Playing Our Song

Man oh man, I heard our song tonight. It wasn’t on the radio or an iPod, it was inside my head and though you couldn’t see me I was dancing.

I closed my eyes and I saw you enter the room and it was breathtaking.

Watched you glide right by a couple of guys and wondered if somehow I could show you the reflection in my eyes. Wondered how I could show you what I see when I look at you, to let you know that you are not just beautiful, your magical.

And then I saw myself dance and wondered how a man can be so graceful in his dreams and yet so clumsy in reality.

Pictured myself taking you by the hand and watched us start dancing together, smiled as I watched our feet leave the ground and wondered what sort of magic made it possible for us to levitate.

Smiled because I knew it was us.

That magnetic pull that we always feel when we are close pulled us in tight and you held on to me and I onto you and love lifted us higher and higher.

I watched us soar closer to the sun than we had ever been and where once I might have worried we would be like Icarus and fall to the earth that fear was gone because we had done it together. We had moved heaven and earth, touched the face of god and defeated the bonds of gravity.

And in the midst of our dance angels separated us and flew us towards separate corners. It took a moment for us to realize what was happening, lost in joy and kvelling in a minute that lasted forever we didn’t recognize that our flight was no longer powered by us.

When I realized I couldn’t see your face any more I struggled with that angel, wrestled as Jacob had once done. Though I wasn’t able to force him to take me back to you I was able to make him set me down, much closer than he had intended to leave me yet still a world away.

One finger touched my lip and tried to rob me of the memory of you but I fought him again.

I knew what had been and what could be.

“Child, I do this for your your own good. It is too late child. She won’t know you. She won’t remember you. Don’t take this burden on, let me ease your pain.”

I told him it didn’t matter and said I would storm the gates of heaven or march straight into hell if I had to. Swore an oath that made his wings quiver and caused him to back away.

“If it wasn’t for your interference I wouldn’t have a burden nor pain.”

He simply nodded his head and then he disappeared.

I was alone, more so than I could remember being. Alone and apart I felt an ache and an emptiness that brought me to my knees.

Might been minutes or it might been months before I stood again but when I did I had mastered the pain. The ache and the emptiness were still there but that feeling that I couldn’t move was gone.

One step led to another and I set off to restore that which had been broken. I don’t know how long I wandered through that wilderness feeling cut off and lost but there came a time when I could hear you singing.

I didn’t know where it came from but I knew that given time I would find it and I would find you. Somewhere in the distance between who we once were and who we could still be I’d find you and then I’d learn if the angel had truly wiped your memory clean.

Some people would have given up. Some would have accepted what they heard or had been told but I wasn’t them and never would be.

Because I never forgot our song. Never forgot what it was like to float through space with you and to know things for no other reason than just because I did.

Every day I took one step closer towards finding out whether magic truly transcends time and space. One step closer towards finding out if a man’s memory was as flawed and broken as some suggested or if it was more than that.

Don’t know when that day might come but I do know that tonight I heard our song playing and I saw us dancing.

And in my dreams you said you loved me and told me to come find you…so I did.

The Secrets We Keep

Sometimes I think about the secrets we keep and their impact upon the lives we live.

Some are big and some are small. Some are in between and some are something other than those already mentioned.

Some are the sort that can be viewed in a negative fashion and yet if you move three feet to the left or right the shadows lift and you see the most amazing sight. The very definition of beauty and grace, so much so that your throat grows thick and your voice hides from the world.

A choked back sob is all that comes out and somewhere in the midst you recognize all that you have, all that you might be and all that you might never see if you choose to let it all unravel.

“I dwell in possibility.” Emily Dickinson

And so do I said the boy with the curvy lip and the shy disposition…so…do…I.

How Far Away Are We Really?

Operating off of instinct and intuition is how I have lived my life for so long now I can’t remember a time when it didn’t inform and influence the decisions I make.

And though some would say it makes me sound silly I can tell you the very few regrets in my life come from the moments when I ignored that voice inside and operated solely off of what logic and reason said I should do.

The best moments and best choices seem to have come from a blend of all of these elements and the truth of that is something I carry in my heart.

“But you’re so far away
Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
And it doesn’t help to know you’re so far away

You’re so far away
Oh, you’re so far away
You’re so far away

Oh, I need to get in touch with you baby
You’re so very, very, very far away
Oh, you’re so, so far away”
So Far Away- Carole King

I know that song speaks to you and I know that you understand it differently than others do. I don’t remember if we ever listened to it together but I always expected a day would come when we would.

Can’t say when or where but it will happen but ‘will’ is how I see it and not never.

The hardest part about living with a blend of faith, logic and reason is that logic and reason are polar opposites of faith. They hear what the heart says and they laugh because they operate based upon what can be measured in physical, tactile terms and heart doesn’t.

Heart says ‘fuck off’ and ‘go fuck yourself’ as easily as it says ‘I love you, need you and want you.’

In some cases it is even easier to for heart to sling arrows at those it loves most because it hates living apart from its other half and it is always easier to maintain distance when you are angry.

Sometimes I forget about that. Sometimes I let fear drive my choices and actions and that leads to more chaos and nonsense. I wish it weren’t so and that I never succumbed to the whispers inside my head but I am a common man who is subject to the same challenges as every other man.

But if you asked me to tell you what makes me different I would say that I am the common man who doesn’t let fear prevent him from chasing the uncommon.

And my heart tells me we found the uncommon combination of man and woman. The kind where together we become so much more than we are apart.

The moments together are filled with magic but we are not limited by the same sort of constructs as others. The well we draw upon is tied to a deep pool that never runs out unless we are separated for extended periods of time.

I know this and I know how you respond to it.

You don’t like the uncertainty. You don’t like the distance. You don’t like opening your heart like that unless you know your other half is close by or at least know when they will be.

This is why you shut the door. This is why the wall comes up. I see you protecting yourself. I get it.

And I see myself searching for the key and or climbing over the walls you build.

The time passes and we feel so far away from each other. Conversation dwindles and we stop sharing our deepest secrets and leaning upon the person we trust the most and the more time we spend like that the more impossible it seems to clear the gap.

Except it is not that hard.

One moment away.

One hug.

One kiss.

Every time we have ever seen each other I have seen the look in your eyes and felt your hands run across my back, felt your fingers in mine.

Every time I put my nose in your neck I get that intoxicated feeling and I just know.

That indescribable and inexplicable thing we share will never be severed by time or distance. Words can’t break it either. It just is.

And so are we.

We just are.

You can pretend otherwise but I know the difference. I know the look. I know the feeling and I know about the unspoken just as you do too. Sometimes the heart tells logic and reason to go spew their moronic ramblings elsewhere because not all that we see, feel or know can be found in books, formulas or universities.

Some of those things are only understood in gardens, on beaches or upon mountaintops. Some times you find them in the most common settings where those who are truly lucky find the uncommon.

The Rope Bridge Between Two Hearts

The piece below ran elsewhere first. Most of the time I wouldn’t run it again like this but sometimes I go with my gut and today it just feels right to place it here, not sure why but what the hell.

I used a different headline this time just to mix things up a little. Anyway, it feels a bit to me like it fits with this post.

There is magic in a heart that has been torn apart and rebuilt.

Don’t know if she would agree or maybe I should say I don’t know if she would admit she does. She might. She has surprised me more than once, first by reminding me that love was so much greater and deeper than I had remembered or believed.

If I told you about how she squeezed my bicep and gently held on to it as we walked you might roll your eyes or not care. You might not care or understand if I told you how every time she slipped her hand into mine it felt like it could stay forever and that is ok.

You don’t have to understand, accept or believe because it is not your deal, it is ours.

And if I told you about how she made sure I got the scan that confirmed my heart was clear of obstruction you might nod your head and say so what again and that would still be ok.

Ok because it is the little moments that matter and when you lie awake in the dark and think about whose eyes you see during night or day it makes an impact on you.

The Rituals Of Life

I don’t know if she and I ever discussed the rituals of life but they exist. Some of them are big things and some are little but I liked those we had time to develop together and those yet to come.

If I told you she is an Eishes Chayil, a Woman of Valor you might ask for a deeper explanation. She’d probably yell at me for saying it, tell me it is not true or to think harder about what I am saying but in the quiet of the night she’d wonder why I said it.

And if she asked, I’d answer…

Because.

Sometimes there is joy in being non specific, especially when people know you are capable of communicating with precision and detail except sometimes you can’t.

Sometimes you can’t because you asking someone to explain why a sky painted in streaks of orange, blue and red is beautiful or why certain chords make your heart jump.

Sometimes you can’t because your fingers extend into the sky and touch the face of god, because sometimes when two people share a moment in time it changes them and lasts forever.

And that is why I look for rituals.

Because sometimes the simple ritual is the most meaningful and most beautiful. Sometimes sitting next to or across from someone who has eyes the light dances in and a smile that lights up their face is the most meaningful thing of all.

