Dead End

Part One

            The year past, 2016, was not a pleasant 366 days, especially for many celebrities. It appeared as if they were dropping like flies. It's all relative, as death constantly circles us throughout our lives. We are rarely aware of that fact. We do not recognize our own mortality until something rings true, reminding us of this very thing. Last year was more like in your face with all this death. The constant prompting by forces unknown, taking this one and that one, made 2016 the year of the dead end. So many famous people passed, right before our very eyes. The list is rather grand, considering. I cannot remember a year filled with so many renowned expiry dates. We can't take it with us, and apparently, neither can the well known and well off. This cascade of doom can act as an admonisher, duly noting that everyone loses everything when our time is up. No one can escape it. It doesn't matter who you are, in the end we all meet our dead end.  

            From Pat Harrington, star of One Day at a Time, who died January 6^th, to William Christopher, Father Mulcahy on MASH, who died December 31^st, the year signalled a different kind of commemoration. Every other day or so (it most certainly seemed), another famous, sometimes infamous, soul would leave it all behind. Mass media and social platforms carried each passing as if a digital epitaph, an almost engraved memorial with an almost instant gratification of sorts. It was a strange mosaic. So many famous faces flashed before us in a seemingly endless display of mortality. Each familiar name blended with sound bites and clips of their legacy. It seemed a constant throughout the year. It was perpetual, a daily harbinger of what was yet to become. Not since the death of Whitney Houston on February 11^th, 2012 have so many voices cried out in such a song of grief and sorrow. Each obituary found yet another soul added to the pile that was 2016. How sad that we need help recognizing the futility of living. All these dead icons only act, or at least should act, like a warning signal to our very own demise. The rest of us do not leave in such a grand display.

            It was like pulling quills after a porcupine attack or ridding oneself of the stink after you get sprayed by a skunk. Nothing could stop the lasting effect. You just couldn't escape it. David Bowie died on January 10^th and the world began to take notice. It was like Jesus had died. It was everywhere, people sobbing, memorials building, tributes layering on top of each other with no end in sight. Harper Lee died, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of my favourite books, and I started to take notice. When Bowie passed, I could not have cared less. Sure, he had a few songs I danced to in the 80s. He even touched my life back in 1977, as I sat watching him and Bing Crosby deliver, for the first time, the now classic Peace on Earth/The Little Drummer Boy. It was clear that his death touched many in the most intimate of ways. You could sense their pain as they publicly displayed their affection. The entire event was a harbinger of what was to come and who was to go. When Harper Lee died, the world did not cry out in the same manner. I did. The event was a little like losing a pet or your first love. She had been with me ever since I was a boy and despite the sequel to Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman, my favour never waned. Her death affected me, not deeply, but enough to notice.

            A few days after the death of Bowie, British actor Alan Rickman did not leave us with a "yippy ki-yay motherfucker." As with so many of us mere humans, the cancer did its best and won the race. It was at this point that I began to wonder just what the hell was going on. The next day Dan Haggerty, best known as Grizzly Adams, lost his battle with cancer of the spine. In the 1970s, I watched that show for its entirety, using the theme song Maybe as a way of collaborating with my Mother (who accompanied me) and as a mainstay in my repertoire at the time. This demise chiseled away at my grief, a reminder of my Mom and losing her just years before. It was a lamppost, a lighthouse, a beacon that reactivated my sadness (not that it needed any help). It churned it all up, stirring the pot. On my sister's birthday, January 18^th, the pot boiled over and spilled more doom. Glenn Frey's death convinced us all of this new precedent. All over the internet, on every television channel, in print and on radio, the cries of a dying generation venerated the former Eagles band member. It seemed that Jesus had died all over again. Voices cried out into the night and relief failed to come in the morning.

            Apparently, Abe Vigoda (Barney Miller), who died at age 94 on January 26^th, was simply an afterthought, a transitional departure, a moment of reflection post a grand event. The world barely noticed, or had enough space to, but I did. Like with dominoes, the die was cast. It seemed to start and then to cascade like so many games of chance do. The world had awakened to a new reality, one we should have recognized years before. It doesn't matter who you are, how much money or fame you have, you are going to die just like the rest of us. The victims just kept coming. I suppose it was specifically the revelation of her Bi-Polar condition that attracted me to Patty Duke. I had watched her in black and white when I was a kid but her disclosure finally gave me someone I could look to, a face rather than mere words. I then realized that I was not alone, I was not the only one. This moment overshadowed the passing of Garry Shandling just days before. I barely noted this one more name to a list from hell. I didn't really appreciate him anyway. His death was not funny, just like him.

