2. Things I would like to do with You. WAY LO N H. L EW IS A collection of loneliness & love. 4. To my mother To Chögyam Trungpa And to all those who find joy through service I dedicate this story. 5. Words and illustrations © 2015 Waylon H. Lewis. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher. Unless it’s a short quote (use #waylonlewis, #thingsiwouldliketodowithyou, @waylonlewis or @elephantjournal). Elephant Books is first cousin to Elephant Journal and registered trademark of Waylon H. Lewis Enterprises. Second Edition. Any imperfections will make this book super-valuable. ISBN: 978-0-9864273-0-5 eBook ISBN: 978-0-9864273-1-2 Printed and bound in the United States on chlorine-free 30% recycled 100% sustainably-harvested paper with vegetable-based inks and a plastic- free cloth cover. Distributed without Amazon. Every book karmically-offset by a donation to help a cute orphaned baby elephant via Sheldrick Trust. For questions, bulk orders, or to book a reading with the author: [email protected] Want to share your favorite chapter? Individual chapters appear in original form at: elephantjournal.com To order a book, tee shirt, mug, sticker: elephantjournal.com/books For daily inspiration: facebook.com/thingsiwouldliketodowithyou 6. Author’s Note. We no longer long for “happily ever after.” We no longer believe in “you complete me” or Mad Men gender roles. But we all, still, love to love love. This book is an exploration of a love for a new generation— a love replete with intimacy and trust, a love with room for change and independence, a love without ownership. I began this book rather casually, after a Midsummer Night’s date. The first chapter met with more enthusiasm than anything I had ever written. This new love is something we were all clearly puzzling over. It was then serialized on Elephant Journal, where it garnered millions of readers and an online community of 108,000 prior to publication. Things I would like to do with You is a universal, personal and timeless exploration of love—a love that includes loneliness, humor, and friendship. May it be of benefit! ~ Waylon H. Lewis Boulder, Colorado Autumn 2015 7. 8. Contents. preramble. Things I would like to Write to You . 12 chapter one. Things I would like to do with You in the Woods . .15 chapter two. Things I would like to do with You this Evening . 20 chapter three. Things I would like to Remember about our First Kiss . .28 chapter four. Things I would like to do with You in Time. .44 chapter five. Things I would like to do with You Before I Lose You . 48 chapter six. Things I would like to Hear from You when You are Afraid . 58 chapter seven. Things I would like to Whisper to You . 67 chapter eight. Things I would like to do with You when You Visit my Home . 74 chapter nine. Things I would like to do Rather than Fall for You . 85 chapter ten. The Last Things I would like to Say to You . 98 9. chapter eleven. Things I would like to do this Cold Season without You . 105 chapter twelve. Things I would like to do After our Fall . 114 chapter thirteen. Things I would like to do Before I Return. 119 chapter fourteen. Things I would like to Let Go of Before I See You . 131 chapter fifteen. Things I would like to do with You when I am Drunk . .138 chapter sixteen. Things I would not yet like to Know about the Future . .141 chapter seventeen. Things I would like to do with You Beneath the Ocean. 148 chapter eighteen. Things I would like to do with You on a Snowy Weekend . 154 chapter nineteen. Things I would like to do with You on Valentine’s Day. 157 chapter twenty. Things I would like to do with You Indoors . 162 chapter twenty-one. Things I would like to Read at the End of my List . 168 chapter twenty-two. Things I would like to do with You this Springtime . 174 chapter twenty-three. Things I would like to Sing with You . 182 10. chapter twenty-four. Things I would like to See when You Open to Me . 191 chapter twenty-five. Things I would like to do when I feel Alone . 202 chapter twenty-six. Things I would like to do Before I Leave You . 209 chapter twenty-seven. Things I would like to do when I am Away . .216 chapter twenty-eight. Things I would like to do with You in the End just Before the Beginning . 222 bonus; chapter twenty-nine. Things I would like to Raise a Glass to, with You. 231 bonus; chapter thirty. I would like to Thank You for Teaching my Heart. 235 bonus; chapter thirty-one. I would like for you to be Patient with Me when I am Afraid of Love. 240 bonus; chapter thirty-two. Things I would like to do with you over Five Days in Gray Skyscraper City. 246 bonus; chapter thirty-three. Things I would have liked to do with You. 253 afternote. A List of Things I would like to do with You . 257 11. Preramble. As we look to the sort of future love that we would like to hold—one that includes ample room for our loneliness and our love’s independence and yet is full of our friendship—we look over our past relationships and remember their lessons in love. And a long line of the dear hearts who have loved us, however briefly, files slowly past and waves good-bye to us, one by one. This story is not true, but it is not fiction. This story is my heart’s life. A cabin that is not a cabin begins this story that is not a story— though I do not yet know where I will find the cabin that will finish this story. I have written this story out so that it will forget me; I leave our precious past in the stream beneath the trees. I have taken my pen to white paper and scrawled black ink into the words of our red laughter: I take the winds of Nature’s breath and invite them to carry my voice. And so I have written this story, and set it all out without saying anything extra. 12. preramble. I do not write these words to sound sickly sweet or saccharine: I write truth and whatever comes out comes out and I am this. And so I offer up this thin book for the fire: visible tracings of ephemeral experience. And I must remind you that none of this is serious, it is only daydream, occasionally hot to the touch. If you are not here, you will only hear a bird’s too-loud cheery morning song. But one of you may strike a match to light up these dreams and these words may become real. Here are the scraps of paper: each chapter tells of past relationships until now, so that you will know all of me and so that I may let go of all and so that we may leap into our unknown futures. This story is not linear: it is a hymn. This song is repetitive. It is a mantra that bears repeating, and I echo these seed syllables, humming yet more deeply. As Fitzgerald said, “Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves—that’s the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives—experiences so great and moving that it doesn’t seem at the time anyone else has been so caught up and so pounded and dazzled and astonished and beaten and broken and rescued and illuminated and rewarded and humbled in just that way ever before. 13. preramble. Then we learn our trade, well or less well, and we tell our two or three stories—each time in a new disguise— maybe ten times, maybe a hundred, as long as people will listen.” So I sing these Things: a story of a heart full of sad trouble and revelry, and the opening of it—and it is that simple. As a wise man once said, a warrior’s duty is to attend to the heart and the opening of it—not as a task to be completed, but as a duty to be repeated daily in the orange glow of the new sun. I would like to tell you my story, but it is not my story: it is ours. I would like to bring our book and read it to you. It was mine and it was hers, both, but since it is ended, it no longer belongs to either of us. It will not all be romance, it will be better: it will be ours. None of this happened. But if it did happen, it would be with you and it would go like this. 14. chapter one. Things I would like to do with You in the Woods. “The simplest things are often the truest.” ~ Richard Bach I would like to go a way’s away, to a Cabin, and I would like to look you in the eyes, and you look me in the eyes, as lovers do, a soft invisible smile—quiet, warm, calm. I would like to not come back for ten days (ten days is not long enough, but it is longer than I have taken for myself in eleven years).