Lust gets in the way.
Yesterday I realized, as I have realized time and time again that there are certain women who make me burst in every direction. Problem is, that even if we cohere and cleave and even conceive together philosophically, intellectually, creatively, experientially, and spiritually—affection seems to always want more than its fair share.
These women who are subject to this wanton fire of mine, I find, tend to be wanderers. Nomads of sorts who are inclined to speak in tongues, aesthetes who want to run through fields of wild flowers in other lands, connoisseurs of life who understand that beauty is to be had at hand and to be inspired by the impetuous imagination, and quite often, propelled awry by the fascination of one self, alone.
And yet, as the opportunity to know one another fruitions, as it overflows and spills and we slip and slide joyously therein, either circumstances impede or I concede to my impatient libido. I quit while I’m ahead, because I can’t wait or I know she will not be able to tolerate my situation.
Alas, these are the woes of my love-life. Woes which I bear happily because I realized a long time ago that I might not have love in my life otherwise, or least the kind of love which imposes no boundaries or expectations or limitations as to what it can be. It is a love that is me and not, antithetically, the ideal of others. My love does not subscribe to a plan or heed any prescription, it simply is, if only, because I am.
Recently, within a two-week span, I’ve met two women (separately) who befit the profile of my penchants, and who both happened to be twins. Strangely enough, my mother is a twin and she is a travel-whore. She and her gay boyfriend have traveled worldwide over the last five years or so and I could not be happier for her. She has certainly made up for much lost time. It makes me happy when she e-mails me her latest itinerary: "Mijo, I'm going to Paris next weekend, London next month, Montreal tomorrow. Love, Mom"
I am compelled to wonder if there is some of that same twin-spirit running through me. Not only because I was literally created by half of my mother, not to mention cradled in her belly for nine months and then nurtured into who I am, but also because, half-jokingly, she has inferred (out loud) that I might have a twin out there somewhere.
Perhaps not another child of hers, of this I am certain, but another child of his of which remains uncertain, at least according to my mother. She claims to have once seen another boy who looked just like me, one who she suspected to be my father’s illegitimate love-child. Who knows, I am fairly certain that—i— may never.
Perhaps the mystery shall forever remain just another example of how lust gets in the way (of love).
It so happens that Radio Amor was pushing the buttons of its listeners' sensibilities by imploring a discussion about infidelity this morning. I enjoyed the talk immensely, even if only for a few minutes, because the Latin perspective can be so different from that of most Caucasian Americans.
They introduced the subject by mentioning that the current issue of Men’s Health magazine just published a study that concluded that 60% of arguments in relationships are due to infidelity. Personally, I do not believe that has ever been true in my case, at least not by such an inflated number. For depending on the number of obligations you take on as a couple, the underlying reasons which spur the differences of opinion, and thus the arguments, vary widely. And since your significant other just happens to be the closest target, he or she gets to bear the brunt of your frustration, regardless of fault…and then one thing leads to another, one needs to find relief, an outlet, or just escape, if only for a while and then and then and then.
Anyway, the morning radio group, a mix of two men and two women, asked its audience to pontificate on the subject. One man called in saying that men are simply more capable of infidelity, which was spun into “…because men are naturally more capable of love.” This discussion went on with many ribald allusions and lots of genuine laughter as comments were made including: “Men can distinguish between love and sex.” “If a man has an affair, he is likely to still maintain his other relationship. Whereas, if a woman does so, she acts to ensure that it is over.” And “El sexo no es la infidelidad—por hombres el sexo es algo fisiológico (Sex is not infidelity, (because) for men sex is something purely physiological).” I know many American women who would vociferously beg to differ with these arguments, especially the latter.
Nonetheless and all the more, I suppose as I have reasoned with and suppressed and gone wild with (all my life) lust, which I must say implores men mercilessly and incessantly to explore and to wander and to break all the rules that conventional love would otherwise like to impose. It is a physiological fact, which, one way or another, I will not argue at this moment to be a moral deficit or not, but which rightly cannot be ignored. Surely, it has continually provoked and impeded upon my life, within and outside the framework of what others feel my life should be.
So, I guess, blessed or damned, once again here I am, reminding myself that I just have to be (me) and make the best of it.
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