THE DARK SIDE OF DIVINE LIGHT

Photo by the late, great Peter Hakanson

Story by Char Easter

The other day James announced that a woman asked him on a date and he said yes. He had been pressuring me for a commitment that I couldn’t give. I have my practical agenda for a potential partner, after all, and he doesn’t fit what I think I need. We called this, not being compatible. But don’t worry; I get my comeuppance in this story.

So we’ve been companions with an expiration date, and his date with the woman marks that expiration. Asking for a monogamous, or as he pronounces, “managamous” arrangement isn’t fair to him given the circumstances, so I let him go. Coincidently, the day James went on his date, I met a guy and we went out for a bite to eat. I don’t know what will come of either of our dates.

The next day I was going through my memorabilia to find a birthday card and came across a note from the photographer who took a picture of me and  my then current partner, Jay. He wrote:

Dear Char and Jay,

Here are the pictures I promised. I think they are lovely, very lovely. Do you remember the light that day? The rain was largely constant all morning, but a sun break created the prefect moment for us to capture this particular moment. The light… amazing.

I think this is a perfect image of your special friendship. It is intimate and bright. I have enjoyed looking at them for far too long. And now it’s time to return what was yours from the beginning.

Thanks for sharing.
Namaste,
Tony

I had given the photos to Jay when we broke up five years ago, but have the negatives somewhere. Tony’s note was inserted in a blank card with an ethereal, fantasy painting of a group of fairies facing a herd of gentle deer.  Now Jay is gone and the fairies and deer are still here. It feels like the “intimate and bright light” that Tony captured in us is gone from me right now. I need to be like Tony and find it around me and cherish and see it regardless of who I have as my one and only, because it may be no one. I am sad for my losses, and the mystery and enlightened state Tony had makes the hurt that much more amazing and available.

Maybe I’m sad for James. Maybe for Jay, or for myself on the threshold of holding on to the hurt and fear of loss and being alone but knowing I must move forward. My own lyrics describe the hesitation looking into the unknown, “Like the blackness in the lake, there’s no turning back and you can’t stand still.” In screenwriting terms, this is my cave scene.

As I hold this card from a stranger who took a chance photo at a chance moment, it’s one of the most precious items I have because it signifies my …. what? – a love misbegotten; an inner light that was dependent on another; a time when I was in love and ignored the arrangement that was similar to mine and James, where I didn’t measure up to Jay’s ideal, yet I believed in my heart he was with my perfect companion? Why would this be a precious artifact? I don’t know. I’m on the sentimental/dependant side of the threshold, resisting the human condition. And feeling the pain to transform to Tony’s sunny state of mind and that day in love.

If love is the solution and the way, why is romantic love the common way we experience it? It’s a drug that mainlines you to a state of bliss but the side affects are on par with prescription drugs’ “diarria and death” disclaimers. Or listen to any Bossa Nova song for effusive, over the top, co-dependent,  sentimentality: “You are the rain. I am the flower. Without your love. I will surely die.” The bittersweet touching the core that is the divine as Tony saw, the version not induced by romance.

I think that Tony was the real object of the light and loveliness he saw. The irony is that although he returned what he said was ours from the beginning, it’s his in the end, because he was able to love and see love beyond himself. In screenwriting terms, that will be my “road home.”

Share

2 Responses to “THE DARK SIDE OF DIVINE LIGHT”

  1. Hannah says:

    That was beautiful Char!

    So often we only want the light. But it can’t exist without the darkness. Yin and yang are always together, whether we are “alone” or with a “beloved.”

    When we’re alone we think The Other is what’s missing. When we’re together with another, we think it should be different than it is, at least some of the time.

    In short, we’re never satisfied until we can be content with what IS. In my chakra reading today she said when I fill my own cup, my heart feels complete and everything around me is a reflection of that.

    Non-contingent on bra size, everyone has the ability to fill it.

  2. admin says:

    Not to make your profound reply trite, but the cup size analogy may explain why boob jobs are the rage, they symbolize wanting cups too large for our own good.

Leave a Reply