            Whether it was the loss of Merle Haggard, the end of Joan Marie Laurer (Chyna), or the final bow for Frank Sinatra Jr., the toll seemed to never end. If God determines time of death, He went on a rampage against the rich and famous. Hell, you didn't have to be rich and famous, just one would do. It appeared the Lord of mercy was culling anyone who might have stepped in his way. When Prince died of an apparent drug overdose on April 21^st, the world seemed to stop in its tracks, if even for the briefest of moments. This monumental event for many seemed to awaken a sense of defeat in us all. God kills and we take it personally, not that we have much of a choice. The wallowing went on and on as if the man had been lost to the very image his long career had garnished. The world stood shocked and less than amused by this turn of events. This time round, Jesus had OD'd. I barely noticed all the flowers and the memorials and the shrines that grew larger each day after. My sadness had been captured on April 17^th with the passing of Doris Roberts. I remember quite well watching her play Mildred Krebs on Remington Steele. I loved her from the moment I was exposed to her. Her role as Frances (Ellen's mother) in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation continues to make me laugh out loud. Her death made me shed a tear or two, the first time and only time throughout the year. It was her role as Marie Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond that cemented the fondness I have always carried for her. Her death saddened me, moved me. It was as if I had lost a long lost friend, a kindred spirit that I didn't even know. It seems so strange to me, the affection we have for many of the characters we discover in the entertainment world. In a sense, our continuing exposure only deepens the suffering we already know from our daily lives. They become part of us and losing one, or more, or even more, initially hurts as if losing someone we know. For some, it hurts even more.

            Hollywood and the New York scene were not the only niche markets affected by the loss of its members. The sporting world, entertainment to many, suffered heavy casualties in 2016. Gordie Howe, Muhammad Ali and Arnold Palmer all met their maker but nothing stopped me deader in my own tracks than the tragedy of Jose Fernandez. His example clearly illustrates the control we often have over our own demise. On September 25^th, with cocaine and other illegal drugs in his system, Fernandez and two friends crashed into a jetty near Miami Beach, Florida. What a tragedy, what a spectacle, what a shame. So much promise, so much potential, but in a moment of stupidity he met his end.  Sometimes we create our own circumstance and, it appears, that death will take advantage no matter who we are. Whatever lessons we should take from living, there is one surefire way to make them irrelevant. Death is the ultimate consequence of our actions, the inescapable deterrent that serves little purpose.

            There is nothing sadder than someone dying in a manner that seems to have come before their time. These people we remember for the event itself, but far more of our attention fades with the passing of each life sentence. In fact, we all have an expiration date. Some deaths just seem more natural than others. Morley Safer, front man for 60 Minutes, died at the age of 84. Garry Marshall, director of many films including Pretty Woman, died at the age of 81. Zsa Zsa Gabor, well known diva and actress, finally died at the ripe old age of 99. Death doesn't seem as tragic when the late person led a full life. When children die it seems such a waste, but when the aged pass we don't sigh to the same degree. Their end may be sad. It might even be a tragedy, but with that end we add things like, "They had a long life" or "I hope I can last that long."

            If you pay attention to such things, life itself is a dichotomy. Just through the act of living, we are dying (tick tock, tick tock). Everyone will inevitably, and eventually, meet their dead end. Every green banana will ripen and turn to mush. Time goes by and so does our existence. We are often quite blinded to this fact. The doldrums of our everyday can be deadening in and of themselves. Like going bald, you just get used to it. As you go through your daily life, you forget what's coming. You don't realize that your very moment could be now. Most times, it comes without our awareness. How lovely that life has a way of constantly reminding us. No matter who you are. No matter your lot in life. You are doomed. It is by example that we find ourselves forewarned.

Photos

https://journeywithritz.wordpress.com/

http://www.arikhanson.com/2014/12/09/how-long-should-you-stay-at-that-dead-end-job/

The Stick

            I try my best to be a kind person. Tolerance and compassion are the two things I strive to maintain in my life. I have much empathy for others. Having just been said, it is no easy feat to dish out joy when this world is so fucking bleak and foreboding. In a reality so full of things and pleasure, there is often little to be joyful about. On the best day, everything can rub you the wrong way. From the moment you open your eyes feeling weary, all there is stands as every reason to just go back to sleep. People only add to the chaos. Throughout my tenure on this planet, I have noticed just how significant the retardation factor has become in my fellow man. It's hard not to experience agoraphobia, when the simple act of existing means coming in contact with one moron after another. I am not exempt from this lifestyle, especially during rebuttal, but I hope I can still catch myself from any conditioned response. In a world full of assholes, I too am often a chocolate starfish. I just want to strike out at anything that causes me grief. There are times when I interact with the public that I am mere steps away from incarceration. Thank goodness my meds give me control over that angst and violence but even they don't always inhibit the stick that, at times, appears to be shoved up my ass. This day, I recognize that I am not alone in this intrusion. It's time to purge my wooden invader. I need to say what there is to say and be done with it. I totally, unabashedly, completely have the need to rant.

            I have absolutely no respect for anyone who voted for Donald Trump. I believe anyone who did vote for him should be charged with a hate crime. His supporters are representational and self-explanatory. Hate is hate, even if you are simply overlooking it.  To validate such a man with your vote is pure villainy. Since the election, I have withdrawn my favour from almost all my social contacts that were so inclined in their commitment. If you do not condemn a person for their nasty behaviour, then you condone that behaviour. Trump's fiscal policy and agenda have little to do the character of his person. When he physically mocked a disabled man, in front of millions, that was the line for me. I wouldn't associate with that type of person in private so why would I endorse them in public? I don't care if Hillary Clinton emailed people pictures of her twat, the kind of person who does what Trump did to that psychically challenged man should be shunned, not exonerated. Someone should pull the stick out of his ass. As a neutral Canadian (sometimes), I am bewildered by the recent choice America made. I mean, seriously? I am convinced that down the line, given enough time, those who grant approval to this man will come to realize that the same condition they cast on another will one day visit them. They too will cry out at the injustice. You always get what you paid for and the price is always so high. 

            

            A few weeks ago, I was pulling into the Dollarama parking lot when I ran into a wall. The wall was a grey four-door Dodge Ram and it had grown out of the centre of a parking lane. I had pulled into the lot and into line for a spot. Little did I know this was no ordinary line, rather an all-new position the driver had assigned to themselves. She just sat there, with no signal, no indication of anything but being frozen in time. With no oncoming traffic, she could have easily shuffled around for a different approach. She fidgeted in the front seat and I watched with great interest. I just assumed she must be on a smartphone so I lightly tapped the car horn, in that squeaking, barely touched the thing way. I got nothing. I proceeded to unhook my seatbelt and reached for the door to investigate. Maybe she was in need of medical assistance, one can never really be sure.  The second I grasped the handle, she whipped right into the first empty space. She must have needed more than mere assistance. I followed quickly behind her, immediately next to her, as she opened up her door and stepped out. She was in her forties with a Prince Edward Island haircut that reminded me of every schoolmarm in cinematic history. Her glasses were oh so apropos. I stepped out and let it go. I told her harshly that she is required by law to signal before any turn, even in a parking lot. She stuck her nose so high in the air that I could see the stick coming out her left nostril. She pissed me off, not even acknowledging me, so I called her a bitch. She stopped dead and asked if I had just called her a bitch. Duh! In rare form, I told her I would have called her a cunt but I couldn't smell her from my vantage point. She practically ran into the shop. I proceeded at a distance behind her. Inside, as I stood staring at a display case, she walked past me and uttered "Wow." I replied with "That's exactly what I thought." In a little fit of rage, she proclaimed that the entire store "watch out for this guy." I went on with my duty, heavily amused at this point. It did not last. She eventually disappeared after running into each other a few more times. When I got back to my car, the SUV was gone and I assumed so was she. I looked around to make sure she wasn't lurking. I still couldn't smell a thing.

           

            There is a fine line between friends and neighbours. The two are not exclusive from each other but perhaps they should be. I learnt a long time ago not to shit where you eat. Having settled quite nicely into our home, it has been well over a year since the move to Paris, Ontario, Canada. We love the neighbourhood and the town itself. Everything here seems so quaint and unobtrusive. The promos all claim it to be "the prettiest town in Canada," and I for one wholeheartedly agree. It is a lovely place to live. The community keeps mostly to themselves and the crime rate is dramatically low, although things can seem a little "Stepford Wives" with all the very white people. In the last 12 months or so, I have become acquainted with the neighbours who live on each side of me. I speak of my immediate neighbours, not the hot guy down the road or the snotty family to our left, mere metres away from my door.  Conveniently for me, they are mostly women and so much easier to get along with than heterosexual men (for the most part). Just out of immediate reach, a family with young kids keeps mostly to themselves. One early morning, around 7 AM, one of those kids, a small blond boy named John, rang our doorbell and startled my partner and me from our sleeping. When I opened the door, he just stood there, claiming to know nothing including his own name. I invited him inside, gave him a sugary drink and a cookie, then decided to call the police. Never having seen the boy before, and with nothing forthcoming from him, I was left with little choice. The second I said anything about the cops, his memory returned and he was able to lead me directly to his front door. She opened the door half asleep but her smartphone was on. She had no idea the boy had gone missing. Without a word to me, she harshly scolded him and yanked him inside the home. There was no thank you. There was no appreciation for not calling Children's Aid. She didn't even look at me as she slammed the door closed in my face. Since then, she walks by me as if I am not even there. The boy runs quickly away whenever he sees me or my partner. She is the one thing about this neighbourhood that bothers me the most. I would also call her a bitch but I think it goes deeper than that. I don't even believe she needs to get laid properly, although if you see her husband you might assume so. I don't know if its homophobia or the proverbial stick rammed up her butt but one time I saw her yawn and you could see it.

           

            You can be as tolerant as Gandhi and as empathetic as the Christ, but something always preys on one's last nerve. I have to admit that while I have few biases towards the population in general, I can't stand ugly people. I don't mean disabled or physically challenged people. I do not mean people who do not meet conventional standards of beauty. There are certain people who just make you cringe. Just being near them is more than enough for discomfort. Often, any stick has completely disappeared. They have it all. Their body is ugly. Their face is ugly. Their energy screams ugly. They are nasty for no reason and a grimace in the most natural of ways. American uglies all voted for Trump. More often than not, you can see them coming. Their aura is more mud than welcoming bright. Everything about them cries out asshole. It seems their mission to shit on everyone else's day. Misery seems to love company. They try hard to make it so. Each moment you spend near them is an experiment in terror. They make you want to scream out as you punch them in the fucking face. Grrrrr. I try my best to rise above. I don't mean to interact with them but often I am given little choice. If you want to seek one out, all you have to do is go to your friendly neighbourhood Wal-Mart.

            I noticed his ass on the way into the store. For a moment, I thought he was a Muppet. At this time, I failed to notice the tree growing out of his crack. Mr. Lumpy, as I have come to know him, slowly disappeared into the Christmas displays. I headed towards the good fruit. We met up again in the electronics section. I saw what I wanted right away and moved towards the display. I had to say "excuse me" when he would not get out of my way. It was his left thigh that really stood like a huge barrier. He looked at me like he was rabid, then he moved directly into my path. When he bent over to reach whatever he was trying to reach, I experienced the last super moon of 2016. I shouldn't make fun. There was just that something about him that made me feel like he was trying to piss me off. His energy was dark and foreboding. His posture, then his derrière, both told tales about him. I could feel the hate flow from him as his right boob cascaded down his torso. His face was spotty. His hair unkempt. He didn't look happy and he didn't seem happy. This has little to do with how you treat other people in public. At one point, he even grunted at me as I stood trying to get to the goods. He still refused to move so I directed a few "pardon me" at his backside. It was at this point that I recognized the giant trunk hanging from his orifice. More often than not, I would have told him off but in this case it would have done no good. Ugly like this is not worth your time. No matter what you say, or how you say it, it means little in the bigger scheme of things. I decided to go around his exterior wall and re-approach when he had left the scene. I never try to pet a dog when it is growling at me, especially if it's ugly and carries a stick.

            Life is trying at the best of times. I think all of us to some capacity recognize just how connected we all really are and we all know, to degrees, that deep down inside, existence is hard for everyone. We all should remove the log from our own butt before we go pulling branches from anybody else's. It might get messy but it needs to be done. We are all guilty of such tunnel vision. We think only of ourselves, with little recognition of others, let alone consideration. Something in this modern day has turned us all into fiends who sit worshipping our own image in a river. It's not always a pretty picture. Ugly is as ugly does. Now, I can be just as big of an asshole as anyone else can. I get on other people's last nerve. I hate and I have much rage. At times, I smile at my own reflection. It's the same story for all of us, I imagine. Somehow we all seem to have something poking out of our hole. You can jiggle it if you don't remember.

