So I am writing this book…

It is about bout strangeness, oddness, and incongruity. Well, it’s more an exercise than a potential avenue to publication or fame as an author. I am reading a coaching book for writers where the challenge is to write a book 350 words at a time. Supposedly in a year there will be a book there that is raring to go into the process of publication. A much longer amount of time than I wish to spend. I needed some assistance reinvigorating the creative process and this is one I came across. It, for the most part, is a simple exercise and it gets me away from of the daily journal that I have used in the past which has not allowed me much in the way of inspiration or value.

I began a daily piece a couple of days ago, and finished it before realizing that I had something other to say on the topic.

It was about terrorism.

I wrote this before the events in Paris, and since I have felt compelled to address the topic from a different point of view. I do not follow the news when it reports about terrorist atrocities. Not out of apathy, but out of a deep commitment to disallow the terrorist from realizing one of their major goals. To capture the news cycle and consequently spread more terror in the aftermath of the act of violence.

Remember the expansive enterprise of any act of terrorism is to quite simply terrorize. Looking at the aftermath of 911, there was widespread panic on the possibility of a financial collapse. Key the target: The World Trade Center. As evidenced by the economic atrocity the 2000’s turned out to be…mission accomplished.

The symbolic advantages of radicalism and extremism is the proliferation of fear and the easiest route to that is an attack that will mesmerize the news media and reach the largest amount of the population. An additional objective is to promote the efforts of counter terrorism in the hopes that through things like suicide bombers where martyrs are created that motivate the idealists in their cause. It becomes a noble feat to be a sufferer for a cause. Sacrificial victims become heroes, and the governments suppressing them are turned into scapegoats who prey on these honorable victims. It is punditry of the vilest variety.

I felt the same way when Osama bin Laden was killed. I wanted the news media to shut up about that monster. I am against killing of any sort, but I was relieved that they shot that bastard and dumped his body overboard into the sea to be eaten by fish. Not an enlightened stance for someone of my ideals, but it was how I felt after living with the aftermath of 911. Sadly for my principles, I wish the same for these criminals. Shoot them and throw them to the fishes to be made into feces.

There is a more personal reason that I write today. While not wishing to aid in the proliferation of propaganda aimed to harm, I have to say something. I have a close friend living in Paris whose demise would be completely devastating to me. I have known this gentleman since I was a teenager and he was in grammar school. He has, and always shall be a vitally important person to me. He is the most culturally adept person I know; he is the true definition of a Renaissance man. He has maintained our friendship over the years through his own effort and in spite of my divergence into the world of active addiction to alcohol and drugs. He, and his brother are a as siblings to me, and even the thought of losing of him makes me weep.

For me, it is a grace from God that he and his lovely bride are unharmed. It is an intense hurt to think of the dead and injured, but I am confident in the fact that Paris’s recovery from this mindless violence will be that much easier due to his presence in that most beautiful of cities.

Peace

That Languishing Luau called Love

An earlier post concerned itself with the elucidation of hate as I perceive it, so how about a horse of a different color for today’s sojourn into an off-color egghead’s unrealistic reality.

Love

My expertise at this most marvelous of feelings is a double edged sword with both sides seemingly dull. I admit to holding the feeling for quite of few individuals and sorely must admit that my propensity for love is not what I wish it to be. I am not currently “in love” with anyone, although there are quite a few who could easily fit in that category. I am gun shy where it comes to romance having been on the rejection side of the issue a few too many times. I have also been the recipient of such affection, but lacked the wherewithal to reciprocate. Oh. Woe is me.

I have had great romances in my life, and the memory of those glorious times softens my heart and makes me smile. Hindsight is a symptom of age and not all of my past deeds were atrocious. Some were quite beautiful and utterly miraculous. Yea for me?

If there is an issue with this emotion it grows out of the vileness I see in the world, and it frustrates any sense of where to find love. There are numerous examples to be found in my ongoing pursuit of recovery and in my spiritual readings. There are also numerous, I am sure, examples all around that I do not see, or allow myself to see. Having realized this in me it appears as I have much work to do in this area of sense and sensitivity. And so I shall.

