Leap

“Leap! Close your eyes, take deep breath, and dive right in.” She tells me this gesturing in a swimmers stance. I admire her bravery and her fortitude in these matters. I want it to rub off on me desperately, but I know it won’t.

I looked into her large, warm brown eyes. If hope and faith could sparkle and shine through ones eyes then that’s what they would look like I thought. Flecks of green in such a deep brown and a brightness that was undeniable made her look almost angelic. “I can’t believe that I am telling you this, you?!”

An old lover once told me that the eyes were the gateway to the soul and the soul hid nothing. It was a statement I knew was true and never denied it but resented the whole matter. I could indeed see right through the very flesh of someone and into their deepest crevices with a mere glance to the eyes. I had decided long ago that it was possible to know too much so I did my best to sheer that ability, tame my gaze so that I could not see ones soul casually. At this moment I searched her eyes and saw an unyielding resolve in this matter, a limitless faith. It struck me that I had not called upon this ability, but it called on me to see what was there. A need based call that aroused my fear.

Why? I wondered. What makes this time different? I shook my head. “I can’t. I won’t. I hate this.” I longed for her faith and I remember having it once myself. How funny it was that I had taught her to derive strength from her own worth. How I taught her to fight for what she needed and not apologize for seizing it. Now it seemed to be her turn to teach me something.

“I’m not patient enough. I don’t even think I’m strong enough. I know exactly what I could lose because I’ve lost it all before. It makes me ill to think of it. Why put myself through it?” I turned my head from her and quietly sighed, trying to maintain enough conviction to win this argument.

I wasn’t comfortable with the ease of her next statement. “We put ourselves through it because its worth it. Love is always worth it.”

I heard myself say it many years ago just as she did. Innocent and divinely she uttered it, just as I used to. I recalled the joy it made me feel just to know it was absolute truth. How strongly I used to hold onto it, let it comfort me, let it give me strength to offset or even defeat all the evil I encountered.

There I was standing once again at the Chiefs grave side; giving up the red rose I wore in my hair to honor him. Laying it on his remains whispering a prayer to him and to the earth he slept in. The wind rushing through the tall pine at his head, around it and through me and I look up and hear a simple utterance. “Love” Humbled, I bow my head and feel the sun warming me as the cool wind subsides. What a sweet, simple time I thought. It was so easy then, but its not now. A shiver rushed through me as I snapped back into the present.

“I’m afraid and I know it.” I admitted. “I still don’t think I can do this. I’ve tried and failed miserably all my life. Even with the good doctor, I thought I’d done everything right. He even said he wanted a go before I said it, but then he left and never returned. I can’t go through that again. I can’t bring myself to do it. I just can’t allow it” Home, I thought, was where I wanted to be right now. I was done with this conversation and now needed to digest it.

Those big brown eyes with their sparkling faith looked at me intently. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to make you feel badly or stress you over this.” I knew she meant she didn’t want me to hurt but that she knew I needed to hear these things. I appreciated her at this moment more than ever. “I know and thank you. I have to get over this, but I don’t know how and I don’t think I'm ready to know how.” I conceded because I could not argue it. I knew she was right and while I hated it, I secretly hoped that I would regain that faith and have it shine in my eyes, too.


****


I pulled into the driveway, glad in a way that I didn’t have my son with me. I did need to really think, undisturbed about my future fate. I opened the back door and entered my house on the hill. I went about the normal routine, plopping my purse on the kitchen counter, petting my cat and then scolding her for being on the counter and then petting her some more. Next, I started myself some coffee, took a stroll around, thinking to myself how I loved the sound of my shoes on the wood floor and then relishing the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap that I use to clean the floors with. I stopped, looked out the large window in the dining room and watched the traffic whiz past. It wasn’t that I meant to see anything, it was just part of what I do, taking a minute to honor the house, and if one really could honor a house, my routine was the closest you could get to paying homage.

Honor a house. It’s an amusing thought to most but a serious and deeply provocative one for me. This wasn’t a house to me, it was a dream come true. I struggled for years in hopes of living somewhere like this. Sanctuary. All the blows to the head, the blood on my clothes, broken glass, rages in the middle of the night, the prison-like dwellings I endured before and after to get to this point gave me a concrete definition of what a home should be if nothing else. How I wanted to live.

I returned to the kitchen, small and quaint but perfectly effective for what it was. I poured a cup of hot coffee into my favorite brightly colored cup. I took a sip and grabbed my cigarettes from my purse. I lit one up and as the smoke rolled through the air, I laughed out loud.

Love, I thought. Love has gotten me nowhere. I’ve been alone for years now and why should I risk all that I’ve carefully rebuilt, again? I have more to loose now than ever. I’m stronger and more independent than I’ve ever been in my life. Every love I’ve had has tried to control those two traits, why would it be different now? Wouldn’t experience dictate that any love I take on now would try to do the same, only more so?

