When people would ask me, why I was flying to Paris, I’d answer them simply: To fall in love.
But I wasn’t going there to fall “in love,” because, I thought, I’d already fallen “in love.” But I hadn’t. Hadn’t really fallen “in love.”
I’ve been living in Paris for almost a week. “Living in,” was a distinction pointed out by my Parisian last evening over dinner.
We’ve constructed a certain degree of routine: We grace each others’ presence over breakfast and dinner. Most of us think that there is a normal cadence of life between the hours of 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, but the night requires bed time. Well, yes it does. But why do we all assume that the hours between the end of dinner and the start of breakfast would consist of a great degree of personal compromise? Frankly, I find constraint very sexy! Why would two strangers strangle a budding friendship with debauchery?
I really care for my Parisian. He allows me to be me. He enjoys my company, my writing, my conversation. The longer the restraint the greater the degree of longing. My Parisian
said to me last night while our entree plates were cleared, “It’s almost as though you’ve been here for longer than a week.” And then, while looking down at his lap, he admitted, “I’m going to miss you terribly when you leave.”
I’m not one for goodbyes, especially premeditated ones. What he said continues to reverberate in my heart, causing an ache which is so painful, it’s as though God himself was wringing it out like a dishrag.
This morning I said, “You know, I don’t have a home. This hotel is my home. This garden 
is my garden; this dining room is my dining room; the hotel staff greet me every morning and evening as Mr. Didrickson; after you leave for work, they know that I retire to the garden for a cigar, and they’ll bring me two triple espressos while I ruminate about my afternoon’s writing; and they know that you and I dine every morning and evening. I’m treated as an expat writer, living in Paris, and enjoying the intimacies of a younger Parisian. And like all top-notch personal service, they are committed to Our happiness, which, by the way, is seen as natural and lovely.
“Do you know why?” I asked my Parisian.
“No,” he replied while shaking his head.
Leaning toward him I whispered, “Because what they see is a very special friendship, and they are so pleased to be a part of something so magical.”
activity. I wired money. Money! I wired money to the financial scam of the world, South Africa. South Africa! Based solely on the request made via texts, or telephone calls. It wasn’t until late one night when my eyes shot open and I fully understood my degree of folly! Artem had said he’d been robbed, at gun point of all his possessions including his passport, financial documents, checks, deposit slips, South African Revenue Service tax payments. To show me his “true intent” he scanned his passport and a check he received from Steele Modeling Agency (a very reputable company, known worldwide). The check was of such a large denomination that I had to enlarge it on my screen and carefully count the zeroes. But having worked for years for families with very high net worth, I knew a thing or two about checks.
number. The one at the top is the check number. Here’s the rub: I couldn’t identify the routing number, but the account number looked suspiciously odd: 12345678. And the check number sequence was 101.
the whiskers of man burn my neck; rather than listening to the soft mews and purrs of my kisses landing on throats and chests and nipples, I’d been shouting my love at the precipice of an echo canyon, and patiently awaiting my own voice in return.
profound depth of clarity as well as humility. Over the course of six years, I’d been prescribed by doctors copious amounts of amphetamines, opiates, and benzos. When I mean copious, I’m not kidding. 6 kilograms of amphetamines, 3 kilograms of opiates. I should have died from these lethal doses, but I muddled through unscathed. No damage to my brain, but my metaphorical heart was crushed. I’d become a monster. I was drooling on my self, lost interest in others, and ruined my 30-year relationship.
meditated the voice of wisdom told me to rid myself of these toxins. Without their removal, I wouldn’t gain clarity. And without clarity, I wouldn’t ever understand humility.
Humility, Clarity, Courage, and Truth. These words have been carefully selected so as to avoid any misinterpretation. The human condition cannot achieve one without the others. For instance, we cannot gain clarity without truth and courage; we can’t gain humility without life and peace. But as humans, we tend to avoid these tenets. We lie, we cheat, we distrust, we have arrogance.
Whenever we deny ourselves the full embrace of these tenets, we deny our own existence. We deny ourselves our own humanity. Are these tenets difficult to accept? Yes. But once we surrender ourselves to these fundamental expressions of our humanity, the world, in its divine expression, provides for us the very fabric of Life.
incarcerated for two months as a severe manic. I’d been entombed in some of the most sadistic and disgusting psyche wards in Chicago. 4 psyche wards in 14 days. Some offered a bolted down cot, with no pillow, and a sheet which was tied down so I couldn’t strangle myself. I’d been locked away in some nursing homes which prevented me from wandering outside wrought iron fences. My former partner took out a restraining order against me after I’d tried to strangle him in an ER. I had no home, no address, nowhere to run from these oppressive places, so I turned to my imagination to escape.
thing which even smacked of normalcy. So I developed a relationship with Artem that I thought was real. I was so desperate that I didn’t know what else to do. I asked my Parisian over breakfast this morning, “Haven’t you been so desperate to free yourself from the bonds of personal anguish, that you’d believe in anything which provided the most ridiculous shred of hope?”
languidly stroked his chest hair, I allowed my fingers to trail down his belly to his button, I let my eyes wander through his eyes and I saw my own attractiveness there; I touched his arousal as though it were molten iron; I kissed his tender lips, letting our tongues dance with each other as though they’d known each other for lifetimes.
Yesterday and today I tried to distance myself from the two men which have burrowed into my soul. I lashed out in anger and in disbelief. And now I sit in my Parisian hotel room and wonder if I’ll ever enjoy their precious company again.
and felt every inch of his intoxicating flesh. Why then have they chosen to distance themselves from me? Have I become so needy? Needy isn’t sexy. Not even to me. Confidence is sexier. Confidence brings with it the ability to be alone, untethered, a freed balloon floating high above the city. Young men love balloons. They chase them. But no one loves pigeons. No one loves the pecking of pigeons for indistinguishable morsels of discarded bread.
So to the two most important men I know, know this: I want you in my life. But I don’t need you. I need to breathe. I need to live. But love? I want love. I want men. And if this all sounds too needy know one thing: I was born into this life to live. I have lived before you and I will live after you. You’re but a wayside I’ve chosen to steer into. And you can join me on my journey if you so desire. But you’re free my darlings. Free to climb out of my car whenever we no longer serve us.
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 