he was talking to me on his cell phone from the stands, telling me how good I looked. I was the announcer court-side (maybe poolside or field-side) doing commentary on whatever event was happening there, and he was my new lover, come not to see the event and the studly athletes, but me. It's a dream.
Later, I brought him to my real job at the hospital, and introduced him to all my friends there--only I could not remember their names. I stalled until I remembered, and finally, "Sue, this is my friend John. John, this is Sue, RN." (I wanted to make sure everybody understood she was an Important Person.) One or two others were present but I don't remember who. When introductions were finished, I put my head on Sue's chest, and she hugged me. She was smiling; I was content.
In my dream, my new lover wore a suit, and carried an overcoat on his arm. I don't remember anything else about him, not his face nor any other features, except I know he was my age, and he loved me. Scary.
usually, when I dream about men, it is their bodies I see, and their facial expressions--at first grinning, then intense with determination, and finally surrendered in essential release. This dream was different; it had no sex--at least not sex as I know it. And Sue's was the only face I saw. This was a dream about a man who loved me, a dream about a powerful man who did not want to hold me down while taking his pleasure from me, who wanted neither to be atop me nor beneath me (figuratively speaking), but beside me. In such a dream, I saw only the face of a woman, powerfully kind and absolutely loving.
I have been hiding for two days; this is my third. Phone calls annoy me, even from friends. I last emerged from the space around this computer Tuesday night. Work, which for me begins every Friday, was a strain this week, and I left there Monday firmly embraced of old habits, in hot pursuit of self-destructive reassurances. For example: I cut coffee to a third and eliminated chocolate about six months ago, just to feel normal. Caffeine had become a problem making me jittery even though several pots per day over the last decade had never had such an effect. This week I resumed it all with a vengeance.
Hmm. 'Vengeance' is a word I once used to describe the way my ex- drank; Daniel didn't just drink too much (whatever that is), he drank with a cold fury to injure himself, perhaps to find in the alcohol's effect the only consistency in an inconsistent world, and surely to gain mastery of something in this life--anything--even if proving his mastery meant destroying himself. Such a fabulously gentle soul, so fantastically afflicted... I wish more than anything that I could have stayed.
Sue's love for me is platonic and, by circumstance, maternal; because I'm gay. If I were straight, her love would be sometimes platonic and sometimes erotic (she has told me). Nonetheless it would remain, I'm sure, a love seeking faithfully to know me without bias and wishing for me absolutely everything that is good. So what the fuck am I trying to say? Simply that someone who can love in a way I am not yet able to, has illuminated me. At least in my dream, where clearly was revealed what I truly want; not a college boy for a lover, and not a Cardinal, either. Just a man, like me. Scary.
In the face of love, we see the reflection of our true selves. It is an encounter not nearly as common as I thought.
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