When I arrived at the crossroads I had no idea that I would tumble over the side. The fall sent me careening down the hill with no idea when I would hit bottom.
(Fragments of Fiction post- will be added to throughout the day.
Archives for June 2009
The Heart Wants What The Heart Wants
Originally run here
Someone once told me that the heart wants what the heart wants. I don’t know if that is a line from a book or a movie, it could be. Then again it might be one of those pithy statements that people come up with. I’d ask the person who told me but I can quite remember who said it. Hell, it might have even been
me.
The heart wants what the heart wants. You know what that means? It is a statement made by people who can’t explain why they are in love with person xyz. It is what you say when there is no logical explanation for your actions. It is a catchphrase, a tagline, a slogan and a motto.
The heart wants what the heart wants. It reminds me of Shakespeare, “Life is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing.†Somewhere my high school English teacher Mrs. McDonnell is smiling. Little Jimmy actually remembered a line from Macbeth. See ma’am, I told you that I could hear just as well in sunglasses as without..
The heart wants what the heart wants. It is the kind of thing you hear people say when they are trying to explain why they are hung up on someone from their past. Or maybe it is what you say when you stop denying the love that is in front of you.
If love were rational, if it were based upon logic life would be easier. When I think about some of the things I have done because of love I want to scream. When I consider the self-inflicted misery I have endured I want to cry because it seems so very foolish. How could I waste so much energy on such a silly thing as a woman, a single woman. The world is filled with millions of women. It should be easy to replace her. It should be as simple as changing shoes, but it is not. It is not, it is not.
The heart wants what the heart wants. It does and mine has chosen someone that is far more special to me than all of the others. My lips remember hers. I can still feel her touch. The pillowcase has never been washed because I have this fantasy that I can still pull it close and smell her.
Sometimes I think that reincarnation must be real and that in a past life I must have stolen fire from the gods or committed some other heinous crime. Because there is no logical reason why I would be punished in this manner. I found the woman that completes me. I found the person that makes me whole and I let her go.
She would have stayed. She would have held my hand. She would have helped save my soul but I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t make myself do it. Even though I knew it to be a simple thing. A brief plea for help and she wouldn’t have left me. I wouldn’t have been left to live in shadow and night. I could have been whole. Her love was enough to let me believe that I could have been something more.
But like I said, in that past life I did something. I earned the wrath of those who sit in judgment. Or maybe it is nothing like that. Maybe there is no reason why. Maybe this is all there is and happiness is based upon some sort of random something or other.
The heart wants what it wants and mine has betrayed me. In a different life it lay in a green garden beneath bright blue skies and now it is filled with weeds and fields of shattered stone and black night skies.
Once I might have hoped for salvation. Once I believed that I deserved better than this but now I understand that not to be so. Hades has issued his decree. I stand next to Sisyphus. Tantalus is my brother. Happiness is something that I can see but can’t reach.
The heart wants what the heart wants.
Facebook Follies- Too Many Notifications
It is time for another edition of Facebook Follies, the blog posts that provide you with the key information you need to become a master of Facebook.
Ok, that is an exaggeration. Most of these Facebook posts are commentary about it, but some of them do include practical information. Take what you will from them.
Anyhoo, let’s move on and talk about Facebook Notifications. Many of us have friends who use Facebook extensively throughout the day. They take every quiz that comes along and publish the results filling our news feed with all sorts of useful information about what state they should live in, what kind of fruit/animal/superhero they are and so much more.
I don’t know about you, but I find it to be a bit tedious, tiresome and obnoxious. To be fair, I have to admit that I use a couple of Facebook apps that send out notifications. However, I try to do a couple of things to mitigate the ensuing the mess.
1) When I remember I turn off the notifications because not everyone needs to know or see that the state of Ohio has begged me to come for a visit.
2) I go through my profile and delete entries. A little cleanup of the clutter goes a long way.
3) I use lists. I have my Facebook friends divided into groups and have the privacy settings adjusted accordingly. Not everyone gets to see everything that is listed there.
