Reap The Wild Wind and Live!

Life has a way of playing funny tricks. He had many disappointments and a few triumphs but he had decided a few years ago to stop playing at the game. He loved, and lost. There was a burning feeling, a searing of the soul that went along with both experiences. He felt all the better for having had those experiences but quite frankly it all took too much out of him. He decided to get his life on an even plane. He had enough of the dreams, hopes, loves had and lost. The best thing to do is get everything in order. No bumps in the road like having a dream of swinging for the fences and then just having the ball reach the warning track and die into the outfielder's glove. No new relationships that with all the joys, heights of emotions are followed by the thud of watching them crash destroying all the hopes and passion that was associated with them. F***K it he thought, life's crazy roller coaster rides are going to be over for me. It is better to have an orderly life with no great hopes or expectations but a life controlled by logic which will lead to a stable environment, with lower expectations but fewer highs and lows. This may be duller but less painful. And so as I said before he settled into being very comfortable not expecting too much but getting through the days and nights without any pain what-so-ever. He acknowledged to himself that the life he was living might be a bit hum drum but at least he was avoiding the big swings of emotions associated with high goals, and a loving relationship. Yes he was quite comfortable.

Then quite by chance he met someone he knew from a very long time ago. The fact of the matter was he didn't recognize this person at first but as they talked the images of the past began to unfold in his mind and he realized he did know the one he was talking with and he felt surprisingly at ease in striking up a conversation after all these years. They exchanged contact numbers and agreed to be in touch. When they parted he thought they'd probably never see each other again. But as it happened one day when he was walking in town they spotted one another and instead of him running away he ran toward this person. The talk was easy and without realizing it he suggested they meet for dinner. They continued to meet and suddenly his complacency stared to fade as he looked forward with expectations towards each meeting. Suddenly his aspirations were starting to make him reach higher. Suddenly he wanted to have goals, succeed again. He was alive with the vibrancy generated by each meeting and it inspired not only deep feelings of desire but a need to have goals and succeed again.

His fears of being disappointed in his endeavors, of only hitting with warning track power, suddenly didn't matter anymore. He never let obstacles stop him before, why should he now? He felt the inner feeling of starting to care for another again. This began to bother him because of the fear of rejection. Rejection that may not be there at first but then the way life throws those wicked curves, later. His inner self was in a turmoil. Yes he wanted goals, dreams, aspirations, but he really didn't want to start on a new road again and then run out of time. His inner self was fighting against any deep relationship because he knew the dangers that lay in front of him if one developed. Then suddenly, one night at dinner they impulsively reached across the table and kissed, a sweet, hot desirable kiss that went from their lips to the depths of their very souls. He knew then that he needed this person very badly. It didn't matter what lay before them, the only thing that mattered was the time they had allotted to them. He didn't want his safe, complacent life anymore so throwing caution to the wind they kissed once again and the world turned upside down and spun in a crazy spiraling way that shouted "DANGER" but he just didn't care.

The Tapestry of Life

He always struggled with the month of July ever since she left him. After all July was their month that they started their tapestry. Some fifty-five years ago they got all the material and cotton, wool, silver plenty of gold and colors. They weren't sure how the tapestry would turn out but they blindly jumped in and started weaving all the threads which were to bind them forever. The tapestry had been finished for almost five years now but she was no longer around to appreciate its beauty. They captured everything  and it amazed him how there were mostly bright colors even where he thought blackness would appear.

This beautiful creation started out with only a couple of threads but as they wove it it became crowded with the delights of loving lustily and purely. There were pictures of their seven descendants, and their offspring and it showed when they lost their baby teeth and cut their grown up teeth as they all made the errors that bound them together. This beautiful creation showed the joy of a man and women loving, laughing and crying capturing all the colors of the rainbow.

While she left some four and a half years ago she really started to leave him little by little, inch by inch  much earlier until for a few years before the finality of it all she left him altogether while her physical presence was still there. He thought for sure that this is where their tapestry would show complete blackness, there was some but it was really dominated by gold and he came to understand as he studied their tapestry that through the darkest moments he grew to love her more instead of less and somehow she grew to love him deeper than she could have if she wasn't slowly deteriorating. A riddle of life I suppose.