For now I believe I need to wade in and tread the waters of days gone by revisiting a time and place that was, indeed, beautiful and miraculous:

Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in Lindenhurst, NY who, for a summer, had my heart in her grasp and I never intended that it be released. I have written of her before, on this blog in its earlier configuration. It was also a discourse on love and the wonder/agony that is the emotion. It took place in the mid to late 1970’s in that faraway place that I remember thinking was simultaneously glory, joy, utter bliss, and extreme ecstasy. It is a location that must be where the Rapture takes you. All that is good and kind is everywhere, and your soul, no; your very being is complete. A place like no other that might only be found in a specific set of eyes.

I am not able to access her name from the rapidly deteriorating hard drive between my ears. I can, fortuitously, rescue a memory of opulence in the orbs with which she observed me in my foolishness. 

We met while we were gainfully employed as taxi drivers at a small cab stand at the Long Island Railroad station in Babylon, NY. The money was terrible and the hour’s even worse, but it sufficed to pay a weekly rent and allowed for enough to enable the noble search all young men required in their quest for female companionship and whatever mind altering, mood changing substance essential to the discovery of true love.

The particular advantage to my spirit that this particular lady offered is that there was no need to wander the pubs and beaches in the execution of the marvelous mission that is coital coupling. We got off at about 11:00 pm and the world was, literally, our oyster. Pub crawling was not necessary, and quite cumbersome to us as we crossed the threshold into the adventure of discerning if either of us might just be, THE ONE AND ONLY.

We would ride across the bridge spanning the Great South Bay parking out by the nearest beach. We would lie on the hood of her car while watching the sky and the surf. We would drink beer or wine and talk about grand ideals while listening to the FM station playing love songs. We would look deep into each other’s eyes before we embraced. We would skinny dip, but not get too close. We had promised to wait for the gift of intimacy until there was no doubt that we had, in fact, uncovered THE ONE AND ONLY.

This pausing in the exercise of release that most young people yearned for served as both a blessing, and a decided disadvantage. This was not something my Neanderthal mentality was properly adept at. I have visions of cavemen and the lack of romance required back in those glorious days prior to language or etiquette. I realize this is a racial memory, but in my misspent youth I was not the judicious and perceptive intellect you have all come to love and submit your time to. Today I can listen to “Here comes the Sun” by the Fab Four and reminisce of the women in my life I have loved. Back in the day, it was much more “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” by Meatloaf. So why agree to this absurd abstinence?

It was her eyes.

I would look in them and feel safe. I would wonder why the only thing I really wanted to do was see the shine in those sky blue near translucent orbs lit by the moonlight bouncing off the water, and hear her soft voice telling me things I had never heard before. I never found an answer to my speculation.

It seemed as if God had sent an angel to me. She would smile and tell me goodnight when she dropped me off closing the night with deep embraces. My heart would ache for the sight of her until I got to work the next day. Then, right at about 11:05, Shangri La would open and all else would evaporate in the face of the magnificent creature that God had allowed me to hang with.

The memory is still breathtaking, and it comes to me from time to time to, I believe, remind me that I am alive. There is much in life currently that is ugly, unpleasant, and foul. One thing that is not revolting is the memory of a love lost in time.

The reality of the time proved not as splendid as the memory. Summer turned into fall, and then winter. It became too cold to sit out by the beach unless we were extremely inebriated. An old boyfriend of hers moved back to town and wanted to rekindle old times. I picked up a decidedly exotic girl in my cab one night and discovered that adorable eyes existed in other woman. We drifted apart and marched on our individual ways. We never did discover the wonders of the flesh, but that was fine. Like I said…it was her eyes.

It is said that great love elicits poetry. I have no rhyme to share or no verse to bedazzle the reader. I am not terribly adept with that particular region of written medium. I have written fiction and nonfiction. I am academically adept and lettered. I am an on demand writer and can produce whatever it is that you might need. I understand the writing process for the beast that it may be and the lover it holds in its grasp. I do not know, unfortunately, the mechanics of love. I have written that there are emotions that are actions and love is one of them. The who, what, where, when, and why of the emotion is an enigma to me other than the fact that I find myself having this reaction to persons, places, possessions, encounters, and events. I do not have words of a poetic nature to share. Thank God for the Internet. I can, and have searched and discovered the perfect ending for this piece. The precise location is not readily attributable due to my lack of cyber proficiency and a level of lethargic languor. But here it is;

I love my eyes when u look into them;
I love my name when u say it;
I love my heart when u luv it;
I love my life when u are in it.
You know who you are.

Peace