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 together in a physical storm.
And 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
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 needed
contact with someone
who could refresh my memory
that love and sanity can coexist.
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.
Both she and I had security
so there was nothing to lose
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 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 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 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...
as the cars and the night moved around us.
The words and feelings flowed
and we smiled...
remembering the sunlit
Palos Verdes fields of grass.
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.
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.
She told me of her incessant torment
and how, when he had disappointed her a second time,
her love for him,
which had come finally with the twins,
had withered away.
It was a story she had never told before,
this passionate and very private lady.
Until today, when she shared it with me.
I was deeply touched
that she would share these things with
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