a brief extract from zzOz
Day 159 | Midway through my time in Alice
A flurry of love interest here, beyond my tendency to be an outrageous flirt, I emerged from under a rock, but the female of the species can be fickle, everything was perfect so there must be a problem. For a while I wasn’t sure if we were paused at a semi-colon, with a long list of fun about to blossom, a colon, slight pause followed by more, only slightly different, or the complete full stop.
Concealed under those baggy clothes, mid-length, loose fitting dresses, is an exceptional middle-aged body, no children, no ravages, but my interest is equally that often enquiring mind. I’ve found a Big Picture person who goes beyond the personal, her circumstances. There’s empathy and she has a love of this supposedly desolate area, other interesting interests and that’s way rare. I’m attracted to those smiley eyes and a nose that indicates substantial character, both good and bad, but the usual means of conveying happiness, the smile, is strangely absent, the rare occasions it’s employed, my world is lit right up.
I don’t mind the whacky banana-only diet, the weekend long laughter workshop, or her long face after that, the strange washing of the curtains on a weekly basis. Despite those, and other, eccentricities, I can cope with reasonable doses of zaniness, somewhere there’s the absence of the idea to rip into life, making the most of those breaths, this opportunity ain’t going to last forever, who or what are you saving yourself for?
Scratch me and I’m an all-feelings-exposed kinda guy, boots and all as they say, excessive intensity for some. I’m all in, cards on the table but she just folded without much indication of her hand. Too much timidity, physically, at least initially, and then not, but more fundamentally, emotionally and that isn’t going to change. That’s a basic lack of honesty to her feelings, she claimed to love the smell of me, I guess that means my rancid camel pong has dissipated, but won’t allow herself any release, all mind over matter.
Seems my sentences here start encouragingly, then when you get to the conjunction it always seem not to be “and”, I come up against “but”. As in, with some encouragement I might stay here another year, even get a proper job, but ain’t no encouragement of the right dimension.
I tried.
I guess she tried, although she resisted, mostly.
I lose interest.
Except when she calls, sporadically.
The mind, no chance. The body, I’ll have to make do there.
So no, I haven’t yet been fully snatched up by a gal who has found out the answer to that perennial question where all the good blokes are: seems we’re all out there riding bikes.