Did anbody read Mishima’s Sea of Fertility tetralogy? Do you remember, having made your way through those four tomes, getting to the last book, and how completely devastated you were to realize that reality was an illusion? Tonight, after tucking little Reesie into bed, I settled down to fill out some mindless online quiz, and D walked in, excited to tell me about his date with someone who seemed on the outside to be interested more in just the outside of D, which half of the Castro seems interested in at the moment. He sort of went on and on, and on and on, and on and on, and then mentioned that this guy knew him from when he was with his last lover, years ago, but D had no recollection of him. After a while, and when an interjection was possible, I asked, “D, do you remember our affair?” Now, before I tell you his response, let me preface it with the fact that D was the only witness to acts that my body had never before or since been able to perform, muscles contracting that I didn’t even know about, my head constantly spinning from the blood being diverted from it…
“Well,” he said, “I think I remember.”
I imagined myself not being in the scene, but recalling it as I accepted my Academy Award. Masterfully hiding my complete devastation, I turned the subject back to his date, a few more moments of interaction, and then I excused myself to sleep.
So one of the most intense and real and life-changing encounters with another human being is now contained almost entirely in my recollection of it, and the few neurons left in my head. What was so real, so intense, so dramatic, the affair that destroyed my relationship with Bob, that stirred my artistic soul, that woke my sexuality, that made me feel complete as a man, that mattered more to me than monogamy or my vows or the trust that I had spent 10 years building… “I think I remember.”
What do we do when we not only see, but understand, that it’s all an illusion, that we’re all alone, that none of it matters, that none of it is even remembered?