“Caves, John Coltrane, and the Creation of the Sea”

I notice the wind. Hear it whip past the window as I lay there naked. The moonlight too. It comes in through the slots on each side of the window where the shade fails to reach. A small dose of light falls across her thigh that’s left exposed by the mass of sheets that lay between us. It’s pale, like the light itself, with a touch of fleshy pink, like a baby piglet. I read somewhere once that you gain introspection after sex. Maybe it was true. I don’t know. I never really thought about it.

It can’t be later than 2am. Well, I guess it could be. I have no idea what time it is. I hate having clocks in the room when I knew there’d be a possibility of sex. There was just something disheartening about it. I would always casually turn it around, or toss my shirt over in the confusion of the moment.

The room is dark, but not completely. A gentle darkness has settled over the place. The kind  where you can see, but chances were if you tried to get up you’d trip or something, cause you couldn’t see everything. So it was somewhat late. I don’t bother getting up to check. I don’t want to wake her. She looks so peaceful just lying there. She lies on her stomach, her head faces me. Brown hair falls over her eyes, hiding them. So I just sit there, looking at her sleep.

I wonder what she’s really like. If she has an interesting outlook on things most people don’t give a second thought. I wonder what drives her, sustains her. I wonder who the guy is that will eventually fall in love with this girl. I wonder if he’s in bed with another girl right now.

I wonder if I actually care to know these things, or if I’m just trying to convince myself I do.

We had met about a week before. I guess it would be fair to say we hit it off. I mean, I was in bed with her. I really had no idea who she was though. Hell, I probably would have fumbled around for a last name. I was horrible with names; I mean god awful. What I did know was that her FIRST name was Elizabeth, and she was working her way through grad school or something like that; something to do with soil. Soil? Could that be right? Yeah, I think so.

I’m an excellent listener. On cue I would say things like, “Wow, that’s fantastic. Sounds really interesting” or “I bet that’s tough. All that studying,” stuff like that.

Sometimes I even disgust myself.

She wanted to meet for drinks a few nights after we initially met; I wasn’t opposed to the idea of seeing her again. “Drinks sound fantastic.” I don’t even drink. A glass of champagne at a wedding, wine when I had dinner with my parents once a month, and that’s it. Apart from that, I couldn’t even stand the smell of the stuff.

I had mentioned this place that I knew was pretty decent. Which was a lie. I had never been there. The closest I came was when I overheard a conversation about it once. So I thought I’d take my chances. If it was lousy, I’d just play it off. So we met there.

When she showed up, she was wearing some black skirt/pink shirt outfit that looked like it had been taken straight from some “sorority girl” handbook. I smiled, gave a complimentary hug and kiss on the cheek combo, and added on way back from the peck “It’s nice to see you again. You look great.” She didn’t look bad.

She barely reached my shoulders, which was fine. I would imagine that put her around five-six. But she gave the appearance of being much shorter. It wouldn’t have been as noticeable if she hadn’t been a little on the chubby side. Chubby girls tend to look shorter than they really are. I’m not sure why. They probably knew it too. Girls seemed to be aware of every last detail when it came to physical appearance. Even the ones that played like they didn’t.

It was all the same to me. Tall, short, skinny, chubby. For me, being chubby was more like having brown eyes, or having blonde hair. Some guys preferred one over the other, but there was no right or wrong answer. You didn’t have to posses this specific characteristic, but sometimes you did. And if you did, more power to you. More often than not, what was lacking in one department was more than compensated for somewhere else. From my experience, the good lord seemed to even most playing fields.

More conversation about the world of soil, which was fine by me. I didn’t really want to talk about myself. So the more she kept on, the better. She could talk until her lips fell off for all I cared. She didn’t seem to mind. Most things were covered that you would cover over drinks. Most of it was forgotten as soon as the words fell from her mouth, but still, I think everything was covered. I spoke when it was appropriate, which, thankfully, was not that often, and tried to look interested the rest of the time. Apparently something went right though, because she asked me back to her place after we had finished with the drinks.

“I’d love to,” I said.