Could be pizza and beer or a fine steak and cocktails–neither matters because the two of you take that moment in time and transform it.

Sometimes We Call It Melodrama

Sometimes we ask hard questions and fear makes us call the answer or the question melodramatic. We ask the other what would happen if they were to hear we had died in a car crash or what they would do if they heard we were terminally ill.

It is not because we hope for or want such things but because sometimes that piece of us that doesn’t operate based upon sight or sound but upon gut feeling instructs us to pay attention to losing the opportunity to have more moments.

Sometimes you react and respond by asking, what would you do if you heard I died. What would you do if I called you and said that there was a more definite answer to how long I was going to be walking upon this earth.

Would you respond by saying our time has always been finite and this is all we were granted or would you say no. Would you do what you had to do to try to slow or stop those sands of time.

The answers are important but hopefully we will never learn for real what they are.

But if I said it would tear apart what had been rebuilt it would be honest and if I said I would want you to rebuild yours so would that.

Still, I don’t really worry or think often about such things. Don’t do it because the numbers say there is no real reason to do so. The numbers that the actuaries use and that statisticians rely upon says don’t and that speaks volumes.

Not as much as the feeling in my gut or the song in my heart because those are the truer measures I monitor. Don’t care if that makes me sound like a crack or a crank.

I do as I do and feel as I feel and none can tell me that is right or wrong, it simply is.

She Saved My Heart

Those four words should be enough. They should be enough for any person or so the Greek poets might say because some of them love their tragedies.

They love a hero with a tragic flaw. They love to tell a story about magic and magnificence destroyed by some simple and obvious flaw.

But there are other poets and other writers who dare to paint a different picture. Ones who understand that a heart can be broken and rebuilt many times and that there is more magic in the night sky than that exposed by small slivers of moonlight.

Some dare to walk upon the long and winding road because they know they are the kind of person who takes the long way home.

Those who dare to be more, to have more and to do more have to accept the burden of walking through the fallow fields as well as the green. The only way to get to the other side is to go through.

And once you accept that you survived the moments that you thought would stop you in your tracks and understand how to read the map upon the scars, well then you are on your way, aren’t you.

You Could Have Turned Left

Sometimes the voices inside his head would rise in anger and ask him to justify his choices. They pointed out the mistakes and the nicks, scrapes and bruises that came from them.

When he was calm and centered he never paid them any mind because he understood he was the guy who took the road not taken. It wasn’t because he wanted to a harder or more difficult life but because it was just who he was.

He needed the freedom and ability to experience and explore. That didn’t always yield a straight path between two points on a line.

The inner critic tried to make him feel badly and said he was his biggest enemy and the cause of his problems. In the quiet silence he always responded with a so what and asked for an explanation about why it was a bad thing.

It was rarely met with material substance. That is not to say the objections were wrong or unfounded because he was human and there were moments where he had to nod his head because what he heard was accurate.

But there were lots of moments where that desire to explore brought more riches and greater rewards than he could have received had he walked solely upon the path.

Low risk rarely if ever yielded big rewards. Sometimes to make it you had to shake it and he had and he did. If you had asked him to stop and thin about it he would have told you he would continue to do so, but that wasn’t really a question he thought about because it was just who we was.

You could have turned left. You could have turned right or you could have just stayed.

He nodded his head because he could have done all those things but he had taken a different approach and done so with awareness of the consequences, not the full consequences because he couldn’t see the future.

These consequences were predictable ones and though they caused him some discomfort he believed he knew things that would enable him to make those short term consequences.

We lived. We loved. We laughed.

And then we didn’t.

Predictable meant that when you left someone behind you risked their choosing not to stay. But it didn’t mean that was the way things would be forever.

Change would come no matter what happened and the only question was who you would experience with or without.

Sometimes that was dependent upon circumstances and sometimes upon choice. Sometimes the two intersected on their own and sometimes only because the parties involved chose to make them intersect.

When he looked at the words on the page he couldn’t help but smile because all you had to do to change things was take three ‘D’s away and you had Live, Love and Laugh.

He figured if you say you had the power of L-cubed on your side you really had something because as much as he would say you shouldn’t make decisions based solely upon math and science he would also argue sometimes you needed to pay attention.

When you had L-cubed on your side it was worth noticing.

Of course the inner critic tried to splash cold water on his thought saying, “she is going to think you are trying to get into her pants.”

He told the inner critic to tell him why that  was a bad thing and when the light turned green started driving again.