think five steps
ahead. I’m the opposite. I take forever to decide, I’m careful.” And
it is true, though I do not understand how you can already tell.
And you say you would like to have ice cream, but I am vegan
and I would not want any, and I say “ah I’m fine with other
people having fun.”
34.
chapter three.
And you say you would still like that date with me that we had
talked about over the past months, writing to one another.
And I am pleasantly surprised that one such as you would like
one such as me. I am not insecure, but I know myself, and in
knowing ourselves we become fundamentally modest. And
you are exquisite, and wise.
And I did not take you for a fool. But I am happy to be foolish
with you.
35.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss.
shirts, and moose antlers, and red Persian rugs and Norman
Rockwellish old prints. I could buy things there, and I do not
often buy things.
36.
chapter three.
And oh, yes—I would like to remember our first date. Sitting
on green grass by the slow moving river then fast sparkling
waterfall, the last sun of the day gold, slightly orange, I sit on my
Filson coat, and you sit on your whiteblue towel and we spread
out the dishes, and feast. We only have twenty minutes, yet
we take those minutes slowly and live them fully. It is the best
date I can ever remember perhaps ever, and I have had many
good ones full of connection, humor, hope. But this: it is easy,
romantic, just so. And somehow unrushed.
And somehow I have not fucked it all up, yet, I think, as I walk
away from you and your little car, and off to the work that is my
love and life.
37.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss.
We plan to meet on the porch again. I am late and there you are:
“Sorry, the interview went long,” but you have just arrived. And
we walk up the hill to your tent, it is dark now, and we stumble
on a root or rock but mostly we both know our way, having
grown up playing in these hills.
38.
chapter three.
have glasses, so we drink out of the bottle and I eat many dates,
and we eat good chocolate, and I show you how (don’t chew,
just place on tongue, enjoy it as it melts) and you do not care.
And our words or minds braid until even our hearts touch:
everything is a joke, or sad. I ask about your comment that I am
ahead of myself, I did not understand it though it sounds right.
For this love for you is not love, or for you: it is only enthusiasm.
Instead, I will give you space. This is how: I return to this
moment, where all tensions are solved by not needing resolution,
and I listen to you, and make jokes, and share. And yet still I fall
in love, knowing it is not real. We will find out how deep the
roots wend, if this is more than just mutual projection.
39.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss.
We kiss more, more. I kiss your top lip, a slight bite, your neck.
And more. My failure to shave begins to hurt your face and lips.
My hand in your nightdark hair and on your chin and your
sharp hips and smooth shoulder. And we talk as we do this.
And I interrupt you with a kiss: it is fun to interrupt when the
interruption is welcome. And I lay you down and I lay beside
you and over you and we talk, kiss, more, more, and I touch
your sternum, which is close to your heart.
And you touch and kiss me, but I do not pay attention to me,
I pay attention to you.
Time happens.
40.
chapter three.
I look forward to the moonlit long walk, though I fear the giddy
joy after a first date: joy always precedes heartbreak.
We walk out into the night and it is rich, dripping with joy.
And we walk down and hold and kiss. Your eyes are closed in
the moonlight, eager lips.
41.
Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss.
None of this may mean a thing, and you are nervous, and you
want space. It may mean something, and I am not nervous, and
I will give you all the space you need. For love if true is caring
about another’s heart, not merely one’s own.
But: I would, too, like to remember the next day, and our talk in
the water in the stream, you have had a long night of worry, you
tell me—while I feel only joy and sun and slept well.
Our planned dinner date is late, and short, and we do not return
to the tent, or laugh, or kiss or touch, much. I say you are not
responsible for my sadness, I’m a big boy, and I will give you space.
“But space can be in love, not just without it.” But you do not hear
my words. They are just words. You say, “I can’t let you in.”
I would like to remember the final good-bye: “Do what you want,”
you tell me, in that voice hearts use when they have closed.
42.
chapter three.
And you say you may visit. And I say I will not ask for it. And
we part.
And I sing all the way home, so that I do not drown in self-pity:
43.
chapter four.
You are out there and I am out here and this is not the time.
But the time may come to pass: that is how time works. The
only question that matters now, then, is whether our hearts
have connected, and can learn to breathe together.
If you had a spare hour, I would not want to see you. I would
want you to take a break from your path and do something
lovely for yourself. A massage, or a swim, or fun with friends…
whatever you have not done for yourself that you are thirsty
for. Maitri. Space is love and I give that which cannot be given
to but can only be taken from you. And you need it: as you
44.
chapter four.
45.
Things I would like to do with You in Time.
But if you had four weeks, and you were ready, which you are not,
we should just be simple, together, in my hometown, and live
life, and not do anything but hike, and drink coffee, and work,
and laugh with my dog, and eat good food with many good
friends, or alone, and climbrun together up along the creek
into the mountains. We could text and make appointments with
one another: “What are you doing later?,” and see each other
when convenient. Like adults, like normal life, and see.
And that would be the best—to live everyday life with you. For
I do not know you and though I seem dreamy and open, just
beneath that layer I am waiting, my hope balanced with prajna.
Three layers down, I am rational: that is where my hesitation
and patience rest. But I am not afraid of exploring and finding
46.
chapter four.
out what lies over the edge of the flat earth, for it is not flat.
I am not afraid of anything but filling your space. You need and
deserve that and I would not like to be a part of anything other
than love in your life.
And as you and I both know, in our bones, in our blood, in our
mindstream, in our calm moments…love is made up of space
just as the earth is made up of water.
47.
chapter five.
You may lose me, first, for I am not all so very young,
anymore. But I will take care of myself so that I may build thin
bonfires on the cold beach beneath the country’s deep sky’s
bright stars. I will climb regularly, I will wear through expensive
running shoes running the hills with Red dog (“half-hound, all
trouble”), I will bicycle every day no matter the weather, I will
yoga (reluctantly, for it stretches me where I am tight—leaning
into resistance makes me lazy). I will eat real food and go to
bed at a reasonable hour (putting my work away and taking
48.
chapter five.
I would like to see you wear that turquoise dress with white
flowers when your hair has turned white.
I would not like you to cut your wiry hair, but to wear it long:
proudly but messily the way beautiful old women who like to
garden or make art do.
49.
Things I would like to do with You Before I Lose You.
And I will not smother you, but I will smother them—with the
paper-thin friendliness of a tiger, burning bright.
50.
chapter five.
Loneliness is my habit—
I grew up in loneliness…
Lonely moon,
Come together…”
I would like to love you. I would like to love you after the
honeymoon. I would like to fight with you and dislike you and
judge you and fault you…and remember to breathe and leave.
And I would like to quickly fault myself and regret it all and
go for a long hard walk, stomping in the woods. And I would
like to come back and apologize and mean it, mostly.
And I would like to learn from you even as I argue with you, and
even if I know you are somewhat wrong, and even if I know I
am somewhat wrong.
I would like to stare into your eyes and I would like to cry but
I will not. I have spent so many years trying clothes on, that
51.
Things I would like to do with You Before I Lose You.
when we set our hearts next to one another and found no fitting
necessary—but rather we found you slow and me fast and both
of us set against one another in delight: friendship shot full
with passion—oh, I knew then that we had something more
than a love affair.
I would like to take you out of the red woods and talk with you
in the wood-paneled café with a fire lit in the dark stove. This
Winter, after a chocolate tasting at a golden old bookstore, I
ask you, and you say yes. This is before I lose you.
I would like to go on a first date with you, a VIP party, and see
you melt into me…until my bad whiskey makes me dull and
your interest slows and I just want to go home and I lose you.
52.
chapter five.
I would like to watch you walk down the hall, tall, in front
of me, naked but for your underwear.
53.
Things I would like to do with You Before I Lose You.
I would like to hike with you (and Red dog) up to the wide
pale grassed park beneath the tall walk-stopping mountains
and then up and then down another mountain where I played
Malvolio and Ferdinand when I was a boy, in the red rock
amphitheater built by FDR’s peaceful army. Or I would like to
54.
chapter five.
bike with you all the way up to the little mountaintop cowboy
town for folkfiddling music; or I would like to go to an outdoor
movie with you, someone brought their own couch; or to a
fancy upstairs dinner, the kind you imagine having when you
are twelve and you think about being grown up; or to farmers’
market on Wednesday afternoon or Saturday morning between
the creek and the museum.
I would like to run into you on the street and flirt at you and
have you talk over me and laugh, for you are strong like a
filly, and you laugh into me as I talk back over you, and we talk
over one another as the tide does when it retreats and folds up
against itself, old waves relaxing back into new waves rushing.
I would like to hold your hand. For it is always the first time,
when I hold your hand. For I am so enthusiastic about you
55.
Things I would like to do with You Before I Lose You.
For the future is all made up, none of this matters, these are
just words.
“But be friendly.
By being friendly toward others
You increase your non-trusting.
The idea is to be independent,
Not involved,
Not glued, one might say, to others.
Thus one becomes ever more
Compassionate and friendly.
56.
chapter five.
I would like to insist on staying with you when you give birth,
though I am not good with blood from those I cherish, and I
will faint nearly and be a bother and be asked to leave and go
watch fuzzy television in the waiting room but I will stay and
faint and be a bother.
57.
chapter six.
58.
chapter six.
You could be like the flowers: you could let the bees sit on
you and take your honey away, and that would be fine.”
~ Chögyam Trungpa
59.
Things I would like to Hear from You when You are Afraid.
It is the rub between the two that creates sparks: earth striking
against heaven.
We have connected.
I would like to love you if that is how it is. I would like to honor
this connection with mutual openness.
60.
chapter six.
Or, I would like to lose you if that is how it is. I would not like to
dishonor our connection with a lack of communication about
the confusing things.
If you are afraid, come here and I will hold you. Or go away,
go for a walk and hold yourself, sweetly.
61.
Things I would like to Hear from You when You are Afraid.
Say we have one wonderful night: say we bicycle far off together,
to a wedding dinner with many ladies and gentlemen outside
on a green farm. And say we laugh and dine at a white table
amongst many white tables set beneath the gathering stars of a
night that fast turns the green farm dark blue. And say you are
elegant, and I will undress your elegance. But first in candlelight
62.
chapter six.
But then, say, the next day you cancel our plans for our first
dinner date without telling me. Thoughtfulness is a basic
courtesy we extend to friends. And then, say, we gather that
night with friends and you are with a gentleman and you sit
over there and it is all an affront served cold. I do not revel in
heated jealousy and I will soon be cooly fine with this loss of
our warmth of the night before. Perhaps you slept badly and
you are just out of a long uneven relationship and you are not
ready to unfold your wings. I do not know and cannot since you
do not tell me.
I would like to breathe out into the rain and lightning night as
63.
Things I would like to Hear from You when You are Afraid.
“If she does not communicate, forget her, you deserve better.”
I would like to love my life and help you to love yours. Love is
not selfish love but rather caring for another, which means we
help to nurture our fundamental kindness.
That day may be far off but I do not think it is for I want to
name twelve noble children foolish things like Margaret (Daisy)
and Huckleberry and Winslow and Whitman and Washington
and Kerouac (Cary, for short) and Roosevelt (Rose) and Thoreau
and Sargent and…
I would not like to, say, call or text or email or message you and
not hear back…I would not like to play games. I would not like
to ask you out, and never be asked out. I would not like to treat,
64.
chapter six.
I would like us to not play games, but rather I would like for us
to be simply honest.
Love is not one-way: that is for boyish Mad Men and bored
Housewives, and I admire neither.
If you are busy, take your time: space is yours and I will not take
it from you, and space is mine and I will not give it up for you.
But: if you play games with communication, like old climbing
rope my affection for you will fray.
Loneliness is the salve for love lost, and this antidote comes
conveniently after misuse. I would not like to date a girl.
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in the
bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
~ Anaïs Nin
65.
Things I would like to Hear from You when You are Afraid.
And I want you to want me, faults and all, not any ideas you
have about love.
66.
chapter seven.
67.
chapter seven.
upset, and if you said you did not want to read them anymore,
I would like to remind you that these words are not about you.
I will not share this one with you, but if you find it in a book,
know that my love is vajra: pregnant with space, replete with
strength and discernment, golden and heavily beautiful and
threatening, yet a tool of use, for you.
For if I love you without knowing you these are just words, the
kind of frustrating love where two people say “I love you,” to
one another, and mean it.
So I do not love you, and you do not love me. But it goes without
saying, for it remains unsaid: I do not love you, and you cannot
yet love me.
68.
Things I would like to Whisper to You.
69.
chapter seven.
I first noticed you when I saw your strong hands pull Diana’s
golden bow. Like that independent Goddess, you are contented
70.
Things I would like to Whisper to You.
As I wrote you, I would like to cry with you. I can cry, now.
For many years I never cried. For more than a decade, I cried
perhaps twice. Now I cry a few times a year, but rarely for long.
But with you I could finally cry blue tears.
71.
chapter seven.
72.
Things I would like to Whisper to You.
And if you are busy or if now is not the time that is fine—for
you. For me—I shall wither into myself, hard as the old vine.
I shall still bear fruit to serve thousands of noble warriors, but I
shall not be excited.
Do not read this, do not read this, for it is too much and I want
to be too little (as you wish).
73.
chapter eight.
It has now been too long. I saw you last month, and four days ago,
and a year ago exactly: then I was flooded and now I am parched.
I would like to see you in just a few days when you arrive at my
door: and, like children arriving for their first day of school,
we will giddily greet this unknown new present with sweet
shaky smiles. You will have arrived from no place. No home
now but the road: driving from your old ocean home, to our old
forest home, to her home, to my home in this flooded mountain
valley, and then on into your future.
74.
chapter eight.
Where is home?
Your visit will not be long enough, which is the perfect length.
Unless it is too long: even better.
75.
Things I would like to do with You when You Visit my Home.
Perhaps—
76.
chapter eight.
But I would like to have been alone for these many years.
77.
Things I would like to do with You when You Visit my Home.
I would like to travel, with and without you, and sail with and
without you, and date you for those same years: a pleasure to
spend a morning dancing like children to an old song while I
make breakfast, and you make coffee in wide off-white potter’s
mugs with blue rims that say “all done” at the bottom.
Our getting to know one another has flowed through all available
channels. We have been penpals; our courtship has been excitedly
careful. Messaging on Facebook, Skyping, cell phone, an air visit
to you, a road visit to me, a postcard on my refrigerator.
78.
chapter eight.
spacious yards: I walk slowly and you walk quickly. I offer you
my white woolen blue-striped sweater but the rain is light and
cool, so it does not bother you. I am wearing a cowboy shirt.
I would like to remember our early days, when we talked to
one another but did not know one another: strangers, in love.
Talking and laughing and sitting up straight and slumping and
growing comfortable as ourselves with one another—all before
sex seals something and intimacy is gained and space is lost,
then regained.
Yes: I would like sex, I would like to fall in love, I would like
to think ahead. But I would like to be here, now, even more,
because here is where you are. I would like to begin things
properly: for if I respect this match then I must begin things
with the three kinds of confidence, without hesitation.
And so I would like to come in from the sea and I would like to
see you every day, but not all day. I would like you to have space
and be alone and then I would like to live our list: we can bicycle
with Red dog along the bike path along the creek and we can
climb, yoga, run together through those mountain foothills hit
hard by the floods.
79.
Things I would like to do with You when You Visit my Home.
crazy? And that is a sane question, and I am glad you ask it.
When it is dark and you have heard words of caution whispered
in the wind from a friend who does not know me you question
our course forward. Then I remind you in easy words that I
am, only, me: I am not what you fear, your fear is what you fear,
and I am something sillier, tougher—I am something more
ordinary than what you fear. I am a basically good man, and I
am happy to show my heart to your friends, and they are right
to care for and protect you.
But be friendly.
By being friendly toward others
You increase your non-trusting.
The idea is to be independent,
Not involved,
80.
chapter eight.
We are clan, and many proud warriors will sit up and smile
their white teeth at the sound of my name.
I would like to see you most every day for what I fear most is
to miss seeing what you wear, how you laugh, and what you
are creating, and what you think about things I think about,
and what you think about things I have not thought about, and
what you say out of that.
But: you may not complete me. You may not take me seriously, I
may nourish your goodness. We may expand one another.
81.
Things I would like to do with You when You Visit my Home.
I would like to make fun plans with you, but then just do
ordinary things; or plan ordinary things but find we have
stepped through a wardrobe into a world of ordinary magic.
82.
chapter eight.
you, and see her love you as she loves me, or go to the tamed
kingdom in the mountains and visit the land I have known so
well since I was a golden red-headed baby, and I would like to
practice being here with you, so that we may be of better service.
83.
Things I would like to do with You when You Visit my Home.
and prize open minds above opinions. And that is key. That and
the basics: kissing, coffee, bicycling, flirting, art, and sun, and
Red dog, and fruit and family and work and work, and work,
and curious chaos. And, home.
And then I would like you to leave me and my heart will not
know whether to be happy or sad at your visit or your departure.
84.
chapter nine.
85.
chapter nine.
I would like to find out which one you are. I cannot tell. Is it you?
I am not one of the boys who pushes onto you with arrogance.
I am better, different. You will have to meet me halfway. This is
what a match is: tension in equality, a rhythmic balance, a sway
that is not present if I am to dominate or be dominated. I would
like neither. I would like a match.
You are not mine to take; I would not like to take you. You want
to be taken; and so you are taken by another.
Oh, yes.
86.
Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You.
share that which is freely and wholly given from your bedrock.
Your longings, that are not a need but an echo off the rock,
heavy beneath your waves.
I would not like to keep you: a tiger must remain in the wild or
it ceases to be Tiger. When we play, however, I would like to take
you! I would like you to take me! I would like to ride you. We
can take turns!
87.
chapter nine.
There are many ways to know one another. There are many
ways to know if this is Love. I would like to lose at Scrabble
against you. I would like to play volleyball with you. I would like
to bicycle with you up the mountains.
Love is not about being the same. Love is about two humans
appreciating one another. These are not pretty words—this is
important. And if it is important, then we must laugh.
You are almost always cold; I am almost always warm. You like
the blinds closed; I need the Sun to wake up. I like the windows
open; you like to have two comforters and seven layers of old
striped blankets (I counted), and me.
88.
Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You.
You like your pancakes and bacon, you love fresh fish and good
steak, I like pigs when they are alive—“they’re smarter than
dogs”—and for breakfast I like hippie stuff: organic granola
and an organic banana and organic dark crunchy peanut butter
in a glass jar and raw local honey and fresh-baked cinnamon
raisin bread from a brown paper bag; we both love big salads
with too many things in them like olives and artichoke hearts.
We both like coffee in the morning, of course.
I would like to offer you a soft tee shirt to wear at night. I would
like to take it off of you and lose it off the side of the bed and
instead cuddle into our clean salt sweat.
89.
chapter nine.
hot sauce (but I keep one end of the plate free of hot, for you)
and drink hoppy beer in another loud bright tap room or go on
a road trip (you stick your long legs out the window, I eye your
long legs) to go climbing together in a redpink canyon.
But you are afraid, or you are bold, or your desire is cool, or it
is cautious, or your interest is shallow, or it is fast, or other boys
distract you: and so I will raise a flag that shakes against the
wind, light as the sun, for all to see.
But I will not earn your love, nor steal it: I will sing an old sad
song and you will listen, or you will miss it.
Soooo you take the high rrroad…and I’ll take the low…
road…and I’ll be in Scotland afore…yeee…for me and
my true love…will never meet again, on the bonnie bonnie
banks of Loch Loooomond.
And I would like to dance with you, and see your low
expectations in the face of your own childlike wonder raised
up as high as my yellow flag. You deserve a good gentleman
with a better hunger, and you deserve less of cowardly men’s
controlling desires and projections.
90.
Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You.
And I would begin to love you truly, and if you love me too we
will fall, fall, fall…fall like Alice into Wonderland. We will wake
and stretch and brush our teeth and run Red dog around the
park and shower quickly and then descend the spiral staircase
in our shorts to the backyard hot tub beneath the good old tree.
You will not be allowed in with make up. A light green leaf will
fall in, and I will always rescue drowning bugs, and I will read
a business book with water-wrinkled pages and wear a pale
cowboy hat against the sun or rain, and you will read a good
magazine until we are so hot, we hop out red-faced and sweating.
91.
chapter nine.
I would like to see you today. I miss doing the dishes with you,
I miss grocery shopping with you, I miss laughing into you and
being made fun of by you…I miss your hips, like a rocking chair.
92.
Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You.
artists’ homes with you, and see their work and care and precision,
some of it brilliant, some of it dreamlike, some of it patient.
And I would like to invite you into my home again. And I would
like to touch you: then and there, and soft but firmly and then
more and, and you would not stop me, but your mouth would
open with surprise but without sound.
I would like to do this one thing to you, not with you, just inside
the entrance, feeling you rise against the doorframe. And then
I would relax and let you do to me, too, not with me. And you
might, again, kiss and breathe into my left ear, and I would laugh
and growl into you like a friendly tiger: for I am ticklish. And
you would press hard against the small of my back and though
we started fast we would continue slowly, first on the wall, then
the too-hard floor, then I would carry you, clumsily, for the
stairs are narrow not wide. And you, and me, naked, simple,
entwined: finally on my bed, under your many covers, shivering
and then sweating. All within the space of an hour. And then,
though it is still light evening, I would fall asleep against your
breast. And you would wake me, it is dark evening now, and we
would sink into the hot water in my old clawfoot bath, it needs
to be re-lacquered. And I would like to read my book while you
read your book, our arms intertwined as the steam rises and the
bubbles settle.
93.
chapter nine.
94.
Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You.
If you and I spend our seasons together we would find that our
dreams of happily-ever-after have holes in them through which
the wind of karma blows: our yellow flag shakes.
And I would like you to look ahead and see what I know. The wind
will replace our pretty ideas with something brighter: life.
95.
chapter nine.
This, here, now is real and I deserve she who deserves me and
the world deserves two who will serve it with joy.
I see what you do not see, now: that your heart is a pearl
polished into being by experience, rubbed together with caring
as powerful as your ability to rest upon your rock, in reality,
at this present moment, and to serve society with a positive
arrogance that proclaims again: I have been given much and so,
here I am.
I would like to see your pink art with witty black lines and frame
it precisely and set it in shadows on a big, empty wall so that I
might look into it as I look into your fire eyes, and be warmed
in your absence.
I would like to ride my spotted horse while you ride your black
horse and I would like to ride into the hills of my forefathers
who own nothing.
96.
Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You.
heart is as large as a city, and it glows with a fire that, with the
right mischievous love, shall serve to inspire thousands upon
thousands to inspire thousands upon thousands.
It is easy.
~ William Blake
97.
chapter ten.
We have not seen each other since that night when you wore
pink pants, or that night where we sat up on the hillside and
argued, pleasantly.
There are things you should know, things you should hear. You
do not care to hear them but I offer them to you, anyway.
98.
chapter ten.
But I do care for the memory of our courtship, and your cold
heart that appeared like a skittish, lost dog.
And so I would say a few things…and tuck this hollow letter into
an empty bottle and cork it, and set the bottle adrift beneath the
pier. And perhaps it will find its way to Cow City, or Old Harbor
City, or West Ocean City, or Gray Skyscraper City, or Fog City,
or a distant island or perhaps it will be lost across the ocean.
I would like to have said these things…so that you cease hurting
kind men and stop allowing yourself to be pushed upon by
bully men.
I would like to remember the sound of your call: but only for a
moment, for you are a siren, and I have much sailing left to do.
I would like to say that I do not mind not being friends with
you, now, for what is left to me is the memory of you and our
99.
The Last Things I would like to Say to You.
good, bad dates and our bad whiskey and our wild, fun, sexual,
drunken dancing together. I would have kissed you that night
but your acrid mouth smelled of put-out cigarette butts. I
remember your thong, you against the wall, you on my bed
on all fours, your wide open eyes, narrowing, your bangs…my
temporary humor and your model ice melting in the hands
of memory as a frozen polaroid, perfect as the Autumn leaves
veined in red and lit-up orange.
You will soon be rolling a vast baby carriage into a café and
eyeing the young party girls with wistful condescension. Your
thick husband will be distant and have affairs. And so will you.
You will visit a doctor when you are not sick, to fake your self
back to a fake perfection.
I would like to say that you were cruel to me, and many others,
because you could be. You knew the power you possessed
100.
chapter ten.
and you did not use your power for good: oh if you had you
could have raised waves against the cruel tides of suffering.
Instead you used it as a fix for your boredom; you used it to
drown out your own humanity, your beautiful loneliness, your
sweet insecurity, your kind fear.
But your power could not hold me for long. I was not
interested in having you: your carefully delicious style,
your elfin eyes, your breasts, your hair, your fit arms, your
strong neck, your butt, your gold shoulders, your gold legs,
your too many bangles.
“All that grace, all that body, all that face, makes me
want to party…will you still love me when I’m no
longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when
I’ve got nothing but my aching soul?”
~ Lana del Rey, The Great Gatsby.
But you did not think of this: it takes two to play and I would
not play your cold games with you. And so you lost me.
101.
The Last Things I would like to Say to You.
I thought I knew you: and I still believe that you are better than
this. You just have not had the encouragement.
102.
chapter ten.
I was desperate for your honesty, for your hasty laughter, for
your gentle breath, for your inspiring coos over my shoulder,
for your dry tears, for your ordinary friendship.
And so you sought after troubled boys who did not love.
And so I would like to thank you. You taught me, again and again,
again and again and again, not to dream of you. Finally I listened.
I am silent. These words are not words of love, but of the silence
that remains when this letter is done. I have listened and I do
not continue to imagine our love, for it was not love. You were
too busy walking your red carpet, and it was my misstep that I
thought we had something more than an hour’s fun.
103.
The Last Things I would like to Say to You.
For I know what I deserve: one who is not afraid of her heart.
Love does not require a map: it makes its way across the miles.
Love does not heed the time; it does not care for one or two
moons. Love is not bothered by obstacles—they form the high
sides to the left and right of this rocky path. This path does not
depend upon external signs: love will find its own way.
And my love will wait, a tiger in the tall grass, and my love will
relax and curl up then stretch out and nap and sigh. And you
will be there, but it will not be you, it will be Her: I cannot tell
who she will be and this is not for me to know.
I am here.
104.
chapter eleven.
~ Lord Byron
I would like to feel sad, and bitter, and that angst shall warm my
hollowed-out heart as this season grows colder.
105.
chapter eleven.
What a life I lead, where you for whom I feel something like
the fire that burns in the heart of love walks boldly into my
living room and tells my friends of your love for another. And
my guests applaud, not knowing of my feelings. And I retreat
upstairs to the sound of my breaking heart, cracking further. I
have been stupid to feel—I get the message, you could not put
it more clearly.
I will not join the birds in their whistling outside your faraway
sunny window, tomorrow morning.
106.
Things I would like to do this Cold Season without You.
of his day, every day. I meditate: dedicating the merit of this day
to others, then read a few paragraphs of Training the Mind. Red
dog lies by my side. I walk down my maroon spiral staircase to
the hot tub where I read The New Yorker or a business book (if it
is bright out, or snowing, I wear a cowboy hat to shield my eyes).
Dripping, I wind back up the twirly staircase to the clawfoot
tub where I shower, soaping off hot sweat while singing Brave
Wolfe or Drunken Sailor or Dona, Dona or Loch Lomond
through bubbles. After showering, I wrap my self in a towel and
dry in the echoes of the sun on my balcony where, each day, I can
107.
chapter eleven.
see the mountains a little more, again: the leaves are all falling.
And though this now early Autumn sun is still hot…my skin
and hair are wet and soon I am goosebumped. Red dog stands,
shakes, walks from sunny patch to shade. In an hour his busy
itinerary will call for him to stand, shake, and walk to a sunny
patch. I dress in confident clothes. Downstairs, I toast cinnamon
raisin bread—my favorite. My kitchen suddenly smells as if I
bake. I bicycle to a favorite café and work on my laptop and
socialize all day, getting so much done yet never enough. Things
are going well: my business is a bonfire on a beach patiently
built up, bigger and bigger with little twigs for twelve years.
You are not one of a long line of those I have given up,
My sullen heart
108.
Things I would like to do this Cold Season without You.
It will soon be cold but not yet freezing. I do not think well,
anymore. I do not think of anything, much: I am too full of
conditional feeling. The feeling we call sadness.
109.
chapter eleven.
And yes this is all you have been to my sadness. A match for me
to burn myself up again.
And now I have that much less hope and that much less fear.
I cannot run from our encounter, for it is too late to run. I can
already feel the red circle growing beneath my jacket and my
sweater, staining my wrinkled cotton dress shirt. I can feel the
warm blood, my chest shot through with Cupid’s arrow.
I would not like to blame you: you briefly gave my days so much
and I thank you for opening me.
110.
Things I would like to do this Cold Season without You.
face in the stream. But you did not want my heart: you wanted
to read my words, and go home with steel.
And soon I will go to the cabin in the white Forest above the
stream below the Mountain.
111.
chapter eleven.
Holy Land, and to All Light or All Dark City, and to the Red
Roof City, and perhaps to the capitol of my country, but not to
my mother’s country. My mother will visit my mountain valley
for my birthday.
But all of this is so far away. And so for now we will pick our
favorite pumpkin and bicycle up and down hills and layer up
and layer down and we are all so busy, there is no room for love,
but it happens anyway when you sit in a café and look at the
lengthening shadows against the sunny wall across the street.
And we will find a copper bar that serves food and do our work
in there, nights, and bike home over the snow.
I would like to have loved you, but I never found your rock
bottom. You never let me.
112.
Things I would like to do this Cold Season without You.
113.
chapter twelve.
And then you left and our two lives unraveled: I went this way
and you went that way, our dreams no longer entwined.
114.
chapter twelve.
And I kept my horses reined in, and they did not mind, for they
share my proud spirit, and they feel sure that some day soon I
shall let them run.
I would like to think upon the future, and build a path toward
it. I would like to be a father to trouble-making children, and I
would like to be a husband to a mother and a lover whom I am
always grinning after. And first, I would like to date, and first
I would like to travel the world! A red line tracing my many
new adventures. But I have explained all this, and the words
are without object: this heart has only itself left to feel affection
for—for now.
And the Small Town with the two streets and the fanciful old
houses and the slow river and the endless woods: I shall return
to the Forest, and leave the City behind.
I would like to remember that you look just as good with your
girlfriends and boyfriends at a house party as you do when
dressed for a conference, in a hotel, in black heels too high.
115.
Things I would like to do After our Fall.
You mined my depths, and you found space many fathoms deep,
and you kept drilling, and you hit bedrock, but you wanted oil.
I was sleepy with good hot tea and you and I sitting on the worn
Persian rug and in those moments I lost you. Any breeze can
take an entire future away from any one of us.
116.
chapter twelve.
Me.
You invited me in
117.
Things I would like to do After our Fall.
118.
chapter thirteen.
119.
chapter thirteen.
For I have lost a Future we did not, after all, wish to win.
I would like to find her name on The List. And so I date and
date and date and date and date and date…and I am alone and
alone and alone and alone and alone…furthering this difficult
yet satisfying friendship with myself.
But now it is Now, the Summer it is past and the Spring has not
yet come: our Past is done, and my Future? She will come.
120.
Things I would like to do Before I Return.
I would like to bicycle past pale farms and up, up between the
cold mountains until I get to the half-frozen noisy black river
where I turn at my red dirt road, dusted white with snow. I
would like to open the rust-polished wide gate. I let Red dog off
his leash and he runs with a yelp of joy. Together we climb up to
my closed-up cabin in the dark woods.
121.
chapter thirteen.
I would like to light the cold fireplace. I set the dusty copper
kettle out to make tea, and take off my sweaty clothes, and
put on my warm red-black checkered union suit pajamas. I
would like to spend the night reading the Collected Short Stories
beneath many heavy warm blankets. I would like to begin with
The Rich Boy, again.
I would like to not eat: now is a time for retreat, for brief
asceticism, for rest—a time for alone, a time to make my acute
sadness hungry and draw it out, and to sit with it at my barren
kitchen table. But I would like to take care of myself, too: I
packed a brown paper bag of almonds, and another bag of figs,
and the makings for oatmeal each morning and lentil soup I will
heat over the fire at night. There is brown sugar in the cupboard.
122.
Things I would like to do Before I Return.
The window faces East, so that each morning’s first light pours
over me.
“My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark
days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be;
she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden
pasture lane.” ~ Robert Frost
123.
chapter thirteen.
Oh, you had messaged me. You told me I was too much, and
you were right: I was too much for us.
Now, when I would like to think of us—I see only gray ghosts
in the mirror.
I grow this red beard until it curls. This beard is good for
mourning, and for bicycling in the Winter.
124.
Things I would like to do Before I Return.
And I would like to thank you—even as the wide, white fog rises
up the mountain hills around and below my cabin retreat.
I would like to say, as a wise man liked to do, Jolly Good Luck,
sweetheart!
I would like to add, as I wave good-bye, Thank you for being you,
just you.
This Winter will be long but this end of Autumn feels endless.
125.
chapter thirteen.
I would like to see what comes to me, and I would like to choose
whether to swing at the pitches I see.
I would like to look forward to other lovers, but I cannot yet move
my mind through this mountain fog. There are gray ghosts in the
white fog: and my red beard is not all grown in yet.
I return in a salt sweat three hours later and the cabin is dusty
and empty but warm.
I have been here for a day or two, then three days. I would like
to stay for thirty more days, or ninety.
126.
Things I would like to do Before I Return.
But for today, this retreat in the Mountains is a white and dark
green delight.
Gnomes still live in the old forests, according to this silly book
I read when I was a boy. Short, strong, jolly, horny, hungry,
with white beards or rosey cheeks and tools and warm homes
beneath trees.
The deer know the weather. The green leaves are gone the gold
leaves are gone the faded dry crumbling leaves are gone. Last
night the winds took the leaves away and now, suddenly: barren,
127.
chapter thirteen.
I would like to know how the animals and their hungry children
live amongst the red barked pine trees sweet with sap when the
cold snow comes and does not leave.
128.
Things I would like to do Before I Return.
In the Future I will jump into a waterhole on a hot day and skip
rocks and ropeswing up, let go, splash, the cool water washing
my hair back, blinking wetblur out of my eyes as we wade in
water with dogs chasing tennis balls.
Where the sun would set, trees were dead and the
rivers were none
129.
chapter thirteen.
This morning for the first time the fog has cleared and I can see
the little gold lights below, and I remember that late Fall in my
Big Town is a bright and blue delight.
130.
chapter fourteen.
This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us,
it’s with us wherever we are.” ~ Pema Chödrön
After a day and then another away from my Small City, having
taken refuge up high in these mountains…I would still like to
stay still, alone and hidden for another lifetime.
But I would not like this, really, for life and chaos and fear wake
131.
chapter fourteen.
And I roll back down the road across the river through the
polished rust gate and down, down, down with Red dog in the
trailer behind my bike—back to life.
132.
Things I would like to Let Go of Before I See You.
And I would like to ask one out and stroll with her past old
houses with screened-in porches; and I would like to ask two
out and watch half of an old movie by E.M. Forster, and she
would like to lie on her tummy as I hold her; and I would like
to ask three out, but she will have a boyfriend; and I would like
to ask four out, and she will not reply; and I would like to ask
five out and we will climb and sit on red rocks in the blue wind;
and I would like most of all to wait and look for one who would
like to look through my orange eyes to where the water is clear.
133.
chapter fourteen.
Finally, one day after I meet you I would like to ask you out on a
date, and you would like to go, and you will like me and I will like
you, and it will become clear that She out there is you right here.
I would like to find you when I do not expect Her, and ask you
out right away, before we have to wait for the Future. I will ask
you to your face, with a grin. And though today is hot and quiet
I do not feel irritated or cold: I enjoy this life.
134.
Things I would like to Let Go of Before I See You.
But now I am alone for it is still a Then that we will look back
upon. Alone is a thing without melody. It is, rather, a sweet thing,
a sharp, riveting thing, a polished thing. Alone is a succinct thing
worthy of a single taut sentence. Alone is a chaotic thing worthy
of long sentences: sentences that reluctantly ebb and flow, feint
and flourish, rise and plunge and only close when they are most
open—like other lovers too hot for the top sheet.
Each morning now is bright for the Past, cold at Present, sharp
with the Future: each morning leaves so many memories
forgotten.
135.
chapter fourteen.
The newly fallen leaves: they were just green this Summer!
Each one a colorfully enthusiastic masterpiece of life, beauty,
and now loss. Summer is gone fast as I grow up, it used to be
wonderfully empty and endless but now it is full and too quick.
And I would like to be sad: this sadness is good. When you are
sad, remember this: sing old warriors’ songs.
136.
Things I would like to Let Go of Before I See You.
137.
chapter fifteen.
You are tall and beautiful and wearing white. I do not know you,
and you do not know me, but we have enjoyed one another’s
company, recently, a bit—talking and laughing. You are clearly
intelligent, tasteful, and apparently, you tell me now, you are
young. I had no idea: your taste, conversation, ambitions and
laughter are all beautiful and formed, not raw or messy or wild,
138.
chapter fifteen.
We talk and laugh and eat and drink and toast and talk with
others and do our things. It is a party. And we talk with old
people and I flirt at you and you listen to the toasts from people
you do not know to others you do not know, much, which is
sweet—because these are special moments for people I love.
At the end of our night I would like to walk you to your car,
but I run into someone, I do not remember—and you wait
a bit, which is sweet. And we walk and talk and are frank
but respectful. I hate being respectful, women do not find it
attractive, but I care more for my own conscience and integrity
than kissing a woman when it is not time.
And I guess you are engrossed in our snowy walk and talk, for
we walk ten blocks out of the way, and there is a moment, where
we turn to reverse course, with the snow and the yellow light
in the night when it is time to kiss you! But I do not dive into
the moment. Perhaps I should have, but I would rather make
love with a beauty than chase a kiss. Making love is passion plus
heart, and I would not have one without the other.
And so I would like to keep walking with you in the snow and
when we say good-bye—you are driving home to your family
for Christmas across the white Plains—I remind you to respect
my respectfulness of you, for nice guys do always lose, and I am
nice, but I do not always lose.
139.
Things I would like to do with You when I am Drunk.
strangers, and for remembering how short and sweet life is,
and for being cozy, and for long drives across the white Plains.
And you are gone, now, and I am set for another good day of
work and play: hike with Red dog and a friend and her dog,
hot chocolate-colored coffee, work on my laptop, hot tub, then
climbing at the gym, grocery shopping, bicycling between each
destination, and a cozy movie and dinner.
And if we never know one another, that will be fine for you have
lit up my month, and for that I bow in thanks.
But if I do know you, watch out, for I will light up your already
bright life, and we may burn together, like wax paper.
140.
chapter sixteen.
That is love.
Fall in love?
141.
chapter sixteen.
I would not like to know if it will work out, I would not like
to know if we grow old and white-haired and weatherbeaten
together. For our love will not be about the romance in movies,
it will be about us.
And we will not be about us, but rather we would like to walk a
path of service, and a life of gentle smiles in all weathers.
142.
Things I would not yet like to Know about the Future.
…and before we know it the proud old red velvet couch will
hold you on one end and me on the other and a dog in the
middle and another below and popcorn popped with coconut
oil and children’s laughter and my booming voice, banning
iPhones from the house yet again. And my right hand will fold
about your gray socks, your favorite socks that have just been
dog-chewed.
143.
chapter sixteen.
When I am lazy I will not be lazy, for you. When I am weak I will
find strength, for you. When I am frustrated I will find the door
and walk out of it, for you, and go for a walk and remember
the clouds and forget my thoughts and remember my breath
and forget your supposed insult and so remember my humor
and big-ness and charm and forget my pettiness and my pride
and my self-concern. A breath where no breathing was. And I
would like to be back in two-and-a-half minutes, for that is how
long it takes.
I would not like to know how our sex life is, how many times we
do it a week, how many foolishly-named children we have, or
whose turn it is to make breakfast (it is mine) or do the dishes
(I would prefer to always do them together, I will wash, or rinse
and dry and I will sing a song I learned as a child).
144.
Things I would not yet like to Know about the Future.
I would like to know if you notice the breeze that comes through
the window, or if you would like to sleep with the curtains open
and blinds up or if you like to wear my pajamas (for wearing
flannel pajamas two sizes too big is the right size), or if you
teach or garden or need to work on the other end of our globe
for a year.
Bamboo tilts when the wind blows, it is strong but does not
break, it is not rigid, it bows with strength.
I would like you to know that when I work too long, I work for
the world, and the world is the inheritance of our children—
and our children, whether one or two or three or four or five or
more of them, whether popular or bookish, or both…are your
first love.
I would like you to know that you are the officer in our home,
and I am the sergeant, and they are the troops, and we are an
145.
chapter sixteen.
I would not like to know if you have an affair, for if you did,
that is a wrong turn, and I am not your love, and the brass locks
shall change, for there are second chances at most things, and
some plants can survive a cold night out of doors but I am not
one of them.
Life is hard and sharp and it hurts, but there are some who wear
it lightly, and mindfully, and with class, and are frank yet wise
yet light, and if our recipe is right our household shall be one
of the hardy and cheerful ones. Life is often lonely and sad and
unfair, but if we are lucky we shall work hard and earn our luck,
and when we are hit broadside we shall return fire as we sail
away with the wind at our backs, and trouble shall find it is
bored with us.
Life is long and lineage is longer, and life is short but tradition is
weighty but fragile, and we shall care for the things that deserve
our care. The look in your eyes when I kiss you on our bed—
calm, open—it is a look I shall guard and cultivate, for if I lose
it we are lost.
Life will get busy but I am strong—I will be rich and generous
and active but quiet sometimes, too. I shall balance making
speeches with reading books and drinking coffee with drinking
146.
Things I would not yet like to Know about the Future.
tea and I will play with our children hour after hour and day
after day and week after week, they shall distract me from our
greatness but I will serve anyway, working in my attic castle
with the foldout ladder that drops out of the ceiling.
You will come home one day and find I have cut half a circle in
the second floor’s floor, and have installed a climbing wall. You
will not be so sure.
These words are words, only, but they help me trace the outlines
of your as yet unknown face and invisible red heart, like an old-
fashioned frilly pressed paper Valentine card.
You are in the high white cold hard mountains, and I am just
below, in these Great, Golden Plains—beware: for I am coming
for you.
147.
chapter seventeen.
Is love sympathy.
Is love gentleness.
Is love possessiveness.
Is love sexuality.
Is love friendship.
Who knows?”
~ Chögyam Trungpa
148.
chapter seventeen.
I show you the blankets, one by one, peeling them back, off of
you. Four are heavy, from Hudson Bay: two of them are bright
red with a black stripe, two are white with yellow, red and green
stripes. Another is light and blue and white, knitted for my
mother by a hundred-year-old blind lady. I tell you about them,
one by one, as I fold them back, off of you.
I love you…a little, I will say less than two weeks later, and it will
become a joke between us.
The snow falls from the skies, settling over and into the pine
and spruce trees and sidewalks and up against wide curving
ancient maples and cottonwoods in white, light sparkles.
149.
Things I would like to do with You Beneath the Ocean.
And Red dog will curl up on my bed and help you stay warm
and he will sigh and snore softly.
The blankets are gone. Before we get cold, I would like to move
into you and over you, my hand under your red striped white
tank top stretched over your breasts, your peaceful sky eyes
wide beneath me in the dark. Your dark eyes still and empty,
the look of openness. The look of love is a look that cannot be
faked. We tumble. Your hair falling over me in the dark, your
arching breasts, your bright stomach, our turning, and the
feeling between us: we are dancing closely held, moving as if in
a waltz, only with much less elegance. Less prescribed.
I bow and ask permission, then pick the mountain’s sage and
crush it between my fingers, cup my hands, smell it with
appreciation and put it in my jacket’s left breast pocket. Same
with the juniper. I thank the high trees.
150.
chapter seventeen.
A quiet life, full of parties, and noise, and laughter, and coffee,
and conversations in the street, and climbing, and running over
the mountain trails with Red dog, and vegan nachos and hoppy
beer, or gabby farmers’ market lunches on the lawn, and many
dark nights lit by community events, or fundraisers, or my
working quietly in the attic as I have done for so many years.
But when I come down from writing and you come up from
your things…I know what comes next: I will kiss your plush
lips and your wet tongue and the underside of your top lip and
I will lightly bite your ears, breathing hot air into them and you
will wriggle and attack me with laughing kisses as I will kiss the
underside of your neck and your nipple and then your other
and then I will put my hand down upon you, first over your
jeans and then later under. I would like to stand and move into
you against doorframes in the kitchen and on the floor in back
dark room and the entrance and on the balcony outside you
will say people will see but I am protective and they will not. My
hands against your back pulling at your clothes, my hands in
your thick dark hair and you will say, I like how you touch me,
and I know you do, for it is that dance, separately and together.
151.
Things I would like to do with You Beneath the Ocean.
And that is what I would like to offer you, if you are brave—I
shall serve as a mirror for you, because I care for you. I would
like to let you finally see what has been hidden from your
searchingly hungry gaze: your red heart.
And if that is what you would like to offer me, then this is why
my red heart will break open beneath your flooded ocean.
152.
chapter seventeen.
O rock,
~ Chögyam Trungpa
153.
chapter eighteen.
The snow still falls from the skies in white, light sparkles,
settling against the trees and sidewalks and up against the wide
curving ancient trees. The falling snow shows off as it slowly
cameos through dark yellow triangles beneath each street light,
bringing with it quiet magic.
154.
chapter eighteen.
I would like to eat with you, talk with you, laugh with you,
debate with you. I would like to admire your style and your
155.
Things I would like to do with You on a Snowy Weekend.
I would like to visit you in the big old black n’white Gray
Skyscraper City on Valentine’s and I would like to see you in
your town at your favorite café. I would like to drink more
coffee born one continent off, but roasted only thirty feet away
in a handsome century-old roaster.
If you let me, I would like to have five children with you, though
I would settle for three.
If our love runs out, you shall find another. If our love runs out,
I would like to love again.
156.
chapter nineteen.
I would like to meet you in the Old Harbor, or the Far-off Ocean
Harbor, or in the Gray Skyscraper City, or in High Lake Lands,
or in Fog City, or in All Light or All Dark City, or in Café City, or
in Empire City or northern Tweed, or on a sailboat off the west
coast of Mountain Peninsula, or on the top of a low continent,
or in my mountain valley, or in any place that I have been or
have not yet ever been.
157.
chapter nineteen.
It is February and the snow is cold and the sun is gold and the
afternoon roads are dirt slush—Winter is undecided, thinking
it may become Spring, already.
As you know I would like for you to be tall, and pale but with
red cheeks when you’ve exercised or come in from the cold or I
would like for you to be cherrydark, and smooth, or with long
rich hair or curly dark hair or straight hair—your eyes are green,
and light, or dark amber—the color of bourbon sipping at home
on our loveseat reading too-long-ignored books, or whatever we
drink too much of, too quickly, while playing happy hour free
pool in the basement bar. I would not like to care what you look
like, I would like to care how you look into me.
158.
Things I would like to do with You on Valentine’s Day.
159.
chapter nineteen.
Perhaps you live, work or play close by, but I do not yet know
your story, your family, your books on your bookshelf, your
photographs, your habits and what you like to make for
breakfast. I like rhubarb oatmeal.
I work long and late and often…I feel this day seeping away,
160.
Things I would like to do with You on Valentine’s Day.
And so, this Valentine’s Day, the best laid plans unmade, I bow
before the February snow, your youth and our confidence…this
Valentine’s Day, I say I love you, whoever you are.
All that lies between you and I is time, and time is a mist, and
it is morning, and it is late Winter, and the day and the season
shall warm, and I would like to see you soon.
161.
chapter twenty.
162.
chapter twenty.
Words, words: these are merely pretty words. Your eyebrows are
garish, yet musical. How is that?
Your hair is long, and wild, and messy (I like it that way). You are
good at this, and that, and this, and that: you are your own muse.
I would like to look into your quiet eyes, or are they full, the
daylight would tell me but it is dark, and I am lying next to
you, listening to you rant about something I do not care about.
163.
Things I would like to do with You Indoors.
Perhaps you are neurotic: you are wild, you are careless in the way
that beautiful children who grow up in safe neighborhoods are.
As a child, in Winter you slid on your sled down the middle of
your street, unafraid of traffic. Or in Summer you played Horse
on a hoop set safely in front of your house, ball on hip and moody
smile when a car dared drive down your exclusive street.
February here is all too dead and gray, and Winter now
is too long and cold. Snow upon snow. But that is what
Winter is. Patience is not patient until it has been too long.
Hold on to your wool blanket, dress warmly. Now is your
season to focus: even Winter is getting tired, though it
appears indefatigable.
You must sometimes go far away: space is all that protects you
from me.
You are unfairly talented: the gods put all their powers into
your red clay, leaving a thousand others beige. But I am an
arrogant mortal (was it Prometheus?) who would like to
challenge the high gods, and we shall marry and birth a little
half-god, a demi-god, and even as you burn me up I smile into
your fiery eyes.
164.
chapter twenty.
I have been tested and beaten but still I come back. I have walked
a long time, and alone, but still I keep walking. I have never
given up or even come close to giving up, really: even when I
have come close to giving up, my core was warm.
Your style is top of the low continent, 1920s; or Café City with
long cigarettes and languid talk of intellectual revolution,
or 1970s’ Second Wave feminism with too-large glasses and
narrow slacks with wide bottoms, tall boots, or a dress and a
leather purse and a silk blouse. Your style is black and white, but
you paint in color.
We like to swim: I wriggle and pull and gain strength under the
water. I know why you are a mermaid, and I would like to fish
you, but I like fish, so I do not fish you.
Bicycling through salt, slush, over ice and packed snow, gray
snow, tan snow, black snow, snow. Dismounting when there is
too much snow, and walking virginal prints into the quiet white
night snowfall, yellow streetlights and your warm beating heart
far away in your second-floor apartment: I can still hear it but
only when you listen for mine.
165.
Things I would like to do with You Indoors.
I would make love to your mind, and argue with it, and when
we are tired and sweaty, salt, sweat, water, we would dive one,
two, splash, ripple, into the pale turquoise saltwater ocean.
I would steal poetry from your heart, and leave it for you to read
with tea, your heart, my words, bound in a book of tan paper.
I would make love into you in the morning, and in the evening,
and if you wake, we would make love, and if I awake, I will pull
you to me.
I would like you sharp, and I would like you soft. I would like you
to challenge me, even as you enjoy me. I would like you sweet.
I would like to hear your laughter: laughter of fire plus space,
space enough for two to fly together, instead of crowding our
wings into one another’s path.
166.
chapter twenty.
167.
chapter twenty-one.
I would like to get through this list and see your name, finally.
168.
chapter twenty-one.
because it marks “V” and has big portions and good coffee and
endless hot sauce.
Dinner is good and goes quickly. You drink saké and I drink
saké and you drink more saké and I drink much more saké and
then, dessert.
Dessert is the time for us to decide if, later, soon, we would like
to undress one another.
Along the way I show you the old wide gray tree that I like: you
cannot even see the top, it is so tall! It would have been young
more than a hundred years ago, when men in top hats and
women in ridiculous dresses and horses and carriages passed
by its then-thin gray trunk and green leaves.
