Secrets from the Closet - Chapter 2

We all are a work in progress until we die; literally and figuratively.  – Author

 

To be more discreet. Clarence got up to close the curtains due to nightfall.  But she gently grasped his arm and said, “Leave them open.  I want to feel the breeze on our bodies.  There is such a nice gentle breeze blowing.  The air is smooth, and the moon is high.” 

“Oh, what?  Okay.”  Clarence stammers.  He thinks to himself, she’s unhinged.  The moon glistened against their naked bodies as they fell into each other’s embrace.  When they began to move faster into their love making, she watched him as he thrust his body into hers.  She then slowly melted into him. 

This is Clarence’s new conquest.  The next morning, it was like awakening from a utopian dream where all was right with the world when she rolled over to look out the window.  The sun was shining through the window, and the wind was gently blowing a warm breeze over her face.  She couldn’t believe how good she felt. 

“It was a good night, a very good night,” she whispered to herself.  Her body felt satisfied for the first time in years.  She opened her eyes to begin looking for her lover next to her, but he was gone.  But where?  Why did he leave her alone?

Sitting outside on the terrace, Clarence took a few sips of coffee that had been brought up by room service.  He pondered the next step in a relationship he didn’t even know he wanted. 

Standing silently behind him she watches his steady gaze into the horizon, she asks, “What are you thinking about?” 

He turns and says, “I want to fall in love with you.” 

It took them five months to get to this place, of being this close, that is.  He played around with the idea, but he continued to tell himself that he wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship.  He was just curious about her.  He had convinced himself somewhat, but today, he knew.  She was different somehow.  A fresh perspective.  A new pursuit.  Something to keep him waking up excited every morning.

They were now at a local eatery just outside Tulsa when he leaned in and said, “Let’s move in together.  I’ll take care of everything.”  Clarence assured her. 

She couldn’t believe her ears.  Ten years her senior, she had now scored an older man, and he wants to take care of her?  She couldn’t believe her own dumb luck, but Clarence wasn’t that smart either.  What can my mother say to me now, she thought. 

As this thought passed through her mind, Clarence continues, “But, I have some personal business that I need to clean up first.  Will you wait for me?” 

Horror and shock fell over her face, and she morphed into something hideous. 

“I feel as though a garbage truck just drove up to the restaurant and dumped a load of shit right in front of our table.  One minute I’m happy and the next…!”  She stopped abruptly and as she tried to catch her breath, her nostrils started to flare. 

“What the hell do you mean, personal business?”  She yelled.  To calm her Clarence quickly responded.

“We…Well, you can’t be surprised that a man like me was completely unattached.  I mean, think about it.”  Clarence said emphatically.

“So, what is your attachment, Clarence?”  she asked.

“Weeelll, I’m married.”  He responded.

“Who the hell are you and what kind of tickets are you trying to sell, and who would buy them anyway?  Not me!”  She yells and then stands to walk out of the restaurant.  Clarence was so shocked at her response, he couldn’t believe that it was the same woman that he had just spent the best night of his life with.  He quickly pays the bill and runs out the door to catch her before she gets too far down the street. 

“Now wait a minute!”  Clarence whispers as he grabs her arm.  “I didn’t mean it that way.  It’s just that, I have been trying to find a way out of this loveless marriage for a while now and, and…”  Thinking fast, he finished, “I’m in love with you!  There, I said it!  Are you happy now?”

She blinks and a smile fills her face.  She grabs his face, and they kiss while still standing in the middle of the sidewalk.  Well, as dramatics go, this won’t be the last time that their arguments get out of control.  Clarence is unaware of the future drama that will unfold in this new relationship.  He’s just happy that he has won this one for now.  Unsmart, very unsmart.  If he was a thinking man, maybe this was his out or a red flag, something to stop this train from moving down the tracks.

At the University of New Mexico an old man sat by the window, the afternoon sun warming his face.  He was a scholar, his life dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.  Yet, he often found himself pondering the nature of intellect itself.  It was a strange thing, he thought, this capacity for understanding.  It felt like a seed, planted within each person, waiting to be nurtured.

He remembered his own father, a man of sharp intellect, whose lineage was filled with thinkers and artists.  He’d always believed that intellect was inherited, a gift passed down through generations.  But as he grew older, he realized that pedigree, while influential, wasn’t the whole story.  He’d seen brilliant minds spring from humble origins, and dullards born into noble families. Intellect, it seemed, was a complex tapestry, woven with threads of inheritance and environment.

He’d spent years infusing his own mind with knowledge, devouring books, attending lectures, engaging in debates.  He’d amassed a vast storehouse of facts, theories, and ideas.  But he knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that knowledge alone was not enough.  He’d met men who knew everything but understood nothing, men whose minds were encyclopedias, but whose hearts were empty.

It was in his relationships, he discovered, that the true refinement of intellect began.  The give and take of conversation, the empathy needed to understand another’s perspective, the honesty required to build trust – these were the crucibles in which raw intellect was forged into wisdom.  He’d learned more about himself, and about the world, through the simple act of listening to a friend’s troubles than he had from any learned treatise.

The truth in relationships, he mused, was a mirror. It reflected not only the other person but also oneself.  It forced an honest appraisal of one’s own biases, assumptions, and flaws.  And in that unflinching gaze, intellect began to transform.  It shed its purely analytical skin and began to sprout the wings of understanding.

Self-knowledge, he realized, was the final, crucial element.  To know oneself was to understand the origins of one’s thoughts, the roots of one’s desires, the shadows that lurked in the corners of one’s mind.  It was a journey into the deepest recesses of the self, a journey that was both terrifying and liberating.  And it was in this intimate exploration that intellect found its truest purpose, its highest form.  Clarence nor his lover will ever be benefactors of this kind of knowledge.

The professor then closed his eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips. Intellect, he concluded, was not a destination, but a journey.  A journey of constant learning, of deepening connection, of unwavering self-discovery.  It was a journey that began with a seed, nurtured by knowledge, refined by truth, and finally, blossoming into the radiant flower of wisdom.  And in that realization, the old scholar found a profound sense of peace.  Maybe one of the Johnsons will eventually find it.

We should all be so blessed!