Affair On 8th Avenue
Gordon Lightfoot
The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Her long flowing hair came softly undone
And it lay all around
And she brushed it down as I stood by her side
In the warmth of her love
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And she told me a riddle I'll never forget
Then left with the answer I've never found yet
How long, said she, can a moment like this
Belong to someone
What's wrong, what is right, when to live or to die
We must almost be born
So if you should ask me what secrets I hide
I'm only your lover, don't make me decide
The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Not Again
It's that time of year . . . again. That time of year when many single adult people everywhere cringe and run for cover repeatedly from mid-November till the first week in January. There's nothing like being single and being bombarded week after week after week for almost two months with images of family and hearth and cute children on Santa's lap. You hear constantly about family and love while no one mentions the ugly fights or the screaming children.
I celebrate Yule. Simple concept. I give it no more weight than I give every other celestially driven holiday. I don't pretend it's about some mythic demi-god who was born on this day, but as everyone knows couldn't possibly have been born on this day. It's a movement in the heavens that has held significance for centuries. That is what I celebrate: the idea that the earth still revolves around the sun. These days that simple thing is enough to astound me. I don't need some made up fairy tale to amaze me; I just have to look up in the sky at night and see the billions of stars still there.
But there's what I celebrate versus what I'm bombarded with daily. I think most people simply live through these holidays without conscious thought. That is all that I can think of to explain this fascination with the false birthday of a "savior". They put no more thought into it than they put into anything else these days. They meander down the track laid out for them by the retail Gods and mew contently while emptying their bank accounts in meaningless gestures of gift giving. It goes back to the idea that most people live partly or wholly unconscious lives.
On the one hand I wonder what it would take to change that, but then unfortunately I think I already know the only answer. It takes having your own mortality dangled in front of you like a carrot in front of a mule. "Here you go, live in a conscious manner and get to live." How does that line go? "What is wrong, what is right, when to live or to die, we must almost be born." Rebirth is what saves people. A very painful rebirth into awareness. Most people don't want to go there. Most people aren't capable of going there. If the change is real and authentic it's constant and painful and soul dredging on a daily basis.
I've chosen a life here, and it's mostly choice, that doesn't fit into that mainstream hearth and home view of the world. I live alone with animals. I have no SO and no children and virtually no family. Some of that is choice, some of that is simply what life handed me. But I choose to live as if my way of life is no more radical or different than any other. I no longer want and wish for a man or children or family. I'm not desperately searching for some mythical magical other person who will "complete me". I've accepted that this is how my life this time is to be lived. I accept that there's a point and purpose to my life, and that my path is equally as valid as that of a mother with a husband and four kids. I am not conforming to the norm, I am recreating my life daily into something far from the norm.
It took a fundamental shift in viewpoint to get here let me tell you. And there are times, like around about now, when it's hard to hang onto. It is why I can always tell the real people from the posers whenever people talk about changing their lives or their diets or whatever. On boards and in forums and in real life the real people are the ones who talk in fundamental terms rather than superficial ones. The details are useless to them, but the foundation is everything. It's the foundations they change not the details.
Anyway, people wander through this season for the most part without contemplating it's meaning. I think if they stopped to think their whole world would collapse. I mean how better to celebrate the birth of a savior than with wanton consumerism that further deteriorates the planet he was supposedly born onto? What would Jesus do? Buy a flat screen he can't afford that arrives wrapped in a small fortune of non biodegradable plastic and Styrofoam?
I celebrate Yule. Simple concept. I give it no more weight than I give every other celestially driven holiday. I don't pretend it's about some mythic demi-god who was born on this day, but as everyone knows couldn't possibly have been born on this day. It's a movement in the heavens that has held significance for centuries. That is what I celebrate: the idea that the earth still revolves around the sun. These days that simple thing is enough to astound me. I don't need some made up fairy tale to amaze me; I just have to look up in the sky at night and see the billions of stars still there.
But there's what I celebrate versus what I'm bombarded with daily. I think most people simply live through these holidays without conscious thought. That is all that I can think of to explain this fascination with the false birthday of a "savior". They put no more thought into it than they put into anything else these days. They meander down the track laid out for them by the retail Gods and mew contently while emptying their bank accounts in meaningless gestures of gift giving. It goes back to the idea that most people live partly or wholly unconscious lives.
On the one hand I wonder what it would take to change that, but then unfortunately I think I already know the only answer. It takes having your own mortality dangled in front of you like a carrot in front of a mule. "Here you go, live in a conscious manner and get to live." How does that line go? "What is wrong, what is right, when to live or to die, we must almost be born." Rebirth is what saves people. A very painful rebirth into awareness. Most people don't want to go there. Most people aren't capable of going there. If the change is real and authentic it's constant and painful and soul dredging on a daily basis.
I've chosen a life here, and it's mostly choice, that doesn't fit into that mainstream hearth and home view of the world. I live alone with animals. I have no SO and no children and virtually no family. Some of that is choice, some of that is simply what life handed me. But I choose to live as if my way of life is no more radical or different than any other. I no longer want and wish for a man or children or family. I'm not desperately searching for some mythical magical other person who will "complete me". I've accepted that this is how my life this time is to be lived. I accept that there's a point and purpose to my life, and that my path is equally as valid as that of a mother with a husband and four kids. I am not conforming to the norm, I am recreating my life daily into something far from the norm.
It took a fundamental shift in viewpoint to get here let me tell you. And there are times, like around about now, when it's hard to hang onto. It is why I can always tell the real people from the posers whenever people talk about changing their lives or their diets or whatever. On boards and in forums and in real life the real people are the ones who talk in fundamental terms rather than superficial ones. The details are useless to them, but the foundation is everything. It's the foundations they change not the details.
Anyway, people wander through this season for the most part without contemplating it's meaning. I think if they stopped to think their whole world would collapse. I mean how better to celebrate the birth of a savior than with wanton consumerism that further deteriorates the planet he was supposedly born onto? What would Jesus do? Buy a flat screen he can't afford that arrives wrapped in a small fortune of non biodegradable plastic and Styrofoam?
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