Love, come back to me

A woman is a woman is a woman. Even one who sells her self. Because we all sell ourselves, though some are more aware than others, what they sell.

For a night to feel that innocence, sweetness and joy of a beautiful woman in bed. To sleep and to feel and to hold someone until the morning comes.

After making love she wants me to fry her eggs. The hunger inside her is deep and true. I offer her the finest Belgian chocolate, prociutto, parmesan cheese, some left over caviar, even. No, none of that, she doesn't know what that is. She just wants fried eggs and looks at all the marvels I put in front of her with indifference. And in the darkness, naked, there we stood in the kitchen, with the neon lights from the apartment parking lot seeping in through the half drawn curtains. It's not enough light for me, I go to flip on the light switch; no light, electricity gone. She gets her cell phone, and uses it to guide me as I crack the eggs and then - sizzle, pop. I find her irresistible.

Kundera says to be careful with metaphors when it comes to Love. One metaphor can enslave a man to a woman forever, the deeper poetic meaning, etched in our soul, never letting go. But for me it's less metaphors and more the cinema of the moment, the pure aesthetic grace of being in a film together, no matter how absurd. If the story fits, wear it. And here I am after making love to her, I'm on the stove, in the middle of the night, frying her eggs and kissing her, and she's got one eye on me and the other on a late night dinner. Our passion may burn out, but the eggs won't; I am careful. She comes over behind me, caresses me, and says she prefers them easy over.

"An egg without salt, is like sex without love" - S. Dali

I make sure to add the salt, because I knew she isn't the type to care either way. She just needed something in her stomach and I just needed to feed her, in this moment we were meant for each other; salt and eggs; love and sex. How certain ideas once inside us bear a fruit so beautiful. I've often quoted that Dali quote at many a cocktail party, in vain and feeble attempts to appear cultured, sophisticated and interesting, and here it came to life, in the strangest of circumstance.

It reminded me to add the salt, to put a little love in, it takes so little, means so much.

She ate with that ravenous hunger, the hunger of someone who eats little but wants more, always. Her body was perfect, tight and strong. A body that works to survive is always a healthy body. Nature is perfect that way, it gives so much in poverty and takes so much in wealth. And makes both want to come to the other, to complete each other, master servant, we run to each other, east west, strong weak, the good and the bad, we need each other, each defined by the other, unable to live amongst our own kind.

She smelled of roses and the earth, and after eating, as if she had been sleeping in my bed for years, she snuggled up to me, and took the covers over her and smiled that deep smile of contentment. I looked into her eyes, and smiled too. There was no way to reach her through words. I only had my smile and my manhood, to let her know how beautiful she was. And my kisses, and when you can't speak, and no one can hear you, something deep down in us comes through to touch someone. And that is what I felt.

In the beginning there was the word, but I long for the time before the beginning when there were no words, only energy, innocence and a joy that no longer exists. Well, maybe for a night, on a strange island, until the morning comes.

In Memory

The only time I loved her was after I hurt her, when she cried tenderly; tired and defeated.  She was most beautiful to me then.  There was such a moment here in Africa.  We had fought violently and she slumped down, at a loss for words, engulfed in tears and pain. 

A man's heart breaks, at such moments.

After some time she calmed down, collected her dignity, wiped her face, and walked by my side to where we were headed to, before we had started fighting.  She had nowhere to go; she had to follow.

The sun was a big piece of orange candy in the sky, slowing falling, falling down.  We were walking side by side, and it was one of those African moments that make you forget yourself. 

I felt her slowly ease up next to me, grasping my hand in hers, tightly.  I squeezed back, feeling uplifted, ecstatic, to be where I was in the world, with that hand in mine.  There was confusion and uncertainty, though we had each other.  We didn't look each other in the eyes; we knew we didn't need to, nor could we if we wanted to.  I just closed mine while walking, feeling the sun set on me, everything fading away.  I wanted to be in that moment, for as long as possible, before it left us, forever. 

I felt a sun like this before, once before. 

On the 7 train heading back home, twilight hour again, again that same sun in our faces, the buildings rumbling by, painted across the sky.  I looked at you through the heat of that New York summer, naked and alive, those nights. 

