CLOSE PROXIMITY©, a novel

Prologue

Rosemary Remarks

“What Leads You To It”

by Rosemary MacDowell 

            Today is my birthday and I want you for my guest.  Welcome. I have in my hand a cup of coffee, whatever kind you like, made from beans grown in a country where the growers and pickers work in harmony; it is dark and rich and it is for you. You may have cookies also. See the heat rising from them they are so fresh. From my own recipe I stirred the batter and they are healthy ones.  I have transformed two percent of my body fat into muscle eating these cookies. Also I get fewer colds. Some of the ingredients came from nearby wheat fields and chicken coops, others from lands of tropical effulgence.

            I don’t have all the answers. Just a few recipes for you to try.  See how I cut out each cookies in the shape of a heart and lay it to brown near another on the baking tin. Some keep their romantic outlines while others transshape in the baking. Here, here’s a double heart for you to nibble. Take some cream for your coffee. (This is from Abyssinians and does not raise cholesterol.) I’m here to help.

            You may be wishing for love. You may be thinking about marriage. You may be gay or wanting to be (how refreshing it sometimes seems to find your opposite in the same). And always, too often for your own sense of power (the kind that means nice, deep breaths without strain and sleeping all through the night no matter whether you share your bed), you yearn for happiness in your love life. And yet you wonder, is it possible for me? Can I have a lasting relationship without compromising my individuality?  Where can I find someone who will let me be myself and still love me? Who will be my twin heart on the cookie sheet of life?

            Please enjoy the cookie and sip your coffee. Do. There is plenty.

            In my recipe for love, there is no ingredient called Just the Right Somebody. The Who in these heart cookies is you.

            Go ahead.  Use the hassock in front of you. My cat, who is strong as well as hypoallergenic, has brought you her pillow for your back. Don’t worry about her furless little body. On cold nights I make her wear her sweater. It is lamb’s wool and she purrs like a kitten.

            Now that you’re comfortable, please consider this notion: The perfect partner for a long-term relationship may not exist.  You are more perfect than anyone you know.

            Believe me.

            Now, now. Your self-deprecating laughter endangers your lap with hot coffee. You say, “Ah, if this is perfection, then we are all in trouble.”

            Yes, you are so wise. Humble too. Perfection and imperfection are the two hearts of your being and they have baked into one. You are the love of the world and we are in trouble because love is trouble.  Love and trouble are baking now side by side as we speak.

            By Sharon Blakeley _©2010