disappearances

"How can I disappear?" she wondered. She was 30 years old, and there appeared to be no invisibility cloaks. This was a material world, and here she was. A spirit trapped in a state of being in love.

There had been no true anger, no dislike, no unattraction, no misfired chemistry, no incompatibilities whatsoever.

He said about his relationship with his wife, who he hadn't shared a bed with for 20 years, "Nothing's perfect."

But they were. She was 30. He was 57. And it was perfect. There didn't need to be any words for her to be full of delight just looking at him and his expressions. Her spirit just loved him. More than any other spirit on the planet. And if she couldn't love him, what was she supposed to do on the planet?

There was another spirit who loved him, and she was his wife. But it was a very different love. It was about taking care of each other in ways that didn't seem mutual. It was about working, sleeping in separate beds, watching TV.

These weren't bad things, but the 30-year-old spirit loved him more. She knew she couldn't stop. It was only a truth. It was only herself that she knew.

(But maybe she was wrong. Maybe she was an idiot. Maybe her love meant nothing at all. Maybe it was only love. Not a contract. Not years of work experience. Not... not what made him miserable. Again, he thought he should... what?)

She couldn't tell him what to do or to think. He thought he needed to take care of his wife, listen to the stories that bored him, listen to the voice that bored him as he drank Powerade, ate popcorn, looked off before remembering to put his head in his hands.

These were not bad things. But he was also in love with the 30-year-old spirit.

When he discovered her spying, he told her just for tonight. He needed to make sure his wife was okay tonight.

But they were so happy together. Or at least she was so happy with him, when he wasn't being firm, when he wasn't saying he couldn't have two relationships. He loved two people. But they were different kinds of love. One was an obligation. He was not responsible for his passion.

The 30-year-old had no choice but to love him. Even when he told her to leave. She still needed to be in his presence, even when he turned cold. For moments, she could still see him inside. But he tried to show her the cold role, the bouncer outside the doors of his heart.

He said his wife was his job. He said he wanted to do that job. He didn't want to love and play. He was too old. It didn't matter that she needed him. He wanted her to move on.

Where does a spirit in love move? It moves from hope to love to desire. It tries to move to despair, but it can't stay there.

It can cry, it can miss. But it cannot despair. It has to fight for for its own survival. It can only despair to be alive when it can't be with its beloved. The point of the earth vanishes.

The love grows while it stays fixed alone. It is limerance. It is a place where no other will do. It thinks about what it can do alone, how it can move while thinking of him. All movement involves him. She could be hospitalized, but for what? For failing to take the trip to the library for the book "Women Who Love Too Much?"

He tells her to be free, to move on, but she was already free.

The wife watches them happy in the driveway. Her spirit kind toward the needs of others this time, she tells them it's too cold outside, to come inside.

Now is the first moment he does not seem to want her around. She can't process it. It is spaghetti in a disk drive. She can't read it. She can only read love. She is disabled. There is no reason, she believes. For all the time she has known him, he has only told her reasons not to be with his wife. Now he is operating backwards. He is unhappy. He calls it surreal while acting like it's so real. She leaves in disbelief.

It started at 4 in the morning when she accidentally got locked out of her apartment. She had gone upstairs to ask the neighbor to turn down his music. She had no way into the apartment she had believed was there to be shared with him. He wasn't there. He said maybe he would move in the day before, the night before, but he hadn't been able to tell his wife. She had to call him back home, now, for the keys.

He loved her. He did. But he didn't want to hurt his wife. He didn't want to hurt anyone so he hurt the 30-year-old. He knew she would still love him, even though he told her she would move on. He told her she would forget in 10 years. She said I may be with you in 10 years. She knew she would love him for 10 years, for 20.

He said he was taking it hour by hour. His wife was in pain (that was all she knew how to express to him... that or false joy... stuffed animals... their relationship was so broken.)

He said he wanted to do this job. He was her nurse. She was only 52. He almost chased the 30-year-old away.

He even condescended. He patted her. After so many recent days of making love. He would not make love. He would make do.

He told her she would move on, but on this planet, she had no place to move. She needed him. But a girl can be alone, she can be celibate if he won't have her. She can be a yogi. She can be some kind of teacher. She, like her teacher who loved the Yogananada for 14 days, could renounce earthly love if she could not have him. If he would not grow. She would not have babies. She would not have pets.