Let me be clear, I don’t post things that I want to be kept secret. I assume that anything that goes up can be seen by anyone. It doesn’t mean that it will be, but it provides structure and that is useful.
Still, there is no reason to give everyone full access. There are people that I friend that do not need to know or see some things. If it happens that they stumble upon them that is one thing, but I don’t have to make it easy for them.
Let’s circle back to notifications as that is really the main point of this piece. You know who you are. You who update your account seventeen times an hour and take every quiz. You are cluttering up our feeds with nonsense and gibberish. We may love you dearly, but we don’t always need to have the knowledge that if you were a tree you’d be a Buckeye or what your birthstone says about you.
Sometimes silence is golden.
Coming Soon
Hang around a few and you’ll see a few new posts. I have a Johnny and June floating inside the old melon, a comment or two about social media and the MSM and a few others.
Michael Jackson
There are a number of reports that Michael Jackson has died. Blogs and Twitter are all buzzing way with news of his death, but I have yet to see report on the MSM confirming that he has died.
However, there are many reports of his having suffered a heart attack.
This gives me an idea for a blog post that I’ll probably write later on.
In the interim here are links to some of his old stuff:
And Then He Died
Three years ago I stood in the emergency room of the hospital and listened to the doc explain that my grandfather had died. And then I went to the room in which his body lay and say with him. I wrote about that moment in The Bearer of Bad Tidings- One Less Set of Footsteps.
Two thoughts come to mind about that post. I can’t read it without choking up a little. It is raw and it captured the moment so well that three years later I still feel it. But I was and still am very appreciative of the comments. It was one of those moments where I knew without a doubt that the blogosphere is a real community.
It is hard to believe that three years have gone by, especially when I think about all that has happened. Some of the hardest and most challenging moments of my life lie before me and I sorely miss his advice and support. I would have liked to have been able to discuss some of this with him.
He would have listened and shared some thoughts. Chances are he would have told me a story or two. I never got tired of them. Grandpa was a very fine storyteller. He did an excellent job of painting a picture that you could see.
In my mind’s eye I have a million images of the Chicago of his youth and the things that he did. It is not hard to imagine what life in the carnival business was like, winters in New Orleans or the things that he did in the army.
He would have taken so much pleasure from his great-grandchildren. It makes me a little sad that the dark haired beauty has completely forgotten him. Sure, she knows his name and recognizes his picture, but she doesn’t remember him. She doesn’t remember how he came to the hospital the day she was born and held her or how he told me that it was ok to make sure that her boyfriends were afraid of me.
So many good memories and so many stories to tell. He took me to my first Dodger game. Taught me how to throw a punch and told me that if I hit someone to make sure that I was ready to take what came afterwards.
When I was learning how to drive he took me out, had me drive back and forth through Laurel Canyon and around Farmer’s Market. There were movies and lunches and so much more.
One of my favorite memories comes from my sister’s wedding. I wrote about it in a post, but I can’t remember exactly where. I really should find it because it is a great story and it deserves to be told properly.
A handful of years later I find myself visiting my grandfather at the hospital. We’re exchanging stories and he is filling me in on his health. He tells me that if he had known that he was going to live so long he would have taken better care of himself. I tell him that I am sure that he is going to be around another twenty years.
He shakes his head and tells me no. He is serious and he looks me in the eye and says that he knows that the finish line can’t be that far away. Tells me that he is going to fight for every breath and that if there is a such a thing as the angel of death, he is going to kick the crap out of him.
I laugh and ask him how. He smiles and tells me that he’ll punch him in the nose and that when the tears well up in the angel’s eyes he’ll slip out the door. We both laugh at this and then we are silent.
A few minutes later he closes his eyes to go to sleep and I look around the room. Beeps and whistles and the whirring noises of various machines are all that I can hear. I move closer and am comforted to hear him breathing peacefully.
Not so long afterwards I am alone in a hospital room with him. This time there is no peaceful breathing, no snoring. Although his hands are still warm I know that in a short time they won’t be any longer.
For a moment I stare at his body and inside my head I can hear someone say, “and then he died.”
You might also be interested in these posts: