I have no words right now.
No word but "Why?"
Why can't I fully explain my perennial connection to who is now one of the most iconic characters in theater since 1986?
Why can't I put into words what I still feel when I hear the equally iconic theme music to that character: the one who wears the long black cloak, the broad-brimmed black hat and his white-as-moonlight half-mask?
Why does Erik have so much of a beautiful hold on me? I'm 37. My love for him blossomed in my teens. Surely I would have outgrown my desire for him...
My wounded, musical self has always had other ideas where he's concerned. My friend Karma says he's one of my major personal archetypes, and she's right.
There's something I seem to still need...maybe it's that sense of belonging I feel when I imagine him close by me. Maybe it's because he and I both are musicians. I know...root chakra issues galore. I know what it's like to feel like an outsider. I feel that so potently.
But that's only a slice of the emotion. That's only a fraction of it. The desire to belong to him in the best way possible...that's another fraction of it.
Here's the thing, though: He compels me to keep exploring this darker, inner world. And it's a compulsion from my very shamanic self, too...as far as I am concerned, it's all One. It's all Connected. Music itself, for me, is shamanic.
Were it another person with this same predilections, the same wounds, the same desires to understand, to probe deeper, to "feel the full breathless pull of the Beauty Underneath.." I'd want to make the journey with them in a sense, because it's my journey, too...because I know those deeper musical compulsions, those thrumming chords of deeper desire, to understand better what it is to be human on both a spiritual and visceral level.
There's something about Erik that beckons me forward on the journey downward, inward...and the shaman in me nods, because the journey is necessary. To hell with what Mom or Pop thinks. I want to explore, dammit. I need to explore the depths of me, and Erik seems to be my guide, here. There's no other I connect with more. Jon is somewhat inappropriate because these deeper inner feelings have a strong sexual tinge to them, and there is no way I am going to disrespect him and his marriage to Jane, to say nothing of the fact that Jon is old enough to be my dad. :P
And Q is definitely not appropriate here, either, because this journey downward and inward is very emotional, let alone sexual, and he's not really all that interested in this kind of internal journeying. He understands that I connect and identify with Erik, and that's about it. He tolerates it. That's about it. Being able to convey what I feel to him is just not possible. Because Q is not a musician.
Let's just say that if Erik were in my life at all in a physical form, right along with Q, I know which one would be "Raoul." I know which one to whom I'd give my heart. I know that if Erik asked, I know the search for a Beloved would end with him. I felt the truth of this in my high school years...I feel it now.
And I know others would ask "Why?"
But then...I know the answer...and it's a very vague, very philosophical answer, but it would be appropriate...and, like Erik...tres Francais...and it would piss other people off because of its vagueness...but...here it is:
"The heart has its reasons...of which reason knows nothing."--Blaise Pascal.
I think of this and I most definitely think of Erik...I think of my love for him...however silly and irrational it might be to some...but they're not me. They're not walking in my own version of Erik's mask. They're not walking in my own version of Erik's cloak and hat.
Like Erik...I am what I am. I am who I am. And like Erik, all I ever wanted is to be loved for myself.
...and I think I love Erik still after all these years because...well..."Love Never Dies..."
