“Passion is always anti-social,” she said while cleaning the
coffee froth from her upper lip. “Passion
always creates the distance it needs.”
“Will passion create that distance, or needs that distance to
become passion?”
She had just trimmed her own hair. She liked the result. I was not interested in talking about it.
“Have you, my silly poet, ever-heard, felt, or written about
passion regarding someone close to you, in distance?”
“I do not care about distance,” I thought. “What were important were the
difficulties. Passion needs impasses,” I
said.
… It was a very crowded room. People were talking about things of the body,
about diseases, about undesirable growths.
I was rarely paying attention, although I should have.
“So, if you reach me, you cannot do it with passion?”
I did not know, so I could not answer. I had never reached her. Or reached for her. I realized that I was reaching, but not for
her. Perhaps for myself.
“Can I have passion without selfishness?” I asked.
“Yes, but you cannot have love.” Now, she was listening to some presentation
about germs, central-lines, large hospitals.
I looked at her as if it was for the first time. Then, smiled.
Indeed, this was only the fourth time I meet her. Who was she?
…. “To love, you have to love yourself first. And last, you have to love to learn to love
yourself. Love is selfish.”
“What about passion?”
“Passion is not love.
It runs away from the daily, it also runs away from tomorrow. Passion has only the need for distances to
eclipse in its own moment of readiness.”
I was totally absorbed.
She had understood what I had not yet lived. She knew what to expect. I expected to learn.
“Readiness for what?”
“Shhhh!” She
said. “Listen, he is a great
speaker. He speaks of things we all know;
he just adds a moment of weakness to it.
We feel we cannot do everything.
We know that too, but do not admit to it. When he says it, it is like therapy.”
“Readiness for what?” I repeated.
“I am not sure, but there has to be readiness. My own wounds testify to a readiness to
ignore the wounds and the acceptance of the moment. You’ve been ready for just that moment?”
She was not looking at me; she was not even talking to
me. She was a middle age woman with
amazing abilities to know things medical.
Now, she was beyond the mechanical things; she was dimensional.
“I always wanted to be,” I murmured. “I am not sure I appreciated the importance
of distance. Do you mean there is more than Thursdays in a week? Are you telling me that a week is not five
Thursdays and a week end to break the cycle?”
It was lunch break.
We all put down our pens, folded our folders, and scratched our
legs. We were in Europe
and they were serving wine with cheese and excellent sandwiches.
… Back to the conference.
It was good I was not presenting; I could just be there, and other
places at the same time. I could take my
shoes off, half-way, and move my toes.
“I do not remember my mother,” she suddenly said. “I was 6
years old when she died. Sometimes I
dream of a woman without a face. And I
do that with immense passion!”
I did not know this woman.
Yet I did not want to know more!
Just wanted the moment to get more intense, explode into smaller, even
more intense moments. And when the last
speaker says “I hope you all will join us for a drink or two”, I wanted that
moment to just stop being part of any other moment. That Thursdays stretch all the way to
Saturdays; even Sundays.
And then, without looking at me, she murmured “Silly poet, you
are not ready for passion…”
“What did you say?”
“Silly poet, keep your distance - you may find yourself.”
©Vahé
Kazandjian, 2013
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