PAYING THE PRICE

27 Oct 2013        So close Liliana, oh God was it all so close. And now it couldn't be any further away for me, and after everything I don't even rate enough to get a response, just 90 words- 90 words that cut deeper than a surgeons scalpel ever could, and made even more killing since I evidently am not worth more than that. If another has taken my place than I suppose I can deal with that- but to end it all with those 90 words and no more is the cruelest cut, as if the cost of my soul is worth nothing more. I guess I will never know what it is I have done to be treated like this, but I guess it really doesn't matter much anymore. I so very much hope that everything works out for you, but I suppose I will never know for sure. At least now I know with a crystal clarity which road I will now take, and I know I will be taking it alone. Since I can no longer even be seen in your rearview mirror and it is obvious that the more distant you get from me the happier you will be, I will just turn around and head a different direction. Goodbye to you darling, down the road I go.

The strange thing about myths and legends is not so much what the stories say in and of themselves, but how similar they are across time and cultures. All seem to speak to basic human desires and needs, even the ones with some basis in fact are skewed toward the fundamentals of addressing some basic longings.

Avalon, according to the Arthurian legends, was the island where Excalibur was created, and it was the island that Arthur was taken to by three mysterious women after being fatally wounded in his final battle. Depending upon which legend you read, he either died and was buried there, or he is there still, being tended to by the Lady of the Lake, waiting for the proper time to return and restore Camelot. It is supposed to be a magical place of healing and beauty, where everything and anything is possible, and peace and contentment are shared by all. (Which might explain why Arthur still hasn't returned- fuck Camelot, who wants to hang around a round table with guys in armor when he can be skinny-dipping with the Lady in the Lake)

Aside from the obvious christian imagery the legends of Arthur also seem to be providing a message of hope and enlightenment: Avalon is out there, it might be hard to find, and you might have to go through hell getting there, but for those willing to make the journey there does exist a place where all things may be possible.

Now, I don't believe for a second in a literal Avalon- life is too random and imperfect, and the universe is a hard and unforgiving place. But I do now believe that maybe Avalon can be created or discovered, piece by piece, by two people willing to search for it together. As in all the legends and myths, the journey is and probably should be difficult, fraught with heartache, pain, and suffering. If not for these trials how would we be able to recognize or appreciate Avalon once we find it?

I don't really know where my Avalon might be, but I do know who I want my Lady of the Lake to be, and she exemplifies all of the mystery, beauty, love, compassion and hope of any of the greatest mystery women of myth or legend- except that she is flesh and blood and she moves through this world with a grace that defies explanation.

No, I can't really tell you where Avalon might actually be on a map. It could be a house in northern Illinois, it could be a place down in Central America, it could be in Southern California, it could pretty much be located any fucking place as far as I am concerned (although I might have a problem with New Jersey).

What matters is that I have found someone that I would be willing to share Avalon with. Up until now I never would have imagined a woman could move me in such a profound way that I could even think such a thing was possible, but it has happened, and I will be forever grateful. I know that the Road to Avalon will be more difficult for her than me, and I worry that the journey to my particular Avalon may ultimately be more trouble than it is worth for her, especially given the always present concern I have regarding my time on this plane. But I do know that she will find Avalon, and that I will be there in whatever capacity she will have me, and I am truly humbled and honored by the love she has shown me.

So while I don't quite know how to get there, or where it is exactly, I do know that I will be doing everything I can to find Avalon, or die trying.

I pray I will find her there as well.

BY ANY OTHER NAME

You are the dream that persists, the whisper on the wind.

You are the treasure that rests at the base of the rainbow, and the promise fulfilled.

You are the sunshine that caresses and warms me in the morning, and the moonlight that guides me through the darkness.

The stardust in your eyes invites me to explore the universe unknown, and fills me with wonder.

The glow of your naked skin blinds me with its radiance, and I am helpless before you.

Your touch soothes me to my core, and heals every wound.

You are the rose with many names, and you blossom before me with a beauty that words could never describe.

And as I lay here, shamed by the inadequacy of my words, I can only thank God that you have graced me with your love.

You are my true love, and our day is coming.

DEAFENED BY THE SOUND OF ONE HAND CLAPPING

It has been way too long since I have updated this blog, and given what is going on with me health-wise I am making a promise that I will be updating this more frequently. This first post in a while is probably not the ideal way to resume, but it is important and I need to get it out of my system so I/we can move on, and because there will be a time when I am not around, and whether you know it or believe it now or not, there will be things in this post that you need to hear- and if they don't register with you now, I am hopeful that they will someday.

