Inside out. What is he feeling? Where does the beauty reside? What's going on inside him? Which pains can be medically addressed, and which ones cannot?
Inner peace of a type not necessarily fleeting. Repeated Sunday mornings. Another one bathed in late autumn heat. What's going on? This climate has shifted. On days such as this, we cannot remember the wind-driven fog that chills us outside in.
By contrast, the heat draws what's inside out. We shed clothing, we drink water, yet still we get dehydrated. My little athlete's freckled face turns red. Still, he cuts and turns, racing across the soccer pitch, with a blazing speed that mesmerizes me, and the other adult spectators.
Yet, on some days, his team's skillful play is not enough. They are overmatched, by bigger, stronger, more experienced boys. The older team pounds our defense over and over, until it breaks down completely and they are scoring at will.
Ugly.
Sports teach you to accept defeat, then get up to play another day. Today, I drive to Treasure Island, in the middle of an abnormally still Bay, to coach a baseball game at a lovely little baseball field, green and white and brown in all the right places. Like a well-proportioned body, the field compels your eyes to look at it, over and over. We may win and we may lose. Either way, we'll play another day.
Walking behind a nice-looking woman the other day, I watched as man after man on the street looked at her. I tried to imagine what is like to be her. I could only seed her from behind, so I had no clue about her expression. But I knew she had to be very attractive to be drawing this much attention.
At the same time, I imagined, she had to be tuning it all out. How else to deal with this kind of staring except to ignore it, and write it off to "what men do." Just another inconvenience, on bad days, to deal with. Just another affirmation, on good days, that you're hot.
Women look too, especially at other women, sizing them up head to toe, focusing on her details, like the shoes, the cut of the jeans, the belt, the earrings, the haircut, the makeup and the shade of lipstick. These things are probably affecting the males, too, though they are barely conscious that this is true.
Men look through the clothes, seeking a sense of the usual subjects. We are expertly wired to evaluate the potential for a sexual partnership -- strictly from our perspective, of course. Our visual imagination arises directly from our testosterone-fueled reproductive urges, that course through us unbidden, controlling our eyes and where they go, no matter how hard we may try to suppress the urge to ogle.
How to read the inner life of a man? Certainly not from this kind of looking. This gives you only type of information, the way he looks at you, and it's something you already assume to be true, anyway.
To look at a man's face, you need to experience his many expressions. Of course, you can read the hurt, and the deeper the reservoir of pain, the easier it is for you to intuit its presence within him. Women make lots of excuses for such men, even when the relationship isn't working, really, they will stay and care-give these men. They will facilitate him cheating, even, as the product of a bad upbringing by a certain type of mother or perhaps an abusive or absent father.
Excuses, excuses. Look deeper. You've let that kind of man go now. You're older, but are you wiser? Can you read the face before you. Look into the eyes, yes, but what about the lips, the smile, tentative at first. The lines of pain and the lines of laughter. Is there is twinkle in his eye?
If so, he probably is in love with you.
*Thank you, Velvet Underground. And thank you, my secret friend, for sending me to it.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment