About Women

Last night, I saw probably the most romantic film I’ve ever seen—Francois Truffaut’s The Man who Loved Women. Its hero is an inveterate skirt-chaser; he says that “A woman’s legs are like compasses. They circle the globe, giving it its balance and harmony.” I love his attitude. He loves and respects women as they are. Not as ideals, or objects, but as breathing, living souls. I could feel the main character’s romanticism as if it were my own, because I know exactly how he feels. If ever a film and a man made me want to be in love with a woman, I finished watching it at 11:30PM last night. And it set me thinking about women. What I love about them; what I hope for in a woman. Probably the same things Truffaut’s hero did, with a few differences.

I remember a passage from Marianne Williamson’s book Enchanted Love. She describes one woman interviewing another on a French radio program. The interviewer asked her subject about her marriage, and why it had lasted for so long. To which the lady replied, “I haven’t lost my mystery.” What a beautiful thing to say. I think that a woman’s mystery cannot be found between her legs, any more than a man’s mystery can be found in the same place. No, a woman’s mystery can be found in her heart above all. What it must be like to hear a woman talk, to find out what she needs and wants and desires, to dig into the bottomless well of her being. The wonderful, Oh, God, so very wonderful thing is that if you are really, truly in love, you never stop digging, nor do you want to.

It’s astonishing that I can speak with such wonder and joy about women, and yet I’ve never been kissed by a woman before.

Will you indulge me, then, if I share with you a fantasy? Don’t worry. Penthouse or Playboy won’t bother with this one.

It’s a rainy, windswept summer Sunday night on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, about ten years from now. I’m in a lushly appointed apartment, wearing my best black shirt and trousers. My wife, a gorgeous brunette with shoulder length hair and a slinky cocktail dress, sits across from me at the dinner table, smiling a ravishing, timeless, angelic smile. We eat Filet Mignon, Uncle Ben’s Long Grain and Wild Rice, and French cut green beans by candlelight while the thunder cracks and booms all around us. Spanish guitar music is being broadcast by WQXR and tinkles through our speakers. We could not ask for a more romantic atmosphere. My wife and I can read each other’s mind like our favorite passage from Tolstoy. So afterwards, my wife and I repair to our bedroom, light some candles and incense, lie on top of purple satin sheets and make languid, aimless, goalless, perfect love all night. It is love that Erica Jong would have loved to comment on. I sneak a glance at my wife’s freckled, olive-skinned shoulder blade, illuminated by the moonlight, and allow the tears.

I guess this is my way of saying that if you are loved by such a gorgeous woman, nothing on this Earth matters. There is just the two of you. The rest is noise, white and muffled noise. The condition is that you love her for who she is. No more, no less. Those who love in that way have a leg up on the rest.

God, I would just love to place my head near a woman’s heart and hear it beat. Or place my hands on her pregnant belly in the hope that the Heaven-sent package kicks from within. I can feel the tears well up right now; at this moment, I am full of love for all women. All womankind. All of it. What miracles women are…