For Summer, Pt. 5
LESTER: I guess I could be pretty pissed about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst…
And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life…
You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure… but don’t worry…
You will someday.
-from American Beauty
But most of all, I love music. I love putting on Debussy or Tchaikovsky and just getting lost in it. Leaving the conductor in full control of my mind and emotions, and letting him have his way with them. I trust them. They are masters of their craft. I love Rachmaninoff, especially “Variations on a theme of Paganini, Op.34” I imagine the depth of love and emotion the composers must have felt, however acknowledged or not, to compose such moving music. I think of Ravel-what inspired his “Dream of Love?” Did he ache for someone? Did he have a love in his life? Or was he writing his music as a means of expressing his anguish at the one who got away? And I love popular music. I have always associated music with my experience-I could take you on a tour of my emotional life with a quick run through my CD collection. I love how when I turn on a song, it’s not just a song. I remember the girl who is “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.” She doesn’t know it, but every time I listen to it, she is there with me. I think of Celine Dion’s “To Love You More,” and I remember the girl who told me she would always be there-and I think about her husband and two children. I wonder how she’s doing. What does she do when she hears that song? I think about Steven Curtis Chapman’s, “I Will Be Here.” I always associate this song with one girl in particular.the one who got away because I was too afraid and weak to keep her. Has she forgiven me? I think of Blackhawk’s, “Like Their Ain’t No Yesterday,” and that horrible prom night so long ago. I laugh about that one, at least. I was so naïve. But I’ve learned. The music. I love the music. It reminds of all that is real emotionally-that which I would rather forget and that which I need to remember.
And I’ve saved the best for last. I love women. There is nothing so beautiful in this world as the softness and beauty of a woman. I think about Adam in the Garden, and I know fully what he meant by his reply to God-He did a good thing. Woman is the last of all things created, and I’m fully willing to call women the crowning beauty of the entire of creation. There is something real about a woman that men have never been able to fully grasp. Perhaps it’s the fact that women were created later that makes us unable to understand-God entrusted them with some knowledge we men are too obtuse or too dense to be entrusted with. I’m in no position to doubt. A couple of years ago, when I laid aside the childish lust I always attached to looking at girls, I realized something profound: women are beautiful. All of them/you. You all have your beauty. And it’s incredible. I think it was Andrew Marvell who said, “your beauty is too much for me to behold,” and though it’s many years later, I’m in no position to disagree. If you’re a woman and you’re reading this, let me clue you in on a little secret-you are beautiful. Never doubt it. And I can’t speak for all men, but I can tell you how it is for me. I think women are the most beautiful at the times they tend to be self-conscious about it. When you wake up in the morning, you’re beautiful-before you’ve made yourself ‘world-ready’ with enough make-up to coat the family dog twice. And you’re especially beautiful when you sleep. I want to tell you the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen: a beautiful woman asleep, with her hair falling all around her face, and a peaceful look on her face, totally vulnerable. Ladies, you speak volumes about who you are when you’re not even conscious. There is nothing so beautiful. Nothing. I sometimes wish I haven’t witness women asleep, because it makes it hard to wake up alone, and I mean that with all seriousness. If a guy has seen you asleep it’s a sure thing he’s had at least a momentary crush on you. And women smell good. All the time. Even when they think they don’t, they do. But when you attempt to smell good, that’s even better. There are few fragrances women wear that effect my senses so deeply, it’s worse than being drunk. I literally lose control of my ability to reason. That may sound like an exaggeration, but I assure you it’s not. That delicious, full body experience of having a woman walk past you.there is nothing like it. To hold a woman, and to have her close, it’s almost too much for a guy like me to take. (There’s a reason I don’t let ya’ll within arms distance.)
These are all the really beautiful things I can think of. I know there are more, but it’s four in the morning, and the chianti is running low. Summer, I hope this is what you were looking for. It’s as real and as passionate as I can muster. I hope the words carry that.