The wife's spirit was beautiful when she saw them. There was beauty with an inability to connect beyond its own clutching to its dreams, to its work, to its own lack of intimacy. She told the same old stories. She was not looking for growth but she professed its deep belief. She needed new influences. But he could not leave unless she set him free. He was a Taurus, devoted to his Pisces.

He told the 30-year-old he couldn't meet her needs. But he already did. By existing. By sitting in the chair with the magazine. He tried to ignore her. He didn't open his gmail account. For the first time, he did not act happy to see her. But that guy was inside. That guy was always inside. The young man released in the throes of passion. The softening face no more the stern school-teacher.

He was not a stern school-teacher. But he was one now. Yesterday he made love to her. Today it was leave the premises. Listen to break-up songs. They exist for a reason. This is life.

He thought he was making both women happy. He was living a lie. Or at least two truths. But if the first truth were true, would he be part of a new story? Were there any mistakes?

He told the 30-year-old their love was more fulfilling. He told her he'd offer her a spare bedroom, but she said that's not where she'd like to sleep. Her bed in the apartment still smelled like him from yesterday. She didn't want to wash him away. She couldn't. He was imprinted. He had colored over all the love in her soul. It grew bigger, beyond her control.

But in him he contained two women--one passion, one obligation.

Obligation first told Passion herself the sexual connection should be continued. She could not give that to him. Out of love (avoidance), he tried to think of what he couldn't give his passion. He said he could not give her youth. But she had youth. She wanted him for his age. (He tried to think of himself at her age. But he was not her.) She wanted him for his brand of beauty she could find nowhere else. No one else would do.

Not a salsa dancer. Not a dog trainer. Not an artist, nor a musician. She loved films but had no need for a film-maker.

She only had the need for a life with him. For their connection.

He said it's over, it ends right here. He had said that before and come back and come back. He had made new promises. Now he said it again. His brain said practical. His brain said kill the feelings. His brain said so many things "We'll be friends." She could not. Could she change her brain? She could be alone, but she could not just be his friend. She could not take the pats, the questions about her plans, the prods toward moving on, the thing she could not do.

It was like a father, telling her she must move. She must change. She must not be who she is.

Did someone have to change? He didn't expect it of his wife. He never had. So he expected it of his Passion. Obligation wins. Passion must sizzle. But she burned. It was burn or extinguish, and there was no place to go out. They would put her in a hospital if she spoke the option too loudly. Instead, she burned. And he tried to burn her out of his life, call her something different.

But her being had to be.

It was true she did not really know his wife. His wife said she did not know herself. She knew herself through her duties, through her vision of the life she shared.

He had to participate. He couldn't, it pained him, he thought of his passion. But he sat across from his Obligation with his Powerade and popcorn.

And this story gets repetitive. Maybe someone hopes she will write it out. In time she will write it all out, and it will be gone, time for a new story.

But her heart did not work like that. She didn't forget. She didn't forget her mother, 26 years gone, and she would never forget him. She thought of places. She wondered about North Carolina, but she knew it wasn't hers.

The only thing she could make her mind up about was him. But it wasn't even her mind. It was her spirit, which had grown so much more powerful. It was gentle, but it only listened to her heart.

Her heart had grown too strong. So she sat in her bathtub and wrote with clear eyes.

Her soon-to-be ex-husband mocked her and her stupid love. He mocked her impracticality, her stupid decisions. He said he did not like her until she would leave.

Two men she had loved pushed her out two doors in one night. She called her beloved's sister. They chatted like best friends, dreamed of meeting. Even the sister-in-law thought the would have such fun together.

But he was not on board. He was obligated. He wanted the job. He'd taken it on a rebound, and despite its indifferences, its denial of his human needs, he worked the factory. He didn't need to feel.

The ex-husband made fun of feelings altogether. Dogs can feel. Animals can feel. Humans are to think, take in the whole situation.

So she lived alone in the tub, in the romance. It did not matter that she'd loved his sweaty body there. Someone else had done his laundry for 27 years. She won. Tradition, obligation. Passion was supposed to fold, not unfold. She bled on him the day before. Now she was to bleed alone. To stop it up. Find a cotton plug.