“Hypomania and the proximity of a beautiful woman”
– deep dive narrators
free audiobook available
Imagine a relationship between a greyhound and a Boston Terrier. One is a runner, a marathoner, a drinker, a streamlined rocket body. The rescue from my feral retreat. She dove into my world, invited me to play tennis (my fetish), and that phrase, “let’s go hit tennis balls,” was all it took. I got her phone number off Facebook and picked up the phone.
“Hi! Tell me about tennis.”
She wasn’t a player, but she was an athlete and falling in love with the idea of what I would bring into her life. Two kids, music, tennis, joy, singing, play, and a sexual opening that surprised us both. She would laugh during the wrestling sessions, “I can’t believe I’d be having the best sex of my life in my fifties.”
Ta da!
I’m not claiming to be a sexual savant. Just an enthusiastic and evolving human who purchased “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex But Were Afraid to Ask.” Blew my mind and locked in my hetero-hand-dance training my own body on pleasure, release, edging, loss, and lack. That young spawning practice became comfort, self-love, and relaxing. Self-soothing by masturbation, I’m guessing it’s a thing. That let down after orgasm, a nice hit of hormones and biological chemicals draw me toward the inviting bed.
Alone, I can wind down the racing thoughts, pressured speech, or numb fingers from too much output today, and rest. In the “time of no time” naps can be grabbed at any inspiration.
In a partnered time, inviting a partner to a nap or a massage is not always a sexual invitation. It might offer contact and snuggles without sex. It might warm up the bonding ritual and mutual release. All in the name of “napping.” And, no, it’s not euphemism. A nap is a rewarding event. Keeps my afternoons well-fueled. Gives me some AirPodding time. Slipping into creative sleep, REM of release, and my body does know how to let go and sink into deep sleep.
Tracking my sleep is no longer important. I got the message. Sleep well. Sleep enough. And when your body is tired, exhausted, nap. Give in. No errand is more important, unless it’s an emergency, than resetting back to a rested and balanced you. Me. Rested. From this place, rested and relaxed lovers, we can hold the “one of us” as we move apart and back into our day.
I’m going to share something crude, but it’s important. The concept is from Henry Miller, one of my sensual and sexual inspiration. Miller was marrying and fucking young artists and dancers until the day he died. Painting watercolors. Writing poetry and erotica. Loving women as well and often as he could.
I wanted to fuck her so she stayed fucked.
For days, after a nice “nap,” I can feel the warmth and comfort of being an attached man. A securely attached man is happy walking through the world of women, the river of life, the mystery of god-life-love-sex living. God wants you to be happy. Your celebrations and creativity, your love, are pleasing to god. Whatever you think god is, you can imagine that joy in humans is pleasing to the creator. When your Boston Terrier gets a stick in its mouth, it could not be happier, more fulfilled, stronger, and committed to the love, the joy of the stick.
God likes us to be happy. Likes us singing and sharing music with each other. Storytellers share their language of life. Life via language. Instead of talking, I began writing about six years ago. I realized my partner didn’t need to read or follow my writing. I am not writing to become attractive. I am writing to solve my own puzzle, my own happiness, my own goals.
I want to be loved by everyone. I learned the power and pleasure of being the rockstar everyone wanted to be with in Fifth grade. The Bürgermeister. The rehearsals. The dancing. The singing in German. The three girlfriends for 3 hours. I had blasted off the planet in my mind, I was inhaling the fame, the popular girls hover. I tell one, Sarita, “I love you.” “I love you too,” she enjoined. “Wanna be my girlfriend?” “Sure!”
Nine-year-old bliss, for sure. Leta, no swan, was also in the musical, she smiled and came to chat. “You’re really good. The German must be so hard? How long have you had to practice?”
“I love you.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“Wanna go steady or something?”
“Yes! Wow.” She bounced. She ran off to tell her friends. “I’ll see you at lunch.” That was about the extent of dating in fifth grade. Lunch together. Holding hands at recess. A little time after school before youo caught the bus or were picked up by mom.
Terri was more hard to convince. “I love you.” “Oh, hey,” she said. “What did you say that for?” “Um.” my plan was spinning downward. “Well, I like you, and…” “You’re great. Sure! I’ll be your girlfriend.”
Girlfriend! What?
By lunch, all three of them had uncovered my Don Juan gambit, perhaps it was more Don Quixote. All three of them, called it off. Easy come easy go, I thought, at nine, no idea how hard finding a rich and healthy connection would be in life. At nine, at the height of my creative expression, I was okay.
Sarita came around after the last period. “I’ll still be your girlfriend.”
I’m still connected to all of them in the meta(tm)verse.
A few years ago, at some high school homecoming event, put on by the football coach’s wife and a few of the other “hotties of high school.” At the margarita-fueled happy hour, one of the women in the same play in fifth grade, had a photo of my performance with a twist. I’m going to retrieve the photos from my iCloud backup and share them in a bit.
In her photo, she was giving a dramatic roll of the eyes directly behind my command performance, Sprenkenzi hilarious.
We then recreated the photo over fifty years later. Nailed it. She was not part of the three, but she was a running buddy in her senior year of high school. She and her best friend and I would go to lunch all the time. We liked the same music. From what I know of their lives, they married two best friends, and go snow skiing together with all four of them and the kids, each year. I’d like a connection like that. I was not invited.
I’ll have to do the inviting, I think.
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