9.2
July 20, 2013

Things I would like to do with You in the Woods.

“The simplest things are often the truest.” ~ Richard Bach

 

little forest | vintage children's book illustration by Inge Friebel, 1959 #vintage #illustration #forestI would like to go a way’s away, to a Cabin, and I would like to look you in the eyes, and you look me in the eyes, as lovers do, a soft invisible smile, quiet, warm, calm. I would like to not come back for ten days (ten days is not long enough, but it is longer than I have taken for myself in eleven years). It would be a first visit, a return to the woods of my youth. I can cut wood quite well, and show you how. I can pick too much mint, because I am distracted by you. The mint is strong, almost bitter, in the wild.

I would like to walk with you in the moonlight. The grass is wet. I can see you clearly in the dark, only you are black and white, but I cannot see how the gate opens, so I have to feel for it, and the ground is uneven so…walking, talking, listening to and with you…I walk left then right, as if tipsy. The ground is not flat out here, and I love you. I mean, I love that about nature: it is uneven.

I would like to love you, but I do not know you, and I value space more than even love, for in space we can play. I would make a fort in our cabin out of sheets and we can go inside and just lie there. I am looking at you, into you, and you are looking at me, into me. And we could read a paperback. I have a good reading voice. And we could have a fire, though it is not cold, but it would light up the fort, flickering, warmly, with shadows of our future. I would like to love you and you love me, for love can only be shared, but my luck does not run that way, these days, or for awhile, and I have a feeling that I will not love and be loved again until all my luck is run out.

“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” ~ Lao Tzu

I would like to talk with you about things I care about that others do not care about because they do not care about me, and hear you care, not because you care about me, but because you care about the things I care about.

I would like to listen. I could do it half the night, hour turning over hour, until I fall asleepinyourwords. I need make up time: I need to listen and breathe and take you in and just

stop.

I need to relax, and breathe—and what I need most (of course) is to cry. But you will not see my tears, for I can not quite cry yet. The mosquitoes, the water roaring beneath us, your unwritten life set like calligraphy on a new page, arching, bright, sharp, wandering, struggling, fast, laughing—letting go is half the beauty in elegance.

You are kind.

I would like to bring a cheap paperback with pen illustrations, say, and read it in the crook of a tree, and I would gingerly walk there barefoot, and you would be overdressed in a one dollar secondhand dress, as if going to a play. You would skip stones in the creek, then I would try and outdo you. You would set out a picnic, and I would eat your leftovers, and the trees far above would waver greenly in my eyes as I looked up at you looking up at them.

There’s a yellow butterfly! On the book, waving its wings without flying, softly. I wonder what it is thinking about, today?

On the second-to-last night, I would like to make another fire, even though we do not need it for warmth: because it is summer, and we have old wool blankets. But the flickering flames, the shifting warm light, is the best light for talking, endlessly, as if we were at camp, and sex is not the only thing we humans can think about. And perhaps I could hold your hand. There is nothing better than holding a hand, feeling your fingers, your nails, your callouses, your palm. And your hand, held yet holding mine, feeling the stress and bruises of life, your strong fingers cautioning: rest now, you are cared for.

When I awaken I would like to meditate, with or without you, it is up to you. And I would like to do the samurai’s calisthenics (I can show you how), and brush my teeth in the cold stream. And it is the woods, so I would not need to shave. But I might anyways, because sometimes it is doubly nice shaving in the woods, one’s face pressed up near to an old little mirror over a wash basin set on a rickety winter-worn wood shelf.

And I would to make dark, dark coffee in a french press, but you are better at it.

I would like to care for you.

I would like to see you again, and I know you are in love and love is not available to me, and the funny thing is, I do not mind. Perhaps when one has come over a long mountainpass, and is hungry, happy, beaten, and sad, and finally humbled, and lonely, perhaps then sunshine is enough. And perhaps next time we could go for more than ten days, and never return.

“If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things, then this is the best season of your life.” ~ Wu-Men

 

~

Hipster Cabin: Image: source. The actual image I would like to use is a thousand times less sexy and a thousand times more beautiful, but it is not mine to use, and it is of she who inspired this. And this is not about her, I do not know her.

Funny: I just realized I’m half writing about that video.

 

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Now there’s a followup: Things I Would Like to do with You this Evening.

Now, there’s a third: Things I Would Like to Remember about Yesterday.

And now there’s a fourth: Things I would like to do with you in Time.

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