Friday, September 16, 2011

THE BLUE BUTTERFLY by J. Murphy Krimshaw

The assignment in my writing class was “leaving… write a piece on leaving! This struck terror in my heart. I would have to say my emotional framework has been formed by “leaving”. I was always leaving, someone else was leaving and whatever or wherever I was living seemed to leave me as well. I came to realize this couldn’t be stopped and a life worth living had a lot of entries and exits in it, but somehow the exits were a lot harder to bear.

When I arrived in Paris, I was almost ready to throw myself in the quai. My heartbreak was real, visceral, searing…a deep wound. I saw it coming but I didn’t quite expect him to break up with me the night before I left. We couldn’t decide on a place to meet, so I chose a tony Upper Eastside lounge with zebra covered cushions, curvy small cocktail tables and dim lighting. The ceiling was dropped to create cozy nooks and intimate spots. The place was busy, filled with blind dates, Match meetings and other assorted “adult” singles looking for “the one” In my optimism, I was hoping he would say he’d give it a try, couldn’t live without me, would stay in touch while I was away…but he didn’t.

We had an on and off again relationship, at least in a spatial way. What I mean by that: is not seeing him for periods of time, but that did not diminish thinking about him every hour, every day and knowing he was doing the same thing about me. Maybe 40 times a day, we used to joke! We called it “the longing” and indeed it was. I called him the blue butterfly, he sent me many images of the Morpho Blue as his symbol. I had never felt so emotionally compelled by anyone before…obsessed, actually. This was movie stuff. Not possible, but it was true and it was happening to me and like a good film noir or wrenching romance, it would have to have a sad, heart breaking ending, by definition. I realized it was hopeless for me and I was in destiny’s hands. I used to say, “Cupid shot me through the heart and then shot me in the foot!”

It started innocently enough. I met him at a cocktail party for an Architecture & Design Fair…over the cheese platter, in fact. We immediately started to talk and fell in love. He was handsome, very handsome, dressed in a grey flannel suit with a black turtleneck, in lieu of a shirt and tie. I could see his physique beneath the fabric and knew he worked out. His grooming was impeccable…studied, hip! He had great hands, well articulated with long fingers. My opening line made him laugh and we soon discovered we had a similar aesthetic, saw things with a similar eye, knew a lot about literature and cooking. He was not in the design world, but a guest of a friend and told me he was a writer and didn’t elaborate on what.

Three months of adventure, both romantic and fun, not just museums and movies, but poetry readings, reading to one another DH Lawrence, Billy Collins, Bachada lessons, (the Dominican National Dance), fishing, cycling and old movies, lots of old movies! He was smart, an expert on almost everything and I learned a lot; a real lot!
He was different.

One warm Spring day he prepared a gourmet picnic lunch in a grand English basket with a complete set of china. He brought a rug, a canopy, and speakers to a hill he knew with an incredible view of the Hudson. I brought the crystal; my mother’s rose vase, flowers and 10 silly surprise gifts, laboriously wrapped. I wore a gingham dress. He asked me to. We stayed till sunset and attempted to make love on the lawn. Suddenly, some hikers appeared and caught us bare assed.

In general, we couldn’t keep our hands off one another; nowhere was excluded.
I didn’t necessarily see him every weekend or every day but the relationship had a consistency of its own strung together with emails, letters, long love letters, cards and jokes. I confessed to my girlfriends I was in love, madly in love and I was. They asked me if I had ever seen where he lived and in fact, I had not. He told me his “meat market” loft was under construction, though we did drive by the building once or twice and he did seem involved in all sorts of issues of construction, something I actually knew a great deal about, having re-done a number of apartments with my ex-husband. I gave him advice.

And so, one night I met him in a strange Medina-like bar in a Mid Eastern restaurant in the East 40’s. I arrived early which was quite unusual for me. I decided to dress like Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour. I had on garters which exposed themselves when I crossed my legs. He soon appeared briefcase in hand. He was edgy, didn’t kiss me and seemed overly serious. I casually looked down and noticed he had a wedding band on. Yup, he was married!...about four years but not really to his soul mate. A mistake! She traveled a great deal for business and recently spent 3 or 4 months in Argentina, returning every now and then.

I was in shock. My heart sank. I didn’t yell. He asked if I wanted to hit him and though I did, I refrained. I just said I had fallen in love with him and what he had done was cruel and he was a coward.


More than a year later, I looked up the definition of sociopath: a person so pathologically self centered, they were incapable of feelings for anyone else.

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