So I paid the bill and we caught a cab. Her place was a small apartment on the other side of town. About a ten minute cab ride, what with all the lights and traffic.

Her building was like every other apartment building I had seen.

We made our way upstairs, and she said she really didn’t have much to drink. One beer, some bottles of water, and diet Pepsi. She offered to go halves on the beer. I said that was fine. We talked for a few minutes as she poured the beer into glasses. She informed me her roommate was out of town for the week, and that it got lonely here sometimes.

I don’t even think we finished the beers. They’re probably still sitting on the table, just collecting dust.

It started in the front room.

Starting was always the awkward part. Especially if it was with someone new. I blame movies mostly. There are no real life situations where the girl goes to slip into something more comfortable and comes back ready to make most saints question their lifestyle. There’s usually not a one sided seduction where the man never stood a chance. Or some smooth Don Juan who becomes as irresistible as chocolate to a woman just after Lent. More often times then not, one makes a move, and its usually clumsy and pathetic looking, and the other either feels such extreme pity for the person that they submit, or they generally hoped that this would happen and they are so elated it was actually starting, that the awkwardness is overlooked. Getting over the first few minutes is definitely the worst.

She had a nice sofa though. That helped a little.

She took off my shirt after a few minutes. I remember that. I hated when they did that. I was perfectly capable of removing my own shirt. This was something that I had been practicing since about age three. Granted the context was now different; the same general principles applied. Same went for my pants. And really, for anything else I was wearing that needed to be removed. Apparel had not altered so much that my early life lessons were now obsolete.

But I got over it and followed suit. Off went the sorority outfit, slowly, piece by piece, like dismantling some inappropriate puzzle my mother never would’ve allowed me to have as a child.

Eventually we both found ourselves on her couch, naked.

John Coltrane wrote this multi part jazz piece, “A Love Supreme.” It’s supposed to be about God’s goodness and grace, everything that He encompasses. Which in my opinion, is a pretty vast subject. But he nailed it. Music succeeded for him where words had previously failed so many others. Some people say that Coltrane was more than a man, that somehow, through his music, he had achieved the status of a deity. The closest to God that anyone had ever come. I remember seeing a clip of him play it, on some documentary. It was amazing. The way the notes moved, the way he moved with them, the way that they became one. I bet that’s how God made the sea. With a saxophone. Each roll of a wave, each lull after a storm, each white cap, all notes that bled from God, into his sax, and onto the waters. In essence, all becoming one. I bet God and John Coltrane would’ve jammed together. That would have been something.

Her figure was lovely. She had great legs. I think I told her that after we finished on the sofa. “You have fantastic legs.” I remember she blushed. Color temporarily flooded her otherwise pale face. Like drops of blood onto the first snow.

Her breasts were small, especially for a chubby girl, and were also pale, which held true for her overall general complexion. But they suited her nicely, and rolled naturally into her upper stomach.

We had been laying there for about ten minutes when she asked if I wanted to move to her room as she flirtatiously swirled some pattern on my bare chest with her index finger. Why did they always do that? A pocket of her scent rose up and filled my chest, like a fire fills a hearth. She smelled like rain and cinnamon. That was a new one.

“That sounds great,” I said, looking down at her face now pointed up at mine.

She wrapped herself in the quilt that had been hanging over the back of the sofa, but now rested in a small pile behind it. I didn’t remember seeing it fall. I looked around halfheartedly for my pants. I found them underneath the coffee table that the untouched beer sat on. I didn’t put them on. It was strange, I felt uncomfortable if I was wearing clothes and the girl wasn’t. Always had, ever since I could remember. So I just threw them over my shoulder and followed her into the bedroom.

It was a small apartment bedroom, probably no different from hundreds others across the city. Small differences lay smattered, attempts at personalizing a space that would otherwise remain empty. Her bedspread was pink. I smiled at it. Pink was really the only color I would have expected. Photos of friends and family, that would always remain nothing more than faces on paper to me, circled the window above her bed and covered her vanity that sat in a corner.

