my first impression
Posted by Candy Tothill | Filed under Candy Tothill, Journal, Memoir, Poetry
William has been sifting through our correspondence in search of poems for inclusion in his upcoming book ‘As Such‘. By now you’ve probably established that (a) we like each other a lot (understatement of the century); and (b) there is nothing we don’t share with each other (n-o-t-h-i-n-g).
One of the many adorable Williamisms that I’ve had the pleasure of growing accustomed to, is the way he thinks out loud to me… something which strikes me as an extension of his natural ability to communicate, together with the supernatural connection between us (I keep thinking ‘how incredible God’s plan?’.)
Anyway, last week as he re-read our old letters, he re-sent me whole conversations we’d had, to which he annexed footnotes about his present thoughts on them. How adorable?! One of these ‘recycled’ conversations included a poem I’d written 6 years ago, upon first discovering him on Authors Den in 2002. Here it is, in the context of our conversation of 21 November 2007:
I was going through some old writing from 2002 when I found something I wrote shortly after I ‘met’ you on AD:
observing
from afar
admiring
at a safe
distance
i fall
at the feet
of the god
sexually
wise
subliminally
innocent
he fingers me
without touch
i am a flame
trembling
feeling alive
wired
and needing
desperately
to smoke
the moment.It’s dated 28 February 2002. Evidence that you’ve been with me all along.
I found my own words so revealing, so telling. . . because I’ve been known to speculate about love with the best of the skeptics among us. A brief glance through most of the things that I’ve ever written will bear this out. I had been one of the cynics, one of the cautious; my walls had been built a long time ago.
But when I fell in love with a man who I consider to be, quite simply, the other side of me, it was as if I remembered how to love again. Swept off my feet by the sheer power of emotion, when we initially got together, the whole thing took me quite by surprise.
I still cannot completely comprehend the depth of feeling and the synchronicty between us because much of it is wholly inexplicable. Inexplicable and miraculous and passionate and wicked!
Hell, half the time I’m amused at my own romanticism. The other half, I’m so madly in love with the poet that I can think of nothing else. Nothing.
Life is good. William is awesome.
between your heart and mine
Posted by Candy Tothill | Filed under Uncategorized
There’s an understanding between our hearts, the poet’s heart and mine. It’s the kind of understanding for which you cannot plan; and when it comes, it keeps you in a continual state of wonder at the beauty of it all. It has made a believer out of me.
Not too long ago, my tagline was ‘natural-born romantic, man-made cynic’.
What amazes me most is that I could never have anticipated the depth of the shift in my perspective. After all the years of struggling for independence and freedom, here I am building my world around someone… not because I must, or because it is expected, but because my world is more beautiful this way.
Loving him makes me real.
—————-
Now playing: Alison Krauss; Union Station - When You Say Nothing at All
via FoxyTunes
a moment, captured
Posted by Candy Tothill | Filed under Candy Tothill, Poetry, william f. devault
Since my poet always gets what he asks for, here is the piece he alluded to this morning:
Parting my lips
And the dark remembers you,
anticipates you
like a journey into morning.
The taste of your words
is warm like honey
parting my lips.
Nothing but a name
between us.
Your heat trembles
on my skin and you
ripen into me.
I can taste your music
in the heat, surrender
to your throbbing
meadow. I kiss your memory,
lick the fragrance off
your smile and wear your desire.
Your water is mine alone
and I feed on your soul.
It enters me with passionate
abandon that I swallow
like a world within a world.
wonderful comes gently
Posted by Candy Tothill | Filed under Uncategorized
Wonderful eats a tomato - only because you mentioned that tomatoes are your favourite thing to put on toast. It calls you at two in the afternoon - just to hear your voice. It laughs at your jokes when they aren’t funny. Wonderful listens to you breathing and doesn’t try to fill the space with words. It exposes its vulnerabilities and knows you can be trusted with its charms.
Wonderful is what finds you after your journey has led you to question its existence. In the instant when you honestly believe you’ll never know it, it reveals itself. It comes gently, tenderly like rain in the night. And you wake up one morning to discover that it has been keeping the earth in place among the stars.
the thunderbolt
Posted by William F. DeVault | Filed under Uncategorized
There was a study done a few years ago that said the main difference between merely pretty (which seems to be the average of all standard facial features one is exposed to within their culture) and beautiful was not a higher order of perfection but a slight lack of symmetry.
Those people we define in our various cultures as most beautiful are not those who achieve flawless symmetry through genetics and exercise and regular injections of nerve paralyzing agents derived from rotting food, those we see as merely “pretty” (and occasionally “grotesque”). Beautiful starts from pretty and then, with a few small things moved out of symmetry to create a noticeable ripple barely perceived, in the awareness of the viewer, it steps out of the crowd. In other words, they stand out, they are “striking”.
We don’t like boring people. Boring people may blend in well, but they don’t “Wow” us like we want to be wowed. Think of Ellen Barkin in “Sea of Love” snapping her fingers to communicate the need for the “zap” of instant attraction. The thunderbolt. What we don’t notice on at least a preconscious level we cannot be seduced by or drawn to.
And it isn’t just on the physical side. I know when I first felt a tug towards my partner and friend, my lover, Candy, I started reading everything I could find that she had written (good thing she is a writer, and a good one). It wasn’t poems or articles about pristine fields of daisies that set the tuning forks of my soul humming, it was the pieces about pain, loss, rejection, fear, anger, betrayal, loneliness and determination, even her love of caffeine. The “little things” that really aren’t so little but expose the bare skin under the cosmetic of everyday conversation. Just like the right flaw in the heart of a diamond sets up the gem to bend the light in new and exciting ways, so was I caught by the refraction of the pale white light of everyday life.
Grey became red and blue and gold and green and colours I’d never seem and as of yet still do not have words for. It was…*snap*…the thunderbolt.
We like our heroes and our lovers to be human, to be real, to have the little picks and flaws that make them all the more precious to us. As beauty is everyday elevated by the right nuance of imperfection, a “perfect fit” in love comes from mutual and complementary imperfections, that is where the attraction and the excitement come from. On some levels we are very different people, and that is intriguing and exciting.
caution: candy at large
Posted by Candy Tothill | Filed under Uncategorized
We discussed this idea at length, but I never anticipated feeling quite as conspicuous as I’m feeling right now.
Given William’s status as The Amomancer with muses aplenty, I sense eyes on me, even now as I write. Be that as it may, the man extended his hand and his heart (and his blog) and I have accepted humbly, gratefully and completely.
Life has an interesting way of providing us with precisely what we need when we’re ready to receive it. This is our time. It is written.
So ladies (and gentlemen), what this means is that you’re stuck with me. Don’t think of it as the end of the world as you knew it. Rather try to approach it as the beginning of one awesome adventure to which you have received a front row ticket.
In time you’ll come to love me - if only for the exquisite poetry inspired (rather mysteriously) by my presence in William’s life.
Slumming it never felt this good.
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