For a time after the completion of their tapestry he just took time to study it and think about all they had but had no more. After a time sadness became a sort of waiting for the time they'd meet in the afterlife. He really had no thought to doing more than having a few laughs and waiting for the inevitable. Life throws curves however and in his complacency there enter another who woke him up to the fact that life is for living not waiting to pass into the hereafter. He searched to see if he had any thread left to start a new tapestry. He had none left. Then it dawned on him, of course they used up all that was given to them their time was finished and showed that in the tapestry. This could be a new creation, full of love, full of colors, full of gold. But he couldn't do it all by himself. The threads had to be given to both of them so they could start to weave their tapestry of life. Then he really became frightened. What if she didn't want to create a work of art woven and strengthened by cords of gold and silver? What if he didn't have enough time left to complete any work of art much less start it.

One thing he knew he didn't have the time he had when they started on the first tapestry. This thought only confirmed to him that he'd better live each day as if it was his last because a glut of time belongs to the young who generally waste it  and he sure as hell wasted plenty and didn't want to waste anymore. In any case he had to play the hand dealt him. The important thing is to play the game and the outcome depends on many things which can lead to many surprises. So he figured I guess I can start this tapestry with a little bit of love and try and complete it bit by bit and if she wants to join in then maybe we can have a true work of art.    

The May, December Conundrum

There was a time when he was quite comfortable with his ageing. What the hell, he thought, he had a taste of everything he wanted to do in life. He had a shot at Baseball with Dodgers. He had his time in the sun with his music both playing and composing. He met and married the great love of his life and had a great if not impossible family which was still growing. He had his shot at being a rising star at a fledgling Motion Picture company which to this day was seeped in lore about the owners and players. He even did some time with a boring financial institution and for a time was a shooting star when he formulated an estimate system they never could put in place before him. Then, he even had his shot at acting performing in a few notable series and plays. He never hit the home run, but with warning track power he had tasted it all including trips to Brazil which he'd never forget. He even had the great privilege to take care of his mom and wife when they became too weak to take care of themselves. He wasn't a presence anywhere but he knew his dreams when he was a kid and he tasted them all, now who could say that?" Who was lucky enough to live that great a life?"  he asked himself.

He was settling into his life acknowledging that although he tasted all he wanted. That was the past and this is the now and the now didn't give him much of a chance to repeat the great moments because they were gone never to be repeated. He certainly couldn't play ball without making a fool of himself. Business had no use for him as they were too busy picking the younger sets' brains as were the acting community where unless he experienced a Joe Peschi moment he wouldn't be doing much performing anymore. He'd love to visit Brazil again but with whom? However, don't get the wrong idea, he wasn't despondent, he was at peace with his predicament. He knew who he was and where he was in life and was perfectly comfortable in accepting it all as he went about his business and waited for the inevitable.

Then completely out of the blue he met her. She was a kid as far as he was concerned. They knew each other briefly many years ago but lost each other as their lives consumed them while they attended to the demands that each one's life placed on them. They only had a brief meeting but she touched something in him that he thought died with his wife. When he talked with her there was an excitement connected to a feeling of trying to please not for any reason just to make her feel good. He couldn't help thinking of her but didn't want her to think he was obsessing because she had a life of her own and certainly couldn't see him in the same way. Besides, where would any arrangement lead? But then he thought why does it have to lead anywhere. Could it just exist without any demands that come with youthful  or long term relationships? As he floated this idea to confidants on a hypothetical basis he was laughed at. "What the hell would any young woman want with an old codger like you?" they would jibe. He'd go away with his tail between his legs thinking they were right after all once maybe he was a hunk back when he dazzled the gals in his twenties but now, old. bald and a wreck. "Who the hell would want that?", he thought.

While all this was going on upsetting his complacency he had settled into he acknowledged he never felt so alive. He never felt so young in years. The spark of love, if this is what we could call this, was waking him up to the fact that he should not be waiting in his complacency for the inevitable but should be grabbing whatever moments the day had to offer because they may never be offered again and his life would have a big hole in it because he never saw the chance to live  the moment. The risk was terrible though it was filled with rejection, something he hadn't felt in a long time. He couldn't really approach the subject without the fear of ridicule, without the thought that he had nothing really to offer her. The more he thought about this the more he had the "September Song" rambling around in his mind:

But it's a long, long while from May to December

And the days grow short when you reach September

When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame 

And I haven't got time for the waiting game.

For the days dwindle down to the precious few

September, November

And these few precious days I'd spend with you

These Golden days I'd spend with you

When you meet with the young men early in Spring

They'd court you in song and rhyme

They woo you with word and a clover ring

But if you examine the goods they bring

They have little to offer but the songs they sing

And a plentiful waste of time of day, a plentiful waste of time

But it's a long long while from May to December

And the days grow short when you reach September

And the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame

And I haven't got time for the waiting game

For the days dwindle down to a precious few

September, November

And these few precious days I'd spend with you

These golden days I'd spend with you

He thought if he was younger he'd overwhelm her with all he had to offer and if she rejected him he'd go out and get drunk. But he grudgingly admitted to himself, he wasn't younger, and he couldn't drink the way he once could. So he just took what he had and tried to make sense of it all.

 

The Age Of Reason

Some two or three hundred years ago there became a trend to put emotions and faith on the back burner and let reason rule whenever decision making had to be made. In his youth he thought this was a dumb way to go about living one's life. He was of Mediterranean descent and the hot blood of emotions flowed through his veins. He felt the important decisions in his life couldn't be made through reason but by the way he felt. You have to understand what you may consider important weren't necessarily important to him and vice  versa. A simple argument about the taste of wine might end up in fisticuffs, whereas arguments about the validity of a supreme being was good for discussion but nothing to become excited about.

When he fell in love he fell MADLY in love. The problem was there were many madly excursions into the world of passion and lust until he finally met a young girl who insisted he think about what his actions might cause before he committed them. He fought her valiantly until he had to marry her or she would have left him. Becoming a man with responsibilities caused him to become less emotional and more of a man of reason. This evolution helped in in many ways. He had less bruises. He became successful in the business world. Whereas before he reached this age of reason he was considered somewhat unstable, exciting and interesting now he was very stable, dull and somewhat of a bore. The main thing was they were happy in connubial bliss with their offspring.

The years flew by and the children grew and flew the coop. His beloved also left him, far too soon as she went home to her creator. He was left alone. As he aged he often wondered what became of that young man who flew by the seat of his pants with emotions bleeding from every pore of his body over things which were important to him and maybe only him. Now he was considered an elder statesman in the community and in his family. As long as he followed his reason he was fine but his life had no electricity, no spark in it. Then he met someone who was years younger than he. They seemed to hit off as soon as they touched. His reason, however, told him this was a foolish proposition to consider. He figured soon he would be very old and probably die. Yet the young man within him was trying to bust out of the captivity he had been in for lo these many years. The young man within him was yelling for him to stop thinking and start feeling and throw caution to the winds, to live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself.

Then one night as he was going to meet the object of his affection he decided that this is the night he was going to throw caution to the wind, profess his love and even if rejected he would be able to feel the emotions of love unrequited. They met and he started to say what was in his heart but was stopped by his inner self using reason telling him he would be a fool and forget about it. And so he crawled back into his shell of reason to the great disappointment of that young man within himself. But he said to himself, maybe I'll try another day.

Random Thoughts While Contemplating My Belly Button

We in the Unites States have a penchant for making everything that happens that may not be wonderful sound like it is. Been reading a few articles that make seem like ageing, getting old, is the most wonderful thing in the world. They even suppose, "Its better than the alternative.", and I wonder "Is it?". Let's consider what happens when one gets old. First of all this consideration come with the caveat that we are talking about those with generally good health because that is really the norm, childhood and young adult diseases do occur but for the majority the illness, weakness and diseases do not come until ageing starts. Whether we are slow or fast our speed decreases until we can hardly walk until we don't walk but are chained to a wheel chair or bed. Whether we had good or bad sight it gets steadily worse until we have very little left. Whether we were blessed with good looks or not gravity takes hold and not only do breasts sag but so do eye lids, rumps, and the flesh around our upper arms that used to boast firm biceps sag and move to and fro when we raise them, if we can raise them. I could go on and on but why bother. However, let me mention the fact that reflexes and minds begin to falter as ageing takes place and even for those who put it off eventually overtakes us into some form of senility. So why the hell are people now writing articles romanticizing getting old? Huh!? 

