come closer, but never let me go…
i watched two films over the weekend. both the same night. rather unplanned. despite the fact that i had recorded them to my dvr about a week prior. one was a film that i had seen before, one or two times. the first time i saw it i was very upset emotionally. the film CLOSER with Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Jude Law and Natalie Portman. this time it did not upset me as much but i was still riveted to the storyline and performances.
the second film was NEVER LET ME GO, which is a film adaptation from a book that Francesca Lia Block is very enamored to. that is pretty much the only reason i even know about the title. i picked up a copy of the book at the library once because she has it on her reading list for students who take her novel writing class. i got about 6 pages into it... not bad for my concentration level. but i really had no idea what the story was about. friendships, relationships, distress, sadness... sadly, the film, and i can say this from not even having read the book, does not interpret the text satisfactorily at all. a lot of huge, deep ideas are touched upon in the film which you can just tell that you need pages and chapters of back story and deep explanation to give full impact to. now i feel compelled to actually read the book. it’s a good story. very emotional. and it speaks a lot to my own experience in life.
during the viewing of the film i felt tempted to send a note to Lia to let her know that i saw the film and could understand why she found the story so compelling. i still feel an attraction to her. a connection. she has pushed me very far away now, like i think she does to so many people that she toys with. i just don’t want to go all the way away... i don’t know if she read the last letter i wrote to her or not. she should have, one way or the other. she owed me that much. that she failed to comment is sad on her part. i think she is as much the fault for the sadness in her life as any/all of the men who come close to her and try to befriend her. anyway, this posting is not about her.
the stories of the films stirred up some emotions for me about the plight of my solitary life. one story exemplified the solitariness of life, no matter how connected you are to a person, in spirit or flesh. time is fleeting. life is gone in a flash. if you don’t take what you want no one is going to hand it to you. and that is what the crime of my life is. i know what sort of things i would like to experience, yet i am paralyzed in fear of making them happen. so i persist in separation and solitude. i don’t even ask the gods for blessings anymore. i am fully resolved to accept the plight of my aloneness and believe that there will never be anything any different.
i dream, sure. i fantasize, sure. but my dreams and fantasies are the most real experiences of interactions of any romantic or sexual sort that i have in my life. and they are a minimal portion of what i spend my time doing, but still, they are in my heart and my mind. they are fewer than they used to be when i was younger too, which is nice because they used to be a sort of plague upon me. a craziness to be so consumed by the fire of the flesh and desire for contact with another being and to never get to experience it. i have two distant memories of casual physical contact with women in my life that were so exciting in the moments that they happened… and when i see things like this happen in a movie, i have to force myself to try to remember what that felt like when it happened to me because they were so long ago.
i remember one of the last times i kissed a woman that really excited me. i was probably about 26 years old. that says a lot right there, doesn’t it? over half of my lifetime ago was the last time i had a good kiss. i no longer even feel a compulsion to kiss. when i am with my models, the thought of kissing one of them never even occurs to me. not as a hidden desire. not as an impulse. it’s just not there. i wish it was. i wish i cared enough to feel that sort of adoration inside of me. i mean, i do from time to time respectfully kiss the hand of one of my models.
this is a good thing though, you know? it makes me out to be a very professional worker. my models feel safe with me. i don’t know how much of a problem this is in the world of photography that i’m on the fringe of. that photographers actually try to make sexual advances on their models. i suspect it is not that bad of a problem. but i am only saying that from my perspective. because i know that there are a lot of male photographers out there that are really sexually alive and that being with these young, beautiful women, especially when they wear provocative outfits, it can be very exciting. if i were 20 years younger doing this work, and were someone else, not me because i’ve never been able to connect intimately with anyone – it takes a huge amount of work, especially on the other persons behalf – i’d imagine that there would be sex happening.
and see, this is what i’m wondering about now. i’ve spent many, many weeks this year living inside my house alone. the other occupants of my house have gone away leaving me to have the place to myself for weeks at a time. giving me a freedom to do virtually any sort of thing that i want to do. i could invite people into the house. for cups of tea. for dinner. to watch a movie. to spend the night. i could do what normal, lonely people do. go to a bar and strike up a conversation with a stranger and say “hey, wanna come over to my place and watch a movie?” hoping to spark a connection of some sort… or whatever modern people do to meet someone. connect with someone via craigslist. i dunno. but i don’t. i never have. i never will.
i’d rather continue doing what i know is safe, and sad, by staying lonely and separate. isn’t that so wrong? to no longer believe or hope that love could happen? and see? what’s happening as a result is that all of the frustration of my lost desires to love and be loved only get wisped away in moments where the wind blows by my face. and i see someone that i sense as being lovable but i have no power to feel strength to try to start something.
It’s like I’ve already died. Or I’m in prison. except that when you are in prison at least you dream of the things you will do when you are released. you dream of getting drunk. you dream of finding a girl. my dreams are dead. and that i don’t have anyone to conspire with makes this so sad. i feel like a robot now, just doing these things that i do because there is nothing else to do. why do we keep on living when life becomes this droll except that it’s too scary to stop living. a life without love is not a life at all. or is it.
is a life hidden from the world, kept locked up in a closed mind, where no one knows what someone is really thinking, or why they do the things they do acceptable? recluse artists like Picasso and Van Gogh had one or no persons in their lifes to talk to about their ideas. and they were able to do great work. they were not taught, nor did they feel they had to “study the masters”. and see, this is where i think i am going. this is where i want to go. i think this is where i’ve been led to. a little dark room where there is no one left but myself. no desire left to interact with the world. i can answer my own questions well enough. i can live without human contact. and now i can feel free to do what i want without worrying about what anyone else will ever say about me.
this is why i don’t want to be on the social networks anymore. i went there because i was alone. but now that i understand that the people there can’t cure loneliness, but only confound it, i will be alone alone instead.
i was going to go so many other different places in this piece of writing. i’m really surprised that it ended up this way. what i was going to write i’ll just have to write somewhere else, some other time…
the second film was NEVER LET ME GO, which is a film adaptation from a book that Francesca Lia Block is very enamored to. that is pretty much the only reason i even know about the title. i picked up a copy of the book at the library once because she has it on her reading list for students who take her novel writing class. i got about 6 pages into it... not bad for my concentration level. but i really had no idea what the story was about. friendships, relationships, distress, sadness... sadly, the film, and i can say this from not even having read the book, does not interpret the text satisfactorily at all. a lot of huge, deep ideas are touched upon in the film which you can just tell that you need pages and chapters of back story and deep explanation to give full impact to. now i feel compelled to actually read the book. it’s a good story. very emotional. and it speaks a lot to my own experience in life.
during the viewing of the film i felt tempted to send a note to Lia to let her know that i saw the film and could understand why she found the story so compelling. i still feel an attraction to her. a connection. she has pushed me very far away now, like i think she does to so many people that she toys with. i just don’t want to go all the way away... i don’t know if she read the last letter i wrote to her or not. she should have, one way or the other. she owed me that much. that she failed to comment is sad on her part. i think she is as much the fault for the sadness in her life as any/all of the men who come close to her and try to befriend her. anyway, this posting is not about her.
the stories of the films stirred up some emotions for me about the plight of my solitary life. one story exemplified the solitariness of life, no matter how connected you are to a person, in spirit or flesh. time is fleeting. life is gone in a flash. if you don’t take what you want no one is going to hand it to you. and that is what the crime of my life is. i know what sort of things i would like to experience, yet i am paralyzed in fear of making them happen. so i persist in separation and solitude. i don’t even ask the gods for blessings anymore. i am fully resolved to accept the plight of my aloneness and believe that there will never be anything any different.
i dream, sure. i fantasize, sure. but my dreams and fantasies are the most real experiences of interactions of any romantic or sexual sort that i have in my life. and they are a minimal portion of what i spend my time doing, but still, they are in my heart and my mind. they are fewer than they used to be when i was younger too, which is nice because they used to be a sort of plague upon me. a craziness to be so consumed by the fire of the flesh and desire for contact with another being and to never get to experience it. i have two distant memories of casual physical contact with women in my life that were so exciting in the moments that they happened… and when i see things like this happen in a movie, i have to force myself to try to remember what that felt like when it happened to me because they were so long ago.
i remember one of the last times i kissed a woman that really excited me. i was probably about 26 years old. that says a lot right there, doesn’t it? over half of my lifetime ago was the last time i had a good kiss. i no longer even feel a compulsion to kiss. when i am with my models, the thought of kissing one of them never even occurs to me. not as a hidden desire. not as an impulse. it’s just not there. i wish it was. i wish i cared enough to feel that sort of adoration inside of me. i mean, i do from time to time respectfully kiss the hand of one of my models.
this is a good thing though, you know? it makes me out to be a very professional worker. my models feel safe with me. i don’t know how much of a problem this is in the world of photography that i’m on the fringe of. that photographers actually try to make sexual advances on their models. i suspect it is not that bad of a problem. but i am only saying that from my perspective. because i know that there are a lot of male photographers out there that are really sexually alive and that being with these young, beautiful women, especially when they wear provocative outfits, it can be very exciting. if i were 20 years younger doing this work, and were someone else, not me because i’ve never been able to connect intimately with anyone – it takes a huge amount of work, especially on the other persons behalf – i’d imagine that there would be sex happening.
and see, this is what i’m wondering about now. i’ve spent many, many weeks this year living inside my house alone. the other occupants of my house have gone away leaving me to have the place to myself for weeks at a time. giving me a freedom to do virtually any sort of thing that i want to do. i could invite people into the house. for cups of tea. for dinner. to watch a movie. to spend the night. i could do what normal, lonely people do. go to a bar and strike up a conversation with a stranger and say “hey, wanna come over to my place and watch a movie?” hoping to spark a connection of some sort… or whatever modern people do to meet someone. connect with someone via craigslist. i dunno. but i don’t. i never have. i never will.
i’d rather continue doing what i know is safe, and sad, by staying lonely and separate. isn’t that so wrong? to no longer believe or hope that love could happen? and see? what’s happening as a result is that all of the frustration of my lost desires to love and be loved only get wisped away in moments where the wind blows by my face. and i see someone that i sense as being lovable but i have no power to feel strength to try to start something.
It’s like I’ve already died. Or I’m in prison. except that when you are in prison at least you dream of the things you will do when you are released. you dream of getting drunk. you dream of finding a girl. my dreams are dead. and that i don’t have anyone to conspire with makes this so sad. i feel like a robot now, just doing these things that i do because there is nothing else to do. why do we keep on living when life becomes this droll except that it’s too scary to stop living. a life without love is not a life at all. or is it.
is a life hidden from the world, kept locked up in a closed mind, where no one knows what someone is really thinking, or why they do the things they do acceptable? recluse artists like Picasso and Van Gogh had one or no persons in their lifes to talk to about their ideas. and they were able to do great work. they were not taught, nor did they feel they had to “study the masters”. and see, this is where i think i am going. this is where i want to go. i think this is where i’ve been led to. a little dark room where there is no one left but myself. no desire left to interact with the world. i can answer my own questions well enough. i can live without human contact. and now i can feel free to do what i want without worrying about what anyone else will ever say about me.
this is why i don’t want to be on the social networks anymore. i went there because i was alone. but now that i understand that the people there can’t cure loneliness, but only confound it, i will be alone alone instead.
i was going to go so many other different places in this piece of writing. i’m really surprised that it ended up this way. what i was going to write i’ll just have to write somewhere else, some other time…
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