Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Love Story


He traveled a long way to get there only to realize it wasn’t where he wanted to be. But there was no way back, so he ended up staying.

After a while he fell in love with a beautiful woman who only vaguely acknowledged him. He tried his best to win her, but the more he wanted her the less she would have to do with him.

Other women offered themselves to him, but he continued to beat his chest in the conviction that she was the only one who could make him happy.

A priest told him “find yourself” when he asked how he might win the beautiful woman. And so he tried. He looked hard into a mirror and began to see something there that soothed him and made his desires palatable. 

The people in the town noticed the difference. Even the beautiful woman paid him more attention than she had before, stopping occasionally to talk and share tea. He confessed how he always wanted to be loved, to be possessed and consumed by love. She admitted to feeling equally strong hungers and began to offer herself to him more and more as something strong grew between them. Time passed, making them older, more transparent, softer somehow. He felt pulled toward her, and as he grew toward her, he came to know himself, realizing that possession was impossible, longing inevitable.

He was not where he thought he wanted to be, but he no longer felt the need to strive to be someplace else or something other than what he was. They told him that life could never give him enough, but he felt that it was more than enough to be part of something larger than he could comprehend. He found himself turning around to give more to life, feeling that he could never give enough, that the turning world could never know enough of his ever deepening desire.