Dance Me to the End of Love: "The Man," His Words, and the Ache of Awakening
June 11, 2025
When I was around fourteen, I used to visit my friend Joan at her apartment on Jarvis Street in Toronto. Joan had originally been a friend of my mother’s, but when she came to dinner and met my sisters and me, we all fell in love with her. She was warm, funny, and incredibly intelligent. Whenever she came to dinner at our house, we felt honoured—because Joan suffered from agoraphobia, and we knew how very much it took for her to make the trip.
Soon, Joan gave me my first job: cleaning her one-bedroom downtown apartment. Not only did I now have a little work one day a week, I had the privilege of knowing Joan more deeply. She held a managerial position at the Canadian Depository, and after school I would clean for a few hours before she came home from work. Each week, I couldn’t wait for her arrival. We would sit and talk—really talk—and those conversations became a kind of sanctuary, a place where I could be fully myself.
Everything Joan liked, I liked. And she was the first adult who truly saw me.
Joan knew fashion, colour, art—she had a sense of beauty and subtlety that felt rare. She understood things, in a way that made me feel understood too. She introduced me to the iconic wrap dress design—Diane von Furstenberg's influential design of the mid-70s. Sexy. Alluring. To this day the wrap top and dress are my favorite design cuts.
One day, around 1979, she showed me a newspaper article. There was a black-and-white photo of a sensuous-looking man in his mid-forties. “Who is this?” I asked. Joan lit up. “The man,” she said.
It was Leonard Cohen.
From that moment, I was hooked. His work, his poetry, his voice—I wanted to know everything. Anytime Joan wrote me a letter or a note, she always referred to him as “the man.” It became our shorthand, a shared reverence. And so began my decades-long fascination with Leonard Cohen and his work.
Joan later gifted me a slim volume of his poetry: The Spice-Box of Earth—a book I still treasure. It’s no surprise to me now that she appeared in our lives bearing the very things that would speak so directly to my soul. Even then, as a teenager, I seemed to recognize the law of attraction in motion. Somehow, Leonard Cohen arrived right on time.
When I was about eighteen, I stumbled across a used copy of Beautiful Losers in a thrift store. That book sent me on a mind-bending journey. I read it in a frenzy—page after page of surreal sexuality and disorienting imagery. I didn’t fully understand it, but I felt it. I remember being rattled, as if I’d immersed myself in someone else’s fever dream. It wasn’t exactly the right book for a girl of eighteen. After several days of recalibrating, I was finally able to scrape its effects from my mind and settle back into my own skin.
Still, I was grateful. I had seen what writing could do—how it could tilt the room, disturb your footing, even unsettle your sense of self. There is one line that stayed with me. It played at my curious nature and my desire for language that speaks plainly, yet precisely:
"People sneeze, F., that’s all, don’t make such a damn miracle out of it, it only depresses me, it’s a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too."
Okay, maybe it isn’t poetry, but it speaks to something unguarded in us—the raw truth we think but rarely say aloud. All these years, and the one thing I could remember of the book was, "eating apples as if they were juicier for you." Brilliant! Who doesn't know someone so self-important that they appear to take the shine away from everyone else?
Through his poetry, and especially his music—I found a strange kind of home. Leonard Cohen had a way of marrying his deep, knowing voice with traditional European instrumentation and the celestial voices of women. The result was something ancient and timeless, a sound like no other. It reached beyond the intellect . . . into the body, the soul—the deepest longing places.
He didn’t just write about love and death and God. He courted them. He let them move through him, and he made us feel as if he were singing what we had not yet found words to say.
One of the most haunting, tender lines comes from Dance Me to the End of Love:
"Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove."
I believe this line speaks of time itself—of memory, history, and intimacy across ages. A glove is not only a nod to a more formal era; it is a metaphor for enduring love, for ageless affection that survives the fray. In the official video, you see older couples dancing as photos of them in youth flash on the screen. It’s love as lineage. Love as the only thing that truly survives.
Leonard Cohen stirred something sacred in many of us. Desire, melancholy, meaning, mystery. He sang like someone who’d lived a thousand years and remembered every shadow.
I watched him perform on a few occasions. If there ever was a man who knew how to court an audience, it was Leonard Cohen.
I never did meet him. But once, I saw Adrienne Clarkson in a movie theatre. I had watched her interview Leonard Cohen and admired it deeply. For a fleeting moment, I considered spilling my pop on her shoes so I could lean in and say, “Wait—you interviewed Leonard Cohen, did you not?”
It was a terrible idea. But that’s the kind of madness he provoked in us. Not celebrity worship, exactly—but something deeper. Oh, to have a conversation about life with Mr. Cohen. What a splendid thing that would be. To stand, even briefly, near the mind of the man himself, for he painted full and vivid pictures with words and poetic music.
Dance Me to the End of Love: On Gloves, Love, and the Things We Keep Covered
There is something about a glove. About the gesture of slipping one on, of covering the hand not out of shame, but out of elegance—of intention. A glove carries with it the echo of formality, of ritual, of a time when appearances were not falsehoods but offerings. When what was concealed was sometimes more powerful than what was revealed.
Perhaps that’s why I thought of gloves again when listening to Dance Me to the End of Love. My interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s words is that he was referring to the endurance of love, the ever-spanning reach of it—stretching back through generations. In the video for that magnificent masterpiece, couples are shown in every stage of love: some newly joined, others bearing the weight of long devotion, some mourning a beloved gone but never lost. Love, he tells us, is not fragile—it is vast. It remembers.
That imagery—of long love, of tenderness across time—brings me back to the quiet symbols of grace and formality. To a time when a woman might cover her hands not because she had something to hide, but because she understood the sanctity of touch. A gloved hand was a promise: of presence, of respect, of something lasting. It meant you didn’t rush. It meant you noticed. It meant something.
And though the world has changed—apps, texts, swipes in a second—what stirs in the human heart remains. The magnetic pull toward another remains unchanged. We still long to be seen, chosen, cherished. The forms may alter, but the ache does not.
Of course, this is only my interpretation—but then, Leonard Cohen released his words into the world with the understanding that each of us would receive them differently. That is the beauty of lyrics, of poetry, of gesture. They meet us where we are, and give us space to feel what we must.
Gloves, like great songs, hold something. They hold history. They hold restraint. They hold memory. And perhaps, too, they hold the quiet places where longing meets grace—and where love, always, finds a way in.
"Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn."
The quiet offering of enduring love—of being enveloped even when you’ve grown weary, walked the hard path, seen too much. Even when the relationship bears its wounds, it still provides. It still comforts.
That line cracks something open. It speaks to the weariness of loving honestly—how to still offer sanctuary, not because it’s flawless, but because it matters.
And yes, the tent still provides when it's still being raised—even when patched with old grief or stitched with fraying hope. It shelters because the love inside it is real, not perfect.
Honouring Joan
Joan was magnificent. She saw me—knew what spoke to me on the deepest level. And she was interested in the real me. Joan passed away in 2006, after a stroke. I think of her almost every day.
When Joan selected a gift, it was aligned to one's truest longing, for she listened with all her heart. Even down to my favorite muffin and chocolate milkshake with sweetened and condensed milk. She always had those waiting for me at her apartment.
It breaks my heart, because she was so truly giving, yet she undervalued herself. She didn’t know she was the treasure. The rare one.
How we talked. And what stories she shared—growing up in Halifax, a life lived fully and fiercely. If I only had the wherewithal to record her words, for they were truly unbelievable. I would have saved them and written about her experiences.
Joan had lived many difficult and risky years. She was an alcoholic, surrounded by alcoholics and drug users. By the time my family met her, she had already been sober for years. I didn’t know then that I would one day write. How I wish I had captured her stories—her imprint.
But I know she was here.
Joan knew my love for the 19th century; something that came to me early at the age of eight. Over the years, she gifted me a few precious items: an old Singer sewing machine that belonged to her mother, a print from the Victoria & Albert collection, point shoes, and an untouched pair of gloves, still tethered by an uncut string, in the original Eaton’s box, imported from Charlon & Cie of Grenoble, France.
The photograph was a portrait by Lady Clementina Hawarden, one of the first female photographers of her time. She had a way of creating mood—styling atmosphere—much like the days of Vogue in the early ’80s. Her work was a precursor to fashion photography, full of introspective suggestion.