There will be no attempt at being poetic here babe- this is just pure heart to heart and I will seperate this into what I want to tell you as purely a friend, and then address things as they pertain to me as your lover and how they effect our relationship.

I am not angry about anything that follows sweetie, I have been spending almost all of my free time thinking these things through, and anger fell away from the equation a while ago. And I am not writing this to reopen a sore subject just for the sake of doing it. I am doing this solely because I love and care for you and I am hopeful that my words and thoughts here will have more weight down the road then they have recently, because for all my faults and emotions regarding some of these things, I can tell you that from a purely logical standpoint what I have to say to you is worth listening to (and I am not being conceited here babe- I KNOW that the things I have to say here will benefit you someday).

So here goes.

First, purely from a concerned friend standpoint: I am worried for you in a way I haven't been in a while. The way you handled this latest situation has made me reevalute some of your other decisions and the way you have handled some other things, and I am troubled by the fact that you seem to be repeating some of the same patterns that led to your wanting to be divorced in the first place. When you should be defining a new life with your children, with new priorities and a new way of looking at life, you are making decisions that are just continuing or recreating the same circumstances that have defined yours and their lives. You have to stop letting others define your life and you need to start making decisions based upon what is right, not what leads to the least amount of conflict or what is easiest. Part of being a responsible parent means having the strength to say no, and to be willing to make decisions that will anger them. I am not going to list here all the things you said prior to reversing yourself, but they were all reasoned, logical, and RIGHT. You seem to think that you are doing right by them by reversing yourself, but you didn't Liliana, all you did was essentially draw a line in the sand on principle, and then you erased the line at the first sign of conflict. This marginalizes you and makes it appear that your Ex's priorities are yours, and you are better and smarter than that.

I am being intentionally harsh and blunt here babe, because in this case I think you need a shock to the system. Plain and simple: I know how much you love and care for your children, but you are doing them and yourself more harm than good by the way you have been handling some things. You are being irresponsible by letting your Ex and your children set and define the rules. There is absolutely no structure or rules that define their lives, and at a time when you should be seperating yourself as much as possible from your Ex, you have just been reinforcing the impression that he controls you.

I am not going to go on and on here, but you need to stop letting others manage you, and you need to start managing them. Otherwise everything you have gone through up to this point is meaningless, and all you will end up with are 4 junior Jerry's who think that they can muddle their way through life by behaving badly and expecting others to cater to their every whim. And you will end up looking back and regretting that when you had the chance to make a real difference, you took the easy way instead of the right way. Start saying no, start truly punishing bad behavior, make the right decisions instead of the popular ones, and for Gods sake stop letting the idiot boy define or influence anything you do- you allow him entirely too much influence on yours and their lives. When you have your kids make sure that you truly have them- this is not the time to be allowing him more time and influence over them. Remember that sometimes it is not just the deals we make, but who we make them with that defines us. Start thinking through all of your decisions more carefully for all the potential ramifications. If part of the reason you got divorced was for the sake of your children, than the way you live your life and the way they live their lives should be starting to change from the way things used to be, not essentially remain the same except for the living arrangements.

That ends the lecture, and I am sure you disagree with most of it and think I am wrong and that you are angry with most of the above, and I am sorry about that. But at some point you will start to realize that I am right about these things, and I don't want that realization to come when it is too late. And I am only being this harsh and blunt because I love and care for you in the strongest way, and i can't think of any other way to get through to you.

Now for the part regarding us. I would give anything right now, especially given what is going on with me, to speed up the process of us being together. But because of the way you have been handling things I am left with no other option than to have to take a wait and see approach. It doesn't make sense for me to insert myself into a household and the lives of people where the primary focus is on letting everyone do whatever they feel like. I am going to need to be sure that you have the strength and the judgement to manage your children and your ex and that they arent managing you, and right now that isn't the case. At a time when I am probably going to need help and support, I am not going to be able to get it in a houshold where the primary focus is making sure everyone else gets to do whatever they want, and when the Ex has entirely too much influence over everything. Again, he should be becoming less and less of a factor in the life you are building, and the reality is he is as involved in your lives as much as he has ever been, with the exception of all of you sleeping under the same roof together. I dont say this with anger, it is just the way it is right now, and I guess you have what you think are good reasons for allowing things to be the way they are, but as I said above, unless you start making some changes you are just going to be looking at 7 or 8 more years of him getting away with influencing your life in a negative way.

