Untamed wildness is dangerous, like a panther stalking the woods. To meet the wild unprepared...it is an adrenaline rush in the first nanaosecond. And then it becomes a mad dash to save life, limb or virtue.
I didn't understand that as a child. As a child who was left to her own musings for the better part of everyday I just wanted someone to steal me. It will come as no surprise to someone who has known me forever to know my first hope was that the aliens on the mothership realized they left me with the wrong people, on the wrong planet and would come back for me. The first time I saw Spock I thought "There's my people." But really, would a Vulcan make that kind of mistake? No. [finger snap] Rats! As we watched soaps and Roger Thorpe made off with Holly I hoped that someone would want me badly enough to take that kind of risk, make that kind of effort. Of course when Roger took of with Holly Ed Bauer and his brother Mike hunted them down and brought Holly back. It was a daring and drawn out rescue. But I didn't really think anyone would have bothered to bring me back. Keep in mind that I was 3 or 4 when that story arc ran on Guiding Light. Naive is an understatement. Roger wanted Holly. Roger loved Holly. It didn't register that Roger was a colossal ass and that his behaivor negated his professions of love. I just looked at it as "wouldn't it be nice if someone wanted me like that?" Naive.
Those ideas sat in my pyche for a while. Mix that with the adventures in the Black Stallion and my absorbtion of the colors and flavors of India and the Middle East and you have the foundations of a huge problem when puberty hits. Namely, that the bland little boys I went to school with were almost completely unappealing as the subject of a crush let alone full blown desire. Add to this my assessment that none of them possessed imagination enough to "run away" with me and you have geek buried in the encyclopedia so that she can make her fantasy as realistic as possible. Naive again.
What is worse is that it took being married and my first encounter for me to realize that what I was hoping for was frought with its own set of frustrations. As an adult I found out what happens to the heroine while someone is waxing rhapsodic over ancient chinese secrets. The part you don't see is the the terror, the frustration and reality: Roger might have loved Holly but what if he was a guy who wouldn't bathe before smothering her body with his? What if he was more of an ass than anyone thought and wouldn't let her pee or eat? What if he didn't care what Holly wanted? Oh right. He DIDN'T care what Holly wanted. She was engaged to Ed. Naive.
Yet even now, 16 years after reality steps all over the fantasy, the fantasy still is there. Of course I realize the whole thing has to be "fake". Personally I'd rip the throat out of a random stranger who would abduct me for the day or a weekend without my explicit consent if given the chance. But it's like I used to tell Matt: I am a work-a-holic, devoted to my employer and the team, to my artwork and thus would have to be tied up and thrown in the trunk to take a vacation cause I just don't think about time for myself. Given my distrust of the human race in general and specifically most of the people that I personally know.... I'm not likely to give anyone permission to do that.
Though I would love to spend a couple of hours sunk into a pile of smooth, cool, silky, satiny, embroidered and wildly colored sheets and pillows, wrapped in the purfume of and Indian spiced musky-hardwood inscense in a room lit with Morroccan lanterns that is as different in feel from this bland Up North kitschie scene as it gets... the pale one among swarthy but jovial natives. Yeah... like that would happen.
Still naive.
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