Timeless sane Helen gave me an afternoon from her busy life.
Its almost ten years since she was 23 and I was 29
and we discovered our passion in a physical storm that we were.
More than four years now since we've been lovers ...
on that sunny afternoon
when she was pregnant and Canada had taken me.
She listened to my problems today;
the storms of these last weeks ...
and met my every word with intelligence and clear perception.
And around us the restaurant turned, unseen ...
The talk turned to 'us' and how we had been.
I asked her if she was curious why I wanted to see her....
I told her that I wanted two things;
one, a friend that I loved and respected to share my hurts with and,
two, a renewal of contact with someone
who could refresh my memory that love and sanity can coexist.
I told her that considering my current state of turmoil
what I wanted to say was crazy ... but....
When I had come back from Canada
I had wanted to start up again with her
and she had said no because of religion, children and responsibility.
Well ... my feelings hadn't changed,
I still wanted her, and probably alway would.
She and I had always been simple and sane and direct with each other.
Never stumbled or leaned or gave each other anything
other than passion and a deepening camaraderie.
She had had security and so had I.
There was nothing to loose or gain for us.
It seems to me that love has always been a battlefield
with small moments of peace among the endless struggles to win,
or to dominate, or to feel secure or wanted.
But somehow she and I had always escaped those traps
and the space between us, whenever we met,
was filled with the peace of love and passion
combined with a simple sanity and common sense.
I began to remember our passion to her,
of why sex had been as it had,
and, together, we talked about the reasons.
It was empathy, pure and direct;
what one felt, the other did.
And then we began to remember together
and suddenly we were back...
in the Psychology building for that 1st time,
...kissing on the wall in Belmont Shore,
and on Elmer's bed where she said she had felt feelings
she had never known before.
And those nights, outside the computer center,
when she would face me on the seat of the car,
with her legs high against my arms,
and would then slide slowly down onto me
while I held so very still...
so full of passion
as the cars and dark night moved around us.
The words and feelings flowed...and we smiled...
the sunlit Palos Verdes fields of grass
...and her kitchen with my hands so hard on her shoulders,...
We felt the memories and laughed and smiled together at them.
We talked about our lives, since then.
My many lovers and her quiet life with Yung.
She had tried a few other lovers but could never get by
their complications and hassles and possessiveness.
And I, I had tried many lovers and had found much
and I knew that I loved womenkind beyond all measure
but, I said, ...there had always been
that sanity and passion with her
that I had never found again, as we had known it.
Something seemed to open in her then
and she began to tell me about her husband, Yung,
and an old girlfriend of his in Korea.
Of how it had cut her so badly when she had found
his hidden love letter.
Her turmoil then had been as deep as mine is now.
She told me of her mind's incessant torment
and how, when he had disappointed her a second time,
her love, that had come finally with the twins,
had withered away.
It was a story she had never told before,
this passionate and private lady had owned it all,
until today, when she shared it with me.
I was deeply touched that she would tell me these things
about her deep love and pain.
In the end we parted with nothing agreed or denied between us
except that the peace between us
was deep and proven.
gallagher
5 dec 85
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —