It’s all sort of a blur now, looking back, but certain strong impressions stand out. One of them is that the number one song on the radio when we met was “Desperado” by the Eagles, with its refrain of, “You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late”. I was living alone in my little studio apartment in 1977, across the street from the Zen Center, a 33-year-old bachelor. I had just gotten my BA in Buddhism and Psychotherapy at Antioch Los Angeles, and I was back with the Stagehands Local 33, working a 72-hour week at the NBC Carpenter Shop, building scenery.
It wasn’t for lack of trying that I was alone. For whatever reason, I had had very few, brief, and confused relationships through high school, college, and my hippie days. I really wanted to do something about this when I first came to the Center in 1972. I talked a lot with my group of friends about wanting to be in a relationship, and was sort of pushing myself on one of the single women in the group. One day she said, “Hey, I think you should get yourself into therapy to work out your deal with women. I’m not willing to help you work through whatever it is you have to go through.”
It turned out that several in this group of friends were just starting careers as counselors and psychotherapists, and in fact several were clients of one particular therapist. So I took this friendly advice, and went to see the woman my friends were going to. First I saw her individually for six months, and by the time I met Mary I had been going to a weekly group for a couple of years. They were helping me drop off and grow through the fear, hostility, and other rough edges that pushed away potential female friends.
Somewhere in the midst of all this work, one afternoon I’m sitting in my little studio apartment, which is the front apartment in the building, on the ground floor. I hear somebody scratching at the screen, and it’s Susan, who lives across the street with my old friend Gary. She calls my name and I lean out the window to see what’s going on. She has a friend with her. On first seeing her friend’s soft, classical face framed with long, straight, dark hair I let out a sudden internal gasp. There’s a deep warm shock and a shift into some kind of timeless realm. Something inside me is saying, “Oh my God, this can’t be happening. Somebody is bringing me the woman I have been waiting for”. In this moment, the colors, feelings, and gestures all seem much deeper than in the other moments around it. Something exquisitely, timelessly perfect is happening.
“Kenzan, this is my friend Mary. Mary, this is Kenzan. He’s the good friend of Gary and I that I told you about. Kenzan, Mary is looking for a place to live in the neighborhood and we’re checking around to see if anybody knows about anything”.
“Is this really happening?” I ask myself. And then I hear myself saying, “Wow, yeah. I was just talking with Kathy, over at the Center. She and Dennis have been talking about renting the big four bedroom house next door to my apartment building, and it’s supposed to be coming available in a week or so. I think they said they’re still looking for housemates to help share the rent”. “This timing is incredible,” I find myself thinking.
Susan thanks me. “Great, thanks. We’ll go talk with Kathy about it. By the way, Gary and I are going to be having Mary over for dinner tonight. Would you like to join us?”
“Yeah, thank you very much. That would be great”. I register an inkling that some of the uncanny magical quality has been given subtle behind the scenes help by our mutual friends Gary and Susan. Silently, I forgive them, and thank them.
I don’t remember much about that dinner except I can sort of see my life opening out in front of me. And then, a couple of days later, I hear some people talking on the tiny front lawn in front of my apartment building. Once again I stick my head out the window, and this time it’s Mary, Kathy, and Dennis, talking about having a hard time finding a fourth renter for their new communal house. I come out to see them, and hear myself blurt out that I’ll move in with them. Within a week we have all moved in. From that moment I was never again alone, never again without love.
Living in the same house, Mary and I were able to spend a lot of time together. We discovered that we grew up less than a mile from each other in West Hollywood, on Fuller Avenue. I lived across the street from the front of Poinsettia Playground, she lived behind it. Before two weeks have passed, we are visiting each other’s rooms in the evening. Inexorably, one night, one of us stays, and we make love for the first time. I had a previously planned date the next night, and when I come home, she’s being visited by one of the other single men in the community. We hadn’t made any commitment to each other yet, but in my mind it’s made in that moment. I will not live my life without her. I start getting a little territorial with him, he wraps up and leaves, and Mary and I spend the night together again. Our relationship begins. Another bridge has been crossed.
Twenty years later we find ourselves in awe of how the relationship continuously deepens and opens out. It seems to be cumulative. As I reflect, it seems quite an extended moment of first love.
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