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Between JP Morgan, Facebook offering, increases in tuition, and the Greek elections, life might look bleak.




But for hours in the middle of the night.

I once heard a fella say, "...All the chaos that roils in our lives? It lives in the wee hours and moments. Those things that happen in our first place on Earth. There in the nest of our families or arms of the world? We begin to knit together the neurosis of 50. The clues to bring order are there hidden in the open.. Or at the very least the coming to terms, can be found there. Dislodge them, discard them, gather them to your breast and mother them? Lucky is the person who can revisit clear eyed. If you seek them out? You will find the contentment of old age. It's how we come to be, Ann. Try as hard as you can to look away and the subconscious monster will come drag you back until she is satisfied...."

It's a hard trade.

To let go of the past is as simple as taking off a heavy wool coat.

Sure it's kept you warm but comes a day when it's just no good. Comes Spring and that coat no longer keeps you content or warm. It's a burden.

I've spent quite a bit of time trying to sort out all those incomplete puzzles pieces that lay scattered about on the floor of this room. Photos and letters. Diaries. Memories. I've tried to make some sense till I'm exhausted from the effort. Some day someone will come. A distraction from this game. They'll pull me away from it with promises of sunshine and the out of doors. They'll collect my tears in buckets and then take them and my sorry self to the Gulf and throw them and me laughing into the water.

Baptised in the new, I'll be happy with the idea of the future and some how okay with the past.

There are one or two more things to do.

I find that a visit to an old friend is one.

It's either let go or grab hold.



Step one to it, is to take a sense of humor.
More important than your towel.
Step two?
Don't get so distracted or attached to the past that it keeps you from your future.



Good luck and hugs. I'm only seeing the soveniers of your journey. The tats on your arms and the photos of where you've been.

For what it's worth, I feel a great deal of love and contentment, but foresee a gale or two before the boat reaches home. An old anger is to be dealt with. It's because of a hurting heart that this comes so it's best to stand up and not flinch. Maybe some of it's deserved? Even so hopefully it's over quick and followed by sun. It's the test of staying and forgiveness.

It's the reason why couples who live together for the rest of their lives get that funny look when they say, "Us? Fight? Ah no, never."

Because they do fight. We all do. It's just the forgiveness and the knowledge of what they'd loose should the fight cause leaving that they're thinking of when they look so funny.


The nights when they've thought, " No more."

The mornings they've said, "Always."

If I could, I'd spare you this reality. Give you some potion. Something to take to keep you staying or by pass the anger.

But I've nothing to give you but love.

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Note.

This is a love song in the form of a dream. It's incomplete in some places. Like passing through time. I could edit it but I'm a poet at heart. Editing would ruin the music of it. Polish would make it slippery and very difficult to walk throught. It's already difficult enough with out making it worse.

So just know that it's a love song. Some maternal. Some reminising. Some for another that's definately not maternal.

I live in a world that -- hmm-- I live in a world of hope and longing. For me there is upheaval. Some my fault but a good deal isn't. I've made an art of holding on to the illusions and pretty pictures of life because how would I survive otherwise. How do I keep the notion that there is in this world someone for me. I'm not young anymore. In this culture who would want me. It's too easy to find someone younger and prettier. There's no need to wade through all the coming of getting old.

I went into a photographer's studio. It was an accident that I found myself there. Anyway, I was glad to be there because the work is very good. As I was looking around at the photographs, I asked the fella how much it would cost to have my photo taken. He quoted a price and then was curiously quiet. I asked if he could make me look as beautiful as the people on the walls and he came within a hairbreath of answering my question before the coward in me interupted him by saying, "Ah well there' is only so much a photographer can do. Not like a painter. I can still be interesting."

He looked at me and then said,, " Well you know. Maybe people will hear you if you look interesting. If you looked beautiful? Maybe they'd be distracted. Too distracted to care what you have to say."

It's still gives me a little knot in the pit of my stomach to remember this story.

I've tried to think of Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton. Not ugly but not cover girls either. I wonder if they look into the mirror and see the wrinkles and the stress in what they see.

I look at my own image. I try to remember that interesting means a life spent in the moment.

At least I try to think it.

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In other news?

I'm watching the LLS with CF in Scotland. It's surprisingly good. Love the mix of travelogue and metaphor. Certainly not boring.

"It's hard to stay up. It's been a long, long day and you've got the SandMan at your door..."



Hugs.

Ann

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