I asked you, in that rapturous joy only children feel, if you wanted to marry me.  You said yes, I will always remember, with your chestnut hair in your face and a smile so wide the world could fall in it. 

I laughed and you became self-conscious.  I didn't believe in myself enough though you always believed in us.  You loved English and ugly modernist Queens, your paradise; my prison - but you set me free in it.  Making love to you there, in the very place I suffered and lost, so poignant; so true.  You showed me how a rose blooms in the desert.      

I didn't know what I had, no one does.  But that summer, those moments, were precious.  Nothing was as beautiful after that.  Everything after took on a sadness and more anxious mood.  We tried to do it over and over again, and it never came back, the sun, like it was that day.  It only returned in Africa - the great mother - tearing us apart, as we held each other, all tangled up in blue.    

I was driving her to the airport in a broken down car with a radio.  The entire night making desperate love, a love that tries to suck dry the very source of our endless vitality.  I was tired, confused, not sure when I would see her again.  The car filled with a deathly silence.   I took the road to the airport, a long expansive road opening up into the African horizon.  The sun shining her face, the wind blowing in her beautiful hair, I turned on the radio and held her hand.  And then, as if in a dream, a karaoke version of Let It Be came on, all cheesy and elevator music like.  She lunged for the radio to shut it off and I stopped her.  I said no, let it be, Let It Be.   I sang for her and she smiled sadly, "there will be an answer, let it be...".  

And then as she was getting into the plane, I knew it would all be in the kiss.  The kiss
never lies.  And we kissed, as passionately as we could, though I felt something patronizing and assured in her kiss.  As if she was kissing a child good night, and no longer her lover.  I could tell she would be alright, she would live without me.  And when you feel that, you know it's over.

A Speech to the Youth Of Africa

A speech I recently gave at a graduation ceremony for SPW - Students Partnership Worldwide - www.spw.org - the NGO I manage.   

91 volunteers spent 8 months living and working in rural communities of Zambia.  These words are for them, and their indomitable spirit.  

__________

I want everyone to know that I wrote my own speech, like Obama.  Who likes Obama?  Who knows, amongst us today, we may have not only the future president of Zambia, but quite possibly the United States of America.  

America is everybody's country.  The blood, sweat, tears and dreams of the world are tied up into America's destiny.  It is the reason I am here, so deeply honored to speak to you.  I suppose you want me to speak because you deem me important.  But you are the true heroes and dignitaries.  You are the most important people here today, more important than ministers, presidents, NGO country directors and senior managers.  We are brought up to respect these people of authority, as they seem very important.  But they rarely do anything as noble as what you have done.  You didn't just talk about social change, or give money, or take a class, you were social change.  You went directly into the community, lived with them, shared in their joys and sorrows, and broke bread with them, and listened, and guided and provided for them a service that the government cannot provide.  You took responsibility for your fellow countrymen and made their problems yours.  Do you realize how tremendous this is?  Do you realize what you have done?  You have done more than any of us who sit in our comfortable offices, and go to our conferences and trainings.  Who fly all over the world and buy expensive things in duty free shops ( oh, I am sorry, maybe that is just me).  

I am honored, first of all, to be here in your presence, asked to say some words to mark your tremendous achievement.  

You are truly the heart and soul of SPW, without your works and efforts, SPW would cease to exist. 

This is only the beginning, that is why it is called commencement.  Your new life begins here, in this moment, today, as you now you go on, into the world as ex volunteers of SPW.  

Let me remind you, that we have numerous managers, even our current country director is an ex-volunteer.  So the future is bright if you seize it and make the most of your experiences.  You will have help along the way, but the ultimate responsibility for your life is with you.  As the bible says, "ask and you shall receive", not receive even if you haven't asked.  You need to voice yourselves, be active and engaged, in a new york city word, as I am from New York, you got to be a hustler.  The world is yours, if only you ask for it, and see yourself as worthy of having it.  

Look at your older peers, and see where they have come from.  They were one day like you, and now they are coordinators, managers, country directors, and have traveled to Europe, America, India, and other parts of Africa to join the global movement to fight not only HIV/AIDS, but to give a voice to young people who consistently get spoken for, rather than speak about their own needs.  And this is what makes us special.  Youth teaching youth, youth leading youth, youth are our future, without the youth we are nowhere.  

I can't express in mere words my joy in working with fellow young people ( I consider myself forever young).  Your energy and joy is contagious.  Don't lose your youthful spirit, no matter how old you get.  It is the ultimate elixir against all the perils that surely come in our way, along life's winding path.  

You may not realize everything you have learned, but over these past months you have built the foundation for future success, both professional and personal.  Teaching, presenting, meetings, mentoring and being responsible for the day to day operations of the program, these are not little things at all.  These will help you no matter what you undertake next, and opportunities will be vast if you apply yourselves, and move with the same energy you moved with in SPW.  

And let's not forget about what you were a part of.  You were the embodiment of young people making a difference in their communities.

  

Your work makes a huge difference.  Not because I say so, or Richard and Mary, or anyone else.  This program has undergone external evaluation from reputable sources from the United States of America which have determined that your work changes young people's behavior.  This is a landmark for SPW, to have such results, and its because of your efforts.  You are making a difference.  You also have gained the support of the Finnish embassy, DFID in the United Kingdom, personal individuals, new Zealand aid and a host of others who have visited and continue to be impressed by your teachings, your enthusiasm, and your songs.  

I thank you very much, and for those of you who know me, know how much I like the songs of the program.  

I remember my first visit near kapiri, in a rural school, on a visit from new zealand aid.  It was my first day of work, four months back.  I observed a lesson, by a volunteer who had a michael jordan buckle on his belt.  And they came together and went through the lesson, which was excellent, though what struck me was the songs and happiness, the smiles, and positive energy emanating from that classroom.  That was beautiful, something magical for me to see and feel.  

The world has so much to learn from Zambia, from Africa.  

Here we were, in a community that struggled under the weight of poverty and disease, and still some how the human spirit soars and sings.  It fights back against all circumstance and refuses to be defeated.  You were a part of this fight, this struggle for dignity and refusal to resign in the face of so many odds.  Don't see yourself alone in this.  Look around you and see who is here, people from different parts of Zambia, different tribes and languages, even all over the world, all coming and working together for a new and better world.  

We can't make it alone, we must seek help, genuine help, from anyone who wants to work by our side.  SPW is international, and we express solidarity with young people all over the world.  Be it America or Ghana, people are people, and we must learn from and work with each other.  We are more than zambians and americans or British, we are people, young people, who want to change the world, for the better, a place where young people are listened to, who help shape the world according to their dreams and aspirations.  That is a day I am sure will come upon us if more people do what you did.  It is for this day and the work required to bring it forth, that keeps me in SPW, and makes me happy to see that we can work side by side, for the years to come.  

My profound love, blessings and good wishes for your future.  A future brightened by the African sun.  

Don't call it a comeback (I've been here for years)

It doesn't take much to be happy.  All children know this; give them a stick and a ball and the great outdoors and they  are free.  

Television, we are bored without it.  Internet, makes us lonely without it.  Stimulating, titillating only to withdraw, leaving us dazed and numb to the simple pleasures.  

To sleep when sleeping, eat while eating, be while being.  Life and nothing more.  

We don't need much to happy.  A simple smile, and the basics, and we feel that warmth and energy inside of us.  You know that feeling, don't you?  The one that springs forth in effervescent bursts, where you feel happy being who you really are; a child of heaven and earth, both the sun and the sky.  My My My.   

  

Bare your feet in the soil of our mother and feel that cool warmth.  This is where you are meant to be, always. 

Some acts, even when performed for the first time, make you feel as if you have been and done them before.  A connection.  Re-legion; reconnection.  A religious experience.    

Swimming in the sea.  Feeling the sun brighten your childhood.  Love making.  Wine.  Meat.  Killing a man??

Yes, take me back to the essence, to the pure and harmonic, instinctual virtue.  When the Lion didn't apologize.    

