By Lisabet Sarai
Dear Lisabet in the future -
How far in the future am I imagining?
Ten years? Thirty? Fifty? Perhaps you'll revisit these journal pages
more than once, at different stages in your life, trying to recapture
this time of youthful discovery.
What will you (I) be like in a decade,
or in half a dozen? I rather assume you'll be more confident than I
am, less riddled with doubt and scarred by envy, more satisfied with
yourself. By that time you will hopefully have realized the futility
of constantly comparing yourself to others and finding yourself
lacking. Obviously you will be wiser. I've spent enough time around
older, even elderly, people to know that wisdom does often come with
age and experience.
I worry, though, that too much
experience may dull your senses and emotions. Will you lose the
ability to feel the thrill of new insights, fierce revelations like
those that overwhelm me almost daily during this crazy period in my
life? Will you brush off the wild passion and transcendent pleasure I
describe as merely the effects of hormones or marijuana? Looking back
at your twenty-six year old self, will you shake your head in
embarrassment and tell your friends, “I was such an awful slut.”?
Don't. You know more than I, have done
more, achieved more, but still I have some advice for you. Remember
this.
Remember the electrifying feel of first
skin. Remember the exultation of being joined, the richness of
emptiness filled. Remember the telepathic communication – don't
shrug it off as mere fantasy. At least be willing to consider the
possible existence of psychic links potentiated by carnal connection.
As for me, I'm convinced that sex, God and magick are three names for
the same thing. I'm not a slut. I'm a spiritual seeker.
Remember that love lies at the very
core of your being – yours and that of everyone else. Even a
stranger has lessons to teach, if you're willing to learn. Remember,
if you can, how it feels to be open to it all, even the pain, to
give and receive as part of a virtuous, outrageous circle.
Of course, you won't recall the
physical sensations. Even now, just hours later, I can't conjure them
here on the page. Sense impressions are ephemeral, impossible to
capture in words. All you can do is hint and suggest, using analogy
and metaphor, roughing out the shape of the experience and allowing
the reader's memory to fill in the details.
I hope, though, that you'll remember
the joy bubbling in your chest as you go about your daily business
after a night with your lover. Remember the awe when you pushed past
another barrier, connecting more deeply than ever before. Remember
your amazement and pride, admiring the fading marks from his crop on
your rear. Never forget the devastating flood of tenderness when you first
pursed your lips around her trembling nipple.
The intensity will fade. Of course it
will. In fact, sometimes I'm not sure how long I can bear it myself,
one ecstatic day after the next. I'm too aroused, sometimes, to
sleep. Poems pour out of me like blood. I gaze into the face of a
lover and I see God. They say a mortal cannot bear such glory.
Keep the thrill alive, if you can,
however you can. Tell the stories to your new lovers. Write them for
strangers. Read this journal, page after page scrawled during the
times when I'm alone, or while my lover is lost in dreams, and let it
rekindle the flames of memory.
Passions become muted over time.
Stories told too often ossify into stereotypes. Fight these trends,
if you're able. I can't know what you will experience, as your body
ages and your mind and heart mature. Tonight, though, if only for a
moment, I'd like you to feel what I feel, know what I know – the
awful, holy beauty of the flesh.
And even if everything dwindles to
stale shreds of recollection, do not, at least, forget the truth –
that these days, and these encounters, are a rare blessing. Old
people become conservative, I've heard. Perhaps there will come a
time when you're tempted to repudiate me, to label me as foolish,
extreme, or even wicked. Promiscuous. Perverse.
Listen to your heart, Lisabet.
Remember. You know that, no matter what society says, I (we?) did the
right thing at the right time. I have no regrets, and neither should
you.
By the time you read this, I'll be
gone. I write, like the ancients, to share the knowledge I've gleaned
with my descendents – you, the many Lisabets who may read this over
the years. Perhaps you'll find my scribblings quaint and fantastic,
myths from a lost past. I beg of you, don't dismiss my stories as the
ramblings of an overactive imagination. Believe. And remember.
