Passion Space and Time

Passion, it’s such an interesting concept, how many ways it can show up in one’s life, a kaleidoscope of moments and experiences, move just a fraction to the right and everything shifts as patterns redistribute themselves. I’m in the midst of having to go through every single item in my possession and decide what to keep, what to sell, how to sell it, what price to sell it for, what to throw away, give away, put in storage or bring with me as I move. Many of these are things I’ve been ridiculously passionate about, for example, a sensuously curved Lucite lounge suspended on a custom forged stainless steel base, a one-of-a-kind prototype from the 1950’s that’s spectacular no matter what your tastes may be. It’s the single most exquisite item I own, and I was so head over heels about it when I first saw it, eventually deciding I had to buy it, that I didn’t want to live without it if I could live with it. I did not own a house then when I had made that purchase, nor had the space to put it in, but I’d never seen anything like it in my life and knew I never would again. So it stayed in storage for a few years and it was the item I was most eager to bring here when I bought this house, just as soon as the bulk of the renovation work was completed. Now, though I still love it just as much, maybe more, I find I don’t need to own it. I’m ready to let it go out into the world. Similarly to how I feel about my house. No matter who’s name is on the deed this will always be my house, it’s as if I birthed it, formed it, shaped it, raised it, made it what it is today in every detail, large and small. Even devoid of all of my possessions, and of me, it will still be mine, and a piece of me shall always live here. This also is not a piece of me that I need to hold on to any longer, it’s a piece of my past, not a piece of my future. I’ve barely begun to go through all my clothing, kitchenware, papers, art. The few items I’ve been able to remove are ones for which I have no passion, maybe never did, maybe bought it because it was on sale, or some other reason, but if I can’t feel a strong desire for it then I don’t want to keep it. The entire process has been challenging. Sometimes it’s about letting go of the attachment to a particular memory that an item stores. I don’t need to look at it or own it to keep the memories, they remain. If some fall away then they are not missed, and if they are needed I believe they return, the way a scent might shoot you like an arrow piercing back to a particular moment. Or a song displacing you from your present to a past encounter, immediately eviscerating any reality which honors the boundaries of space or time. What else have I been passionate about? By far more than anything else, anything else, is my proximity to the bay, and Sammy’s beach, and the lovely walk to arrive at it that I do as often as I can, intend to daily, but life spars with me often on my intentions. Even with all the twists and turns I could do it blindfolded I think, I know it that well, have walked it that often. When I arrive there I sit on a log and commune with the water’s edge, trace the curve of the land mass which contains it, notice what’s going on with the sky that day, the clouds, the wind, that moment. The logs change over time, and sometimes I have to sit on the rocks, but I don’t care. It is my temple this bay, my church, my sanctuary, my meditation room, my lover, the place I pray, dream, cry, am inspired in. The place I go to when I want to escape something, when I want to clarify something, when I want to return to who I really am when that connection has been stretched a painful distance. This bay, I could write an entire book about this bay, a thousand pages, and still not capture more than some drops. So I won’t, you’ll have to come there yourself, and read it all with your first inhale. If you do come, and you do not feel moved or inspired there, then you’re not someone I understand, or wish to know. It’s that significant. I’ve carried home countless rocks and shells and all kinds of gifts from the sea and these are as important to me as anything I’ve ever bought in a store, coming with me so that I can always have a piece of this bay wherever I may be. Maybe I don’t need all of them, but this is not about need, does a beach need all those grains of sand, an ocean every drop? In all this business I’ve had to decide also what I’m most passionate about regarding how I spend my time, what to exclude, what to include, like the bay, approach even more fervently, as the number of days where I remain in my home dwindle. And in all this activity I seem to have made a new connection, with a man I hadn’t encountered before in all the years I’ve lived here. I’ve been making time and space for him during a period when there is precious little of either. The first time he asked me out I invited him over for dinner, something I’ve only done before when knowing someone extremely well. Of his own accord he suggested we walk together to the bay, and once there he was awestruck by its beauty, as I am every single time. Upon our return we lit a fire, though it was 70 degrees out that day, a fluke in mid-April. We sat by my crazy Jackson Pollack inspired fireplace in my pair of Saarinen womb chairs, facing one another with our feet sharing the same ottoman, drinking wine and talking for hours. We’ve done that 3 times since, and are meeting again tomorrow night. There’s a growing passion between us, and it overrides and pre-empts any sadness or sense of loss that I think I would be overtaken with otherwise. For tomorrow night’s date he asked where he could take me, and I replied as follows: (((the following paragraph should be indented and in italics please, your format would not permit me to do that))) I haven’t told you this so clearly, but it’s been a very nice surprise to be sharing these evenings with you just before I have to leave my home, bringing another person into my private world, showing off the home that I created the way some others show off their young children, my very own spot in the world, cooking in my kitchen together, making fires, drinking too much wine and staying up too late, being here rather than anywhere else. It’s really helping me cement a lovely ending to a place that has meant so much to me these last years. This place is like the presence of another person in my life, and I’m wishing to spend as much time with it/he/she as possible right now, before it’s no longer a part of my life anymore. I’ve never felt this way about anyplace I’ve ever lived before, but I’ve also never made a place my own in this way before either. So if you don’t mind, what I’d really like is to just hang out here, for the tiny bit of time that’s left when I still can. The reply came almost instantly, saying that he understands this, that’s it’s better than anything else we might do, can still do any other time, when circumstances aren’t so pivotal. And so as I ready to depart from this most perfect haven of my present, soon to be my past, I forge a connection from my very very recent past potentially to some moment in my future, an excuse to come back and visit more often, who knows, who can ever know. Laugh laugh, cry cry, both at the same time, a cosmic circle where passion time and place lead me in a kaleidoscopic dance, a psychedelic tango, where step by step, as best I can, I follow.