Desert Hounds



In Donna Deitch’s 1986 film Desert Hearts, Cay finally meets somebody who counts. But Vivian, an English professor from New York who’s only staying at the Reno ranch where Cay lives while she settles her divorce, doesn’t know how to handle the situation she finds herself in with Cay. It’s entirely new to her, and that’s scary. So Vivian retreats. Cay has to push a little bit to overcome Vivian’s defenses.










To be hounded and pestered by the wrong person is awful. It’s miserable. It’s unacceptable. But some of us have learned to be so afraid, to have so little confidence and so much fear and doubt, that we may need the right person to nudge us a bit, to help us overcome our deep insecurities. This requires that the other person operate from a place of empathy, that they not just be concerned about fulfilling their own wants or needs but that they genuinely want to help the other person, too.















Vivian needs Cay to nudge her. She’s 35 and she’s never known a mutual experience of desire like this. Of course she’s afraid. Of course she’s insecure. Of course she’s worried that she “wouldn’t know what to do.”
In her 1986 song “Hounds of Love,” Kate Bush sings:
I’m still afraid to be there
Among your hounds of love
And feel your arms surround me
I’ve always been a coward
And never know what’s good for me
Oh here I go
Don’t let me go
Hold me down
It’s coming for me through the trees
Help me darling
Help me please
Take my shoes off
And throw them in the lake
And I’ll be
Two steps on the water
I don’t know what’s good for me
I don’t know what’s good for me
I need your love love love love love yeah
Your love
“Your love.” Not just anyone’s. Only the right person can do this. The person who can bring our defenses down.


And in the end, because Cay got through to her, Vivian offers Cay what I’ve always wanted.



“For exactly who you are.” That’s the really important part. Cay lives in a world that doesn’t see her, not really, and that hates her when it does. To a certain extent, so do I. This 1986 film about a lesbian relationship in Reno in 1959 captures the dream of a real connection, of being seen, accepted, loved, by someone you really want to see, accept, and love. Someone who counts. And it recognizes that some of us have reasons to run, to doubt, to fear, and that we may need someone–the right person–to fight for us, someday.
Notes
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