But being there means no consciousness.  No literature, no art that is self-referential.  Though there will be dancing and singing, of course, though you won't remember enough of it to package and sell.  It will pass through you, like a rose does, in the desert, alone and free, both in its beauty and in its demise.  But it bloomed.  It bloomed for you:  ((((((()))))))    

Can you let go?  Can you go back?  Has the illusions of the modern world become more real than reality?  

I feel a rush with technology.  I can't imagine my life without popular culture.  Nature is over-rated.  I want to be moved while sitting still, in an office, during a meeting, I want all these thoughts and desires to rush into my head, converge into one big cataclysm.  

Cry, break free, and yearn for something better, always, that's what I want.  Always on the run, the ups and the downs.  Modern man, hear me blog and text, and live in an alternate universe where I am who I want to be.

What does this all mean?  Do these questions even matter, any more?  They hurt and torture me less, though I express them better.  My anguish has given forth to cogency.  It doesn't feel the same.  And I miss that.  I would give up clarity for opacity for it gives birth to ambiguity; the mother of all genius and ecstasy.  Contentment is not always a good thing.

When we don't need all this junk to make us happy, why do we do it, and why can't we live with out it?  

Life is more than "happiness".  

Creation, destruction, absurdity, resurgence.  To feel the Earth move, under your feet and the sky fall.  

No looking back.  Head into the abyss.  

Get your kicks before it's all over.          

  

HONOR

On a drunken revelry in Bologna, with an Italian professor, I chanced upon a universal truth that only comes to you at such moments of surrender, rapture.  When that dollhouse of a city shines with all its lights, through porticos and piazzas, only for you.  Only for you.  During my time there, I often pictured what Bologna looks like from up above.  It would make anyone say, "what is that preciousness?"  And I was there in that walled city and one night in particular, I remember quite fondly.           

It was myself and four white american classmates of mine, WASPS.  Anglo-saxon to the core, white as white can be.  I rarely hang out with white americans, not because I am a reverse racist or something, but only because they are usually so uncool.  I still give it a go, at times, who knows, there may be a Jack Nicholson, a Sean Penn, or a Johnny Depp amongst them.  But that's only in the movies, I am convinced.  Plus the cool ones all moved to France.  I digress.

We had a common purpose these white people and I.  We all loved dearly our cynical and tough-minded Italian professor who was so cool, so casually, effortlessly hip even though he was stereotypical; approaching 50 though always with younger women, and driving only classic cars; Porche, Alfa romeo or the Mercedes depending on his mood.  He chain smoked and always looked as if he had somewhere more important to be, and if he was talking to you, someone more important he needed to talk to.  But he indulged us, of all the uptight professors at our elite institution, he was the only one who drank with us - if only to mock us.  But such abuse turned us ON.  Yes, we wanted to be made to feel inferior, to be broken down only to be built up again, as cool as our Italian professor.  We worshipped him.  We wanted to look into the future with wonder and awe, wishing - dare I say hoping (our Italian professor hated this word)- that we too would eventually dress better, have young ladies, classic cars and the cigarette dangling off our lips as we popped champagne corks on the Amalfi coast, on our spare time, when we weren't engaged in the exciting and glamourous world of international affairs. 

He came to our parties, hit on our women, and then drove away with them in his fancy cars.

He outdrank us, and was always the last one home.  And the next day he would be in seminar as sharp as a razor bearing down on our collective ignorance.  He was tough and mean in the classroom, and jaded and cynical outside.  But we loved him, a group of us, don't ask me why.  Some people just have that kind of hold on you.  

He knew quite well that I was a romantic, and idealist, a lover of life.  We would often talk alone, about literature and women.  Though he studied in the UK and America, I could tell he loathed the Anglophone culture.  He couldn't truly open up, and I asked him, on a particular night, in the company of my classmates, if there is a difference between Italy and America and by extension the UK.

He said:  "Let me put it to you this way.  In the form of an allegorical exam.  Imagine you are at school, and your school has a strict honor code against cheating.  You know this though one day during an exam your best friend asks you for answers.  Do you help him?  Do you tell on him?  What do you do?"

Our Italian professor's answer differs from answers most WASPs give.  

So does mine.

real love

Yes, yes.  This is the article I have been waiting for that perfectly explains why I look for love outside of the hyper-educated liberal elite that I am a part of.  RISK.  PASSION.  LUNACY.  That is what makes love so grand.  Not the companion-ship bullshit currently being played out in sunday brunches across the nation and at IKEA.  FUck.  

I knew something was wrong and leave it to the NY Times to FINALLY figure it out.  Because they themselves ARE the hyper educated liberal elite, they are a bit slow on trends and only 5 years down the line get it right.  Iraq war, slow food, and Kristof wrote about polluted water supply the other day.  When I was talking about, way back when, I was called paranoid.  But things slowly take their turn in America.  

Obama is compilation of everything that has come before.  The country truly responds and changes, albeit slowly, but it comes around and is not tied to any dogma.  At heart, we are a practical people, and if it don't work, we are game to fix it.  Health care is coming around.  And eventually so will all the other irrational and unjust policies out there.  We have been pushed to the brink.  And there is no better time to be American, and to be a part of all these changes.  I see them clearer in the distance.  

The times, they are a changin.  

I still loathe Americans, don't get me wrong.  We got a long way to go.  Especially culturally.  The hyper pragmatism is daunting and completely uncool.  It gets things done, though so do sweatpants.  But like Seinfeld says, if you wear sweatpants outside the house, you might as well say you've given up.  For Americans, what they have given up is:  The good life.  

Time to be a dignified Empire, worthy of emulation.  Step it up, come on, the world depends on us, if you haven't realized already. 

_______________

It's been a good month for reckless romance in America. The nation's most famous reality-television father, Jon Gosselin of "Jon and Kate Plus Eight," threw over his marriage for a fling with a 23-year-old schoolteacher. Not one but two prominent conservative politicians torpedoed their careers with public confessions of adultery — with Mark Sanford's Argentine disappearing act eclipsing John Ensign's accusation of extortion against his lover's spouse.

These irrepressible passions make a fascinating counterpoint to the complaint, advanced this month by two of the nation's finest essayists, that modern relationships have been drained of danger and purged of eros.

In her new polemic "A Vindication of Love," an assault on the idea of safety in romance, Cristina Nehring complains that contemporary couplings have so restrained true passion that "the poor beast has become as impotent as it is domestic." In a post-divorce essay for The Atlantic, Sandra Tsing Loh autopsies not only her own marriage but those of her peers, a cohort of middle-aged Los Angelenos who've let the quest for security turn them into sexless drudges.

Both writers depict a country where pragmatic anxieties — think of the children! think of the mortgage! — are forever trumping romance and dulling the libido. Theirs is a nation of nesters who have clipped their own wings.

So which is the real America? Is it Tsing Loh's dystopia, where everyone "works" grimly on their relationships, and post-feminist husbands happily cook saffron-infused porcini risotto but rarely practice seduction on their wives? Or is it tabloid country: The land of Jon minus Kate, and governors who vanish to "hike the Appalachian Trail" — not to mention gossip-column fixtures like Britney Spears (rumored last week to be contemplating her third marriage in six years) and the mistress-parading Mel Gibson?

One possible answer is that our stars and politicians are a species apart — more impulsive and incautious than the average Dick and Jane, and more libidinous as well.

But the evidence suggests the opposite. The high-wire love lives of a Jon Gosselin or a Mark Sanford — or a Spears, or even a Lindsey Lohan — are remarkably true to the America that watches their shows, buys their CDs, and votes them into office. It's the highly-educated, highly risk-averse milieu lamented by Nehring and Tsing Loh that's a world unto itself.

Their complaints about this world's romance deficit are substantially overstated, obviously — and shot through with a dash of self-justification. (Tsing Loh had an affair; Nehring recently became an unwed mother.) But both do put their finger on a post-sexual revolution paradox — namely, that the same overclass that was once most invested in erotic experimentation ended up building the sturdiest walls against the passions it unleashed.

As Nehring observes, our hyper-educated, socially-liberal elite is considerably more romantically conservative than its blasé attitude toward pornography or premarital sex would lead you to expect. The difficult scramble up the meritocratic ladder tends to discourage wild passions and death-defying flings. For bright young overachievers, there's often a definite tameness to the way that collegiate "safe sex" segues into the upwardly-mobile security of "companionate marriages" — or, if you're feeling more cynical, "consumption partnerships."

