Durham

In 1992 I would spend much of my time keeping a diary of my experiences and thoughts at Durham University, where I studied Theology. Here's an extract, fairly eccentric I would wager, about Jessica, a woman I was very much in love with; if love, at least, is something one can have at a distance, outside of the framework of a 'relationship'. She accused me once of 'worshipping' her. That upset me since worship, as I understand it, implies obsequious fawning, and I always felt I was her equal. Certainly, though, she was my epitome of the perfect woman and I still look back on her very fondly, even though we are not in touch. I've changed the names and remain somewhat anxious about the morality of posting this, since it concerns very real people and events. Still, I am not critical of anyone in it, and am presuming my readers will not know these people. I hope the real Jessica wouldn't mind my posting this. She knew I kept a diary and said once that she wanted to read it. I wonder if the real Jessica ever will, or this extract at least. I trust she is well and happy.

Wednesday 29th April 1992

After lunch visit Dunelm. See Jessica sitting down from the cafeteria queue so I buy her a coffee. My love and reverence for this rare, noble, beautiful, regenerate woman is increasing every day. My attitude towards her is cleaner, robuster, less debilitated and pathological. I expect less that she be something towards me, something maternal, sagacious, medicinal, self-sacrificial. I have stopped waiting for her to invite me into her intimate life, to admit me into her closest affections. More upright, more self-possessed, self-directed- it is possible for me to interact with her in a far more healthy and constructive basis than ever. I want things between us to be as they were in the Autumn of 1990. I think I will marry someone like Jessica (I've made similar remarks about Emma, haven't I?) She does not need philosophy or intellectualism -she is an incarnation of the rich, strong, fecundity and balance of healthy life, of mother nature, of the archetypal Gaia. In her person and action she allows one the beautiful and emboldening illusion that life, in its totality, lacks all the forms and traces of sickness, darkness, obscurity, which at other times seem oppressively blatant, that life itself, our life, this life, is already heavenly, i.e, ascended above the cruel cycle and decadent prisons of humanity's dark night, that the sun in all its primordial resurrecting potency, is no longer a potential dream, but a full shining unmistakable fact, towering its way up into the infinite vault of day. Jessica resembles the sun, light, bright, warming and loving....when have I heard her bitch about or scathe other people, or complain pointlessly about her own weaknesses and suffering?

To conclude- Jessica, a paragon of day worth knowing, a dear precious friend, rich in affirmation and ascending future, a promise of good health, an incarnation of peace, a "Sacred Yes".

We go to lunch at Vennel's. She eats a mushroom and onion pate salad and I drink a hot chocolate. Then we go shopping, I buy some tea bags, biscuits and sugar. We go back and watch the 80's music video and drink tea. Jessica is interested in a guy named Jimmy. She keeps praising him. She has grown bored of Richard, poor boy- though I knew that. Whenever I hear that she's bored of Richard my heart grows excited but she always mentions somebody else, Luke last term or Jimmy this. I am jealous of Jimmy. A side of me would love Jessica to want to fuck me, to have a relationship with me, to revere me as she seems to revere him. At certain moments I am very sexually attracted to Jessica. All I want to do is climb into bed with her. But I can handle reality, my illusions are comforting and beautiful, but not necessary, I can rise above them and endure their unreality.

Leave at about 4.40 and carry on reading Nietzsche. Finish at 9.40, then listen to the Lords and New creatures until James comes in for Coffee. Jessica calls me out of my study at around 11.00. She came as I expected her to, as we planned that she would. Tea and a joint downstairs. Listen to Luke's rave music.

Thursday 30th April 1992

After dinner I visit Jessica and Liz. They're both tired, having both been pissed last night. I make Jessica a tea and one for myself, using my own "FINE FLAVOUR " tea bags. Top of the pops in on the T.V. Liz opens a bottle of wine. Jessica looks beautiful, gorgeous, nothing else, as she lies languidly and to be honest seductively on the bed. They ask me how my day went...sweet, though I find in hard to scan back at once. I unthinkingly say the wine is "cheap", a shocking comment or so it turned out. Jessica then turned on me and gently scolded me for such an attitude, in view of the fact that I always drink their tea. Not on this occasion, obviously..but that doesn't matter. I feel a bit upset, though into her words I'm sure she put very little, if any weight. I leave, feel mildly angry and read "Existentialism" down at the Traveller's Rest and The Big Jug, surrounded in each case by Geordies.