Coeur-raison (corazon)... **Replied-finally**
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Religion and Philosophy

More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it?

-Jeremiah, the Broken Hearted

~*~

Love seems to bring us all more questions than answers in this life.

Why can't he/she just love me?

What about me is unloveable?

Is it just me?

What is wrong with this world?

How am I out of touch with the times?

Where is he/she?

Who is he/she?

When will my lonelyness end?

Why, who, how, where, what, and when indeed.

Some of us in this great journey are discovering the many twists and turns love's path offers either as solitary travelers or recent or longtime coupled pilgrims. In either case it is those moments when things are still in the solitary or shared bed that these reflections come to bear more than ever.

But these should not be unwholly unwelcomed musings to our wary and oft wandering minds. They should instead serve as a means to center ourselves around those things we know to be true in our live alone or shared, and both.

For truly, in bachelorhood and in relationshipdom, now matter how strong the ties that bind are, there is nonetheless the separate reality that we are indeed our own relationship : mind, body, soul, which in turn offshoots into the many or few contacts we possess and are in turn possessed by in this life.

A good friend, a former flame, and a relative once spoke with me (three persons in the span of a day) in earnest wishing to understand the behavior in their respective partners. Funny how that works sometimes, the man alone who ever digs at who he is, can see clearly what is with little effort, or at least appears to do so.

In each of their respective cases it came down to the primal mix of what Love has always been understood by myself as.

'Love is a right mixture of pleasure and pain, this is simply because gain and loss is so embedded into us as finite mortal creatures, that it is easy to grasp at those things that we enjoy and repudiate those things that seem to harm us. Moreover, because love is as threefold as our very being: Love being the element constituted of Desire, Need, and Want.'

In the case of my friend it turned out the lack of Desire, no matter the intensity of that other persons' need and want for their presence in their life, could not make them feel what was unfelt, for above all love refuses to be feigned in any of its parts or manifestations. Desire was missing inasmuch as this other person's desire to have his life be his own, with all its problems and challenges, would always serve to sabotage anyone trying to get to close. However, this would never remove his need for others to try getting closer, nor his want for others affection, sympathy, companionship, and patience.

Unfortunately for this person, my good friends' patience had since run out, due to mixed signals, which above all can serve to kill off any kind of connection. For no connection is possible where there is no communication. This person missed out, and my friend was hopefully able to move along Love's path to the next lesson and next experience.

A former flame and I have remained close, and to be honest at times the confusion that causes her is evident, as much as it can at times confuse me too. But we brave few who loved and lost, who enjoyed and suffered, dare face each other from time to time to remind ourselves not all was lost that was loved, not all was bitter that was not delighting. She has been off and on for so very long with a man I strongly believe she wants to believe she loves and moreover loves her. No lack of desire here on her part, in fact almost to a fault. No lack, despite an admitted infidelity on both their sides. Sometimes real eyes do not realize real lies.

But rather a real examination of what she Needs and what she Wants would have answered this connundrum for her a long time ago. Still, she comes to me when things go bad, for perspective, for understanding, for a kindred spirit that could help her get over what she wants to be true and help her see what is. It is clear to me that she Needs and Wants someone like me, if not me, but I cannot say it is the same from me to her.

Still I can admit I dare face her to remind myself what lessons and experiences knowing her has afforded me, and affords me still. And of course it helps me see what is it about me that is desireable and what is not, a good lesson and motivation to work in that arena.

A relative of mine once spoke to me about what had made her relationship work for so long, despite so much hardships (financial, mental, and emotional). She told me that despite the many years that now hung over her and her mate, the desire of each other's presence defined a new kind of intimacy that defied the years, the need that they both shared to share of each other more than ever as their journey took new directions in advanced age was greater than ever before, and the wanting of each other remained strong because they knew above all that living was a process of removing things from their respective lives, except those things that were rooted. And she smiled as she said they had never really uprooted themselves from each other.

Need, want, desire... Love's gotta have them all, and all of us ought to have it all when it comes to Love.

Cheers,
CLT

6:59 AM - 10 Comments - 14 Kudos - Add Comment

In Memoriam...
Current mood: angsty
Category: Life

"Your memory is a monster; you forget - it doesn't. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you - and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you!"

-John Irving

There are certain things we choose never to forget, as if somehow retaining them will make us more whole for the part of us that these moments, now gone, take up in our now. But there are others that never truly let us go, but rather become a part of us in our very being, kinda like a wrinkle on the face can either express a life full of joy and laughter or a life rife with sorrowful tears and angst-ridden grimaces. Case in point... me.

You see I heard a good friend tell me to enjoy this very last year of my twenties, as 29 was as good as 30 going on 40, and let's just say that aging has been on my mind. That and a great many things. Like health, money, family, women, God, and this path I am on. A moment of reflection if you will. I tend to have these always a few days after my birthday.

Btw... my party was real cool, it was awesome seeing some of my oldest, truest, coolest, newest, and oddest friends come around for this thing. It went on until about 4am. No cops, no drama, and a lot of 'wine, women, and song' as my one friend wished me. Gotta do it up again soon. Maybe for Halloween, we'll see.

A funny thing happened at the party (well a lot did) as I kept trying to help some of my friends out with some of the ladies that were there, often with comical results. In one occassion one girl had like 10 guys around her and like none of them vidiots asked the woman to dance, turns out she likes the night life, she likes to boogie, and she liked this disco hound. Haha. It was funny to see them suckas all crushed and hating. But I am a one dance limit dude moving onto the next smile kinda guy, so I hope some schmoe got the clue and asked for the next round of grooving.

It was also very interesting to see such a diverse crowd of people, granted most of them were through my bro's social circle, as with the onset of the hours, the fact that we did it up with 2 djs and an open bar (provided they brought ice and/or booze) set the tone for a mass migration of would be party people.

All in all good times. Oh and I got to see her again.

More on that twisted tale of on again off again, where is this at again kinda deal later.

I took Monday off to shake off the last year and make a better go at this new one.

Youth won't be wasted on me, not if I am still sober that is...

Before I go though, to all of you who remembered this rogue blogger on his day or the day after, or etc. THANK YOU SOMUCH.

Cheers,
CLT

6:59 AM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

EIGHT 8 Ohhh EIGHT
Current mood: grateful
Category: Life

28

8-8-80 to 8-8-08

Wow. 

Another one bites the dust...

As I let it sink in that more and more that I am fully swimming on the grown up side of the pool I can't help but think of my carefree days splashing on the shallow side of life.

Were things easier then? Sure, but did they have as much meaning to me in those long ago worry free days. Probably not. But as the years hang more on me, I know that they have been well spent, not greatly invested or used, but spent nonetheless.

Don't Stop Believing...

Dreams, we all have them, but so few of us commit ourselves to them. And damn if I put another year on the ol' engine without making more meaningful progress in this regard. Moments of existential crises and emotional funks aside, cause we all have them, I know each tear and each sadness came with a priceless lesson, just as each laugh and joy came with a cherished memory. At 28 I now know more than ever that it is only useful to conjure old sufferings for a refresher on the lesson beneath, other than this is folly and calling pleasure pain and melancholia normal, and it ain't, all the time that is.

Girls, girls, girls...

I love them, or at least that's what I think, since love is as nebulous a concept as who I REALLY am. But each day gets me a little closer and better suited to the appreciation of these mysteries, and helps me dwell more and more in the realm of actions and the practical than the conceived novelty of ideas, and the realm of mental fancy. Cause after all Love is a thing that is Lived more so than it is understood.

Money it's a gas...

So fiscally, I am in the mob, the large part of the world that teeters with debt and freedom on the fulcrum of fiscal responsibility. Politics and Economics aside, the ethical truism has been a bedrock for me. Earn to accomodate Living, but never Live to accomodate Earning, cause the first lets you keep your Soul, the other reposseses it and put's it into a safe called Selfishness. Oh and while I speak on Love, Possessions, and Life, this quote is the one that really gets to me in every single way:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." -C.S. Lewis

There are places I remember...

Looking back one also inevitably remembers all the people that have played a part in one's life, and wow, there have been many characters in mine. I am thankful for all of them. Even you as you read this leave me not quite the same, the imprint of your interest changing me, for the better. It is always nice to know people care enough to know about you. A shade of compassion for sure.

Live and Let Die...

Ok so my years of life have been hardly perfect and the people closest to me the cause of many of my greatest joys and woes, but life is about the feeling, of pain and pleasure alike, and well, I say LIVE ON.

I am grateful for my life and for the parts all of you, close and far, near and distant, or simply passerby.

Here's to another 28... at least.

Cheers,
CLT

6:59 AM - 7 Comments - 16 Kudos - Add Comment

These days of Ours..**REPLIED**
Current mood: argumentative
Category: Writing and Poetry

Beats - Rock'n
Seats - Drop'n
C - Pop'n
Streets - Rock'n
Freak'n, Shake'n, Money make'n , Stylin' and being fly.
-Common

~*~

Baby ask can I have?
Baby cries cause
you can't say
that both
your pockets empty
negative balance
negative outlook
gonna be a struggle
to balance the checkbook
when life is positively leaving
you with zero, nothing ro show

Cause Baby wants
cause Baby knows
that the best things in life
ain't free
but you can't be content to be happy
when you got nothing
that glitters
nothing that pays,
nothing that grows.

Paper money flying away
with your dreams
as Baby cries to sleep.

Mama says when you coming home?
The streets suck you alive
for the blood of your soul
She knows you be running
gunning down some options
when you should be seeking answers
Mama taught you better than that.

Mama asking away into an empty ear
full of the noise of chaos,
restlessness,
and fear
rushing your life into the next moment
hoping for a breakthrough
wishing on a miracle deliverance
that could not come to soon.
Mama waits for you at home,
cause she knows,
Mama understands

Every man needs to run away sometimes
but must come back home in the end
back to himself,
for home is where the heart is.

Papa where did you go?
You here and there and everywhere
but never when I was around.
You off into some great plan-design
probably running too.
Papa why'd you leave?

When we spoke it was a moment
when we lived it was a memory
when we were it was a instant
cause you were too busy with the times
and not what was in them
like me and others who looked to you
for strength and other things
that maybe scared you Papa.

But you remained here, two places at once
providing and surviving, living and dying,
chasing your dreams and living through ours,
but never where I needed you most.

Talking heads and caricatures
fill the empty hours
telling you to want this
need that
desire this
buy it all
their versions of how it is
to tell you what it is
neverending noise
we've got a special on happy coated
consumer-apathy, drenched in the latest
coverup.
Rise above the epithets,
deliver unto them their just desserts.

6:59 AM - 8 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment