Handling "It," Well or Ill

I said yesterday on the phone, and Lila seemed to agree, I guess, that I might not be 'handling this' very well: "this" being the knowledge of impending--gloriously indefinite and yet still numbingly inevitable--loss of my love, my Lila, my only love, no matter the number of intervening months, still LONG before we should have been having these conversations. "This" pains me extravagantly. We can never have again what we once had. But I want to try to make whatever we have the best it can be. I mean that, meine Froeschleschen...

It makes her uncomfortable, my raw sadness, my occasional outbursts of unconcealed/unconcealable anguish. Is that something I need to learn to conceal better? I do mostly conceal it. If I didn't, I would barely be able to draw breath, much less speak. Does she want me not to show her, not betray myself, when I am gripped with these furious emotions? Swear, I'll give it my best shot.

(Dang, here I thought these durn women LIKED it when us fellas could express our emotions.)

I need to try to learn better how give Lila what she needs. It's those kindsa questions I want to pose to Enid (that's her name), today. She's a distinguished, older woman, mid-70s, whom Lila met at my party for her back in March. She's gonna come over to talk today, "out of the office." Over coffee.

Lila, when I told her of my plans to seek advice from a counselor, said (from her lips to god's ear), she's not gone yet. My reason, my rationale, is, if I'm gonna help her, I need some help, myself. I don't have an exactly support-rich environment. My closest associates are canines. They listen, and their faces show concern. I'll letcha know how it comes out.
(...)
I have been thinking a lot about what we said last evening, just at our parting, about "handling it," and whether I'm doing it 'badly,' or if I'm 'losing it,' because sometimes I cannot control myself, and sob--or choke vainly--at an inopportune moment.

In part, I think, that some such 'trouble' as I am having "handling" this may stem from the fact that Lila and I have never had--may never have--the opportunity to actually, physically, lovingly fall, weeping, into one another's arms, to truly mourn the end of what was, to come--join--together to come to grips with what is, to love and comfort and console each other. I think we need that. At any rate, I think I do.

If we were 'licit' lovers, we would have had that conversation the day she learned her diagnosis, and we'd still be having it. But because we are so distant, so remote, so apart, we couldn't have it. So she waited til she figured I'd gone to bed, then typed it all out on the IM. She called in the morning. I said something like, "Shit, that really sucks...", while, as hers had the previous day, my world collapsed. You cannot, it seems to me, have that conversation at a distance. IM, or phone, or E-mail isn't gonna cut it. You gotta be there. We should have been in each others' arms. I hope, and I'm also sure--she's had that chance with her kids. But it seems like there's a piece between us missing, and that's my guess as to what it consists of.
(...)
Enid said three things, today, more or less.
1) The tears will end when they are gone. There is not just one cause--Lila and loss. Probably there's lots of other things they're washing away. Honor them, let them go.
2) Ask Lila, out-right, what she wants me to do, what she needs from me.
3) Make a life.

Easier said than done. That latter point, especially. Lila and I usta laugh when, after she'd regaled me with the activities of her busy day, her students, her family, she ask me what I'd been doing. "Mostly, just blogging and thinking about you, about us," I'd reply. "You have a life; I have you. 'S'all I need...Genugt mir, volkommen..."

"Body of a Woman"
By Pablo Neruda

Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs,
you look like a world, lying in surrender.
My rough peasant's body digs in you
and makes the son leap from the depth of the earth.

I was lone like a tunnel. The birds fled from me,
and night swamped me with its crushing invasion.
To survive myself I forged you like a weapon,
like an arrow in my bow, a stone in my sling.

But the hour of vengeance falls, and I love you.
Body of skin, of moss, of eager and firm milk.
Oh the goblets of the breast! Oh the eyes of absence!
Oh the roses of the pubis! Oh your voice, slow and sad!

Body of my woman, I will persist in your grace.
My thirst, my boundless desire, my shifting road!
Dark river-beds where the eternal thirst flows
and weariness follows, and the infinite ache.

(Emphasis supplied. Ed. Baby said this week, in passing, that she guessed her libido was gone. I volunteered to go look for it.)