I walked into the living room and turned on some piano concerto that I’m sure I could remember the name and the composer of if I really tried, but didn’t think the effort was terribly necessary to enjoy it. Why couldn’t everything be that easy? Why do we have to tag everything with names in order to enjoy it? Why must we define terms for relationships, why must we ask is this love or is it something else? Why can’t we just say Interesting, I’m gonna keep it in the rotation and know its there when I want to enjoy it?

I scoffed at myself. Silly girl, I’m just a silly girl who doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing. I sat down at my desk and stared at the black computer screen. I know exactly what I don’t want. I used to think I knew what I did want. And I know I don’t want to be dealing with this, but it seems I can’t ignore it any longer. Life was so simple up until now, lonely in a certain way, but simple.

Damn. Why must I feel so everything so intensely? Why am I cursed with such empathy? And why can’t I balance these things in regard to love? The ease at which I dived in in the past is what got me here to the other extreme, caution. I wasn’t looking for this. I wanted a friend of the opposite sex to help gain a well rounded perspective in my life; Something easy to maintain but fairly fruitful. Instead I got an entire orchard. And like Eve, my predecessor, I just had to bite into one of those amazingly succulent apples.

My appetite for sex could rival any mans. I suspect my lustful, carnal nature is inherited from my Viking roots. The simplicity in which I think of sex sometimes scares me. At one point in my life, I drew a great strength from feeding my appetite. It was almost a kind of vampirism because I would bleed men dry, so to speak, of the sexual energy. I played with the thought of being a sexual vampire of sorts. How horrid that sounds, I laughed, tickled with my overly active imagination.

Me, sweet and innocent by any stranger’s perception! If they only knew, I chuckled and entertained the thought some more. I didn’t look a day over twenty-two while I could see the age start to show on the faces of my peers. No, I laughed again, just good genes. But even still, I knew I did not want to go back to those days of hunting and choosing partners for fleeting night of lust. And I never did enjoy them as much as they enjoyed me. It was their energy I sought anyway, not pleasure but an unbridled power coursing through me. I mused to myself, my horrid, awful womanly self.

Here I was in this beautiful orchard of…of what I wondered? I refused to think love. Refused and rejected the idea altogether. Still, I had bitten the apple and realized one bite was not enough to satisfy my hunger. I wanted to devour the thing entirely, pick from that tree whenever I wished; an unfettered access to my only real temptation worth indulging.

Oh, that sweet, sweet apple! My mind drifted into a sexual haze, remembering how he felt, how he tasted and how much I adored knowing he was lost in such euphoria…. How I could drive him to edge making him savor each bit until finally I knew he would not stand for my teasing any longer pleased me. I delighted in knowing he was wondering just how far I would take him. I relished how he enjoyed watching me use my talents to gratify him, though I was careful not to engage his eyes at this moment less it stir something too powerful for the man. His tender caresses had already told me he was more sensitive then most when it came to physical matters. I adored drinking him in, taking all of what he had to give. It was the first time I thought the act was rightfully deserved and not just an occasional duty to someone one is committed to.

The thing that amused me most about that instance was not the course I had planned. I knew that I was in charge of the production but I meant to get something for myself. I meant to seduce him entirely. I meant to be screaming his name in such a wonderfully divine way even the angels above would blush. Something stopped me that night… maybe there was something about his unassuming nature that lead me to believe there was something I could give him and something that he needed from me. Maybe I wasn’t ready to give that divine call to him. For some reason, I shifted my objective from my pleasure to his without hesitation and surprised myself with how much I liked pleasing him.

I surprised myself again when I realized that I desperately wanted more of it. How I ached to see his body quake at my touch. I want to see the reaction of a strategically placed kiss from my warm lips roll over his face. I want to savor each moment of his ecstasy, ingrain it in my mind for those nights when I am alone, feeling hot and excitable. I want to lavish him with sexual pleasures he can’t even begin to imagine or know existed and loose himself completely in the thralls of passion.

I ask myself why and have no answer for it. I could take any one of many other men happily as my lover. Why do I feel he is more worthy of this great passion I have to offer? What about this man makes me want to spoil him so? And why can I not move on from these thoughts? Will I stop at nothing to make him succumb to my desires?

For as much as I want him in this way, I will tell him and anyone else who asks that I do indeed adore him. He is first and foremost a man I consider to have a very solid friendship with. Is this worth turning it into a sexual friendship, too? I value him, but my drive for bedding him is so much stronger than I seem to be able to control. I don’t want to end up like Eve and be forced out of the garden forever. No, I want to lounge and play in it…. I stopped myself suddenly from elaborating on the analogy further. I fear the next logical steps to it. There can be nothing left to think on except sleep.