I am a lucky woman. My husband’s humanity has deepened over the course of our life together. This is due in large part to his continued try, a great gift, to be open to emotional complexity.
Often, he’ll tell me of the people he comes across during his workday inside the old, brick apartment buildings still standing in this city of transformations. One of these people is Jai, a transvestite tenant. Involved in the production of theatricals.
Over the months, my Bob and Jai have developed a sort of passing-in-the-hall friendship. Bob stands chatting in his work overalls. Jai most often is dressed in some nature of exotic kimono, or bell bottoms with a mid-drift exposing top. The outfit always quite considered, Bob thinks. In the telling of each encounter, it seems to me, Bob’s comprehension evolves of what life is like for this, “beautiful, almost like a woman,” young man.
And now, Bob says, Jai is having to move.
So the other day, perhaps in a moment of being caught up in the loss of their passing-in-the-hall friendship, Jai leaned close to Bob, saying goodbye. As if to kiss him, Bob thought. Perhaps with passion. Certainly, there was, we agreed this might be the right word for it, eros in this gesture of farewell.
Listening, I thought it remarkable my Bob, who one could say was homophobic when I first met him in a bar where I worked 30 years ago, has traversed such a long arc of heart to be able to receive this gesture of affection. More, he can acknowledge the possible eros of it and not feel his manhood threatened.
He has become a man able to understand the honor of its offering.
Perhaps this is in some part because of my Bob’s nature. He’s always had a protective impulse towards the vulnerable. But there’s something more here, some precious quality grown from an openness that survived - more than that - has thrived within him. He’s grown able to perceive human want and resist that urge to contain and frame. As if want were a contagion.
Instead, my Bob received this emotive offering for what it was: Jai's thanks for being seen, recognized. Another Being on this earth at this moment. Such precious chance.
My Bob's become a light stepper of being, of life force, eros, whatever you want to call our embodiment of this essence that comprehends, that catches its breath at the wonder.
And like I said, that makes me a lucky woman.