She had a stereo sitting atop her dresser, right next to a simple alarm clock. I walked over to it. She went and sat on the bed cloaked in the quilt, like a little girl, pretending she was Queen for a day. I took the opportunity to lay my pants over the clock face and began to leaf through the few CDs that she had lying around. Nothing there to really grab my attention. I remember thinking how I should really start carrying around my own music; they never had anything worth playing. That would probably be tacky though.

“Hey why'd you bring those CD's?”

“Well, they're for later, when I feel the need to have some good music while we have sex.”

"...Oh..."

I grabbed an older Nick Drake Album that really had no business with the others assembled around it. “Do you mind?” I asked. She didn’t.

The first song played through, and I moved back to the bed and sat next to her. She lay back, and tugged me gently down with her. She began to kiss just behind my ear. Her hand moved down my stomach. She discarded the quilt to its new resting place on the floor next to her bed. The first song stopped. Then the second started back up:

And I was green, greener than the hill
Where the flowers grew and the sun shone still
Now I'm darker than the deepest sea
Just hand me down, give me a place to be.

When I was younger, maybe right around twenty, I remember visiting Hawaii. I had been walking along this beach where the sand was black, which was a strange color for sand to be. I came to a clearing that sat beyond the beach. Palm trees and brush were thick on both sides, but in the center, there was a hole. It wasn’t a very big hole, maybe no wider than five feet across. When I looked down, I saw what appeared to be an underground cavern. Upon examining the hole and exacting if and how I could climb back out, I jumped in. I fell about ten feet or so, which isn’t a terribly long way to fall. I landed in water that came up to about my waist. The water was frigid, colder than ice. Here, deep in this hole, the sun couldn’t reach the water. Vaguely I made out the walls to my left and right. Quiet dripping remained constant, soft, like it was trying to keep a secret.

Ahead, lay black, a complete void of light. I waded forward. My teeth clicked from the cold, sounding like a symphony of crickets inside this amplified theater. Further and further I pressed into this nothingness. Everything around me was empty. I could no longer feel. I moved away from the lone pillar of light that fell from the surface of the earth. It was terrifying. It was exhilarating. I couldn’t turn back. Something drew me further and further in. I wondered if anyone had been here before. Had anyone felt this close to the dark? I had to stop eventually. By now, the light had become nothing but a thin line. The cave may have never ended. Fear ultimately overwhelmed my heart. I turned back. I always wondered what was at the very end of the cave. Or maybe it didn’t end. Maybe I could have probed the very depths of the earth had I just kept wading in the frozen water that lay underneath the surface of the world. My cave.

When did the music stop? We both lay there, our heads resting just underneath the window. My chest was red. My face felt flushed. She draped her leg across mine, and picked up where she left off on the pattern she had been working on earlier. Her hands were small, fingers fragile looking. They reminded me of the small porcelain Precious Moments figurines my mother used to collect.

“I’m going to put another CD on.” I told the top of her head. She nodded and smiled. I got up as she stretched out on the bed momentarily. Walking back to the stereo, it was the first time I realized the room was a bit cool. I gave a quick distinct shake as a shiver moved up and down my spine. I heard her giggle from the bed; I turned and gave a half smile.

So I stood there, naked, once again searching this poor excuse for a music collection for something substantial to fill the air.

I had long gotten over my self consciousness concerning my own personal nakedness. I remembered the first time I had had sex. I felt the newness of this bare flesh. I had been naked before. But never naked and exposed. There’s a definite distinction between the two. It was somewhat painful, being both at once. I could literally remember feeling my body ache as I stood there, vulnerable for all to see.

That, of course, had long passed. Now, I was as comfortable naked as I was with clothes. It was kind of sad though. Once you lose something like that, you can never really get it back. I oftentimes wondered if some things weren’t meant to be lost.

I had found a “Best of” Simon & Garfunkel. I put that on, and made my way back over to the bed.

She opened the covers graciously, and welcomed me back by kissing my chest. At first gently with her lips, then more intensely using her mouth. She looked up at me as if to ask “again?” I smiled and mouthed “sure.”

