On Silence

I haven’t posted here in so long that I don’t know if I will be able to subdue my thoughts. I could blame not posting on life, for sometimes life does have a way of sorting through priorities. I could blame it on writer’s block, for sometimes words have a way of freezing up between the fingers and the brain. But I really can’t blame it on either of these excuses. No to be plain and simple, I just haven’t felt like it. I have felt like throwing back my head and laughing at life, like howling with rage at the injustices of the world, but I have not felt like being subdued one single bit.

But why post now, my mood has not changed substantially. Maybe because life has gotten in the way. Some of the worry and anxiety of life and of change has crept through my laughter and my rage. Like the change in the season, my mood has chilled. Not yet the bitter cold but just a bit of frost creeping up the window of my soul.

I know that this will surely soon pass but for now, I plan on putting a soft blanket and curling up here for awhile.

Listen

 

Ever so softly the fairie muses whisper, ‘Create.’ But I sit in oblivion, writing doggerel, failing in my despair. Soft tales of love, psalms of hope, or gestures of peace elude me. Perhaps that is the way of things. To every life some rain must fall. So I sit listening to the rain trace it’s patterns across my soul. And with every drop, I wish for the rain to wash these mortal cares away.

Raindrops And Moonbeams

 

I have always had a hard time falling asleep. My mind often refuses to disengage. It keeps rambling on; regurgitating the events of the day and at times memories of long ago. I have grown to enjoy this time when the world is silent. The white noise of the air conditioning and the breathing of my wife beside me lulls me to if not sleep at least to a point where I can sift through my subconscious thoughts. Unlike a deep sleep, I can guide these waking dreams. I can right those wrong turns that I might have made in the past. I can speak with those whose voices I will never hear from in the light of day again; speaking those things that I was unable to tell them in life. I can rip apart the very fabric of reality and imagine strange new visions and alternate worlds.

Tonight the rain is softly falling upon the window panes. It promises to be a good night to dream. Goodnight.  

Farewells

 

Over a year and a half ago, an old and at one time very close friend of mine passed away. She fought with her internal demons and finally lost to them finally succumbing to complications from anorexia.

I knew her my whole life. We started to Kindergarten together. In Junior High, I went on my first real date, when I took her to see Jaws at the local movie theater. As young adults we helped each other through first her divorce and then an engagement of mine that went sour.Then time, distance, and circumstance drew us apart and I had not talked to her in a few years.

When I got the call that she had passed, I spent a good deal of time in a stupor; shocked that it had come to this. The last time that I had seen her she seemed thin but I did not think that it was a life threatening thing. My mind was momentarily crippled by the what-ifs:what if I would have realized her problem and what if I had done something about it. But as the weeks passed by a realized that even if I had been able to see her problem and tryed to help her, It would most likely have been for nothing. If she or those close to her at the time could stop this from happening then nothing that I could have done would have helped.

The week preceeding my high school reunion, I kept having a recurring dream. My friend would come to me in my sleep and warn me of something. I could feel her frustration at my inability to understand her. When I woke up in the morning, I could never understand or remember just what she said or tryed to say. Then a day before homecoming the dream stopped and has not returned.

I am by nature a cynic so I do not beleive this was her actual spirit coming to warn me of any approaching doom or danger, also I am very leery of Freudian mumbo-jumbo so I really do not think that it was feelings of guilt resurfacing. No, I feel that sometimes the mind gets so full of memories that we must put some of them in a zip drive in the back of our consciousness to make room for more. Though I will never completely purge myself of these feelings of guilt and remorse, it is time to shove them back to the far corner of my mind and seal them away.

I will always remember the good times and bad times that my friend and I shared but I no longer have room for regrets and what-ifs. Vaya con Dio’s my friend , I hope that you have found peace.

( This is a repost from Blugstuff but I wanted to post it here. This blog is the more personal side of me so I thought that occasionally I would repost some of those posts on Blugstuff that show my more personal side. )

Into The Cold

I sat in the cafe watching the heat come off the cup of coffee sitting in front of me. I picked up the cup in order to take that first test sip in order to better gauge it’s heat. Over the rim of the cup, I caught a vision from my past.

There she sat chatting and laughing happily with a friend. Almost twenty years had come and gone since I saw her last. My mind drifted back to that night long ago when we parted. I remember the sound of her crying in the dark and I remember my confusion and sorrow as I walked out into the cold. She wanted what I could not give and I wanted that which I could not have.

As the echo of the memory played through my mind, I finished the last sip of coffee. I left the money for the coffee and a tip for the waitress on the table. She did not see me sitting there and paid no notice as I slipped quietly out the side door.

As I drove down the road, I thought of how time holds still for no one. I have found the love that I thought that I could never accept. I hope she has found the one that could give back all the love that she deserved. Maybe I am a coward for not going up to her and seeing how she was doing after all these years yet once again I walked out in confusion into the cold. Some things never change.

That Is When I Knew ( A Valentine’s Day Post )

 

Memories are often like vague puffs of smoke obscured by the winds of time. Yet, I remember the moment that I knew that I had found the woman that I wished to share the rest of my life. I remember it with a clarity of vision that in almost twelve years has never wavered.

It was a warm spring night. The moonlight shone through the window giving everything the feel of a black and white picture. I lay in bed gazing upon the sleeping form of my lover. Her back was to me and I traced the outline of her body gently with my hand. When my hand reached the exact spot where the waist meets the hip, an almost electric shock coursed through my senses. I realised that this was where I always wished to be.

Almost twelve years have come and gone and one thing has never changed. Every night lying in bed with my wife, my hand finds it’s home nestled in that delightful curve where her waist meets her hip. The electric shock has become a warm glow letting me know that I have found that place where I still long to be.

Remembrance

 

It has been a year now since the loss of my first grandchild. He was only in this world for a few short breaths. All the longing in the world will not bring him back. I can only hope that if there is another place beyond the confines of this world then he is playing in peace and love.

In a cracking voice, I stood the day of the funeral under a bitter January wind and spoke at the graveside. I did not post anything of it then and talked to very few of my online friends of it. The pain was still too sharp and raw and the sting was too fresh. Now I will post the words that I spoke. It is good that I do not have to speak them for I am sure that my voice would crack as much now as it did then.

For those among us who have faith that a just and loving God calls each of the faithful home, let them be comforted in knowing that this child has been called there, blameless and unblemished before him.

We grieve for the lost opportunities. The laughter at play that will never be heard and the tears over small hurts never to have fallen, but do not let that grief overshadow the promise of the ones that are left. As we cherish their lives and the lives of the children yet unborn, we will remember this child. Hopefully by doing that we can give meaning to a life unlived.

Ray, we bid you farewell. We will never forget you.

Enjoying The Anger

On my blog, Blugstuff, I frequently poke fun at the state of my marraige and my long suffering at the hands of my wife, ‘Angry Joyce.’ The truth of the matter is that I relish her anger and am even truly proud of the way that she is able to express it to me. It wasn’t always so.

My wife could talk to a fencepost if no one was around. She is one of those people that never meets a stranger. She is outspoken in her views and has probably only been embarrassed a handful of times in her entire lifetime. But once upon a time that was only her public persona and did not make it into our personal life.

My wife was previously married to an abusive man. At the first of our relationship, if my voice was ever raised in the slightest hint of anger, she would cower and shrink as if I had struck her. I was patient and tried to keep my voice calm and low even when I felt like a good argument was due.

In time my patience was rewarded. I recall the blush of pride that I felt when I lost my cool and let my voice ring out it’s consternation and she got right in my face and let it rip right back. She had came through the other side and knew that no matter what I said or how angry that I was that she had nothing to fear. I was not going to lash out with violence, I was not going to run away, and no matter what; my love for her was greater than any petty argument.

So yes I am married to Angry Joyce. And I am so proud of that.

Our First Tree

My wife still gets choked up when we talk about our first tree. In fact sometimes she can still manage a tear or two. I am of the belief that it is the finest tree that I have ever had.

When my wife and I first married, we didn’t have a lot of money. I had left my job and moved back to my hometown and that sapped the funds some. The father of my three step-children was not paying any child support and my wife was having a rough pregnancy with our son, spending time in the hospital with a bout of pneumonia that the doctors were having a hard time curing. I was spending my nights working in the plant and the days taking turns watching the kids and spending time with her in the hospital.

With funds low and my wife in the hospital, and since I couldn’t just cut down a cedar tree as she is allergic to them, I managed to come across the bottom half of one artificial tree and the top half of another. I took the top half of one tree and duct taped it to the bottom of the other tree; hiding the duct tape with a bit of garland. The girls and I popped some popcorn and fashioned a bit of garland to string around the tree. We went out and picked pine cones and tied fishing line to them in order to make ornaments. We had foraged at my mothers and came up with four boxes of red glass ornaments, so we used some blue spray paint from the garage and painted a box of them blue.

The girls and I were proud of this sad little tree. It wasn’t the prettiest in the world but with little money and a lot of love we had crafted this little bit of Christmas cheer. When my wife came home from the hospital and saw it, it so reminded her of the tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special that she cried.

One spray painted blue ball still hangs from our big fancy pre-lit Christmas tree. My wife still doesn’t have many fond memories regarding that tree. Maybe it was ugly and maybe you could throw a cat throught the middle of the tree without hitting anything, but in my mind it was the most beautiful tree in all the Christmas’s that I have ever had. And with my wife home and healthy with our expectant child, and a house filled with bright eyed children playing happily with the gifts from Santa, It might have been the best Christmas of all.

A Pin-Up Christmas

When I was young my father kept a stack of Playboys tucked away. I think one of the first pics that I ever saw from one of them was Bettie Page winking under the Christmas tree.  I was simply amazed.

With all the porn available on the net, it seems that more and more graphic images are needed to get the same reaction as the simpler days of pin-ups. But in my mind there is still no image sexier than Bettie Page’s. With a simple look she exuded more sexuality than a website full of free porn.