I watched a film yesterday about a Chicago nanny who left behind thousands of photographs when she died a few years ago. They were discovered at a storage facility auction after being abandoned and have since been declared among the best of the twentieth century by some art critics.
I shared the link with a friend. I told her that I imagined the woman "consumed with passion" for her art. She wrote back with this question: "What do you mean by consumed with passion?" The question immediately took me back to another time, when Bill and I were first together.
We lived about 60 miles apart: me in Walla Walla with my son and him in Kennewick with his 3 dogs. We spent the weekends together. We quickly developed a routine. I would arrive in Kennewick on Saturday afternoon. We would go out to dinner and then go back to his small trailer. We would light candles and put music on the stereo.
Suddenly I was aware of no one or nothing but him and that place and what was happening between us. The rest of the world simply disappeared. He would share his memories of growing up in Pullman and later moving to Berkley. I would share my dreams for the future. We would find novel ways to pleasure each other and then whisper secrets in the dark. As we lay there enjoying the safety of our intimacy, the sun would peek in around the window blinds.
"Oh, my God, it's morning. We've been up all night." I would say, shocked at the number of hours that had passed without my awareness of them. I never stopped to look at a clock. I never paused to consider the time. I was completely absorbed in the experience. I was consumed by passion. I was transformed.
It is possible to write in the same way we make love?
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