My life is like a jar. A large, squat jar with a wide mouth, blown of clear glass. I drop stones
into this jar - water-smoothed ovals picked off a New Zealand beach on a warm summer's day.
This stone is Ally, this is Lizzy - this one belongs to Chris. Mom and Dad, Mack - they each have
stones. Most of the Fellowship is represented too - Ian, Dom and Billy, the elf and the dwarf,
the humans, Peter. I pause, a smooth blue-green stone warming in my hand - then I add it to
my jar. Elijah, my best friend. The work I love. There. The stones almost fill the jar - there are
a lot of things that matter in my life, and most of them are people.
I add a handful of pebbles and shake the jar gently. They roll into place and settle in. My
business, my projects and my causes; the acquaintances I've made over the years - some of
who may grow into stones themselves. Erosion reversed. My jar is full.
A fistful of sand joins them, and then another. The crystalline grains sift into the crevices and
settle onto the bottom. The endless minutiae of everyday life - giving color, and coherence and
connection.
I look at my life, and then I close my eyes.
~~~~~
He presses his face against my shoulder, and I feel a shudder race through his slender frame. I
know what he's thinking of, what he's feeling, because the same treasured memories are
dancing through my mind. Memories that have been triggered by the slices of magic up there
on the outsized screen. I had met his gaze a few scant seconds before, and the myriad other
eyes beyond the footlights faded into insignificance. I saw his expression before he ducked his
head to hide it; loss and desolation, pride - and a fierce love.
I couldn't help it - my eyes had called to him and my hand reached out of its own accord - and
he had come to me.
I talk about the 'most sacred acting experience' of my life to anyone who'll listen - and it's
mostly a mask, a lie. Because I hadn't been acting then. Because we were alone on that
mountaintop, and the world had ceased to matter. A part of my mind knew they were there -
Peter and Andy, Richard and Caro - and they were merely background noise. They hadn't
mattered either. There had only been him, and me, and our new reality. We had fought so
hard against it, he and I - for more than a year, it wore us down; the constant ache, the
profound need. That day on the mountaintop, we lost the struggle - and in the losing, we won a
victory of sorts. It had been a sacred experience, yes - but what had followed after was more
hallowed still.
His naked body, washed by moonlight, gleaming in my arms. The soft pressure of his lips
against my mouth, tentative and shy - and the gradual intrusion of his insistent tongue, gently
daring. My hands on every inch of him - exploring, touching, loving. The slick whisper of his
smooth skin against my body, the hardness of his arousal warring with mine. And finally, the
swelling murmur of my name on his lips - a christening of the most tender kind.
I feel an insane urge to hold him closer, to claim him again - and a timely sense of
self-preservation holds me back. Instead, I rub my cheek against the velvet nap of his shorn
head and kiss his shoulder, the only part of him that I can safely reach. The words I want to say
die stillborn on my tongue. Then he releases me, his huge eyes gone dark and deep, and he
answers my unspoken thought. "I love you too," he whispers - and he holds my eyes as he
backs away.
How can something so glorious be so wrong, I wonder. Why should a love that fills my soul with
beauty engender so much pain?
How can damnation be sublime?
~~~~~
There's a bottle of wine sitting on the table, and I uncork it and drink. The vintage is
full-bodied, biting, tingling on my tongue. Sounds tease at the edges of my consciousness - the
echoes of children's laughter, the tremulous voice of a song. I take another swallow, and then I
tip the bottle over my jar and pour the contents in. The pale amber stream gurgles over the
stones, tumbles the pebbles and sets the grains of sand to dancing. It flows over my life, filling
the deep, dark places - the empty spaces inside me. I fill my jar to the brim, and I glance at the
label on the empty bottle, and smile as I set it down.
It had been a very good year.
For him - my best friend, my lover - the best that I have to give.
I take the jar in both my hands, and the contents shift dreamily through a veil of gold. I lift it
into the sunlight, and my life - it frigging glows.
And I smile through a haze of tears.
END
into this jar - water-smoothed ovals picked off a New Zealand beach on a warm summer's day.
This stone is Ally, this is Lizzy - this one belongs to Chris. Mom and Dad, Mack - they each have
stones. Most of the Fellowship is represented too - Ian, Dom and Billy, the elf and the dwarf,
the humans, Peter. I pause, a smooth blue-green stone warming in my hand - then I add it to
my jar. Elijah, my best friend. The work I love. There. The stones almost fill the jar - there are
a lot of things that matter in my life, and most of them are people.
I add a handful of pebbles and shake the jar gently. They roll into place and settle in. My
business, my projects and my causes; the acquaintances I've made over the years - some of
who may grow into stones themselves. Erosion reversed. My jar is full.
A fistful of sand joins them, and then another. The crystalline grains sift into the crevices and
settle onto the bottom. The endless minutiae of everyday life - giving color, and coherence and
connection.
I look at my life, and then I close my eyes.
~~~~~
He presses his face against my shoulder, and I feel a shudder race through his slender frame. I
know what he's thinking of, what he's feeling, because the same treasured memories are
dancing through my mind. Memories that have been triggered by the slices of magic up there
on the outsized screen. I had met his gaze a few scant seconds before, and the myriad other
eyes beyond the footlights faded into insignificance. I saw his expression before he ducked his
head to hide it; loss and desolation, pride - and a fierce love.
I couldn't help it - my eyes had called to him and my hand reached out of its own accord - and
he had come to me.
I talk about the 'most sacred acting experience' of my life to anyone who'll listen - and it's
mostly a mask, a lie. Because I hadn't been acting then. Because we were alone on that
mountaintop, and the world had ceased to matter. A part of my mind knew they were there -
Peter and Andy, Richard and Caro - and they were merely background noise. They hadn't
mattered either. There had only been him, and me, and our new reality. We had fought so
hard against it, he and I - for more than a year, it wore us down; the constant ache, the
profound need. That day on the mountaintop, we lost the struggle - and in the losing, we won a
victory of sorts. It had been a sacred experience, yes - but what had followed after was more
hallowed still.
His naked body, washed by moonlight, gleaming in my arms. The soft pressure of his lips
against my mouth, tentative and shy - and the gradual intrusion of his insistent tongue, gently
daring. My hands on every inch of him - exploring, touching, loving. The slick whisper of his
smooth skin against my body, the hardness of his arousal warring with mine. And finally, the
swelling murmur of my name on his lips - a christening of the most tender kind.
I feel an insane urge to hold him closer, to claim him again - and a timely sense of
self-preservation holds me back. Instead, I rub my cheek against the velvet nap of his shorn
head and kiss his shoulder, the only part of him that I can safely reach. The words I want to say
die stillborn on my tongue. Then he releases me, his huge eyes gone dark and deep, and he
answers my unspoken thought. "I love you too," he whispers - and he holds my eyes as he
backs away.
How can something so glorious be so wrong, I wonder. Why should a love that fills my soul with
beauty engender so much pain?
How can damnation be sublime?
~~~~~
There's a bottle of wine sitting on the table, and I uncork it and drink. The vintage is
full-bodied, biting, tingling on my tongue. Sounds tease at the edges of my consciousness - the
echoes of children's laughter, the tremulous voice of a song. I take another swallow, and then I
tip the bottle over my jar and pour the contents in. The pale amber stream gurgles over the
stones, tumbles the pebbles and sets the grains of sand to dancing. It flows over my life, filling
the deep, dark places - the empty spaces inside me. I fill my jar to the brim, and I glance at the
label on the empty bottle, and smile as I set it down.
It had been a very good year.
For him - my best friend, my lover - the best that I have to give.
I take the jar in both my hands, and the contents shift dreamily through a veil of gold. I lift it
into the sunlight, and my life - it frigging glows.
And I smile through a haze of tears.
END
| MY LIFE |