Sometimes there’s God so quickly

— the phrase from A Streetcar Named Desire when Mitch kisses Blanche — though it is called an ‘embrace’ in SparkNotes — and ‘embrace’ is a lovely word. (Sorry I don’t have a copy in front of me.) Williams had a habit of equating sexual ecstasy with divine intervention, and so do I. It seems to make sense that the two come from the same place. But there is also a fear of abandonment here, one has the feeling that Blanche was meant to be abandoned, and I’m not sure where I got the idea I was. One of my therapists said it was my parent’s divorce. But honestly that didn’t bother me once it was over — I never liked my father much, and so was relieved to have him out of the way (what could be further away than Buffalo?). But my therapist said “No, it’s not that — with him gone you only had you mother, and the fear was what would happen if she disappeared?” The thing is my mother was inordinately attached to me — at the hip, as it were — we were a Siamese twin mother and son, and I think I knew that, didn’t I? And was perhaps secretly afraid more of her love for me itself, than of it disappearing? But my (partner/significant other/lover/whatever-term-suits-your-fancy) seemed to love me tonight, or I believed he did, or he was more convincing than usual, or maybe I deserved to be loved for at least a moment, I really don’t know, I really don’t care, but sometimes God does come very quickly, and it was a breath of fresh air. It’s cooler tonight, and it’s been rainy and I have needed something — I think all along I knew it was him, but I was afraid to wonder. The ‘new normal’ has hit him pretty hard, so this momentary flirtation with an angel may turn dreadfully sour at any moment — well there I go again. The problem is that when it’s not all dancing on rainbows I assume that it’s over. I do. I start plotting divorce, loneliness, years alone, walks in the rain. How would I leave him? I will take the cat for sure, that’s what I did the first time I left him, about 14 years ago. I went to our apartment — sorry, that is far too sweet a word — it was a sordid room in a sordid rooming house that we rented — or mostly I did — once a week, in Toronto, so I could proceed with my debauches (with his permission of course). But there wasn’t much actually in that room, so I grabbed the cat and whatever else I needed — a computer I guess, and took the train to Toronto and left him forever. I really can’t explain it. Was it a threat or a bribe? I suppose so, I was very angry for good reason I think, but I’m also painfully aware that I’m no summer vacation to live with. Eventually he came to see me in that squalid room and brought some man to defend him (very much the kind of thing he would do) in case I beat him up. I am constitutionally incapable of beating anyone up (as he knows) so this was a kind of fantasy-compliment. But anyway we made up, and the abandonment was officially over. Though it always looms as something I could do again. For I could leave him (I can’t imagine him ever leaving me) but if I left him it is I who would be abandoned. Explain that? Because my ‘abandonment issue’ doesn’t mean that I worry about specifically being left by things, or people, or institutions, but just that my whole life is uncertain, on shaky ground; everything could fall apart at any moment. Or else it’s the opposite of that, and God is here, and all is right with the world, perfect. This either/or existential dichotomy is apparently very psychologically unhealthy, and not everyone lives this way, as they don’t have abandonment issues. They carry on as if things will continue in the same manner and there is never any threat. This daily ‘something in between agony and ecstasy’ is what I have been told by my present therapist to strive for. But I am dead set against it, inside. Even though intellectually I understand its necessity. This is because my mother’s voice — and I know it’s hers — pops into my head saying quite unequivocally: ‘Don’t listen to them. You are better than that. You are not like other people; you deserve to be ecstatic all the time.” ‘Ecstatic all the time’ — that’s what the little voice  in my head says. And yes my mother was an alcoholic with no friends (duh!) and my therapist keeps saying “and where did that ‘demand for constant ecstasy’ get your mother? And she’s right. But these things are much easier to write about in a blog that you think no one is reading, then they are to convince yourself of. In the meantime I will keep my eye out for God, who does appear in all things — not that kind old man with the beard — he doesn’t exist — but the ecstatic eternal moment that is everything but eternal, that is it is experience, and it only comes occasionally, when you least expect it. But you certainly have to be alive and ready if you want it to happen. The stranger I had sex with last night (no not my boyfriend, this is someone else at the baths later --  keep up!) was just there, which is fascinating; he was absolutely present for every moment of our lovemaking. This is odd to me, as I was kind of drunk of course, but constantly wrenched back to reality by his being there. I’m quite used to having sex with cracked-out guys who are doing some crazy thing over and over again obsessively, banging into my room then running away (you don’t need to know) but this guy was actually present with me and responding, and making it impossible for me not to respond to him. That’s God in my view. Actually being there, not planning the future — or worrying about it — or worrying about what ‘they’ think about you, or comparing them — or the moment — with something else. I am an aesthete, so I’m not going to go as far as to say that I’m in favour of ‘reality.’ Let’s just call it being present in the now. (Because you can also be present in the now with a work of art, because art is, an alternative reality, and not inferior to the one we are prone to calling ‘the real.’) And all  ‘realities’ change into another reality before you know it. So does it follow that anything that takes you away from ‘the moment’ is the devil? But you see there is no devil. You are merely here in the room with me, or you are not.