The Chiaroscurist

The Chiaroscurist

I’m on my island now. The pine trees sing a requiem for fall and winter sits resolutely on my chest. The breeze has progressed into a mistral so strong that I clutch my coat and ball it up to defend my throat. I thought the dreary weather would dampen my spirits but I see that it is simply a metaphor for my personality. I am always slightly sad. I am not certain why. There is no one here to be bothered by my quiet desperation. Certainly the dogs don’t mind. They accept it and draw closer so that their body heat comforts me. The old man who comes to cut wood for my fire keeps his distance and I have never tried to break the barrier. I like my solitude. I have come to recognize and honour this peace. I am no longer required to face the constant noise of making a living.

This is my third winter on the island. I sit here at my sea-stained writing desk and look out to see the ferry as it approaches the harbour. It travels slowly on the dark water and its bright lights, like a cloud of fireflies, disappear behind the headland. I can’t see the passengers, nor can I see their cars as they come off the boat but my mind’s eye knows they go home to lighted fires and warm suppers. I had that too, family, friends, a calendar full of social obligations. I’m not such a misfit that I didn’t know the pleasures of relationship. I adored being a wife and mother. Time edited that reality. I have had many lovers but I am alone now with my memories.

It is time to light the stove and heat the cabin. I wait until the seven o’clock ferry docks. Time is measured differently here. There is no need for an alarm clock. Now I can awaken slowly as it should be, gladden to the warmth of my lair and mentally plan my day. In the summer months, I take my coffee out to the garden and marvel at the air and the sunshine streaming through the pines. The forest is dense behind my cabin and I sense that it is alive with creatures I cannot see. When I first arrived, I felt intimidated by the silence. It seemed as if I was in a De Chirico painting waiting for an animal to lurch out from behind every tree. I feel safe now, besides there are no predators on the island, only deer, raccoons, and birds. In early March, the bald eagles return to nest and raise their young. The fluttering of those wings is unmistakable. It is that magnificent aereous display of elegant authority that announces spring is on its way.

During the winter, it often rains that soft drizzle but tonight I hear it dance on my tin roof. It makes the fire in the stove more inviting. The old dog lies on her bed so close to the stove that I smell her hot hair. When I run my hand over her haunches, she is lethargic with heat and age and opens her eyes without moving her head. I will not have her company much longer.

The day has passed; my chores are complete; and now I will put on sensuous music that stirs memories. Sometimes, I can steel myself from thinking back but tonight I will let the music seduce me even if I pay in tears. I will light the candles to get myself to that place where pain and pleasure meet.

I remember washing his back in the candle light. He had such a beautiful back. I wanted  to photograph it in black and white. The shadows created a chiaroscuro as rich as any of the old  Italian masters. I was living the painting and slid my hands over his strong muscles. The image of his back, so dramatic in the flickering light, has remained etched in my memory. Now that I am an old woman, I experience longings that I don’t recognize immediately. Then my mind matches the longing and once again I am running my tongue over the smooth dark curves and salty hollows in caress, stopping at each vertebra. It's been a long time but I can still remember his taste.

I recall how his hair felt between my fingers. Spilling languorously over dark eyes, I would brush it back and raise his face between my legs, just to see his smile.  Putting my hand to his cheek, I framed in all the tenderness for a photograph so strong that it haunts me still.

We were often physically apart but that seemed to draw us closer in spirit. There were never more important words written or as beautifully put as in the letters that passed between us. We recognized early on that this relationship was not going to be simple or easily understood. It was an odd relationship in the sense that we talked about it as much as we lived it. Where is that letter from him? Yes, here….

“I do have reservations, great gnawing reservations but I have also put hope into this. I have been alone for a long time. The echoes are maddening at times; reach out, withdraw. I’ve needed to talk to someone like you and here you are. You challenge me and I like that. I have yearned, lusted, calmly meditated, and thrashed within my prison, waiting for your mind. You have captivated me and I enjoy working at a cerebral level to understand you. I’m attracted to you physically but I’m glad there is space between us, otherwise we would swirl the heat of our colors together too quickly. Still, in our letters, we dip our hands into that body of water from time to time and then I dream. I dream of you softly holding me, the heat of your thigh against mine. There exists a trusting, relaxed, magnetism in our single mindedness. Yet I am making that up. It is not real and the axis we spin on may present an opportunity to either consume one another or stand away to be friends. Are you the lady or the tiger?”

Did he keep the letter I wrote in reply? Or did he destroy all of them so he wouldn’t be cursed with the desire to reread them and flinch at words so eagerly and honestly spoken? What happened to those words? What happened to those feelings? I have gone crazy wondering. Eventually, I look to the god of small things and remember with calming breaths that life can be graciously warm and endearing at times. How easy it is to lose sight of the abundance of pleasure. It is alright to remember.

The moonlight sits upon my shoulders; it softens the blackness of night with an ethereal quality. I do not walk alone on this journey. The ferries, the ghouls, and the goblins accompany me. They dust my hot needing body.The fertility of memory breaks upon my skin into beads as clear as conviction. I shiver with the remembrance of penetration. I have known the reality of giving oneself up so completely. I was transformed by the passion of such melding.

Yes, here is a copy of my letter to him.

“Do you ride my body or do you ride the mind of my body? Do you take the diamond hardness of my nipples between your teeth or do you suck my thoughts into your being? Do you roll these pleasures around on your tongue or do you swallow the joy into your mind? Tell me. Form the words on your lips as unyielding in their honesty as your sex is unyielding. Is it that moist hot orifice that opens to your insistence or is it the creativity of my mind that drowns your need? Tell me. I must know. Do you hear the song in your loins? Do you hear the music in your heart? What is it that speaks to you without words? Tell me.”

I must not have kept the response that he wrote. I cannot find it amongst the papers, now so fragile from handling over the years. I could make up the answers but they wouldn’t be believable even to me. Only a man could speak those truths. I have so many of his letters and so few copies of mine. Yes, here is another. What does he say in this one?

“Please don’t think I’m a blithering romantic who has been pulled to a safe harbor, bewildered by your beauty. Your elegance and grace draw me as the strong light off a storm swept coast draws the mariner; draws him back to safety and home. As I knelt upon your shore, kissing verdant sun soaked hills and valleys, your spirit opened to draw me in. Tuesday, as it rained, I missed you. I went so far as to smell your hair brush to feel your presence. It startles me that I love you like this. I’ve been to sea so long. I was resigned to thinking we might never happen.”

We did happen. I miss the laughter, the conversation, the wit, the charm, and the sex. I miss the tenderness and the tears too. I will never know the pleasure of holding that strong young body to me again. I felt secure in his love but of course there is no such thing as security. I do remember discussing with him what it takes to feel secure. He made an analogy to climbing, his other love. Where is that letter? Yes, here……

“In the greed mode, one is focused only on acquiring more of whatever it is that produces a sense of security. In climbing, it is bags of climbing gear. As one climbs up a section of rock or even ice, the lighter one is and the less hampered by extraneous stuff, the easier the moves can be. The faster one moves cuts down the chance of compromise by being there a shorter time. But we need security to calm the chaos that is ever present. So a compromise is struck. Just how much gear does one need to protect the next lead? Too much and you can’t drag your butt up to the first hand hold. None at all, and you send your partner screaming wild eyed, arms akimbo, down through the talus into the forest, vocalizing a death wish."

"A good match up of climbing partners picks the objective and studies it well. They look for the inherent dangers and then choose the securities, tent or no tent, stove or no stove, extra rope? It has always been a question of Freedom versus Security.”

What was he trying to tell me? Did he worry that the security of a relationship would challenge his freedom? Did he stay a shorter time with me because he thought his way of life was being compromised? I will never know for certain. It is possible that I made too much of our togetherness. Perhaps he felt trapped with nothing but a slippery slope to hold on to. If he envisioned our life together as a Potemkin village, all arranged to look good, then I understand why he left. His leaving wasn’t about freedom or security: it was about bravery. Few are brave enough to commit to love someone for a lifetime. To do that takes more guts than climbing Mount Everest.

I’ve never understood trying to hold someone who needs or wants to be elsewhere for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter if it is another woman or a mountain, it still breaks your spirit and claws the heart. The concept that pleasure involves both pain and sacrifice is an old one. I loved him too much not to let him go back to his mountains. In our short time together, he forged such an impresion on my heart and soul that I was changed forever. I have never known or will know again such passion.

The flames are now embers; they burn on in remembrance of the light, not fiercely but with a soft afterglow. The cabin is full of shadows but I am warm and safe. It has taken me years to get here but I’m on my island now.