Ever since Obama was elected President I have been telling people that racism is showing its ugly head in those that oppose him. Naturally, I have been told I was full of it. What the hell did I know? Recently, there was a statistical study made using Google, words that were used in searches. Now I don't know the whole scientific reasoning about this but it seems to be accepted by the scientific community that accepts or rejects these studies, one can look it up on Google if one so desires. Guess what? It shows there is racism and prejudice in many sections of the country and one can draw the inference that voters may, and will vote against Obama because he is BLACK, of course he is White too but that's another story. What it comes down to is Romney isn't black so many will vote for him because he Obama is. One can also draw the inference from the study that those who are racist are the same ones who will jump on whatever is published on the Internet that defames Obama which gives rise to the fear that he isn't a US Citizen, that he's a Muslim in waiting to destroy the US and institute Sharia law, and horrors worst of all he is a European Socialist who only wants to take from the rich and lead us into ruin. They spent a lot of money doing this study but hey I could have told them all that for nothing. Come on, didn't we all know it in our hearts, even if we didn't want to admit it out loud?

What is with all these Political Pundits who seem to want to put everyone in a bloc as though let us say all women agree on anything or they are not biased one against the other. While working Mothers fight for equal pay, that is as to what men make for the same job, they look snidely at the stay at home Moms as not showing their true feminism by joining the work force and fighting the good fight. While the stay at home Moms really feel that the working Mom isn't doing her job by being a good stay at home Mother. The religious mother who has a lot of children are scoffed at by the feminist who feels they are contributing to the worlds over population woes of food shortages and pollution. But there are many men out there who secretly want the women out of the work place because they are occupying jobs they should have and after all they belong at home Mothering and cooking meals for the hunter. Biases are not relegated to genders but also occur in ethnic groups.  Did you know back in the day, light skinned Negros, as they were referred to then, were called High Yellows by their own group and looked down upon? The Militants used to refer to those who wanted to better themselves in a non-violent manner as "Uncle Toms".  I bet that stuff still goes on today but under different names. The Hispanic community is always referred to as if it is a bloc. Well it isn't! Back in the day, Puerto Ricans and Cubans always feuded because one thought they were better than the other and of course the Puerto Rican was a US citizen and the Cuban was not. Deportation binds a lot of wounds but I bet dollars to doughnuts that the Mexican has a different idea of justice than the Central American who is facing the same situation because of illegal entry. Both of course wonder why the situation of legal entry seems to be working easier for the recent influx of Asians, Koreans, Chinese et. al. than for them whether or not that type of reasoning actually applies.

How can Romney continue to say nothing and still seem to be in a dead heat with Obama according to recent polls? Oh yeah, I covered that one already!

Why is it the Atheistic arguments against organized religion and God seem to make such good sense but I continue to believe in Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church? I mean the Church is so mucked up even if one goes back through its history. Yet it offers me the chance to commune with my God in such a unique and personal way and it tries to do good even if it seems to be influenced by some nut jobs. But besides the nut jobs look at the rich history of greatness that seems to be everywhere within the church, St. Francis of Assisi (The Sissy I like to kid him), St. Anthony who always helps me find the things I misplace and never gives up trying to make me organized. Too many to mention but I must mention Jesus. Where would I be without him? I can't even imagine what that whole Trinity theology is about but I hold on to it. Jesus, my God, my friend who walks with me, at least I feel it is so. The intellectuals can prove all I believe is some kind of crazy wishful thinking but I guess I walk in faith believing not only in what I see but much of what I don't see. There are thousands of pictures, sounds and events from the past and present around us but we don't see them. Don't say they are not there because they are. With the use of TV we can send pictures around the world and with certain receptors we can see and hear these things yet they are sent through the air and are all around us but never disturbing us. Up in the sky the evening has black holes in the sky which can lead to other galaxies that may have life just like ours or even superior. Once we thought the earth was the center of our universe but now we know we had it wrong, for our world orbits the sun not the other way around. Sometimes our intellectuals are just too smart for their own britches. So I shall stay with what I have faith in, my Catholic Church and my loving God and the really swinging Holy Spirit and of course my man god who walked the earth some 2000 years ago but remains to take a walk with me whenever I need him. Who? Jesus of course!

