SINCERELY, L. COHEN

I always say “I’ve never been in love.” For me it’s a point of pride - a blanket statement that covers my actions and says: “However I am, whatever you think, don't worry, because it’s not real.” It gives me licence to be impulsive yet exit the scene with a high head, not a heavy heart.

I always say “I’ve never been in love” but I am not sure that’s strictly true. I have experienced a love of sorts, with a man I never met. A deep, obsessive and unrequited kind of love. A five am, chain-smoking cigarettes, stare out the window, why am I such a weirdo, kind of love. This wasn’t a tinder romance, nor a financial-fleecing from an online scammer, but a love of a musician so strong that for a whole year it consumed me.

I exclusively listened to Leonard Cohen. He whispered in my ears wherever I went. On the bus and in the library or bath. From when I fixed my face until I scrubbed it off. And if it came to be my turn on the iPod at a party, a collective groan ensued, and it was quickly wrestled away. I liked to sing along drunk as much as I’d hum along sober. It wasn't the melodies, it was his lyrics. A poet so spell-binding I needed no other. A man so awe-inducing I wanted no other. He was The One. An ex-boyfriend even bought me his biography one Christmas and I’m not sure he ever knew he could not compare.

I was 20 when the love affair began, not 14 as you might assume. Late one night I was introduced to Leonard by a Parisian boy - the most cinematic romantic I had ever met. Whenever he spoke of his girlfriend it warranted orchestral accompaniment. He played me Chelsea Hotel No. 2 as we sat stoned on a sofa. “Wait for it” he said, then gestured as Leonard croaked the most beautiful words I had ever heard:

 And clenching your fist for the ones like us
Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty
You fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
We are ugly but we have the music”

The left side of my head started to go numb, then pleasure flooded my skull. The only way to describe such a sensation is a 'cranium climax'. A language scholar, who after two weeks in Kenya understood Swahili, had once told me he felt the same when hearing a foreign language. I experience it with song lyrics that carry so much weight they crush my very being. In crude terms, that first night Leonard made me orgasm, in romantic terms, I had fallen for him.

I often dreamt that we’d meet. He’d be leaning on a lamppost, on a grey November street, with his hat tipped very low. When I approached he’d invite me to lunch and we’d talk and talk and talk, over soup. He always ordered soup in my dreams, with a side of bread, and butter sparingly spread.

See, as famous as he is and as genius as he was, Leonard Cohen was unwaveringly humble. It is impossible to fake that level of authenticity. Many have tried, but you can always detect their trying if you concentrate. Like most people, I consider myself a fraud. But if you listen to his songs he admits his humanity in such a way that you just trust his every word. He’s the first man that ever made me want to be better than I am, and that is how I often hear love described.

But perhaps my love for him surpassed the romantic and entered the realms of worship. As an Atheist I have always remembered the words my Religious Studies teacher barked at me, aged 10: “If you don't believe in God, then you worship yourself.” Leonard was a deeply religious man, a practising Jew, who spent time in a Buddhist monastery. Learned as he was, I focussed my world view on his outlook, which I am sure is something he would have loathed - to be considered an Icon would have made him uncomfortable.

In 2012, I was lucky enough to get to watch him in concert. Hallelujah, there he was, right before my eyes. A dignified figure, frail with age in a fedora hat, commanding the vast arena. We all sat spellbound. Without boasting his talent, he shared his gift. As the night drew to a close my father said “Liddy you must go up now, now is your chance.” So my shaking legs tripped down the aisle towards the front of the stage.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

 And I cracked. I stood there, trembling and crying, in a sea of couples. Crying, as three feet away he stood there singing. I cried until the end of the concert, and I cried as we headed towards the exit. “Please stop Liddy, it’ll look like I hit you!” But I couldn’t, I was the most overwhelmed I had ever been in my life.

When I found out he died, I was early to my temp job and smoking by a wall. My brother texted me from South America: “Leonard Cohen just died.” As the tears began to roll, his voice flashed into my mind, just as clear as I’d heard it on that sofa many years ago.

 So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made
In love we disappear.

 And with that my tears stopped, for I suddenly knew his words never would.