The photograph was taken around 1863. It draws you in, as if you’ve interrupted a private conversation between two women on a terrace—half caught in time.
Lady Clementina Hawarden, "Florence Elizabeth Maude," c. 1863–64.
Albumen print. Victoria and Albert Museum.
A Window Into Another Time . . .
This stunning Photograph: a portrait by Lady Clementina Hawarden, titled “Florence Elizabeth Maude”, taken circa 1863–64. It depicts two of Hawarden’s daughters on the terrace of their family home at 5 Princes Gardens, London. The original print is held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
I remember Joan hesitating, unsure whether I’d like the photograph. She offered me an easy out, as if its frame or subject might be awkward to receive. Again, not knowing her beautiful value and the gifts she brought—not in the material sense, but in who she was.
Not only did I love it wholly, I have grown to cherish it as one of my most meaningful pieces—an item gifted in thoughtfulness, love, and fine attunement.
One day, I pondered the photograph, its meaning, its characters. Joan was gone and I had no way of knowing what this beautiful relic was all about. So, I decided to search the internet. But how? I had no title, no author name. I searched by intuition. And there I found it, one of the first women in photography—her story, her art.
And one of the sweetest things Joan ever did for me? She wrestled a salesclerk at Capezio Shoes for a pair of toe shoes. Joan knew my deep longing to dance. She knew what an opportunity missed that had been for me. When I begged my parents for lessons, I learned we just didn't have the money.
The woman at the store warned Joan of the dangers. "She can't wear toe shoes if she's not formally trained." But Joan had her way. She bought me those shoes and gave them to me for my birthday.
She gave me one of my greatest unspoken wishes—and the belief that I was allowed to have it.
No, No, I Get Very Violent When I Drink
It’s easy to overlook Leonard Cohen’s humor when you’re swimming in his longing. The ache, the awe, the river of sensuality—yes, it sweeps you under. But Leonard’s wit? That lives in the undertow. It’s there in his interviews, where a single line—murmured in that gravel-and-velvet baritone—would tilt the room. It’s there in his lyrics—in the phrasing that knows it’s funny, but won’t beg you to laugh.
Many don’t know he even dabbled in stand-up comedy. Of course he did. Of course the man who wrote about despair as though it wore silk gloves would also point out the tragedy of “unwanted hair”—the newspaper ads for hair removal. "I mean, you're very concerned for unwanted babies, but nobody cares for unwanted hair."
He went on to suggest there should be a place for unwanted hair in society—at the very least a museum, an asylum, somewhere middle-aged ladies’ moustaches could quietly retire. "A man should be able to go into one of these hair asylums, and you know, review his whole life."
That dry humour—that slow, sly blink at life’s absurdities—is one reason he’s always felt like kin. I come from such wit. It runs in my blood like a hidden undertow of its own.
One Christmas morning, we were invited to Margaret’s home, my sister-in-law at the time. That year, my father joined us for breakfast. Champagne and orange juice were being passed around. Margaret, gracious and bright, turned to my father, who was nearing eighty at the time, and asked sweetly, “Carlos, would you like another glass of orange juice with champagne?”
He paused, looked her square in the eye.
“No, no,” he said gently. “I get very violent when I drink.”
The room broke like a wave. It was perfect—the tone, the timing, the deliberate restraint. That was his way. No flourish, no wink. Just the dry thunder of a perfectly delivered line.
I got it from him. That impulse to fold truth and absurdity into one another, to say something that startles and delights without raising your voice. Humor that walks quietly but lands like a drumbeat.
Leonard had that too. That’s why I recognized him the moment Joan showed me his photograph in the newspaper. That’s why I never stopped listening. The man didn’t just write to the soul’s ache—he wrote to its sly grin . . . to the part of you that could laugh even while crying, that could see the crack in everything and, instead of despairing, let the light in.
So yes, Dance me to the end of love, but also let me laugh along the way. Let me raise a glass—not too many, or I might get very violent—and toast the men who taught me the beauty of restraint, the precision of a line, and the gentle art of saying everything without saying it all.
To Mr. Leonard Cohen, to my father, and to Joan, my dear friend.