Back At The Bar

Can’t tell you what made me look up or why. I just know that we made eye contact and for the first time in more than a year he was sitting at the bar again.

He nodded at me, I nodded back and gave him his beer.

Two swigs and a deep sigh later he smiled at me but didn’t say anything.

“You just visiting? Last time you were here you said you had moved?”

I watched something flash in his eyes and tried to figure out what it was I had just seen.

“Moved there and now I moved back. I live here again…for now.”

In between a couple more swigs he told me that it had been a good move and that he had moved back for work but would consider going back there again.

I didn’t want to pry into his business but I was curious to find out what had happened with his mystery girl. When I asked he just looked up at me and smiled.

“Did she move back with you?”

“Nope? What makes you ask? I didn’t say if I ever talked to her, let alone saw her.”

“Uh, I don’t know. When you smiled I got the feeling that things worked out for you.”

“Things always work out, if you let them.”

I looked at him but I couldn’t figure out what he meant when he said that. It could have been a statement or it could have been a question. I figured after all this time it wouldn’t hurt to ask him what it meant.

“It means what it means. Things work out. Everything has a resolution of some sort or another.”

He smiled at me and I asked him if that meant there were plans for the future.

“Rick in Casablanca says he never plans that far in the future or something similar. That is good advice.”

I didn’t appreciate his tone and told him so.

“After all this time you could do me the courtesy of just answering the question.”

“Sometimes there is no answer. I got nothing more to tell you about it today. ”

He smiled at me, paid for his drink and then left a five dollar tip and walked out the door.

As the door closed I realized that I still didn’t know much of anything. Couldn’t say if he had seen the mystery girl nor did I have any clue if they had any sort of relationship at all. Part of me didn’t really care, wasn’t my business and it wouldn’t affect me at all if they never talked again or if they got married.

Still I couldn’t help but be curious so I made a mental note to ask about her again. As I wiped down the bar I heard him tell me that things work out if you let them and tried not to wonder how to interpret it.

I Dared Her

I dared her to try to stop loving me and she asked me what I thought I was doing. I told her I didn’t really know and she asked me if it was wise to test her and I laughed.

Looked her in the eye and asked her to think about how we got to be where we are and who we are.

“Do you remember sitting in the car when I asked you if you still loved me?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Think about what it took to do that, think about how hard it was for me to open up and take the chance of being rejected face-to-face and tell me if you could have done it. Tell me missy, you who claims you won’t say ‘I love you’ first’ if you would have taken the chance.”

I watched the wheels turn in her head and saw her eyes narrow and knew the ground wasn’t as stable as I might want it to be.

“Baby, I am not bragging or trying to pick on you. Not trying to bait you either. We all have our roles in relationships and for the time being this is mine. I am the guy with the gorilla arms that can hold on to the side of the cliff forever. This is where I come in and remind you that in some ways nothing has changed. This is where I say it is just blip and ask you to keep holding my hand because if you hold it I will support us both for as long as it takes.”

I saw her eyes soften and told her if she would let me I would do my best to be her rock and her hero, said I always wanted to be her knight. Reminded her she has always been my queen and then saw her shake her head.

“I don’t know how you do this to me.”

There was  a smile in her eyes and another stretched out across her face.

“I don’t know you do it to me either, I just know that you do and that you always have. One day I might have to write a story about it all.”

The Rhythm Of Love

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― George Eliot!

“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give you forever”
― Nicholas Sparks

Dear Woman,

If those quotes don’t mean anything to you, if they don’t touch your heart and make your head wonder than I am not just an idiot I am a fool of the highest order.

The words jump out and scream at me and I stare off into space to let them sink in and all I get in return is a parade of images and the sound of your heart next to mine. It is a funny feeling, this moment where I think about what I would do if you were sitting next to me.

That’s not a sexual reference either because that is not what this is about. I can take you/have you without question and that union will take you exactly where I want you to go, but that is not what I want.

It is not because I don’t think you are sexy and beautiful because you know that hasn’t changed. There will never come a time when I am not completely turned on by you.

It is not sexual because I won’t give you the excuse of saying lust and hormones made you do anything. Nor will I let you say you slept with me because you don’t want to hurt me. Damn straight you don’t want to hurt me, it is not something I worry about.

Won’t lie and say that it hasn’t happened or suggest I have never hurt you because we all know the truth but it is not about focusing upon who hurt who but upon how we make each other better, how we elevate the other because when you are in love with your best friend and you have the innate power we do there is something bigger than just one person.

This is just a moment in time, just one blip on a million blips and it happens to be a disturbance, a disruption in the force. It is where our rhythm of love has been tripped up and I am not happy to see it but it is part of us and it is just one of those things we are working through.

No doubt in my mind, never a question that these blips will pass and that time will come when they don’t hit like this. Time will come when we will figure out how to polish the rough edges so when that part of the circle of love rotates there won’t be a snag.

The magic never died, disappeared or faded. It is there as bright and beautiful as ever and you will see it again. You just haven’t realized that your hat has slipped a bit and the brim is covering your eyes a bit.

And there will come a time when we’ll kiss again and remember that our lips never stop caressing the other. No matter where we are we never forget nor stop feeling and I will always be there to kiss the tears away.

You may have slipped over the cliff for a moment but it doesn’t mean that I can’t carry you back up nor does it mean that I won’t. But it doesn’t mean that I will run after either because sometimes it is ok to let you go look down at the valley.

Call me what you will but you are mine and I am yours. It is just how it is. I don’t have to see your face to know you smile when I call you my girl.

Your Thoughts Are Too Loud

Haven’t had a real conversation in more than a week. No telephone, no email, text or telegrams have been exchanged.

If I was responsible for this you would go nuts and scream at me but since it is you and not me there is no screaming to be heard or anger to be had.

It is that funny old double standard but I don’t mind because I am used to it and I expect it. More importantly your thoughts are too loud to be ignored and I know what you are thinking. Know what your dreams, secrets and hopes are just as I know what you fear.

I know things.

I know things about you and I know things about me. Most importantly I know things about us and there is so much more to be enjoyed. So much good and so much fun coming down the pike. Can’t stop it from happening and I don’t want to. Things are unfolding as they will and as they should.

Soon you’ll be in my arms again and you’ll wonder why you didn’t spend more time in them when you had the chance. I am not worried because I know things.

I have proven it before and I’ll prove it again. Just watch me.

Should I Ignore You

She told me she is a free woman and able to make any decision she wants to make. Said that she lives her life based upon her choices and told me a bunch of other stuff that I could share but won’t.

Could tell you exactly what it was but she would say I was telling it wrong and ask me about my revisionist history. I would probably respond by saying I choose to listen to that which pleases my ear and that I ignore that which doesn’t.

That might earn a response of, “oh you think you are so supreme, don’t you.” And then I would say yes and insist that she kiss me and that would be the end of it, at least for that moment.

You see that damn woman could be described as the worst thing that ever happened to me. Could be said she was the bane of my existence.

Hah, just writing that makes me laugh for a moment because if she read those words quickly her head might explode and then she would accuse me of baiting her.

But that is not my style, I might tease her from time to time, pull on her pigtails but not bait.

Because she knows she is the best thing that ever happened and that she restored my faith in love, lust and all that other rot. She knows that she only gets sexier and more beautiful to me and that I don’t care if she doesn’t look precisely as she did at 20.

Hell, she can pick out the age she thinks she was most beautiful at and I’ll still take her now over then, unless we invent time travel.

I am kidding honey, just kidding.

But I am not kidding when I say you are a giant pain in my ass nor will I let anyone else refer to you that way because I choose to put up with your antics and that is a big distinction. I choose you.

Don’t know how it all happened. Can’t tell you exactly why. I just know that it did.

Don’t ask me to tell you why I love you. Don’t ask me to list all the reasons.I don’t say that just because you wouldn’t answer me if I asked but because sometimes the magic is in the mystery.

You smile every time you kiss me. I notice that. It jumps out at me.

We fight but we don’t stay angry and that jumps out at me.

We have been together forever now but in many ways we are just starting out and I kind of like that. No, I love that.

Decades ago we decided that there had to be a minimum of ten people we could fall in love with, serious love. We said that math and science made it impossible to say otherwise and I still agree.

But I have no interest in trying to prove that theorem true. Only a fool would ignore the person who makes their heart feel full and brings joy to their soul.

Only a moron would walk away or pretend it wasn’t real, didn’t exist or any other combination of go away this can’t work kind of nonsense.

And well, I am your fool so get used to my being around and get used to not being able to forget about me because I am in your head and it is not going to get any quieter inside.

I’ll be coming for you, don’t have an exact date but I know the time frame.

And I’ll do my best not to make you any crazier by ignoring you because you hate that. You hate when I don’t pay attention to you which is exactly why sometimes I want to go silent because I love teasing you.

But I love making you happy even more and since I carry your heart I am always aware of how it beats.

Got to run.

P.S. You kissed me first.

I Never Have Understood

“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we’ve lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we’ve found each other. And maybe each time, we’ve been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

I have never understood why it hurts so damn much to be apart. Or maybe it is more accurate to say on an intellectual level it seems like it shouldn’t feel like someone carved a hole in my chest with a spoon, but that is just how it feels sometimes.

Maybe it is because of the disconnect between heart and head. Maybe it is because head tries to apply logic and science to that which can’t be understood in that manner. It is an interesting battle between the two because they aren’t always in sync and I expect they would be.

Head tells heart it must have an explanation for why there is pain and heart asks why head doesn’t understand that you never feel whole when half of you has been taken away.

Heart looks at head and wonders how the hell head can be so callous about so much. “Head, this is serious. This is not just your life, it is our life that you are screwing with and potentially screwing up.”

“Heart, I understand that you are nervous and upset but aren’t you the one that said you should just relax and that things will work out as they should. I am following your advice.”

“Head, you are a stupid asshole! You never let someone who is that important just walk away. Never! You take them by the hand, grab them by the shoulder and or do whatever you need to do to get their attention and tell them they are important. You tell them that they are loved and that they mean the world to you and you make sure they know these things are not based upon conditions.”

“Heart, why are you screaming and what are you afraid of? We all make choices and sometimes people choose to walk away or to spend their time doing other things with other people. Sometimes you give them their space and they come back.”

“Head, this is why you are a fucking moron. Fear makes people act in ways that don’t make sense. Fear makes people do stupid crap and you are scared silly. You’d rather be the tough guy and pretend that nothing is going on when maybe everything you have worked so hard to build is about to collapse.

That may not be true. It may not even be accurate but your fear is preventing you from finding out and this why you need your ass kicked. You need to take her by the hand and ask her what is going on. You need to remind her about love, tell her you love her and remind her that every time you have ever been separated you both ache.

And you remember she has her own life, her own fear and her own insecurity and you let her know that you are not pressuring her to make changes or choices she can’t make now. But you need her to know you carry her heart and you’ll kiss away her tears. You let her know that you are convinced that you are never better than when you are together and that you will be patient with her, gentle and loving.

Tell her you’ll do what it takes and ask to hold her hand and look her in the eyes and then if you believe in god you pray or if you believe in science you hope that the polarity of the magnets have not changed. And then you might have a shot at what it is you have been looking for.

Sometimes you need to shake yourself and shake another so that the connection between two souls who never stopped loving each other continues on the physical plane just as it always has everywhere else.”

“Heart, I am not entirely sure why you took so many words to say we are supposed to say I love you and hope she says it too, but ok. I’ll try it your way.”

Our Story

My seventies girl is lying on her side, right arm extended backwards, hand searching for mine. “Baby, why are you so far away?”

She has that sleepy tone in her voice, won’t be more than a couple of moments before I hear her breathing change, won’t have to see her face to know that she is fast asleep.

“I can’t sleep like this, come here.”

I play her words back in my head and smile. How long has it been since we last saw each other. How long has it been since we wanted to hold or be held in our sleep. It feels good to know that she prefers to feel my body pressed up against hers than to be stretched out alone.

It has been four months since we last saw each other, but it feels much longer to us or it did. Within moments of seeing each other she was wrapped in my arms, lips pressed against my own, our one heart beating together.

I look down at her and tell her that I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t a part of me and that something magical has happened again.

She smiles and asks me to tell her what that is.

“It always feels like forever when we are apart but the moment we see each other it feels like no time has passed. We always pick up where we left off. I never get tired of being with you, that is special.”

She tells me she feels the same and asks, “do you want to do it before we eat or after?”

I laugh and tell her that I am not a piece of meat.

“You are my meat and ten minutes after we do it you’ll be asleep so I want to know how hungry you are.”

I laugh again. “What am I 18? I am not that guy.”

Fingers run through my hair and across my belly, “no, you aren’t, are you.”

“I laugh and remind her that she is the cougar in this relationship and then flex my muscles. She wraps two hands around my bicep and tells me that I look good to her.

“We are going to do it before and after. Do you need to stretch before we start? I want to practice safe sex and I would hate for you to get a cramp.”

She rolls her eyes at me and we laugh. The level of comfort and trust has always been deeper than we had with anyone else and that is a large part of why we have always rolled over any obstacles. She always gives herself completely to me and we get lost in moments that only we share.

I slide my arm under her head and wrap my other around her and smile again as I feel the tension in her body disappear. In a few moments I hear a soft snore coming from her and I smile again. She won’t like it being described that way and will tell you that I snore louder than anyone she knows.

Time passes and we’ll wake up, check our phones and get dressed to head out for dinner. Tonight we are going out to a swanky steakhouse.

The waiter brings her a glass of wine and some single malt for me. Twice baked mashed potatoes, Filet mignon for her and a New York Strip steak for me and then chocolate cake for desert.

“Baby, we are going to need to work this off tonight.”

She looks at me and says she is not 25 anymore. It takes a moment for me to realize she is teasing me and I feel silly.

Four hours later in the dead of night I feel her hands running all over me and I tell her I am not 25 any more. She giggles and says she can help with that.

In the midst of lovemaking she tells me she loves me and wants me to name some songs that describe us.

Happy- Bruce Springsteen

Come Live With Me- Ray Charles 

She asks me to tell her why and then asks if I will sing them to her. I tell her I have been singing our song since we met and that I can always hear her singing it too.

“Tell me why you picked those songs.”

“Because I did.”

“Baby! I want to know, tell me.”

I squeeze her tightly and start moving faster. She wraps her legs around me and squeezes whispering “tell me.”

“After, I will tell you after.”

I don’t have to see her face to know that I am getting that look from her, the one where her eyes narrow. I pay attention to it because sometimes it is the one I get when she is angry and sometimes it is the one she gives when she is thinking that men are a pain in her ass.

“You know why I picked those songs? It is because…”

A few hours later we wake up and she tells me that it is not fair that I fell asleep so quickly afterwards. “Baby, I have been up since the crack of dawn while you have been snoring away. Tell me why you picked those songs.”

“Well, if you are going to nag me about it I am not going to say anything.”

I can’t maintain a straight face and start laughing. “You were ready to kill me, weren’t you.”

She nods her head and then I make sure to tell her that I didn’t think she was nagging me at all. It is easy to say because I really don’t think she was doing it.

“Here is why I picked those songs”

A Valentine’s Day Fable

Originally posted here.

++++++++

I decided to put together a Valentine’s Day segment for Fragments of Fiction.

“If I traveled all my life
And I never get to stop and settle down
Long as I have you by my side
There’s a roof above and good walls all around
You’re my castle, you’re my cabin and my instant pleasure dome
I need you in my house ’cause you’re my home”
You’re My Home- Billy Joel

“I was alone, I took a ride,
I didn’t know what I would find there
Another road where maybe I could see another kind of mind there

Ooh, then I suddenly see you,
Ooh, did I tell you I need you
Every single day of my life”
Got To Get You Into My Life- The Beatles

“Who knows how long I’ve loved you,
You know I love you still.
Will I wait a lonely lifetime?
If you want me to I will.”
I Will- The Beatles

I am tired of beginning sentences with “if.” It frustrates me to hear the word pass through my lips and begin some sentence in which I express disappointment or regret about things I could or should have done. Life is not meant to be lived by looking backwards at the places we have been and the cries of what could have been.

It is not. Life is for the present and the future. The past is your garage. It is a closet stuffed full of experiences that we hope that we have learned from so that we don’t make the same mistakes. But it is the place where we can take refuge from some of the challenges of the day.

I seek balance between the two. I search for a way to reconcile these things so that I can live the life I want to live. Some times it is hard and I punish myself for the mistakes. I cry out in anger and frustration and wonder how I found myself stuck in this place.

We said that we would find a way. We promised that no matter what happened we would hold hands and overcome the challenges. And now you are gone.

You told me that things were too hard that life was too stressful. My intensity made it harder. And for that I am sorry. I can only be who I am. A boy who fell in love with a girl and has never stopped loving her. A man who cannot forget that first kiss and the look in your eyes.

It was the kiss that changed the world. There are times when I agonize about it because if I had never kissed you then I’d never know the emptiness of my heart. If we had never meant I would never have known that someone could fill me so completely and make me so happy.

You uncovered places inside me that I didn’t know existed and now they are so very cold without you there to help keep them warm.

Still, the experience reminds me of how incredibly strong I have become. I won’t ever stop loving you. Your absence is palpable. You are my air and I am choking without you. But I am surviving. Every day that we go without contact is one more reminder that I can do it. I can walk and live and be.

Yet, that doesn’t close the hole in my heart. All that it does is provide a bandage that I can use to get through the day. And the funniest thing about all of this is that my heart tells me that this is not done. We’re not through,not by a long shot.

I have this feeling that something is going to change. The whispers in the dark tell me to just let it be. They say that this is nothing more than a blip in time. For now this walk down life’s pathways are separate but they will intersect again and when they do we will be stronger than ever before.

That gypsy that sells Love Potion Number 9 won’t be seeing me because we don’t need that kind of help and that is ok.

So this Valentine’s Day don’t be surprised if you suddenly see me standing there. Don’t be shocked when I pull you into my arms and kiss you. It is been far too long since we spent time together in our special world. Just remember that when you are thinking about me I am think about you. I’ll see you on the other side.

The Old Familiar

Got some ideas that are tied into this.

Quotes

“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

“Well, art is art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh… now you tell me what you know.”
― Groucho Marx

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― George Eliot!

“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give you forever”
― Nicholas Sparks

“When love is not madness it is not love.”
― Pedro Calderón de la Barca

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. “Pooh?” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.”
― Alfred Tennyson

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
― Mark Twain

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
― Aristotle, Metaphysics