I have given my oldest journal to Dr. R to read. I mentioned that he was in it several times & he said "I should hope so. After all we've been through together - " or something like that. And since, I have felt bad somehow &, wondering why, I have thot this: perhaps he is human enough to think I might have meant he was in it in quite another way, being more a part of the series of fantasy-loves I told him it had become a record of, being an account of the last 6-7 years of searching, finding, learning, hurting. And I thot such a lack, if lack there was, was nothing but a tribute to his fairness as a man and as a doctor. He has never called me anything but "Mrs. McCoy", knowing, I believe, that familiarity can only encourage inappropriate feelings and attitudes. And yet I love him and he knows I love him - but he has taught me and allowed me to grow this love only along appropriate lines and thus he has given me a gift I have never known before or since or elsewhere - the finest gift one can be given - a true and valuable love for an invaluable male friend, rarer than lovers by far. I love him.
There was a young girl from Norway
Who hung by her toes in the doorway
She said to her beau,
"Look at me, Joe,
I think I've discovered one more way"
I yearn for the old and the peace of the old - after seeing The Last Run with George C. Scott (excellent!) and its back-ground of Portugal, Spain & Southern France and hillsides of quiet white red-roofed houses - old towns full of peace and slow, calm lives, raced past by today's tourists- and it made me want to be there, to withdraw from the race, the need, the compulsion - to return to what was - to withdraw to time to be & to think & to live life and not calendars.
Oh, Dr. R., you are too fair, too fine, for me. I would not dare to want you. I see you as what it is possible to be, what I will never be or touch. What have I got to compensate? I know what I have got and if I had to choose, I don't believe I would choose otherwise. I have got a sense, a view, a feeling for which there is no price, no value in our terms. Ruth knew it, she understood, she saw what is hard to see. Dr. R. sees, I think - he knows and I love him for it.
A. didn't call tonight. I thot he would. I really did. I don't care. No, that's not right, I do care. I care very much. It's just that it does me no good to care. So I go on. Relieved in a way - it frees me. I let go and it's a relief because it no longer pulls on me but I miss the pulling. Because pulling means caring but caring does me no good. So --------- I care not. (I do care.) I want not (I do want.) So what & why ------------
Friday, October 2, 2009
July 9, 1971 - Purity of Purpose
I stand here now - an individual human being - reaching first one way & then the other - first towards sobriety & purity, not purity of virtue but purity of purpose.
That gorgeous thing that is Lake Superior.
Note: so·bri·e·ty n.
1. Gravity in bearing, manner, or treatment.
That gorgeous thing that is Lake Superior.
Note: so·bri·e·ty n.
1. Gravity in bearing, manner, or treatment.
June 21, 1971 - Leaving Me In Steps
Doug left me today. He is leaving me in steps. The first was Memorial Day 1970 (read that date in this journal) and the second leap was today. He flew to Florida to visit his father's mother. His leaving, the flight which took him away, the whole experience in a pure & beautiful emotion, a lovely potpourri of feelings that I shall try to describe. He was excited about going which made me glad. I thot he might hold back but he is growing up so fine & well that what hurts also makes me happy. (I cried happy/sad tears, I was full of emotion).
I went on the plane with him, not to coddle but to check with the stewardess & was glad I had, then I walked away from him for he did not need me or even want me & I was glad for the growing up & sad for the losing. I stood inside that window watching his window, seeing my reflections and just once a flick of something, perhaps a kind of waving.
Then the huge plane taxied out and around out of my vision. I walked away & out of the building for lack of knowing where the plane was. I saw then an Eastern jet taxing east on the far runway to position itself into the wind. I raced, I ran to the car, paid my parking fee, drove out & around onto #494 & pulled speedily off onto Post Rd. where I circled around off the road among the other watchers & stopped just as Doug's plane was receiving power & racing into the wind & as it was over me I was, too, and I watched it hungrily as it rose & banked & turned to the south, diminishing & disappearing behind a hill. I raced again back onto #494 to see it again headed south. I never let go of it until it was only a spot & then until it was not even that. (I watched him disappear through a pinhole in the sky.)
