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.