Opposition
In reading this story, some may seek to develop generalizations or validate
prior opinions regarding the actors that stood in the way of the consummation
of the relationship I will describe. We oppose that. In part, it is because
love has succeeded in making us whole for every loss we have suffered. Mostly,
though, it is because we find ourselves in sympathy with the desire of people
to love themselves and those they consider their associates. The world can be a
frightening place. Our desire is to recognize and validate love where it
occurs.
Why would anybody have opposed us? There are reasons, and there are causes.
Reasons are typically linked to tactics, and frequently are less than
charitable. Causes are deeper, and we have found often reflect far better on
human nature. I recognize two kinds of causes, which are best appreciated
anecdotally.
When I was in college, I discovered two transcendent pieces of music:
Brahm's First Piano Concerto, rendered with enormous romantic force by Garrick
Ohlsen, and Beethoven's Ninth, performed by the LA Philharmonic under the
direction of Carla Maria Giulini. They were in LP format, and in my peripatetic
wanderings, I lost the means to enjoy them, and eventually surrendered the
recordings themselves.
Following my awakening with Jewel, I attempted to reconstruct my collection
of classical recordings. I could not find the original recordings on DVD, but
came across two close substitutes. I had switched careers, and spent a fair
amount of my time doing research at a local bookstore. I frequently had one of
the two recordings playing on my Walkman while I was reading, and used them as
a tool to generate personal energy.
As in college, I did not understand the extent to which my enjoyment was
participatory. I would sit or lie perfectly still, and sparks of energy would
run up and down my arms, legs, back and all over my head. I thought that this
was a response to the excitement of the music. I realize now that it was a
side-effect of people "tuning in and turning on".
At a certain point, it became clear to me that I was being damped while I
was listening. I therefore began to explore avenues for working around the
barriers that where being set around me. One day, I imagined projections
through water and earth. This gave me a surprising rootedness. Having engaged
the problem of expanding my personality, I idly thought to see how far I could
reach. I eventually worked my way around half the globe. At that point, I felt
Jewel nearby, and issued the laconic challenge: "So: where's your
half?" It was a measure of her art that she immediately closed the sphere.
This became a practice of ours, to use music to close the world, and to push
love at it.
Why was this a problem? Well, if you were a leader of an embattled
community, what would you think about somebody trying to dissolve the barriers
that held your community together? Just to make the magnitude of the problem
explicit, let's make a partial enumeration of "embattled
communities": women, men, racial minorities, Jews, Catholics, Americans
post-9/11, Muslims post-9/11, Francophone, a member of a developing nation, an
industrialist, conservationists… Wait - maybe it would be easier to
enumerate exclusions.
Pause. Silence. Anybody?
Barriers are intended most often to protect people,
not to hem them in. Jewel and I didn't mean to, but we alarmed people, among
them people whose presumptions of good will had been horrifically betrayed in
the 20th century. "Loose cannons" may have been an epithet that fit.
As matters eventually resolved themselves, we found a role as healers.
The second class of opposition arose from individuals that lost themselves
in their love for us. Many of them concluded that Jewel and I had succeeding in
creating insuperable barriers to our union. The chorus was "You can't be
with him/her. I love you. Why not love me?" But every time we were
separated, we diminished. On the occasion of one separation, I was offered that
her lover "did not realize how much of her you were." In response of
that loss, the barriers would come down, and we would fall together again in
our dreaming.
Jewel was deeply concerned about my loneliness. We had not come to
appreciate the manipulative power of "use it or lose it." I tried to
find others, but every foray led back to her. With others we were teachers. It
was only in each other that we found the innocence of play, and the freedom of
honesty.
So, without intending to, we hurt a number of people.
We challenged their self-respect, and we engaged them in relationships that
ultimately came to define their identities - identities threatened by the
possibility of our joining. We've become better at managing such associations,
but now accept responsibility for the resistance that our intimates generated
against our impulse to union.
When I first began to write this section, the geopolitical and social
context of our struggle loomed large in my mind. Jewel reminded me that our
story is a personal story. A story of romance between a man and a woman, and
the joy they found in surrendering themselves to the purposes of love.
Please honor our dreams by reading it that way.
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