It was the third time I found myself inside her. I felt her entire body pressed against mine. Her hair would brush against my cheek occasionally. She moved melodically over me, just like jazz, just like wading through cold water. My mind began to wander. Who was this person on top of me? Her naked body caught the soft light from the window. How was it that I could be within this person, yet feel so separate that I was convinced we couldn’t have existed further apart? I watched myself as I rolled around tangled in a mass of limbs and fabric. I watched the fleeting look of subtle pleasure mixed with pain that swept across her face as we both came. I watched my own face almost break into tears because I knew every time I came inside of a different girl I became emptier. Something would be left behind that I could never get back. I knew that with every new girl, another step was taken closer to absolute nothingness.

A long time ago I had a discussion with a close friend of mine about how you could have sex with just about anyone, but real intimacy existed within conversation, and that was rare. If the soul is the essence of our being, if that’s what sets humans apart from the other creatures of the world, then the probing of one soul against another is where the emphasis should be placed. Sure there are desires of the flesh that had to be met, this is undeniable, but even animals possessed the same desires that could be satiated with anyone. In conversation there exists discovery, a discovery that may not exist between any other two people. A discovery so raw that it can be considered nothing less than intimacy between souls.

I often wondered if there was some combination of the two. Something felt between two people within words that could be carried over and reciprocated through physical endeavors. Something that could be transferred into the physical realm, causing the act of sex to transcend whatever limitations that had been placed on it.  Maybe that’s what people search for. Maybe that’s what Coltrane was trying to convey. A feeling that transcended words. A cause to dance. Expression where words fell short. A dance pure and alone. Dance like a child dances with no one watching. An unscripted collage of movements that somehow conveyed precision and passion imbued into one. Like it had been mapped out by God just for you and revealed slowly, step by step, each motion depicting something new, something wonderful existing only at that precise moment. Maybe that was A Love Supreme.

I had never felt this. In fact, I didn’t know if I ever would. Relationships were somewhat fleeting for me. Never lasting longer than a month, I would usually find a new girl shortly after and resume the same cycle. Meet, apartment, sex.  

I looked over at her. Her eyes had closed. She had long eyelashes. I hadn’t noticed that before.

Several minutes passed and her breathing became steady. I felt her warm breath wash across my shoulder and remain moist as she retracted it. Like the waves that washed up against the black sand of my beach.

I hear the wind rush past the window. I see the moonlight wash through where the shade fails to reach. It falls quietly across her thigh that sticks out from underneath the sheets she had burrowed between.

When I was six, it snowed the night before Thanksgiving. It wasn’t just any snow, it was a snow straight out of a storybook. Snowflakes as big as quarters. Snowflakes so fat you couldn’t help but think of big round snowmen. It was the kind of snow that was perfect for snowballs. The kind of snow that only came once in a lifetime. My brother was a year younger than me, and we had gotten all bundled up to go outside and play. My mom was starting to make the dinner already; the air in the house was as thick as syrup, warm with smells of holiday.

My brother and I had a red sled. We took turns pulling each other around the yard for about an hour. Eventually, my dad came out and wanted to take us for a real ride. I remember thinking that now we were going to go fast. Dad was pulling now. I sat in the front, because I was older. My brother sat behind me. I remember he wrapped his arms around my waist and held on as tight as he could. I see his red mittens clasped across my jacket vividly. I see them clearer than anything else. I feel his head pressed against my back. My dad pulled us, and we yelled and screamed and laughed because we were going fast. I hear my brother’s laugh echo in the snow.

I wonder why this specific memory comes to mind.

Maybe it’s because, this is the closest to love I’ll ever get, and I never even realized it. Maybe it’s because that affection was so pure that it exists nowhere else, and people spend their entire lives trying to recreate a feeling that was only made to be felt once.

Maybe that’s why I feel the tears well up against my eyelids.

I turn my back to her. I swing my feet over the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands, sitting upright.

I must have woken her up. She stirs and rustles the sheets to life.

She asks if I’m okay.

“Yeah,” I say.

“I’m fine.”

I always say I’m fine.

I’ll be gone by the time she wakes in the morning. So what difference does it really make to her?

Honors 210

"This site was created for an honors course at Monmouth College by students."