I would like to hold your head as we kiss for the first time and
soon the fiftieth time beneath the old gray tree.
169.
Things I would like to Read at the End of my List.
But it is too sweet too quick and so, soon, we pretend we would
just like to talk, and walk. We talk along the creek, and walk
more as the damp darkness tries to make you shiver. We have
dressed for one another instead of dressing for the wet weather.
I would like to study your eyes: they hold mysteries and lamps
in them.
If you are She, then you are the last name on the List of Loves
that I will read, in this life.
Yours.
170.
chapter twenty-one.
When I meet you and you meet me I do not know if you are the
last name on the List of Loves, or if you are to be nobody to me,
or if you are to be just another name on this long List.
I do not think that I have met you, yet. Where will I meet you?
When? Will it be because I decide to go right instead of left one
day, and get some groceries, or go left instead of right, to dinner
or drinks or a café or a party instead of home?
When you are the last name on the List your name will be held
close, and the List will be tossed: it will serve as kindling in our
fireplace in our hearth.
You and I have not yet realized that we are the two human
beings who will enjoy saying nothing together, being apart from
one another together, having too many breakfasts together,
drinking one too many drinks together, going horseback riding
together, doing laundry together, doing parties together, raising
children together, composting neurosis for awake together.
The other night the moon looked at your face and you waited in
171.
Things I would like to Read at the End of my List.
the open air for me to move at you—I did not. The other night I
took you up against the back of the couch and we laughed, after.
After love your hair is messy, long, curling gently; it used to be
braided but now it is a baroque disaster.
And she reminded me that the end of this List can be shortened
by keeping those off of it who I am not in line with, ethically.
My bar ought to be set high—not merely for attraction, but for
attraction and friendship, both.
And so I do not care for the color of your hair or any of it! It is
no matter. I will look for what you care for. What does matter
is what you want to do with who you are. And, of course, if you
care for me.
172.
chapter twenty-one.
I will treasure your hair, and your eyes, and your little nose, and
your mouth, and the back of your neck, and your strong legs,
and your eyebrows: it is fun. But I would like you to know that
what is important is what is important and we can laugh at the
rest so we can enjoy our row in the boat across the stream.
“One day I will find the right words, and they will be
simple.” ~ Jack Kerouac
173.
chapter twenty-two.
174.
chapter twenty-two.
But then I met you, a fresh yet familiar sight as you approached
me and my beautiful friend in the square.
This morning is only one week later and yet living my life is
like reading a different book. This morning, waking to your
hands praying before your closed eyes, I am foolish with giddy
gratitude. Your eyes are the green seen through the blue ocean
water on a vacation I have not yet taken; or they are the grayblack
of the moon’s shadow on a warm Spring evening.
175.
Things I would like to do with You this Springtime.
I have seen this look twice or three times before: you look
in love.
Later, our love would roll and fall and shatter and float and rise
and finally tangle, for years off and on. And though it rose high,
it ended as low as all our little loves.
And yet like a wintry wolf, I can smell the Spring. And I still feel
She is out there. A complement, a fun friend to dance with.
176.
chapter twenty-two.
I would like to know you, but you are not here. You are on the
map, but I do not know where to search. I am where the Great
golden, now-suburb-filled Plains join the High Red Mountains,
in this green valley full of Victorians.
177.
Things I would like to do with You this Springtime.
Too few flowers value a plot of land worked over by old tools
and oxen and heavy boots to make food for others.
And then, two days later, in the midst of a big busy day, I bicycle
downtown: late for a late lunch meeting. I talk with friends on
the way in, and sit down for my meeting. And then, talking to
178.
chapter twenty-two.
the restaurant’s manager, I see you. You are sitting in the corner
with three friends, one of them little.
This is a little magic: because you are gone to me, and do not
live here. But you are here.
You get up and I talk with you, your bright eyes nearly blinding
my eyes. We smile and say things. I make funny faces and
play with and hide from and search for the little girl who is
at your table. I politely say hello to the older lady, and to your
younger friend. Sometimes I am not charming, but today I am
charming. And, mostly, I talk with you. When we talk we are on
our own, and the world blurs. I try and mostly fail to speak your
language, and you enjoy my trying and mostly failing. We are
mutually amused.
In the meantime we first text and then write long letters and get
to know.
179.
Things I would like to do with You this Springtime.
And you ask things about me, and I tell you about myself. I do
not know why I tell you so much truth, but you are beautiful
and I am tired—though I am attached, too, to my alone-ness.
The longing is here: the longing for a match, for a friend, for a
gold lover to stretch out on my gray sheets. The longing to love
and even bicker about the little things: the longing is right here.
And I will love some of you with some of me, and then all of you
with all of me, if you let me and if I let you, as we get to know.
And I hope we each have the honor, and pleasure to feel sad, and
joy, and lust, together…and lunch on the green lawn beneath
180.
chapter twenty-two.
the big trees by the white creek at the farmers’ market, together.
I like dumplings with too much hot sauce.
181.
chapter twenty-three.
182.
chapter twenty-three.
But.
So, yes.
I would like to find respite in our match: for you and I will both
be busy, and full of vigor in service, sailing tireless seas all our
little long lives…
…but, so.
I must first learn to love you, which would require you to tame
me, and which would require that I swim the heavy ocean
beneath your young waves.
183.
Things I would like to Sing with You.
But: you are cautious and I am briefly tired and our moment
passes through my fingers like water.
184.
chapter twenty-three.
Our paths, so briefly braided, seem now to trend left, and bend
right and away.
I met you and you played games (or perhaps you did not) but in
any case, though you were close by, you were far away.
Reg dog circles and circles, curling into a cozy ball, ready
for sleep.
But I could not yet be tired, with you: it was too soon, and
that was my first mistake. When one plays a game against a
poolshark, one’s first mistake is one’s last mistake—the table
is run.
185.
Things I would like to Sing with You.
“Let the seasons begin; take the big king down.” ~ Beirut
And silence.
I would like to listen: to get to know your stories, your life, your
dreams, your daily humors small and large—I would like to
read your story until like a well-read book your story is well-
known to me, the favorite parts wrinkled from the bath or
the rain, and dried by the eastern sun.
186.
chapter twenty-three.
with you to bicycle with you. To make love with you to dine
with you to drink your wine to bathe with you and read with
you in the hotel bath.
I would like to kiss you as I see your eyes look into mine.
But they do not. Perhaps we will try again, perhaps not. You are
cautious, perhaps because boys have too long too easily fallen
in something like love at you.
187.
Things I would like to Sing with You.
I am a gentleman.
Not yet.
Genuine love is up, genuine love is down and yet genuine love
never wavers.
188.
chapter twenty-three.
I would like to see you one last time. And then again for another
hundred times, or two times, or three times, or whatever the
math is on countless times.
I would like to play, but not play games. I do not play games
because I cannot—they twist my sweet heart like a wet rag, and
what feels all right, fast becomes unworthy of us.
I admire you for your as yet unknown talent. For now, that is all:
you are a sandcastle, your tide has washed you away, I cannot tell
what you were, and so I would like to go swimming hard joyfully
up into the salt waves, laughing and relaxed. And though you
have left the beach behind you cannot swim with me.
189.
Things I would like to Sing with You.
I love you…”
~ Mason Jennings
190.
chapter twenty-four.
I would like to see you come to my tall old house on the hill. It is
the close of a long day and the sky is bright dark blue black, you
know. The moon is animated, half hidden behind the clouds.
“The moon will not use the door, only the window.”
~ Rumi
You call and I answer, and you visit my house on the hill.
We have not seen each other for weeks. But you do not make
191.
chapter twenty-four.
Now you are far away. I do not know you. But you are familiar
to me. And I am familiar to you.
I would like to rent a car and take Red dog, and take the top
down and let all of the sun and wind in—the wind too loud for
music—and roadtrip to meet you.
You are too desirable not to be dating another, now, and you
deserve the best. I am always dating, but I am always waiting.
There is a long line of women with erect posture, with tall legs.
192.
Things I would like to See when you Open to Me.
Fall in love with her body, it is too hot for sheets, chart her
terrain inch by inch—but fall in love with her face, and
forget the map.
193.
chapter twenty-four.
194.
Things I would like to See when you Open to Me.
You said: the first time I saw the forest I cried. Bears, islands,
whales in the water, and trees with the width of the wingspan of
three of me. I cannot cry, because I have not yet seen the forest.
Show it to me?
And this is how we will begin. It will not all be sex and cooking
and aimless wandering through the forest and conversations
and happy runs and lazy hours with Red dog and paperback
books and pens by the creek…but it will be mostly that.
195.
chapter twenty-four.
It is all so sad, looking back at the lovers in our lives: the joy,
the squabbles, the moments—swimming in the sun so bright
the water is clear, laughing sex against the door. They are gone!
196.
Things I would like to See when you Open to Me.
And I will take it all and give it back into you and you will take
it all and give it back to me, every day. And if I am given nothing
I will give it back: for loneliness is a broken-hearted love affair
with my life.
My hands relax into your back and neck, and your back and
neck relax in my hands. Your hair is long and dark in the
shadows of this, our first evening together. Later, your intimacy
is dark as you open, to me, but when I turn you over again and
breathe into your ear and bite you, light, I see your teeth, still
white in the night.
197.
chapter twenty-four.
“Now” by its nature cannot wait, but it proceeds. Love may wait
198.
Things I would like to See when you Open to Me.
For a decade I have worked and worked. And when I finally look
up I see my friends are older. Some of them move in together,
some of them have babies, some of them have whitening hair,
some of them build powerful businesses, some of them work as
hard as I do, too…so we do not see each other for years…and
before you know it we are hardly friends. My hair is still all
bright, but soon enough, one Winter morning, my copper
beard will have white in it.
You are young so you do not know, yet, though you can guess:
life goes on and our once-young friends peer out from elderly
faces with childlike eyes, wondering, How did I get here? I am still
who I have always been, but now I am an old person! My friends
live life, even as I work my days away: they have barbeques, they
raise children or fall in love. They move to Olive City or Red
Roof City or Independence City or Hipster City or Fog City or,
now, Cow City—while I bike home.
199.
chapter twenty-four.
I only met you the other day, but I have known you. I do not
remember the particulars, but I do remember the little fire
behind your eyes. I would like to curl up in front of our fire,
and you would like to curl up within me. We are both tigers.