None of what I have said changes what I want babe- I am being intentionally harsh, but I love you and treasure you and desperately want us to have a life together. But that life needs to be OURS, with you and I in control of it. I never want you to make decisions based upon you wanting to please me, but I am also not going to sit back and enable or encourage you to avoid doing the hard things when it comes to dealing with him or them.

Having said all of the above, I want you to know that I will work and fight for the chance for us to have that life, and the only reason I am being as hard on you as I am is not so much for right now, but for down the road as well. You need to know that I cared for you enough that I am willing to piss you off no matter what the consequences to ensure that you dont end up regretting anything you have done or how you handled your kids, your Ex, and even me.

And now for the last thing- I want to get all the "bad" or unpleasant stuff out in this post so the rest of them can be focused on the more important things- like the love and feelings I have for you. I know that you lied to or hid something from me when I was in Hawaii, You gave yourself away innocently enough by contradicting yourself several times about where you were and what you were doing and my antenna went up immediately and things just didnt add up and I got my little vibe thing going. I wasnt sure what to do about it at the time, and figured I would discuss it with you when I got back, but then I had my little episode over there and then you reversed yourself with the activity thing and I just didnt want to deal with it given everything else and the way I was feeling, but it has been bugging me so I will get it off my chest. I dont know what it is or was, I imagine either you were doing something with or for your Ex that you didnt want me to know about, or you were hooking up with Dale or Odell or someone or doing something that you preferred not to tell me about- but whatever it was it was real and I am not imagining it, and I guess it just made me kind of sad and melancholy that you were keeping something from me. It doesnt really matter anymore I guess- I am not your parent or jailer and you dont need my permission or approval for anything you do- but it has been bugging me and I just wanted to get it off my chest, and combined with the way things went with the Ex and the activity stuff and my health it has left me feeling a bit discombobulated and has contributed to my sadness and funk and uncertainty as to where you stand on some things and what you really truly want. Anyhow- it is what it is, and I have no anger over this anymore either.

OK- everything out in one post- the ones to come you can actually look forward to reading, I promise. I love you Liliana, and hope that you take this post for the intentions it was written for: sharing my concerns and trying to do whatever I can to make sure we actually communicate with each other regarding everything good, bad, or indifferent.

Please, at some point down the road, re-read this and maybe weigh the words carefully. Right now I sometimes feel like my words are like the sound of one hand clapping- unheard and unheeded, but I hope that in time they will deafen you with their honesty and care.

I Love YOU

FILLING THE SPACES

I am quick to fire off my thoughts and feelings when hurt or disappointed, and even though the things that hurt or disappoint might be real for me, I need to not let them overshadow the deeper, more meaningful things that I have, and I need to probably try to cap my emotions when I get bruised.

And since I am quick to fire things off when I feel damaged, I need to be even quicker to convey all of the other, more substantial, things that I am thinking or feeling.

I don't know what is going on, but lately I have been experiencing a heightened sense of just about everything: i feel every synapse firing in my brain, every ache is felt more accutely, every dream is more vivid- good and bad, I get flashes or intuitions of things I shouldn't really have insight into, and I seem to have a sense of people and events that could just be extreme cases of empathy or extrapolation, but seem oddly out of place.

It is a bit like sitting by a fire in the woods, solitary and alone, and hearing something in the shadows, outside of the light. Something is there, waiting, but you have no idea what it is, good or bad.

I sense more keenly the empty spaces I have because I have found someone who can and does fill them. The fact that sometimes I get upset or hurt doesn't diminish anything, in fact the only reason I probably feel the blows more accutely is BECAUSE of the fact that she so completely fills me, and circumstances dictate that for now I can only experience this in person occasionally.

You see I guess I am also a bit afraid- afraid of the unkown, afraid of my mortality, afraid that maybe whatever waits in the shadows beyond the fire might not be friendly, afraid that I am lacking in something, afraid that ultimately I will still end up on the outside looking in, for reasons beyond my control.

But then I look at some pictures, or read a message or post, and I realize that we choose what we fill our empty spaces with. The thing in the darkness could have fangs or wings, it could damage us or fly us away to another, more magical place. We all have these empty spaces, and we all search for the things to fill them with, what we choose to put there is entirely up to us. We can settle for the inconsequential, and tell ourselves that it is more important to be filled with something, anything, than to remain empty, or we can wait and fill them with only that which we recognize as having value, and to let them remain empty for as long as it takes if necessary.

