Writings

the world's best lover
Originally published in Body & Soul
July/August 2003

Four years ago, when I was 50 years old, I fell in love with a young man who was assisting on a wilderness rite of passage program that I was leading in the mountains of southern Colorado. The force of this unexpected, unsearched-for attraction was so compelling that it seemed to me there must be some way of exulting in what was happening.

Back home, walking in the woods behind our house, I wrestled with my options. I could sneak off and have an affair with this man, indulge in deceit, guilt, and the likelihood of destroying a marriage I was truly happy in. That I would not do. Another approach was simply to deny the whole thing and say to myself: "I'm married, this is wrong. I will not think of it again." But how could I shut my heart to such an upheaval of longing and allurement? It would have seemed like the worst kind of betrayal of myself and my work, which focused on fearlessly exploring all parts of the essential self. And anyway, even though I would not enter into an extramarital affair, I certainly did not believe that monogamy meant refusing even to acknowledge the occasional sweet sting of Eros's arrow. A third choice was to view the whole event as a psychological issue, to identify the man who captivated me as someone on whom I was projecting my own inner needs, and to tunnel in for some serious work on myself.

I chose a fourth way. I decided to follow the trail of the passion itself. Actually, it was more an imperative than a decision for what I was experiencing made me feel as if I had been ripped wide open, breached by longing. More