This tameness has beneficial social consequences: When it comes to divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births, Americans with graduate degrees are still living in the 1950s. It's the rest of the country that marries impulsively, divorces frequently, and bears a rising percentage of its children outside marriage. Indeed, if you're looking for modern-day Percy Shelleys or Mary Wollstonecrafts (to pluck a pair of Nehring's romantic risk-takers), you're more likely to find them in Middle America than among the environmental lawyers and documentary filmmakers who populate Tsing Loh's depressing social world.

Better, perhaps, if this dynamic were reversed. Our meritocrats could stand to leaven their careerism with a little more romantic excess. (Though such excess is more appropriate in the young, it should be emphasized, than in middle-aged essayists and parents.) But most Americans, particularly those of modest means, would benefit from greater caution and stability in their romantic entanglements.

Maybe this reversal could start with some creative matchmaking across lines of class and politics. The dutiful, somewhat-boring husbands from Sandra Tsing Loh's Los Angeles, for instance, sound like ideal soulmates for Kate Gosselin, the soon-to-be-single mother of eight.

And as for Cristina Nehring, who can't live without being "derailed by love, hospitalized by love, flung around five continents, shaken, overjoyed, inspired and unsettled by love" — well, maybe someone should introduce her to Mark Sanford.

scenes from a marriage (of Heaven and Hell)

"What if I turned you on with a button and made you happy, would you want it just as much baby?  Would you enjoy it just as much?"

Two reasons for a failing relationship:  

1.  We're Different

2.  It's (one of ) our fault(s)

1.  I acknowledge difference, unlike most people who feel we are all part one big happy human family.  If I indulge in, what people consider, hyper-generalizations, it's mostly an effort to navigate through difference, not allowing it to come in the way of our common goals, aspirations, dreams.  

This requires study and commitment, to languages and culture, travel and those unmeasured nights of revelry where the stars and sky take on a deeper meaning.

But first, we must accept that we are different, in ways that matter.  Differences are overcome if the love is there.

2.  So, it's (one of) our fault(s)

Rings true, and works well with my American self-reliant upbringing.  Blame yourself.  Accept responsibility.  But when passion and magic are lacking, it's hard to have your heart in a plan; feels mechanical and forced.  Sometimes our acumen of organization and go-getting, can land us in a lifeless relationship.  One can adjust to anything if one tries hard enough.    

The fundamental question becomes:  Do you feel it?  But what am I suppose to feel?  Sexual passion, respect for the other person, a feeling of awe as the light of their inner and outer beauty bathes me in ecstasy?  

Yes, yes, and yes, if that is how you want to live and be.  How alive do you want to be?  How much can you handle before it tips fatally into the "Anna Karenina" realm.  

Beautiful, passionate, irrational women are riveting as much as they are dangerous.  That is what attracts us to them.  Their capacity to both create and destroy, that balance and uncertainty, is what turns us on.  

But.    

After awhile we become tired and old, and then we look to someone we can build a life with; pay the bills with.  A very different form of love grows; the loves of comfort and certainty.  The joys of bearing beautiful fruit; children and careers, and a home in the world.  

Can a man have both?

What was founded on recklessness and irrationality, can it grow into taking on the very serious conditions of human existence; War; poverty; suffering; death?

"I'm a warrior baby.  I believe stronger in the fight, then our love.  You feel uncomfortable that I believe in a truth so strongly, that I can kill for it?    

But not believing is believing; in nothingness and nihilism.  

You were my joy, my salvation, for those dark and quiet nights, after a hard day's work.  Someone understood me, and beauty filled my life, as if I had plucked the most precious flower from the garden of Eden, whose fragrance bloomed only for me, forging my soul, renewing my strength and faith for the good fight.  You made it all make sense.  You saved me from selfishness, cruelty and a bitter life nursed by Jack Daniels and Marlboro Reds.  

Though slowly this flower began to whither in my arms.  And though I was made of the same element as the Earth, from which she came; wind, rain and fire; there was nothing I could do to bring her back to me.  She was gone"