Do I get hurt and disappointed- yeah I do. But that really is probably more a reflection on me and my current state than anything else. What is more important is that I have found the currency with which I want to fill myself, and it is with the love and care and affection of a woman who probably deserves far better than I- she shines and glows with a decency and warmth that I marvel at. She excites me: emotionally, physically, and she is everything I could want in a true partner.

Sometimes at night, on the too few occasions we are together, I will lie or sit beside her, listening to her soft breathing, watching her breasts rise and fall, the stillness on her face so perfect it should be carved in marble, and for no apparent reason my eyes will just fill with tears- I sit there, overwhelmed with the perfection of the moment. At these times I am happy she is a deep sleeper, who needs to wake up and find a naked blubbering idiot beside them. But the tears are just vacating and leaving an empty space for her to fill, and at these times the world around me no longer exists, and the only thing that matters is that I am beside a woman of substance, who has allowed me to share her bed and her life.

Yeah- I have empty spaces, and yeah I am probably to quick to bruise. But that just leaves more for her to fill and heal.

I choose to imagine that the thing in the darkness is a unicorn, just waiting for the right moment to show itself and lead me to her.

God I hope I am right.

LOSING THINGS ALONG THE WAY

These little stories of mine generally match my mood at the time they are posted. I have several that have been started at different times, all reflecting my mood at the time, and they will all go up sooner or later. But tonight my mood is indigo, and a melancholy that I have been keeping at bay has finally enveloped me, and what follows are disjointed outpourings of things that have been rattling around for a while, and have resurfaced recently.

On Saturday night, October 9th, 3 kids got in a car after midnight, and only two made it to morning. All three were good, decent kids. All three had parents, girlfriends, boyfriends, siblings, relatives. All three were in what should have been the springtime of their lives. Now two are dead, and the third wishes he was.

Saturday night, October 9th, parents went to bed expecting to see their children in the morning. Friends said goodbye anticipating the next time all would be together again. Boyfriends and girlfriends looked forward to the next intimate moment. Sunday morning, October 10th- all had lost something along the way.

Our lives are a finite trip to an ultimate destination. For the lucky ones it is a long, rewarding trip, full of warmth and happiness, and upon arriving at the ultimate destination the regrets and lost opportunities are overwhelmed by the moments of substance.

We take so much for granted- we expect to have another day, another chance, and very rarely do we take the time to reflect upon what really matters. We make decisions without a whole lot of thought, reacting to the moment, and not necessarily valuing the obvious things, because we expect them to be there always.

I am reminded pretty much every day that our days are numbered. I deal with it in a variety of ways, with humor, anger, pettiness, acceptance- pretty much the entire gamut, depending upon my mood. Yet even given my situation I am struck by how often I too fall into the same trap- thinking or acting as if a tomorrow was guaranteed me, when really all of our time is on loan, and can be taken away indiscriminately.

I realize how precious, how important, each moment is, and that every moment should be worth celebrating, yet I still can't seem to shake this melancholy from my bones. Sometimes, instead of rejoicing in the promise of what I have and what is to come, I spend far too much time chewing on what is denied me, or worrying about when things will come to me. I guess this is human nature, but I wish I could stop being haunted by the fear of things that I can't really control- the reality is I don't have a whole lot of influence on anything regarding my future, all I can do is deal with the present as best I can.

There is a song that has always given me pause, and I shall end with this, from Bruce Springsteen.

Last night I was out driving
Coming home at the end of a working day
I was driving alone through the drizzling rain
On a deserted stretch of a county two-lane
When I came upon a wreck on the highway

Now there was blood and glass all over
And there was nobody there but me
As the rain tumbled down hard and cold
I saw a young man lying by the side of the road
And he said "Mister, won't you help me please"

An ambulance finally came and took him to Riverside
I watched as they drove him away
And I thought of a girlfriend or a young wife
And a State Trooper knocking in the middle of the night
To say "Your baby died, in a wreck on the highway"

Sometimes I sit up in the darkness
And I watch my baby as she sleeps
Then I climb in bed and I hold her tight
I just lie there awake, in the middle of the night
Thinking about the wreck on the highway

Here's to hoping that I don't end up losing things, or of being lost, along the way.