My belly button has given me so much to contemplate that I must rest and get ready for the important part of the day when The New York Yankees play baseball.      

The Music Never Ends

As he lay in his hospice bed with tubes hanging out of his body barely able to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time he was amazed at how clear his mind was. He sensed there were always people around him but even when he opened his eyes he couldn't focus so he never was able to recognize who was. He heard  low murmurings which he figured were people talking in hushed tones as if they might wake him from a gentle sleep. He wished he could sleep but in his mind he heard his voice speaking his thoughts and it sounded like his voice when he was twenty. It was like he was reviewing his whole life as though he was in a movie.

She had been gone for a long time but now she was there with him as he held her in his arms after she said she would marry him. The film just continued to roll as he saw his first child, and how she was so nervous that she was afraid to breast feed him which made her uptight because she felt she wasn't a good mother. With the each new baby she became less nervous until they just laughed at how young they were when they first started out, children raising children. He was viewing in fast forward, how quickly their babies grew up into young adults, into middle age finally the beginning of old age. Through it all he saw the tears, the laughter, the joy of living with the person he loved more than anything and their physical results of their spiritual love, which were their children. Choices came before him as he viewed this motion picture. They were travelling along a road that was filled with twists and turns, and many forks. The choices made would impact them all and those who were closest to them like their parents, family and close friends. It was made very clear to him that without the very choices they made so many things, so many people would not be here. His children, the ones they had at the time they had them would never existed if they put off the decision to wait just another year to get married. They would have had children but not the ones they did have because the gene pool would have been different.

There was a time that they could have moved to the west coast for a better job but they declined. Their children were young at the time and would have had to move with them. Their children probably would never have met their spouses, some probably would be better off if that were so, but then their grandchildren would never have been. It is true that they would have had grandchildren but not the ones they had and that would have been a great loss. Before he found himself in this condition he never gave thoughts like this much time to germinate in his mind but now they were very important as he reflected on his life while he was in a near coma condition. He was beginning to realize how much love filled his life.

It was if his whole life was one big symphony and the musicians were all that played a part in composing and performing the music. The most important soloist was his wife for through her the music was the most melodious, the sweetest with the best chord changes. But she left him some years ago and there was no one who could fill the gap in the symphony that was there when she left. The harmony, the composition the blending of the performers didn't leave completely but just wasn't the same without her. He started to slip away, toward a long tunnel with a bright light at the end of it but the question was in his mind as to how do you keep the music playing and crazy as it may seem he could hear her voice reciting the lyrics of that song.

How do you keep the music playing?

How do you make it last?

How do you keep the song from fading

too fast?

How do you lose yourself to someone

and never lose your way?

How do you not run out of new things

to say?

And since you know we're always changing

How can it be the same?

And tell me how year after year

You're sure your heart will fall apart

Each time you hear his name?

I know the way I feel for you is now or never

The more I love, the more that I'm afraid

That in your eyes I may not see forever, forever

If we can be the best of lovers

Yet be the best of friends

If we can try with every day to make it better as it goes

With any luck than I suppose

The music never ends

I know, the way I feel for you is now or never

The more I love, the more that I'm afraid

That in your eyes I may not see forever, forever

If we can be the best of lovers

yet be the best of friends

If we can try with every day to make it better as it goes

With any luck than I suppose

The music never ends

And as he slipped into eternity he heard the symphony of their lives being loudly played.

Love, Ain't It Grand!

Way back when the world at least seemed simpler and nicer there was a young man who was very infatuated with a beautiful young woman. They had dated for a few years and seemed to been genuinely in love, at least they were physically attracted because they couldn't keep their hands off each other. Most of his time was spent thinking about how much he wanted her both in present terms and biblical and she seemed to be of like mind. There was only one thing for them to do to keep this situation on a level plain, at least according to her, and that was to get married. The whole idea of full commitment for a lifetime seemed a little alien to him. First of all he had no money and the prospect of obtaining a financial future seemed remote. Secondly, there was a new idea that was being floated among the progressive thinkers of the day that one should try out the situation by living together for a year or two to determine if they were really ready for a lifetime of commitment, which seemed reasonable to him but verboten to her. So in order to keep everything in proper perspective they agreed to be married. He had to serve his stint in the Army, two years. Need I remind you this was happening back in the day of simpler and nicer times. About a month before he was to enter the Army they went to a secluded spot on a deserted picnic grounds and had a nice little cookout. They laid on a blanket and made beautiful, hot passionate love, always stopping short of, well, you know how it was way back when.

