My friend Lauren is searching for her Valentine. An exceptionally bright and talented woman, married and divorced once, she is energetically searching for the man of her life. If letters of recommendation were in order, I would gladly write her one.
To avert any Valentine blues that might descend this Saturday when the V-holiday arrives, Lauren & friends will get together to host their own party. Great idea! I highly recommend YOU do the same if the holiday gets you down.
Twenty-five years ago I had my very own, very Ruthian solution for Valentine's Day. My family and my two little children weren't too happy about it, but the situation was clearly out of my control.
Boyfriendless at the time, having gotten unceremoniously dumped by sculptor Christopher Ray several months earlier and now, at the time, doing some of the best writing I'd ever done in my 38 years, forces deep within me conspired to, well, blow my mind.
I landed up in the hospital for my first and most horrible manic-psychotic episode smack dab on Valentine's Day. Luckily I was wearing my red reversible jacket for the occasion.
A poem I wrote several years ago pretty much captures my mania. However, no matter what you read in the poem, know that the experience was so horrible, that I was fond of saying at the time, You could give me all the money in the world, all the great love in the world, but I would never repeat the experience. And that's why, Dear Reader, I faithfully took my meds sans tampering ever until it was time to stop.
AH, MANIA!
You are faithful, I’ll give you that,
coming ‘round just in time for Valentine’s Day.
You snuggle close and ask me to be yours.
I smile knowingly, and say,
Show me your virtues… if you have any.
You, in the guise of a gypsy,
with pots and pans strung across your back,
take down a few tarnished wares and hold them out to me.
I snort. Haven’t we been through all this before?
Then, as I touch your rouged cheek, I ask,
Why won’t you give me up? What am I to you?
Your gypsy eyes, ringed with soot, brush my face.
Okay, I say, it was good. I admit it.
I saw the stars with you.
We ran with the moon at our backs,
leaped across the sleeping earth.
You showed me the future in a
dead dog’s eye, then led me away
lest I drown in my own dream.
You spun sweet songs from the morning breeze
and trickled them through my hair.
You peeled back the world so I could dip inside.
Took the fire from the sun
and winked it in my heart.
Okay, I say. You’re a friggin’ marvel,
a regular storehouse of miracles.
But can’t we say goodbye?
It’s February and you’ve come back.
You always do.
I hear you breathing at my front door,
soft as a kitten.
I’d know that sound anywhere.
Let me in, let me in, you whimper.
Can’t you be more original?
Once
I followed you
blissfully
blindly
never dreaming of deceit,
dazed by your taste for light and color
awed by your contempt of boundaries
so like my own
which you swept away
with a lion’s paw
while I cheered you on from the sidelines,
until I found myself
tethered
insensate
to a hospital bed.
And forgot I had a name.
Amid the tumult,
amid the sea of screams,
the broken minds a-bob the
slicing waves like so many
wind-up clocks jangling out of time,
who should come ‘round but you.
Fancy!
There, amid the black,
the granite slab of eternity sawing through my chest,
Your shadow on the wall.
You kissed my eyes
and bid me see.
Ah, Mania,
My debt to you is incalculable,
simply beyond measure.
But no pots and pans today,
Dear Gypsy,
Put them away.
Today I shall travel the world alone.
Fishing for words,
as I do.
The
search
sans
you.
