“I think it’s great for
two people to be together. That is a good number. I think, that
to keep it alive though, you can’t spend every day
together. It wears out the magic, Love means nothing to me if
it’s not fortified with fierce, painful longing, brief
explosive instances of furious passion and intimacy and then a
sad parting for a time. In that way, you can give your life to it
and still have a life of your own. I think some couples spend too
much time together. They flatten out the potential for experience
by constant closeness. Passion builds over time like steam. Let
it rage until it’s exhausted and then leave it alone to let
it build up again. Why can’t love be insane and distorted?
How can it be vital if it has the same threshold as normal
day-to-day experience? Why can’t you write burning letters
and let your nocturnal self smolder with desire for one who is
not there? Why not let the days before you see her be
excruciating and ferment in your mind so on the day you go to the
airport to pick her up, you’re nearly sick with
anticipation? And then when desire shows the first sign of
contentment, throw it back in its cage and let it slowly build
itself back into a state of starved fury. Then when you are
together, it all matters. So that when you look into her eyes,
you lose your balance, so that when she touches you, it feels
like you have never been touched before. When she says your name,
you think it was she who named you. When she has gone, you bury
your face in the pillow to smell her hair and you lie awake at
night remembering your face in her neck, her breathing and the
amazing smell of her skin. Your eyes go wet because you want her
so bad and miss her so much. Now that is worth the miles and the
time. That matches the inferno of life. Otherwise you poison each
other with your presence day after day as you drag each other
through the inevitable mundane aspects of your lives. That is the
slow death that I see slapped on faces everywhere I go.
It’s part of the world’s sadness that’s more
empty than cold, poorly lit rooms in cities of the American
night.”