Passion
by
Milton Howard
"Write about passion," she said. That should be easy, was my first thought.
But: what passion? The passion of love, hate, anger, arts, work, sports, people, politics, philosophy, religion? The passion of Christ? All of them?
I thought of my many moments of passion. Would she like to hear about any of those moments? How the song "One Enchanted Evening" from the musical "South Pacific" must have been inspired by one such event. How fittingly I described the beginning, the emotion. How our eyes met across a crowded room and locked on to each other. How animated and radiant she was! How attractive her smile. How she laughed. How we were drawn together, talked, touched. Ah yes! That magical moment when our hands first touched . The energy. That electrifying shock wave of energy bursting through my body like a blot of lightning going straight to my heart, which, like a starter motor suddenly energized by a battery booster, jumped into life, and my engine instantly charged up f rom neutral into over-drive.
Every atom of my being vibrated and danced in ecstasy with millions of other atoms, streaming, surrounding, greeting, exchanging, merging, blending, nudging, responding, moving like a cloud in this field of potent energy, as exited as a swarm of bees, ce lebrating the nuptials of their new queen.
The excitement, the awakening, the arousal, the closeness, the fragrance, the magnetism.
The meeting, the holding of hands, the touching, the kissing, the hot lips, the mouths, the tongues, the tasting, the searching, the arms enfolding, the bodies pressed together, the stroking, the touching, the intimacy, the sighing, - oh! oh! oh! - the h eavy breathing, the gasping a le moment juste - le moment critique. The silence rising to a crescendo of wonder.
Should I tell her about all this? Or, was this all too much?
Before falling asleep would she breathe deeply, stirring up half forgotten memories, and fanning flame the smoldering embers of passion which burn unbridled beneath the breast of every descendant of Adam and Eve? Then, would she lie there sleepless and push aside the over-heated bed clothes?
My thought ran on; but I wrote no more.
I climbed from this emotional high and thought about other times, other times, other places, other people, other things and other burning passions.
I thought of the passions of extreme anger, reactions to wrongful acts, unfairness, violence, vengeance, retribution, balancing the scales, evening the odds, righting wrongs, tilting against the windmills of negativity; of fights, dealing with armed robb ers, liars cheats, torturers, murderers, those who deliberately distort, those who hurt.
Then I thought of the sublime passions of the soul - of paintings and other works of art, of music, of ballet, of poetry, of philosophy, of gourmet foods and wines, of relationships, of values and ideals and beliefs, of the beauty of nature, of life's pu rposes.
As I mature, the contemplation of these has become my passion.
We are all products of passion. Without it, we would not have bodies to occupy.
I have learned to be kind to myself, and have filled my life with doing.
Whatever I do, I do it with passion. For, to have lived without passion is never to have lived at all.
I have become aware that to experience life as this passionate human being is my over-riding purpose. How about you?