I cannot wait to know you, but waiting will force our friendship
to grow, and friendship is the core of our affection—not our
200.
Things I would like to See when you Open to Me.
201.
chapter twenty-five.
“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and
the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that
asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your
income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not
concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward
the people, take off your hat to nothing known or
unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with
powerful uneducated persons and with the young and
with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open
air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all
you have been told at school or church or in any book,
dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very
flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency
not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and
face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every
motion and joint of your body.” ~ Walt Whitman
202.
chapter twenty-five.
One more hire, a few more months, and I will get to be human,
again. It will take many little tricks to stay on this horse, but I
am good at this and have already barebacked many miles. I am
aching and weary but it has been a good path.
Service without love is this path that I have traveled and while
it is long and quiet and sometimes bitter, it is not one I regret.
“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost
the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize
where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”
~ Henry David Thoreau
203.
Things I would like to do when I feel Alone.
an artist. Poised: there are things in you that are sad and rich
and sweet and fun.
Know that there are things you will not like about me.
I would like you to feel my tiredness, and not to shy away, but
to take me in and see that I am weathered on the inside, too—
beaten, rain streaming against a window.
I would like you to see that I have been a boulder on the side of
the river—I have not changed my day-to-day life though others
have changed so much.
204.
chapter twenty-five.
cozy in. This broken-open heart is our path. We are not afraid
of traveling alone, you and I.
205.
Things I would like to do when I feel Alone.
But I, like these silly flowers, have persevered. For I have been
trained all my life in the present moment. I have read stories
of heroes, and I have read too many headlines that all agree:
our wonderful world is under assault. Elephants, tigers, rhinos
all extinct by the time this new generation has children. Disease-
bearing plastic consumed by fish, birds and humans alike.
206.
chapter twenty-five.
Selfish love is not the point of this life. Service with love is.
Community is wealth.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw
that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
~ Rabindranath Tagore
207.
Things I would like to do when I feel Alone.
The gray rainy day makes me cold. I pull on an old white and
blue striped wool sweater with a hole in the elbow.
208.
chapter twenty-six.
~ Robert Frost
I would like to do it all with you before I leave you. I would like
to live this life entire with you, before we leave one another.
209.
chapter twenty-six
No: I will see all and you will see all and we will talk about it.
Or make love about it. Or eat a lunch, silently, in white sunshine,
avocado and sriracha on toast, with a side of greens I bought
for you at the farmers’ market this morning.
210.
Things I would like to do Before I Leave You.
If you asked me what I would like to do, which you do not, for
you are lost in your pleasant dreams of us—well, I would like
to walk through wildflowers and set up a hammock and read
one of my books in it and fall asleep, the sleep of one who has
worked too hard for too long and lost too much and won more.
If you join me you will curl onto me and sleep beneath the
leaves, too. It is the sleep of two lovers, face to face, close, silent,
fully open like daisies turned calmly up into enough sun.
I would like to devour you so many times and you will consume
me and we will visit one another so thoroughly we had better
bring a backpack full of safety, or we will get started on future
plans before we would like. Our hungers must flow up and
211.
chapter twenty-six
down, if they did not this teeter totter would only totter, and
our match would go out. Your hunger is greater than mine, at
times. Our appetites entwine, braiding up and down, when I
am tired you are tigress, when I am tiger you have a small soft
smile on one edge of your sleepy mouth.
My edges are rounded: like wood that has lived in water for too
long, I am stronger now, I do not” succumb to self-pity and I do
not float. How am I still strong? I am actually soft.
When the winds storm, I take down my sail. When the winds
blow steadily, I raise it, again. I do not mind getting wet, I enjoy
it and whoop and yawp. My expectations have been lowered
by a long line of beautiful women who may be right for some
handsome lover, but not for me. On empty nights I wonder if
I am sailing over the horizon, alone.
212.
Things I would like to do Before I Leave You.
something extra that I did not and could not expect. You are a
human being; you are my friend.
Even if you were open, now, which you are not—we would
probably not work. The odds are low. It is not likely.
But she who will match me will not be a game. She will be
strong, from old stock, bare feet in the forest, red brick, worn
brass, wide bark, polished cobble stone. She will be a craft, not
a matter of odds.
213.
chapter twenty-six
You would like my friends and I would like your friends and
I would ignore your friends and you would ignore my friends
and it is okay, either way. We are not clingy. When you flirt with
my friends I will flirt with your friends, see if you like it. If you
cross the line however I will leave a shadow behind, and never
return. I am not one for games or jealousy, drama is unethical.
I would like to be alone with you and alone without you. Our
social life would be like the seasons: fast Summer, engaged
Autumn, cozy Winter, joyful Spring. I have unbuttoned your
summerdress to see your breasts. Your bare feet are grounded,
your character is settled, your words precise as birds’ songs:
precise like good jazz, not rigid or careful.
214.
Things I would like to do Before I Leave You.
You are this earth. You are not a fantasy: you are who I would
like to dance with. And our love is this friendship lit by a wooden
match with white on red. I am your match, and you are mine.
And so we dance!
215.
chapter twenty-seven.
And now I am half a world away, yet your notes reach me just
as quickly, and my notes reach you just as quickly. I would like
to continue to remember you from time to time as I travel, and
write you new notes as if in arching gray graphite pencil as if on
a scrap of paper.
216.
chapter twenty-seven.
I would like to take these moments to write you this note, and
217.
Things I would like to do when I am Away.
pin it up for you—then I must get out and run around, and fill
my eyes with newness.
you should,
however,
218.
chapter twenty-seven.
I would like to tell you about my journey from far away, for
it is romantic to be alone without you, and yet to feel so close
to you…
The girls play guitar and fiddle and sing softly in high lilting
laughing voices across the street and I stomp with disarming
charming abandon!
The girls sway in their shirt dresses with thin belts and olive
skin and perfectly dark green eyes that hold my gaze, and smile
around it. They remind me that we need not be shy in our
affection. They are strong in their openness—not weak. They
are fiercely hungry for all that is good to eat.
Let’s unlearn.
Openness is tough.
Relaxing is tough.
219.
Things I would like to do when I am Away.
Our future life does not exist, except in the seeds we planted
yesterday when I invited you to join me for my birthday month.
220.
chapter twenty-seven.
Red dog can dig holes down under and lie in the cool shade.
And on the roof I will plant xeriscapeable plants except for one
section, which will hold a skylight so we can stare back up at the
stars as we fall asleep. The walls will be full of little shelves and
inset century-old stained glass windows.
The view of the mountains cradling the sky from above my tiny
tree home will be mind-pausing.
221.
chapter twenty-eight.
222.
chapter twenty-eight.
So I would like to take our dream fort down, and I would like to
take the dead flowers from the dry Ball jars and crush them and
drop them into the young rose bush outside.
223.
Things I would like to do with You in the End just Before the Beginning.
The last time always broke each of us—and they joined the line
walking slowly away from me.
She had said it was all too much too fast, one too many times—
and that was when I hopped off our rollercoaster.
224.
chapter twenty-eight.
Her naked self below me her arrival in the park her blue dress
and khaki corduroy hat with orange letters: it was a meeting
to mint a memory and she is forgotten and what was between
us fades.
At the end, after our lives have joined our love and dissipated into
the sky above, all that is left are knick-knacks: precious things
of no value, curiosities of momentous momentary moments to
be put into cardboard boxes by someone who knows nothing
of their meanings. The boxes daisychained into someone’s SUV
and donated away.
Hai!
For that is for the future of the Past: what I have learned from
her, and her, and her will shape my ability to love you, fully.
225.
Things I would like to do with You in the End just Before the Beginning.
All that matters now is to live while the moment lasts, and then
to hop onto the next moment.
I would like to see your face but you are silhouetted against the
sun, the blindingly bright ocean of the Future at your back. I
appreciate the shape of your dress.
I would like to see your expression: your open eyes, your proud
nose, I would like to tuck your hair behind your ear, I would like
to hear your blue voice, I would like to touch your long hand.
And I would like to be alone, for now, for the Winter is about to
come, and it is not yet time for our Future.
Red dog will be in the corner, he will be older now, and he will
snore more, and when he does we think it is sweet and funny.
226.
chapter twenty-eight.
I would like to look into your eyes without thinking any thing.
Ah, finally.
I would like to love, but I have lost many dear friends and shallow
friends and I would like to take the time to fully appreciate my
own being and I think that this is enough. But it may not be,
but it had better be or I shall turn bitter, and that would be
understandable. For human society is a cold thing. I am tired of
serving those who would burn their own nest.
227.
Things I would like to do with You in the End just Before the Beginning.
228.
chapter twenty-eight.
When Winter leaves and the fog comes and the rain comes and
when the leaves come, budding neon green…then perhaps we
will meet our match, and be alone, together, and become dear
to one another: fearless servants devoted to the commonwealth.
229.
bonus chapters
for ebook readers.
230.
bonus; chapter twenty-nine.
‘Sir, I exist!’
A sense of obligation.’”
This last year has been the first desert of my love life.
231.
bonus; chapter twenty-nine.
The second is that you are beautiful. Your beauty would not be
the chemical smell of models hiding, thinly, in slick magazines.
Real beauty is earthen hand-shaped elegance. Real beauty lies
in the little things: a red hoodie, hair tucked darkly behind an
ear, a sad shy smile, taking the time to bus your diner’s mug in
my favorite café. As a wise man once said, elegance cannot be
shopped for. If we are elegant, we are elegant however we look
or feel—just by how we pay attention to the ordinary details of
our daily lives.
I admire how she parts her hair. I admire how she teases, a
verbal ping-pong. I admire how she takes her time—that she
takes the time to be present is beautiful. I admire how she softly
coos over delicious food, as she takes her time. I admire how she
takes her time getting ready (some would call her late). I admire
how her eyes widen in enticing openness when she takes the
time to listen.
Some days I feel too old for dating games—some days I am low,
broken, beaten, weathered, experienced, meek. And yet some
days I wish to date again: the fun, the newness, the nervousness,
the soft hard body beneath and above and below and beside me.
Either way, I am yet too young for marriage:
232.
Things I would like to Raise a Glass to, with You.
I would like to marry and have children, soon, and yet now
I am not looking to marry. Looking to marry does not lead
to the kind of relationship that I would like to commit to. I
would like first to love and be loved, to establish a foundation
of communication, appreciation and humor. This love leads to
marriage—or, if it does not, then it is what it is and that is—
whether joyful or sad—a feast of further learning.
233.
bonus; chapter twenty-nine.
to continue to joust and shout and laugh and play and strut and
stress and breathe through that stress. I would meet her eight
years ago and ask her out tonight. But she is dating someone.
Or she is living away, in Gray Skyscraper City or Fog City.
She is too far away to water me, and I may die of thirst.
I would like to say that twice, and begin to hear echoes of the
unsaid truth the second time I say it to myself.
234.
bonus; chapter thirty.
~ Washington Irving
I met you a few times. You worked here, there...I was all over
town, so we must have run into each other every third day, in
the way young women and men have met for generations after
generations.
235.
bonus; chapter thirty.
We met up, our dogs in tow. We sat outside. You were kind,
caring, warm, flattering—all from a cool distance. You were
externally beautiful; you moved with internal beauty—your
eyes lit up with mischief.
236.
I would like to Thank You for Teaching my Heart.
Finally, you broke it off or I broke it off. And that is the sad joke
of us—there was no “it” to break off, there was no “us” to lose.
We had not been lovers. We had not, even, ever been friends.
237.
bonus; chapter thirty.
It has now been many years since I have seen you. Recently,
I asked you to reconnect, and we did so. Our reconnection
brought me back to those distant yet recent, sad sweet bitter
days, in the way a smell of juniper might time travel me to
another decade in another place.
How far I have come, and yet...I still have no idea how to be
friends with you.
You have been the most frustrating woman I have ever known.
And for that, I thank you. You taught me to breathe with
confidence in my goodness. You reminded me to be gentle in
my affection.
May our love life be gentle, and honest, even when it can
not be fun, or happy.
238.
I would like to Thank You for Teaching my Heart.
239.
bonus: chapter thirty-one.
240.
bonus; chapter thirty-one.
As a wise man once said, love is not what we dream of, but
something better, weirder—because it is real.
I cannot love you—I do not even know you. We have been out
together a few times. But you check off the silly and meaningless
and serious and meaningful boxes on my could-love list, so
far: intelligent. Witty—I like to play in joyful conversation.
Beautiful. Tall—I am tall, I like tall. Motivated by service, not
selfishness or greed. Active, outgoing, adventurous. Loving of
your family. Frank. Stylish—so stylish, walking in your long
hair and tall jeans and jaunty humbleness. You even have
an accent—which brings my world, too-long contained by
geography, a feeling for the overseas.
241.
I would like for you to be Patient with Me when I am Afraid of Love.
I had noticed, then fell for you months before this—you have
been the highlight of my day, once a week, to happen to see you
strut up and down the street alone or with friends. I saw you on
a date with a friend, I biked back and met another friend and
then talked to your date, a friend of ours, while you sat behind
him, protected by his cunning. Another time we got coffee in
the same line together, and I nearly said something silly or
casual, but did not. I like to let things build slowly—I do not
like to be one of the pushy boys. And so we circled one another.
Then I did yoga, one day. I was in the front row, the silver mirror
right in front of me, and I saw a tall shadow-haired beauty
mirrored in the shadows behind. She was you, I realized toward
the end of the class. After class, after I showered, I walked out
and there you were in the coat room. As we got our shoes on
I could see you listening to a friend ask me about my buck
242.
bonus; chapter thirty-one.
Filson canvas wingtips. And then you left and I left after and my
friends were outside and I saw you walking off, disappearing
into another month of not knowing you. So I said hello.
And I looked you up (we had mutual friends) and you accepted
my Friendship and a week later I messaged you and you
messaged back, yes! And that is how we came to meet at the
Farmers’ Market for black coffee one Spring morning.
And after the market you went your way and me, mine, and we
went to our homes, dropped off our groceries, got our dogs,
and met up at my house on the hill. You came to the front door
and I greeted you and sent you around back so the dogs could
meet and I went out back and the dogs played and we hiked off
for a long hike.
I have always been bad on first dates—not that this was a date,
yet—this was a pre-date. A date to see if we would like to go
on a date. I have always been comfortable and confident when
243.
I would like for you to be Patient with Me when I am Afraid of Love.
And today we got together again, and I was relaxed this time. We
walked and then sat in a café and worked together, and we were
so quiet, and comfortable—it is a delight to work with someone
and not have to talk. And we did talk, comparing music and
other things. And it was not until the end of a few hours that I
grew cold from the hope of knowing you and fear of losing you,
though I did not yet know you.
And you went your way, and me, mine, and I would see you
again. Perhaps I would like to love you or be loved by you, or
perhaps we will just be brief heartbreak, or perhaps nothing.
244.
bonus; chapter thirty-one.
and we will swim and I will fall in love with you as you leave my
little town.
And yet, today, now, I will still care for you and your silly
warrior’s sweet heart.
245.
bonus; chapter thirty-two.
But for years it has been: you live there, I live here, you love him,
I love her.
But now he is gone and now she is gone and I would like to ask
you out, again. So I do.
I have asked you out three times over six years, and I would like
to hear you say yes.
246.
bonus; chapter thirty-two.
So I fly out.
There are many beautiful men and women and trees and clouds
and snowfalls and books and seashells, and you are one of them.
And it is a long time ago, now, and I have a busy mind and life,
without much space in either—so looking at those five days in
River City by the City, and Gray Skyscraper City, is like looking
through a snowfall. But I can still see what happened, if I am
still. I leave our memories only reluctantly—I am happy—
content, I should say—for happiness is a thing to get and to
lose, and contentment or cheerfulness is a state of being.
So I flew to you.
247.
Things I would like to do with you over Five Days in Gray Skyscraper City.
248.
bonus; chapter thirty-two.
I bicycle all over, every day but the last, when I am sick of
constant activity and ready to be quiet and work. I meet friends
for food and I work at cafés on my laptop and I go out and I
bicycle here and there and pop into cafés when I see them and
work, drinking rich brown coffee.
I had forgotten how low your voice is, you sound like a smokey
seductress out of an old Film Noir. But you look like a Kennedy
sister. You are quirky, relentlessly thoughtful not just about
me and how I am and what I think and am doing but about
everyone you meet, whether you know them or not. You smile
readily, and listen with wide eyes, taking in everything: sharp,
present.
249.
Things I would like to do with you over Five Days in Gray Skyscraper City.
Being alone in Gray City can feel desperate, and cold, and
heavy…or it can feel grand, and romantic. Tonight, it feels epic,
in black-and-white.
The next day is the film premiere of our two mutual dear
friends, one of whom is your roommate and my former editor.
We all four meet for morning coffee together at your local café.
Later, we all meet for the film premiere, and later, we walk to
the afterparty—you and I inviting folks who should have been
invited and helping to move the walk and buy a few drinks and
raise a few toasts and chat with a few ignored guests…and I
appreciate that you, like me, are a natural host—you keep your
eyes up and humor on because you enjoy caring. You make
shy people laugh and take the time to introduce would-be
friends and business connections who should be connected.
A womanhunter friend of mine asks if you are single and I
imply you are not, though I cannot claim you.
Finally, the third night, I take you out to dinner. Not just a
dinner at a restaurant—but a fancy arty pop-up event dinner in
an old former warehouse—forty-five strangers at a long table,
a band (family friends of mine, beautiful, creative, talented,
250.
bonus; chapter thirty-two.
Space.
So I would like to talk more, and drink or kiss after, but you
leave. And I go back to work, at a favorite old café in the
Neighborhood that I used to like working at ten years ago. It is
nice. An hour passes, and another.
And then you are done, and you text, and we meet for a drink
back in River City by the City. So I bicycle over the old bridge,
again, and enjoy the skyline, again. Her Statue on one side,
the great tall rocket Building on the other. Bringing me back
to memories and forward to dreams. Gray Skyscraper turns
into River City, and I see you at a small bar, and we drink, and
celebrate, and our friends join us later on, and we get to know,
one on one, and it is good.
251.
Things I would like to do with you over Five Days in Gray Skyscraper City.
But it is the first time we have connected like this and there
will be more to come. We will make love in the mountains,
and we will laugh loudly and talk quietly and lay silently and
think into one another, and fall in love.
252.
bonus; chapter thirty-three.
“...her eyes were great big blue things with a soul in it.
We were across the street from one another. I would have liked
to have run after you and talked with you, but I was talking with
a friend and did not have the guts to run after you and talk with
you. I was sitting in a modern hipstery café with a letterpress in
the basement, and you were right out of American in Paris, you
253.
bonus; chapter thirty-three.
254.
Things I would have liked to do with You.
255.
bonus; chapter thirty-three.
This is the only love that is invincible, for it can handle change, it
can manage confusion. Love is found only in this genuinity.
256.
Afternote.
A List of
Things I would like to do with You.
I would like to finish and then have sex with you again,
after a moon-watching pause.
I would like to road trip to hot springs with you and camp the
night in a canvas tent and listen to the winded trees with you.
257.
I would like to bicycle tour with you.
I would like to dinner with our friends and our families along an
endless table on an endless lawn, with you.
I would like for you to please never hide your simple beauty.
I would like to cradle our first child with you, and talk over how
to discipline her in a way that inspires her when she is older.
I would like to argue over our fourth child’s name, and for you
to let me think I won, again.
I would like you to keep your hair wild even when you
grow old.
I would like to feel admiration for the littlest things you do:
say, how you look others in the eyes, openly, with warmth.
I would like for you to care for the truth above comfort.
258.
I would like for you to be patient and forgiving of others—and
when you are impatient, to be forgiving of yourself.
I would like to be angry with you, and huff and puff and have
you fail to take me seriously.
The End.
259.
About the Author.
Photo: Tanya Dueri
260.
Acknowledgments.
261.
And this book happened, nevertheless. And the next books
will be easier—this one was the first guinea pig in what is now
Elephant Books (find us on Facebook).
262.
This book happened because of other colleagues who
also edited and consulted and pushed me: Bryonie Wise, Sara
Crolick, Rachel Nussbaum and Meredith Meeks (who filmed
and edited our Things video), and Pam Uhlenkamp (who I’ve
worked with for, sheesh, thirteen years. She designed the book
you just read).
But most of all this book happened because of the vision and
kindness of Chögyam Trungpa, my sweet mom’s Buddhist
teacher, who offered a vision of love as a journey—a partner-
ship—a vision of love as something tender, and playful, and
unselfish.
263.
About the Bookiness of this Book.
264.
Benefactors.
Monika Carless
Jud Valeski
Debi Jordan
Harish Nim
Brad Feld
265.