I like this one too

“But you, you’ve always been the rain, the wind, inside my mind. I taste you when I sleep, when I wake, when I breathe.”

—	Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Kiss

Apt

“You have my whole heart. You always did.”
Cormac McCarthy, The Road.

“Sometimes I miss you

the way someone drowning

remembers the air.”

— Tim Seibles

Today I find myself wishing I could write, wishing I could paint. I am however, learning to drum - something I once thought I would never be able to do. I'm told I'm a natural - yet I struggle with my coordination as my brain remaps natural pathways on the fly.Perhaps a stray neuron with jump a gap and ignite another part of my brain ? I look forward to what comes next - perhaps an aneurism ??? :-)

Is that bread I smell baking ???? 

Random thoughts on a mid life crisis

I think I should be past a mid life crisis - that being said i often wonder if I will make 92. I ask myself if by getting to this age, then seeing another 20 years of our life taken up by a 9 to 5 existence - should we expect to be happy - yet still receive a sizeable pay check that will make our retirement years bearable... I just don't know.
I see seniority as a doubled edged sword; with the wage comes the stress, with a corresponding lack of care from those who manage us.

Care is underrated - care is something that keeps us warm when the environment is anything but. I think we start to look at things differently when the spring our our retirement could end up looking like a bitter winter of our discontent. I'm wondering if the next 20 years will be worth it - if i will be able to build the house I have in my head - if the woman i love will be there. So many questions, and never enough answers. I worry that i will have to take on so many of these challenges on my own - partly because I may prefer the option of doing so - except for the times i don't.

I do know the rambling must stop, the lurching from side to side - the zig where the zag should have been. I'd like to think that viewed from a distinct position above, the course of my various tangental life decisions would chart across the landscape of my life, a curse to the heavens - directed to those who may watch and take hidden pleasures in our blunders.

So 20 years to go, and with it decisions that cannot be left to chance. The knowledge that given this chance of life, this music of movement, we grab it once offered, and refuse steadfast to let her go again. Like the last dance of a great ball - we make our boldest move with courage we could but dream of having - and with all our will wish ourselves forward toward greatness - and hopefully, with any luck, a zag where a zag should be.

Now this makes me happy :)

This film is probably the reason I'm still single. I read somewhere recently that "western" movies perpetuate the myth that there is a "one" for each of us, and that we should wait for that one. The same article went on to say that this creates a situation where we dont go with "almost the one - but not quite" - and because of this we either;

a) dont find the one,
b) find the one but she's already married/ living with someone else, or
c) take a second best, and wonder our whole lives if we've not made a horrendous mistake.

Regardless - I hope you havent caught the same disease as me - and are in fact very happy with your life choice, whatever it may be.

Someone I know has opted for c) and is miserable. I refuse to be drawn on the matter - a single person should be the last one to be giving couples advice. But that doesnt stop me from thinking about it in my spare time.

I'm thinking that the option extremes are;
To live and die alone, or
To be with someone, raise a family - perhaps even love him in some way, but accept your love limitations.

You can be happy in either situation - but when I see the image above I see an idealised love, and for better or worse it gives me faith - that in my darkest hours the thought of a "one" may be enough to pull me through :)

In the End - it's all that matters

The final episode of Lost reminds me of Love, Sacrifice, and Hope for a happy ending.
I need to watch it every so often to remember, that in life, such things exist.

Positivity

Looking back over the last few posts I'm seeing a distortion of sorts. I'm posting in a few places - and this isn't exactly balanced. Recently I've been posting thoughts here, because I'm hoping people who know me no longer come to this site. There's a certain honesty that comes with an anonymous audience (if there even is an audience here), that can't be maintained on twitter or Facebook. Ill try and find something positive to provide balance - soon :)

Fingertips and edges

Why do I love these words so much ? Is it because they resonate - or simply because in seeing them written by another, you know it's ok to think them, and not feel that you're the only one living them :)

I was thinking of renaming this blog "Write only Memory". The opposite of Read only Memory (in computer parlance), write only memory would be be a place to put words or information that could, by definition, never be seen again. By placing words or images here, perhaps the motivations for doing so could be eliminated. For now - let's see how that works :)

More words

“He loved her, he loved her, and until he’d loved her she had never minded being alone.”
- Truman Capote, Summer Crossing

Dumping ground for thoughts that won't be exorcised

Well - this is new

On my mind

Language

Remember when we fell in love?

You were the storm to my sea.

Words are inspiring me daily :)

Impossible emotions

“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd; the longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. all these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”

—	Fernando Pessoa

The only one that matters.

Too much truth in this

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

—	Stephen King

Hands

Did you feel that?

Touching someone for the first time, or after a long time, is a unique experience.

Who is to know where a simple handshake, a simple hello will go.

The journey over time and place unfolds with a beautiful clarity that perhaps only someone with a view as vast as the universe can comprehend.
Yet when we part, the invisible thread that binds us together remains, keeps us close when our world becomes a little colder, a little harder.

These bonds exist, and are greater than the sum of us, even if we can only interpret these moments as memories.


So - Do you still feel it?

Of Lions and Giraffes

Hal and Oliver

There is this scene in Beginners...

Hal: Well let's say... let's say since you were little,
and you've always dreamed of someday getting a lion.

And you wait, and you wait, and you wait,
and you wait and the lion doesn't come.

Then along comes a giraffe.
You can be alone, or you can be with the giraffe.

Oliver: I'd wait for the lion.

Hal: That's why I worry about you.


I stopped writing, simply because I did not see the point. There was a circular momentum to all of this that required breaking. Some time away, a new job, a myriad of small permutations of combinations that would hopefully lead somewhere - some place away from the circle.

So here I am, back at the beginning, waiting for my Lion.
Unbending, as always, cocking my middle finger at this world,
Telling it to take its best shot
While I wait for my lion to man the fuck up
And get back into my life.

What life can afford to share

[Note: this post written a couple of days ago but due to internet issues in the Cook Islands I couldn't post it until now]

It's a fundamentally sad fact that we will all be forgotten.

Though we may strive to be good, and achieve much, even the most famous of us will eventually be known only by a few who have touched our lives. When they too are gone, only images or words may take their place, and they are a pale imitation of our true essence.

This tragedy is even more pronounced when the person remembered was afforded such a short life - her chance at life cut so short. How a father could take all that opportunity away in one moment of jealous rage is beyond my comprehension.

I can't begin to fully understand why this death has never left me. I cannot understand why I can still remember someone's image so clearly, as if from an old photograph. Yet, with may years gone now, I realize as a 9 year old boy - I really couldn't have know her at all.

I didn't know what to say or think when I saw her final resting place today. Thirty six years later my 70's color pallet has been bleached pale blue by time, yet the outline of her image is as strong as ever. I have to admit I was looking forward to some degree of closure - It was not to be as I had hoped.

About a year ago a cyclone ravaged the island, and sometime during the night the supported roof to her grave site had fallen over, and the headstone had toppled. Today, with the site obscured by the rusting corrugated iron roof, there were no visible signs that I was even at the right location.


Later I confirmed I was at the right house. I had to admit I was surprised that her brother didn't take the time to clear the damage, especially when some time back, he took the time to adopt a baby girl, taking Janice's name for her own. Perhaps in some way that child afforded him the opportunity to move on. I have to remind myself she really isn't here anymore and I really shouldn't worry.

More importantly I have to realize that this isn't about me.
I realize that life doesn't always allow you the chance to tie up all the loose ends, and get what you want. It's enough that I have finally found her, and that I have the opportunity to say hello again.

Although this part in the journey has been completed, I will never forget her as long as I live. Every time I come to this tropical paradise I will visit for a short while, and in that small way, at least in my memory, Janice Henry will live on.