The wonderful new man already phoned and we met up again! So despite the resulting late night, woke up tired but like I had a big smiley inside my chest.
Oh, I should not be so mad as to fall in love, but what a joy to feel a feeling you haven't felt for so long. Like a new man.
It may come to nothing more, but the hope and boost in self-esteem is worth a couple of million pounds at least. One great fear of age is that there will never be moments like this once your looks are gone. Even when young these moments are rare enough. So having had the luxury of one, it's worth trying to understand why it makes you feel so happy.
He's very handsome and very fit, not too much bigger than me, and the image of him climbing the tree like a spirit of the woods is one that I wish I had a photograph of, but I'll have to hold it in my mind instead.
Looks aren't everything, as I have too painfully not learnt until my middle-age, and so I wondered why I found him so extraordinarily beautiful. Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, so what did I behold?
1. The perception of beauty was instant, the old "love at first sight" reflex. Dangerous stuff. Could have been the contrast of mostly seeing too many unattractive people in London, but there was more than that. It must have been the eyes. Even from the first moment, they were looking back, and seeing me, not just ignoring me, or humouring me, or tolerating me, etc.
2. The face/body/smile/clothing package was perfectly formed and perfectly proportioned in glorious balance.
3. Rarity. You may look everywhere and never find THE ONE. You lose hope. You think they don't exist, and probably they are very rare. You wish there were more of them so that you wouldn't have to worry so much if you ever lost them.
4. The finding. It only happens once, right at the beginning, and is the glorious feeling of a new find. Like shopping for an antique, or a painting to fit on a difficult wall.
5. The clever listener. Some people never listen, never try to understand you, can't listen, or do so unsuccessfully. He was so quick with this, as if it were common sense, and yet it is a sense too uncommon these days.
6. The affinity with nature. Who climbs trees anymore? Who can? Who wants to go out and touch the world, and not just look at something that hangs in a museum? The earthiness of those who do, lends them a worldliness that is as ancient as the land and the sky. All this man-made stuff that surrounds us today is so new, so recent, but a speck of time in the history of Man the Ape.
7. What he does for a living. Where he grew up and where he came from. Where he lives now.
These must be the things that I use to define beauty to myself.
Then the reality of the affair:
What does he want to be?
Who does he want to be?
Can you hold on to someone in a world where people cannot be owned, but only enjoyed while they are there? Where they are free to go elsewhere, and squander or share themselves with others?
Would it last at all?
Of all these things, the most joyous gift I feel is Hope, that most mysterious of emotions, the one I understand least. What gives you hope, and why?
***
Police have extended the cordoned off area of Capel Road,Wanstead flats and have erected two tents on the site. It appears that a full-scale investigation is underway, although no absolute confirmation has yet been made whether a dead body was found.