Joe DiMaggio's Flowers

Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe were married for 9 months in 1954. At the time they were each arguably the most famous and recognizable celebrities of their era. By all accounts they loved each other deeply, but as is so often the case when two people of their celebrity marry, the fire that burned between them consumed their relationship, and they divorced before they ever really had a chance to really experience a private life together.

Marilyn went on to other marriages and divorces, looking for whatever it was that seemed to elude her. She died in 1962, seemingly unknowable to even those who professed to be close to her. Joe never lost the passion he had for her, and just prior to her death they had been tentatively seeing each other again, with Joe even lending her money to help buy a house.

Upon her death, Joe was the one who tended to all the details, even though they had been divorced for years. All others in her life seemed to use her for their own benefit, and maybe even Joe did as well during their brief marriage, but in the intervening years the power and depth of his love for her seemed to have grown, and he seems to have realized what it was that he had lost.

While going through her things, and making the arrangements for her funeral, Joe found an unfinished letter to him, begun just a couple of days prior to her death. It read as follows: "Dear Joe, if I can only succeed in making you happy, I will have succeeded in the biggest and most difficult thing there is- that is, to make one person completely happy. Your happiness means my happiness and". The letter ended there. What a beautiful, painful thing to find. Who knows why she stopped where she did, or what would have followed the "and". But it showed the same depth of emotion that he had been feeling for her. The fact that it remained unfinished and unexpressed, or that it was expressed too late, makes it almost unbearably sad, but wonderful at the same time.

After the funeral, and for the next 20-some years, twice a week Joe had flowers delivered to Marilyns' crypt. He would never speak about this with anyone, he just did it. He never remarried, or even seemed to show any interest in any other woman, and remained reclusive for the most part, until his death.

I think maybe Joe was haunted by what could have been- by what remained unspoken, what was acknowledged too late, and spent the rest of his life pining for the woman who was his soulmate, and regreting that neither one of them fully realized it, until time ran out for both of them.

You see Liliana, I don't bring you flowers because I want to impress you, or woo you, or seduce you. I bring you flowers because I never want you to forget that I love you, and that I never want anything to be taken for granted between us. I want you to be able to glance up while walking through your home and to catch sight of something that symbolizes the feelings and love I have for you, and to know that I never want anything to be unspoken or unexpressed between us. I never want there to be any chance that I would ever take you for granted.

As I told you the other day- if I could I would make arrangements to have flowers delivered to you long after I leave this mortal coil. Even when I leave this earth, the love and passion I have for you will still surround you my love, and I would give anything to be able to have a physical reminder for you, so that you could look at it and smile and know that you were loved honestly and truly, and someone recognized your worth and value, and that you made a difference in my life.

So next time you pass through your house, pause and look and breathe deeply from the bouquets I bring you, they are far more than just flowers- they are the perfection and beauty that you represent to me, and always will.

I Love You- it will never be unexpressed babe.

THE PERSISTENCE OF VISION

I have a vision, have had it for a while now. Sometimes the vision becomes cloudy, and sometimes dark clouds or stormy weather will obscure it, but it always comes back into view, untarnished and as bright, if not brighter, than it was before.

My vision is inspired and fueled by the angel I prayed for, but never thought existed. She greets me in the ether, she haunts my every waking moment, and I get far too little time with her, but the time we do get together is frozen and etched upon my memory, each and every little moment, and I am ennobled by her love and affection.

The images contained within this post can't begin to do justice to her grace and ethereal beauty, but they represent an ideal of her. She is my sprite, my muse, my angel. She is the light that guides me through the darkest of moments, and she radiates magic and wonder from her very being.

A year ago I made a promise to her, that I would go with her and be hers for all time. Well, reality has a way of intruding upon the sweetest of dreams, but nothing has changed. The promise remains, it will just take a little longer to become a reality. But in the waiting, the reality will become so much more magical. And it is magic, pure and simple.

You see we all want to live in fairy tales, even the most cynical of us. We may deny it to others, or even try to deny it to ourselves, but inside each of us exists the longing for a soulmate, an other to complement and complete us, and make us better than we are by ourselves. And my love more than completes me- she fills me and makes me closer to the ideal that I wish I was.

Yes I have a vision, and it drives me and fuels me and I will do anything to achieve it. It is a vision of love and respect and warmth and passion, none of which would exist for me without her. To share my life and myself with a woman so complete and wonderful is something that I would wait an eternity for if I had to.

The vision persists, through the passing of time, through moments of darkness, through unseen or unknown challenges, the vision persists.

And the promise will never go unfulfilled.