And, oh, what a pull, what a wrench of the heart to see the only thing you really love disappear into nothingness - to know where he is & what is taking place but to feel him going beyond your reach - to see him & others & thousands of pounds of matter vanish as tho only you knew they had once existed & where they had gone. I wondered why I could not help crying as I drove - not just tears welling up but deeply felt & unshakable tears. I knew it was an assortment of colorful tears - his leaving me so finely, pride in & for him; the beauty of the picture of plane rising into the beloved sky, flying in & of itself, the power, the soaring; the romance of leaving of going, of growing, broadening; happiness for Doug's having such a great experience, sadness I was not having such a great experience; loneliness, the missing of him, the pain of the memory of other arrivals, other departures; my own flying experience [undecipherable] world, the whole limitless sky all around out of my eyes in a rainbow of humanness. I will never forget the joy - the purity & truth of it all.
I went on the plane with him, not to coddle but to check with the stewardess & was glad I had, then I walked away from him for he did not need me or even want me & I was glad for the growing up & sad for the losing. I stood inside that window watching his window, seeing my reflections and just once a flick of something, perhaps a kind of waving.
Then the huge plane taxied out and around out of my vision. I walked away & out of the building for lack of knowing where the plane was. I saw then an Eastern jet taxing east on the far runway to position itself into the wind. I raced, I ran to the car, paid my parking fee, drove out & around onto #494 & pulled speedily off onto Post Rd. where I circled around off the road among the other watchers & stopped just as Doug's plane was receiving power & racing into the wind & as it was over me I was, too, and I watched it hungrily as it rose & banked & turned to the south, diminishing & disappearing behind a hill. I raced again back onto #494 to see it again headed south. I never let go of it until it was only a spot & then until it was not even that. (I watched him disappear through a pinhole in the sky.)
And, oh, what a pull, what a wrench of the heart to see the only thing you really love disappear into nothingness - to know where he is & what is taking place but to feel him going beyond your reach - to see him & others & thousands of pounds of matter vanish as tho only you knew they had once existed & where they had gone. I wondered why I could not help crying as I drove - not just tears welling up but deeply felt & unshakable tears. I knew it was an assortment of colorful tears - his leaving me so finely, pride in & for him; the beauty of the picture of plane rising into the beloved sky, flying in & of itself, the power, the soaring; the romance of leaving of going, of growing, broadening; happiness for Doug's having such a great experience, sadness I was not having such a great experience; loneliness, the missing of him, the pain of the memory of other arrivals, other departures; my own flying experience [undecipherable] world, the whole limitless sky all around out of my eyes in a rainbow of humanness. I will never forget the joy - the purity & truth of it all.
June 7, 1971 - What Was Today?
What was today? A fresh, cool, wet day - with trees lush that not long ago were sparce and bare, cock-pheasants sounded from the wood & I knew, I know, I feel & hear & see differently from other men = the world, a separate entity reaches out & touches me and I feel, I see, I smell, I sense, I rejoice that I live, oh, hopefully, at least a moment each day - a whole, fresh, hopeful, worshipful moment each day - under the sky and its sun or its moon or its rain or its wind.
June 6, 1971 - Rhododendrons
Met Norma at the Arboretum at 7:30 in the morning - a lovely time in a lovely place. The rhododendrons were color & blossom rampant, reminding me ever so easily of Pgh [Pittsburgh] & my years there. Were they happy? I don't really even truly know.
June 5, 1971 - Weeds
After seeing Wuthering Heights with Jean T. I stayed outside & pulled weeds from damp earth in the half-dark under a three-quarter moon until my anciest enemy, the mosquito, came out and drove me in.
June 3, 1971 - Toad
The high point of my day was toad - 2" high. He looked in our window from the window well (at work - ACS - on Florida Ave.) allowing me to grasp him, hold him, speak to him, look over him - shades of brown, cool & dry with golden irridescent eyes. He moved within my palm until I released him in the high grass of the field and felt in my hand still the feel of life, of good & precious & simple life, so true so rare & as overpowering. He was what it's all about --
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