Submitted by BeenAround (not verified) on July 7, 2009 - 10:42.
The Whitman piece went right to my old heart, bringing tears to my eyes. Especially the simple truth of the final words..."and that night I was happy."
My first love. Who was it? My best friend in high school, with whom I fell in love at age 14, although we never made it physical. Or my first lover, years later at 26 (!), with whom both the heart and the body engaged?
What made me cry was not the memory of them, but a very recent night, spent with another old codger in his mid 50's...and the feeling is just as sweet...even sweeter, really, since I am now fully aware of and at home with my love for men, my love for this very particular man, with whom I feel both a fellow wise & foolish elder and an eternally adolescent playmate.
Deke is right. "Sexual orientation" hardly covers it. And the panoply of gayness, for all its usefulness --and much of its uselessness-- does not touch it. For me, at this time of my life, it is that moment, when "the one I love most lies sleeping beside me".
The Whitman piece went right
The Whitman piece went right to my old heart, bringing tears to my eyes. Especially the simple truth of the final words..."and that night I was happy."
My first love. Who was it? My best friend in high school, with whom I fell in love at age 14, although we never made it physical. Or my first lover, years later at 26 (!), with whom both the heart and the body engaged?
What made me cry was not the memory of them, but a very recent night, spent with another old codger in his mid 50's...and the feeling is just as sweet...even sweeter, really, since I am now fully aware of and at home with my love for men, my love for this very particular man, with whom I feel both a fellow wise & foolish elder and an eternally adolescent playmate.
Deke is right. "Sexual orientation" hardly covers it. And the panoply of gayness, for all its usefulness --and much of its uselessness-- does not touch it. For me, at this time of my life, it is that moment, when "the one I love most lies sleeping beside me".