The first time he stood at the door, it was as if the door itself grew in every direction, becoming a castle gateway furnitured with huge iron hinges. In the face of it, he himself shrank back into his schoolboy self, hair neatly parted on the left, grey socks held up just below the knee with garters carrying his identity on name tapes, innocent of any association they might have with the holding in place of a woman's stockings. Everything about him became at once functional and deferential and, opening the door, she almost overlooked him as he gazed up despairingly. But she smiled when she saw his face and recognised something there. Still, her recognition and her smile has something matronly about them and he flushed with a fury that he could not own at the awful iniquity, disparity - at the height she had acquired-the height he had conceded to her-when he had wanted to meet her face to face in glorious equanimity.
Again and again this happened. His incompetence seem constant over space and time and his incapacity seemed to install itself further with each encounter. Feeding into this pattern, came the unexpected sense of something possible. She seemed to like him. Once she kissed him, making him first swell then fall away again in terror. Once she invited him to go dancing and he fled to his room - hot tears running down his crimson cheeks. The possibility fed his yearning, but the yearning shrank always with him, tightening into the familiar nut of impossibility. And with each meeting an uncomfortable spiral developed: the belittling encounter feeding his own shame and sense of impossibility, while another voice cried out that it could not be all his fault for he had done nothing wrong. It must be she who was making him this way. Especially when he saw others walk comfortably through her door, or saw her laughing with her friends, his anger against her hardened. Much later he stood at another door. By now he had amassed money, made a name for himself, was able to fill his handsome leather boots. Standing at the door, he reminded himself of everything he had and everything he done. This time it was he who swelled unexpectedly, so that he had to duck as he entered. Suddenly things seemed easy as he rested his large hand on her hip to greet her and chatted comfortably of the things that he collected and owned. She seemed quite little and unalarming, except for the eyes, sometimes dull and sometimes flashing with a humour that he could not recognise. As old fears of incompetence arose, it seemed simplest to push through and demonstrate his capacity - first reaching unexpectedly around her from behind and cupping her breasts unbidden; later using his weight to hold her still while he explored her mysteries quite roughly. Like in the films. Taking what could be his. And tumbling out, for who should censor them now, came his wishes for how he would display and promenade her, offer her to others, have her as his pet, or fighting cat or ornament. Towards the end he stood at a third door, awash with new tears, naked; this time making himself his own display. Seeing clearly she could understand and forgive the other encounters, drop the sense of outrage and righteousness that arose, and meet him like one seeking redemption. And they could grow in stature to meet each other. But always he would carry the memory of his own incompetence and she the memory of her disappointment and her violation at his hands. And always that catch at the back of the mind: must I endure all this? Talking to Alex I find an update on “tautening and widening” from the 12th of October. It’s about that evolution, amplification and widening of desire. I’m talking to Alex and saying it seems like an impossible paradox that one must somehow ignite the desire to be more kind, be more compassionate, become enlightened, and sustain the momentum with a continued desire. And yet, as we all know, wanting to be kind, wanting to be compassionate, wanting to be enlightened is always at odds with the generosity, compassion or enlightenment that we might aspire to. The wanting (and here I move my hands and arms towards me in a gimme gimme gimme gesture) is at odds with the giving (and here I move my hands and arms away from me in an offering gesture).
Alex simply says it’s apparently a paradox but actually it isn’t. It may be that we want to be kind in a strictly transactional sense, in order to be seen to be a kind person, in order to feel better about ourselves, in order to derive some spin-off benefit. But actually, if we look a little deeper, we can all identify that desire simply to give, simply to express love, simply to cherish, without any kind of transaction or trade off. And I agree with that. I think that I’ve been fooled buy my capitalist upbringing into thinking that there is always a transaction. When I need to be reminded by a coast path walk but there is also just the tumbling tumbling tumbling Cornish stream down its valley, over the cliff edge, into an unceasing waterfall. And that that waterfall is a straight metaphor for the awareness, consciousness, desire, love that is always and everywhere available.
It was something like this.
The dimple pressed into the water as the duck, lifting off, tilted and tipped one wing into the wave's face. The livening that washes across the dawning sky, imperceptible yet palpable - just as the later inching up of the sun will be only fractionally too slow to see. The dampness of mossy corners. The reawakening of flower swords and dripping roses. The sense of shape emerging and reasserting itself in the first light. All this seeing matched by the scratch of robin, outbursting scent of mint, breath of light breeze. All this sensing reigniting me like the faintest pressure of your thigh or inspiration of your belly. What emerges through a slight opening?
Blood. Water. A mucus liquid. Bullets. Arrows. Compassion. The Unknown. The Unbearable. Light. Darkness. Something terrifying. Love. The abject. Something putrefying. Desire. The stench of death. The scent of roses. A squirrel. The memory of something dreadful. An inquisitive goldfish. Or perhaps a stickleback from my youth. The curious and relentless tendril of a vine. What seeks to enter into a slight opening? Fingertips. A tongue. An iron bar. A flame. The mass of water in a reservoir seeking to escape. A snake. A tongue (again). A shaft of light. The possibility of something. Anything. Knowing. Learning. Fertilisation. A desire for widening. A small bird looking to build a nest in early spring. Sorrow. Grief. The curious and relentless tendril of a vine. The first law of desire, of my desire, is that I desire more of desire. I shimmer a little in the upwell, in the well-up, of desire as I feel it arrive.
The first response to that upwelling, to noticing that upwelling, is to say “ooh I like this, I like feeling this, I want more of this”. The first response is to register a desire for more rather than a satisfaction with what there is. A later thought is to explore this desire. I am next to the bees and they have desire to go out, to forage and to return. Their desire seems to have a strong directional component. I suppose they also have desires to build, to seal, to eat, to feed, to fan, to communicate. These desires do not necessarily seem to relate to, or to equate with, arousal. I see them aroused when they are angry. Perhaps there is arousal when they go out to forage or when they fan for coolness. Do I confuse my own desire and arousal? When I'm aroused, something is up - anger or eagerness or fear or contempt. If my sadness is up, is that arousal? Or is that a deadening? Is that a curtaining away? If I'm aroused, is my desire necessarily up? If I feel desire, am I necessarily aroused? I can imagine that desire is always a desire to have. But it can be a desire to give or spread or to share or to release. The desire I feel with tree is aroused and assuaged by brushing my lips against the smooth, unbarked branch. Desire for me has been arrow-shaped; well arrow-headed. It's been about getting and having, or perhaps about harpooning. About capturing and having.
This applies to almost any object of my desire - a person, a job, an amount of money, a house, the holiday, a way of life, a type of garden, a quality of relationship, some knowledge, or wisdom, happiness, or simply the continuation of whatever it may be that I already have. And yet, the quality of my desire has never really been quite like that. I have thought it was about harpooning and having but there has always also been a sense of desire-to-merge rather than desire-to-have. When I pay attention to that or when I have met someone for whom that has been already clear my desire seems at the same time to amplify and to dissolve. The evolution of desire, or of my understanding of desire, is that it becomes wider and louder somehow and I realise that it includes elements like “I want to offer you”; “I want to show you”; “I want to know you”; “I want to satisfy you”; “I want to settle you”; “I want to reflect you”; and so on. I hesitate to write “I want to heal you”. In the amplification, the desire both magnifies and starts to lose its explicit content. That may be its sexual content or its acquisitive content or its longing to have a particular something. It over-ripens and here the dissolution starts. And it's noticeable to me but the initial tautening and narrowing of desire in its acquisitive sense feels very like the tautening and tightening and narrowing of attention, focus in a sexual sense that I learnt was expected of a man. And in its loosening and dissolving sense, in its widening, in its offering, in its willingness to exchange, to receive, it resembles the slow-pooling desire that I was taught to suppose was more feminine. Today I wrote a list of 'recursive binaries' in my notebook. I don't know what recursive binaries are, but an author wrote a list of them. Things like "concrete...abstract".
One of my recursive binaries was apathy...desire. I was thinking of a friend's desire to sleep/go on holiday - but then that is not apathy, that is just a desire focused on not doing so much rather than a desire focused on doing so much. But I also have a sense of her standing back from her desire (in case it is wrong or misguided or inauthentic). While I stand back from my desire in case/because it is greedy or selfish or will be disapproved of. Others that the author listed are:
I think the following are in the same vein and can be added:
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