I watched a documentary yesterday while I was enjoying a break from all things work & social media. It was called “Dying To Know” and was an in depth look at the relationship between Timothy Leary (of ‘Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out’ fame) & Ram Dass (of ‘Be Here Now’ fame). I found it really moving, because here were these two very, very different men, with very, very different philosophies, sexual orientations, lifestyles, desired outcomes, and yet the love between them was absolutely palpable. I mean, you could cut it with a knife, grab a slice, and eat it. I could practically feel it oozing down my chin as I feasted on it via my eyes on the screen.
Love like that, man. It’s everything.
Romantic love has never really been very good to me. I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved in ‘that way’, and I’ve got some pretty heavy duty scars on my heart as a result. That’s a pretty common refrain, though. I think we all have similar stories of the rise of hope in love and then the boom crash that seems inevitable. I have mostly given up on it as a sustainable reality. If it comes, it’ll come, but counting on it seems foolish. Some people don’t ever get to have it. They get glimpses, maybe, but the glitter fades, and they find themselves alone once more.This has been a theme in my life, and I’ve come to accept it.
The kind of love I’m after now is the kind I saw in that documentary. That ‘no matter how far’ kind of love. That unconditional, certain kind of love that isn’t at all dependent on chemistry or the shape of your body or what you’ve got in your pants.
I have that with a few people. Love I can count on to show up. Love I believe in regardless of physical proximity or expression. That’s the stuff, right there. It isn’t about coming and going. It just is, and I can hang my heart on it because its solid.
Lucienne Bloch Frida and Diego Kissing, 1933 Bentley Gallery
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera had this kind of love, too, i think, but it was complicated by gender, by romance, chemistry & lust. They couldn’t stay away from one another, but they couldn’t live with one another, either. It was tumultuous. Volatile. Full of the ebb and flow of coupling and uncoupling.
It used to be everything I wanted, that kind of love. The highs, the lows, the living poetry. It all seemed so *romantic* on the surface, but when I examine it these days, really turn it over and over again in my hands like a Chinese finger puzzle, it seems so fraught, so dramatic. So. fucking. tiresome.
They were devoted to one another, but not committed. They were loyal to one another but lacking fidelity. And yet, he was there at her end.
He was there at her end.
Maybe that was enough. Maybe that’s all anyone can ask for. Maybe that’s all that matters.
I don’t know.
It seems to me like middle-age is an unraveling of everything I think I know so I can examine what it’s made of. There are some things I’m keeping as ‘known’. Love matters more than anything else to me. It is my reason for getting out of bed in the morning. But *the kind* of love I most desire has definitely shifted. I don’t want the inconstant, unpredictable stuff most poetry is made of. I don’t want the coupling and uncoupling kind. I want steadfast. I want fidelity of heart. I don’t particularly care who does what with what’s in their pants as long as everyone is honest about it. Maybe I’ve grown jaded, finally, or maybe this is what growing up looks like.
I don’t know.
“You will never be alone again” was the last promise I let someone make me, and of course, the intentions were pure, and the desire to keep the promise was there, but I ended up alone again, sick with grief, and bitter. A girl gets tired of wondering what went wrong. She gets tired of the way words and actions refuse to line up, refuse to align. She gets tired. She gets to the point where she can only throw up her hands and say to all comers:
Fuck promises. Fuck them. I don’t want them anymore. Certainty is better. “I will love you until I don’t.” That’s certain. “I am, myself, the only one I will never leave or lose.” That’s certain. “I can’t promise you anything.” That’s certain.
I can live with that. I do.
So give me Timothy Leary & Ram Dass any day, that juicy kind of certain love that survives everything – distance, time, and even death. Give me that kind of love. A love like that.
And I’ll count myself lucky.
xo
Effy
Today’s nudge: Compare what you used to want with what you presently want.
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I used to crave that sort of tortured poetic love when I was younger too. But now? Not a chance! LOL. I’m with you. Love with kindred people is way better.
Gorgeous words as ever Effy Wild and wise, this really resonates with me, whenever my partner tells me he loves me forever, I can’t help but tell him forever is an awfully long time, <3
Even though I have found “that kind of love” that I know will last until I die (well…my guts are telling me so anyway), with the ebbs and flows of friendships, I realized that I have to let go of any expectations I can have toward someone. And as a Virgo, it is not some easy task !
I find any relationship to be a very difficult thing :( I wish it was easier for me to let people in without that feeling of being clingy. And I have to be okay to give more love than I receive (again, it goes back to expectations).
Oh thank you so much for this post Effy. It was so splendid in so many ways and I adore Ram Dass and can’t wait to see this documentary. Is it on Netflix? And oh…. sigh… that romantic, poetic kind of love. After a 31 year marriage I left and came out a lesbian. You can imagine the shock waves through our family, our mostly grown children took it mostly well but there were hard times aplenty. The woman I left everything for left me as soon as I had left and gotten settled with the idea of a whole new kind of life. I was devastated in a thousand ways, confused, hurt, and blown away. In my naivete I had imagined that a woman would never hurt you like a man could (Mind, I was the one who left the marriage!). Well I was wrong. A woman can hurt you just as bad or worse because somehow you don’t expect it. Sisterhood and all of that. After a few other brief relationships I met my “soulmate”. It was the great QUEST TO THE WEST! I lived in NC, she lived in California. I got rid of nearly everything I owned to move cross country to be with her. She flew to NC and drove with me literally cross country, 3500 miles, coast to coast. She told me she would love me forever. It took us 9 days to drive to CA. The day we GOT there she decided “she didn’t really want to be in a relationship!” We were together for 1 week when I loaded up a tiny uHaul with the very few belongings I had left in the world and drove 3500 miles back, alone, with nothing to return to. FUCK THE POETIC KIND OF LOVE!!! It’s made me really afraid to trust anyone again. And yet we never, ever, I think, if we’re honest, lose almost a childlike, innocent kind of hope that there really is that someone out there who will love us in the way you describe, the forever, “he was with her at the end” kind of love. I love the Diego and Frida story, it has all the sweeping romance, the art, the passion and it just makes you swoon. But you couldn’t give me a Billion dollars to live through that. It kills.
I’m sorry to have gone on so. This post hit me in so many ways. I know I will come back and read it again. Thank you Effy, thank you for reminding me of so many things, and what I no longer believe is possible, and what my childlike heart, even though I’m 63, would love to believe…
The other commenters have said all the things I would say. I am so very glad I started reading your blog. Months after the Bad Ass Art Journaling experience had ended. I can feel doors opening up, this is one of them. thanks as always for sharing.
I’ve had both kinds. The Frida-Diego kind that just about killed me and now, for the last 32 years I’ve also had the “I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine .. in good or in bad ” kind. Not anywhere near as mind-blowing as the Frida-Diego kind of craziness but happy, loving, comforting, fun and safe .. (and sometimes shitty when my brain and heart collide, the memories rise up to the surface and the longing for complete abandonment takes over here and there) but it works for me and I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to find that out.