The bucolic scene only enhanced their deep feelings of love and lust as they walked back to the car. For some reason he he noticed a twig that had fallen from a nearby tree. He picked up the twig and for no other reason except he thought it would add a little humor to the day he gently tapped her on her rear-end with it. She turned around and asked, "Why did you do that?", to which he replied, remember this was way back when, when men were men and women were subservient, "I did it to remind you who the master is.", and to which she reacted not too well, he thought. "Oh, yes? Well don't do that again!". This response raised the hackles on his neck and he felt his manhood being challenged so he gave her another rap only a little harder this time to which she repeated her request only a little firmer. He responded by giving her a good rap on her butt and she turned and took the twig, rather yanked the twig out of his hands and said, "Do that on more time and you will be yanking this stick out of a part of your body that usually doesn't have anything stuck up it!". Suddenly  it dawned on him that she was really mad, he could tell this by the sound of her shrill voice and the redness of her face. Being the time when men were men and the hell with what a woman thought he reacted a bit strongly as they went face to face with rising voices that brought some of the park workers out of their reverie to see what the hell was going on. The workers apparently recognized a slight lover's quarrel and retreated back into their shack. They on the other hand got into the car and drove home without a word. When they got to her house he threw opened the door and she stormed out into her front door and not a word was exchanged. "Well screw her!", he thought, "Here I was going to rescue her from being an old maid and she does this! Screw her!". Besides he was pretty sure she would call to apologize to him before he left to the Army.

The days seemed to fly by, "Here it is two weeks past and she hasn't called. She won't let me go into the Army without making up.". Another week past and he was miserable. But he wouldn't let his manhood be compromised by a female just because she was a little touchy about being tapped on her rear-end with a very small twig. He had only one week to go before his two year hitch was going to begin and he missed her, missed her laugh, that special aroma she had around her body, the feel of her lips and the closeness of her body when they danced. BUT he was a MAN! He went to his favorite bar that night and put a quarter in the juke box (remember it was way back when) and as he started sipping his Scotch rocks Sinatra's "Learning The Blues" came on. He listened closely as Frank sang his feelings.

The tables are empty
The dance floor's deserted
You play the same love song
It's the tenth time you've heard it
And that's the beginning
Just one of those clues
You've had your first lesson
In learning the blues
[ Lyrics from: http://wwwbthe_blues.html ]
The cigarettes you light
One after another
Won't help you forget her
Or the way that you love her
You're only burning
A torch you can't lose
But you're on the right track
For learning the blues

When you're at home alone
The blues will haunt you constantly
When you're out in a crowd
The blues will haunt your memory
The nights when you don't sleep
The whole night you're crying
But you can't forget her
Soon you'll stop trying
You'll walk the floor
And wear out your shoes
When you're feeling your heart break
You're learning the blues

As the song came to an end he took a deep drag on his Lucky Strike, a big gulp of his Scotch Rocks and said to himself, "The hell with all this MAN bulls**t. I miss her and want her. He got into a telephone booth (Remember this was back in the day) and dialed her number. She picked up the phone and for the first time in three weeks he felt like a real man when he heard her voice. "Hey Babe, I love you. Do you still love me?" to which she yelled Yes! I thought you'd never call.", "before we waste another moment what do you say I come and pick you up and we start where we left off in the park without the tree limb?", she responded with a yes. He drove to her house where he found her waiting outside for him. He jumped out of the car and they ran to one another and to the shock of all the neighbors (remember this was way back then) they embraced in a great soulful kiss and they never wanted to let themselves go.

Needless to say after the Army they married and never went to bed being angry. That one time in their lives was enough. Oh and one more thing, he made sure he'd never touch her ass again, at least with a twig.