11.09.2018
Leonard Cohen passed away two years ago.
When I heard the news, I found myself washed up on the beautiful island of Formosa pursuing a love affair over a year in the making. My body became an amphitheater and my heart the vessel, ignited by Cohen’s hymns.
“Just take this longing from my tongue, all the useless things my hands have done; let me see your beauty broken down, like you would do for one you love.”
— Take this Longing
Cohen’s songs cradled my trembling heart like a dying leaf leaping from the branch to the brook below. Hesitation from fear, then the elation from the leap and then, finally, embracing the fall.
Every moment was fleeting, yet each one burned on a seemingly endless fuse.
I rode the fuse, hanging onto these brief bursts of joy and sadness. At moments I was brought to tears with the beauty of life, and at others overwhelmed at how tremendously tenuous our relationship with it is.
The tenuous nature of memories…
Tethered with earbuds and Cohen’s hushed poems as we traveled down the coast to meet her family, huddled between cars and worlds …
The daily sunrise strolls to my cigarette perch gazing across the eastern horizon to the life I’d left behind…
Fortifying fortresses of sand on the beach with her children, then piling them on my back to brave the waves together…
I bought a guitalele at a nearby shop; I needed an outlet for these feelings.
We bathed in the light of the full moon and I strummed a few songs into the atmosphere, accompanied by the howls of her wild herd of dogs.
It was the last night we’d ever spend together.
Our last drive along the winding coast in her beat-up coup, Little Red, her head cradled in the crook of my arm… I pulled the wheel to hug the curves, praying that the next curve would continue on…
“I like to pretend that we’re actually on vacation,” I tell her, “just traveling up the coast to our next destination, enjoying the scenery…”
She agrees and nuzzles her head a little deeper into my shoulder. I pull her closer, wrapping my free hand around her slim waste, smoothing my thumb over the pinch of fat on her belly. We wind the roads in Little Red together, like winding the wheel of a watch, forever pushing forward, buying and spending a little more time with each passing moment.
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