“Can you share a positive example of where you’ve felt loved?”

Positive Love

Positive love is something I have been thinking about. Our encounter was all business, I was looking for a model, she had posted some pretty pictures of herself on a photographer’s site I was familiar with. We first met in a museum, and I took about a hundred shots of her, surrounded by, or looking at works of art.

She was quiet, a little aloof, her conversation was about the career she was looking for, applying for fashion agencies, and hoping for a breakthrough. She was indeed attractive, her face somewhat slavic and asian in an unusual mix. Her mother, she said, was Korean and her father from Kazakhstan. We spoke, and agreed to meet a few days later in Greenwich.

A walk in the park

In the meantime I did some research and edited some of the shots. Some were very good, I still have a selection of them, which I look at from time to time, to remind me. At the time I was professionally interested in photography, although soon enough I redirected my energies to writing. When we met in the park, she had changed her physiognomy completely, to an amazing point. I thought then that she was really an actor, rather than a model.

We took some more pics in the rose garden, and around the observatory. She said that she did not like London, that it was evil. I did not understand what she meant. This was the last time we met. We continued to correspond on social media. However I had other plans. I stopped communicating, and she wondered why. I was then planning to leave London for another capital. We lost tracks, although I had some unfrequent views of her activities from others. 

Discovery

My writing took most of my time together with my, I should stay my partner’s and my discovery and exploration of Berlin. I/we spend time in museums, and in our flat in Wedding which was an ideal stage for writing, and loving. I thought about the model in moments of doubts, before and just after the plague forced our return home. She’d disappeared from my world. I did not ask myself too many questions.

We had plenty to do, redecoration in our home in East London, rediscovering Britain after four long and eventful years. By then I had three books in my stack. I renewed acquaintance with some social media I had ignored in the meantime. I found by chance some pics of her, and realised she had rather difficult life, having settled somewhere in London, and then broken up with whomever she was with. I did not look further then. From time to time she came back in my dreams, but this was already years later. 

Incomplete memories

I discovered a blog of hers, but this had already been abandoned a couple of years back (in fact it was not). I had the strange feeling that I had missed something, that my memories were incomplete. Had we loved each other? Had I left her at the time, breaking all contact, moving away, forgetting? Had she tried to contact me without me realising it, or ignoring her? Those doubts are still present in my mind. I do not know where she can be, even if she is still alive. The prompt made me wonder about the encounter. Did it ever happen?

Realisation

Does love exist if we deny its existence, suppressing our feelings? Can we truly experience love without acknowledging it? I’m pondering these questions as I explore her blog, titled All things intimacy. Interestingly, I just checked her blog and noticed that the most recent entry was in December 2024, with the previous one dating back to 2022. Looking at her pictures, I can’t help but notice how much she has changed, or perhaps it’s just her appearance. I’m not entirely sure why I’m sharing this, but it’s making me reconsider some of my long-held beliefs. By the way I know I replied to that prompt some time back!

Picture: Camille Claudel, The Age of Maturity, ca. 1902, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. Photo by Thierry Ollivier.