There are two things about which I can safely say I know very little; viz., the Pacific Ocean and women. Ignorance has never stopped me before so I will not apologize for continuing with this commentary. If you must know, I place some confidence in story-telling generally. My legal career of punctilious documentation is over. I have instead abandoned myself to the exoteric pleasure of unbridled presentation! Granted it is a wishful ambition but it captures the dominance of the narrative.
And another thing. I presently enjoy a singular romance with a woman whom I have never met in a part of the world where I have never been. I can’t imagine a more romantic union! Rather like that quip once overheard, “He should be married. But they should live apart.” Let’s face it, there’ s an element of vulgarity to every relationship no matter how close. And perhaps more to the point an association with large but not insurmountable divide is very likely to inspire some well nourished thought, drama and poetry!
The projection is not entirely metaphorical. You see, I was first introduced to this woman whom I have never met by a dear friend of the family. He (that is, the dear friend of the family) is a long-standing friend who just so happens to live in the Pacific Ocean. “Now“, you say, “how did all that happen!” Well, it’s just another of those serendipitous events in life. When it comes to coincidence Thomas Hardy has nothing on me! The detail is virtually insignificant; all that matters is that by some happenstance people and places connect, some from within, others from without, winding like a ball of string about the globe, a passage and history too complicated to repeat. It only requires that we submit to the fortuity.
Remember the song, “In my mind I’m going to Carolina..“? My new girlfriend is a strong, determined person. She and I are of an age. At least we’re close enough to one another’s age to account for entitlement to “elderly “ (though we each confess it is so merely as a social nicety but it is not something either of us truly believes).
My girlfriend is a kind and generous person. Her appearance is appropriate but otherwise unremarkable. Her strength derives not from the colour of paste. Hers is a resource of gusto and intellect. We each recognize the best in the other. It isn’t something that happened quickly. It is a relationship which has developed over months, maybe even years. But the real awakening was only today. I finally realized it was meant to be!
Don’t ask me to explain. I cannot. But I am nonetheless convinced of the matter. Permit me to interrupt your disbelief by turning the table on you. Permit me to ask you instead, do you not suspect there is some legitimacy to everything I have said? Is it not possible by some clever subterfuge I have accounted a tale which peculiarly has arisen from the thinnest fabric of truth? And in any event how real, how substantial, how materialistic is any human emotion? Whence derives the spark much less the flame of passion? Who can prove or disprove the unseen mental commotion?
None of us knows the scope of the imagination; nor whether its shimmering mirage is anything but suggestion. And even if it were real, how long it will survive the next moment of identity. And then what? Will we never love again? Did we ever? Do we simply have our ups and downs, our ins and outs? What’s on the other side of the world?