A Letter to Desire

Dear Desire,

There you were, once again, as you have appeared at various times throughout my life.  Joyce and I are at a five day Mindfulness Retreat with two hundred and fifty others.  As I notice the faces of all the new people around me, I see you.  It's always your face, something about your face that captures my attention.  From that moment on I am usually aware of where you are in a room in the days that follow.  When I was younger, I would get caught staring at you, but that rarely happens anymore.  I have learned a lot in these 63 years about respecting you and not making you feel uncomfortable.  Still, I know what color top you are wearing or how you're wearing your hair each day.

All of this has absolutely nothing to do with the relationship I share with my beloved Joyce.  Fantasies of it being anything more than appreciation, I have learned long ago, are not real.  When I was younger, if by chance we ended up in conversation, I was tongue tied by your beauty, but again, I have learned a lot in my years.  I have become more comfortable with myself and relaxed with you.  I am charming, conversational, and downright relaxed with you if by chance we end up in conversation.  But the truth of the matter is, there is still a kind of fixation I have with you.  Despite my best efforts to not notice you, I get caught in a cycle where I feel trapped by myself.

But you did something this time that you have never done before.  You kept showing up, literally right in front of me, everywhere I turned.  And I know that this was not because you were planning any of it.  It just kept happening, over and over again.  I would go to return my fold up chair at the end of a session, turn around, and there you were with your chair, right behind me and our eyes would meet.  This was more than knowing where you were in a room.  Even when I didn't know where you were, you kept showing up.  It was unnerving, and it changed the dynamic.

Finally, I determined that the next time I saw you, I was going to walk up and have a small chat with you, in an effort to relieve and remove the tension I was experiencing.  It's not just that I wanted you to be normal, I wanted to be normal as well.  I wanted to break the ice, to somehow move beyond my uncomfortableness to a place where you would just be another face in the crowd.  Right after deciding to speak to you, I was coming back from a short hike and was walking to be with Joyce, and there you were, sitting right behind her.  This I knew was the moment.  I walked up to you, in easy earshot of Joyce, and said, "Well, I see that I must introduce myself to you.  I seem to see you everywhere I turn.  My name is Frank."  I did this easily and comfortably.  Then I asked your name, and you replied, "Desiree."  At that moment I did not even realize the incredible ludicrousness of that.  Desiree.  But of course!  Who else would you be?

We each joked a little bit about stalking the other, and you were very gracious.  After sitting down with Joyce, you offered a little chit-chat of your own, commenting on the beauty of the tattoo on Joyce's back.  It was all very sweet and innocent and I left feeling like maybe this time, you would fade back into all the normal people.

The very next activity of the day was a deep relaxation session in the meditation hall.  Joyce and I thought that this was another session where the men would be on one side of the hall and the men on the other.  We parted and I laid down for the almost hour session of mindfulness, following my breath, and being sung to by the sister nun with the lullaby voice.  It was beautiful.  When it was over, I rolled over on my mat to look down the hall to see which nun had that awesome voice, and there you were, just two mats away, looking back at me.  We were both shocked.  I could see it on your face and I know you had to have seen it on mine.  You gave me a body shrug like, "What the hell is that all about?" and I returned the gesture in kind.  Just weird!

After that, we learned to joke about it and Joyce would join in on the joking as well.  There was that time where the three of us hit the bottom of the stairs together that led up to the lunch line, and I greeted you and we all chatted on the way to the line and once in it.  You became more and more to me the regular, beautiful person that you are, definitely not just someone else, but at least someone who became flesh and blood instead of goddess.

I still can't believe the way it just kept happening, right up to the end of the retreat, as you and I both moved into the line of those who were to make their public commitment to the mindfulness vows on that final day.  A little later, shortly before the retreat was over, we found ourselves walking down the stairs together to gather for the last walking meditation (ok, that one wasn't totally coincidental . . :o)

I joked that this was my last chance to "follow" you, chatted a little with you, and congratulated you on your commitments.  You congratulated me as well.  Nice to meet you.  Nice to meet you.

It ended as well as it ever has for us, Desire.  And I thank you for that.  You didn't allow me to simply be an invisible voyeur.  You called me at my own game and in the process taught me that I can indeed learn to appreciate beautiful people when I happen to see them, enjoy conversation with them when that happens, and then have it be nothing more and nothing less than that.

Thank you Desire,

Frank.