Photos

http://bublbe.com/en/society/17078-vets-are-warning-dog-owners-about-the-dangers-of-throwing-sticks-for-their-pets

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/pets-health/10150473/Playing-fetch-with-sticks-can-harm-dogs-vets-warn.html

http://www.thenewforest.co.uk/discover/dogs.aspx

http://www.peacefulpixel.com/2010/04/21/dog-vs-tree/

Every Heartbeat

"Hear me speak what's on my mind

Let me give this testimony

To reaffirm that you will find

That you are my one and only

No exception to this rule

I'm simple but I'm no fool

I've got a witness happy to say

Every hour, every day"

            We all say how lovely love is. I don't mean the kind of love you have for your neighbour. I don't mean the bond you have with family or the agape love one feels towards God and others. I speak of romantic love and all that it entails. We spend almost all of our lives cherishing, cooing and recklessly throwing our feelings around all because we want to be held and wanted and complete. In fact, we convince ourselves that loving someone, the act of being in love, is a wonderful thing. We spend our entire lives in pursuit. When we do not find it, we just keep hoping, and praying, and wishing. When we do get it, we spend all our time wishing things were better and asking something up above to make it all turn out for our benefit. It rarely ever does. The truth is, the primary reason most people want love is so that they can get laid. Any emotion that comes with that motivation is hormonal yet not necessarily erotic. That is why so many relationships just don't last; neither does the passion. Once that goes, you are all on your own, trapped in a world without coitus, all part of some artificial avocation.

            Not for one second have I ever stopped loving my first partner Doug. After over twenty years of weeping at his grave, I have come to recognize that I love him more now  than when he was alive. It seems some love, apparently, when it is true and real, has a hard habit of lingering. True love doesn't die, it just changes. His death did not alter the way I feel, it fortified everything. I still feel exactly the same way now as I always have, again, perhaps even stronger. When my current partner Ben came along eighteen years ago, I imagined the two emotional states could not reside in harmony, they would not and could not co-exist within me. All these years later and I see how wrong I was. There was something so grand, so precious about my loyalty and commitment to Doug, that I could not go on without it. I held it, cherished it, despite how it ended and the act that sealed his doom.  The truth is I just never let it go. It was so significant, so special to me that I learned to live with the pain versus having the sheer freedom to move past it. I could not continue without him, so I kept him. I never once vilified him or the experience. In the end, he is now dust to dust, and nothing I have done or said can change that reality. All the love in the world has never made a difference. I have come to the conclusion that it all was for nothing and any expression I have left is fodder for a love that might as well have never been. Most days, I'm not sure it was worth it.

            My commitment to Ben is as complicated. You cannot be a little bit pregnant. Any sense of loyalty and dedication I held towards Doug has always been at least equal to that which I have towards Ben. I could not have loved either one, any more. They have always mattered just as much, just differently. I am in it for the right reasons. I always have been. As a matter of fact, it was easy to love again.  At the time, I was astounded at the simplicity of it all. Apparently, love really does know no limit. It can be consuming, powerful and overwhelming. These are not necessarily good things. Over all these years of struggle and strife, for all the time Ben and I have spent together, I ask myself if love really ever means anything. In the grand scheme of the universe, how can it matter at all? I don't despise or repel the notion of love, I simply am not sure that the pain and strife are worth the promised moments of tranquility that never come. I ask myself if I would have been better all alone. In no way do I imagine we had never happened. I would not trade it for anything in the world. I don't rue or wish it away. I just wonder if it would have been easier to have spent my life focused on different priorities. If I had never loved, I would have no need to be free from it. I would have been free from the agony, free from the struggle, free from the constant chaos. I would have been able to not feel anything, for anyone. Just as I sometimes wish Doug had never been, I can't help but think my life would have been easier without the silly, stupid thing called love.

           

"Every heartbeat bears your name

Loud and clear they stake my claim

My red blood runs true blue

And every heartbeat belongs to you"

            Since Doug's death, Valentine's Day has not been my favourite holiday. It never really was in the first place. The day itself is not the problem. Having a commemoration set aside for the expression of love is never a bad thing. Making a day of it seems very apropos. Yes, it has evolved into a commercial venture, a cultural cash grab. At base, Valentine's Day should be redundant. Why do we have to set aside a day to remember what we should embrace every day? Still, any harm it does in condoning excess is succeeded by its economic consequence. Regardless of its modern purpose, every year I am reminded of this most terrible of moments. This day has become a horror relived. Every flower, every heartbeat is a constant reminder of the sheer agony the day in question has brought me. My fortitude does not stop my mind from playing it over and over again in my thoughts. Throughout the entire gamut, I try to remember where I am now but the plague of what was is much more powerful than I ever imagined. Every year, I hope I will not have to relive it. I hope that it has faded away and will no longer haunt me come the day. Somehow it always does. Over twenty years later and I still find myself at the mercy of my memory. Sometimes the reality is so harsh that I wish I was free from it. In the end, perhaps not loving in the first place would have served me better. It would have been better for both of us, I fear.

            It was almost 48 hours after his death that my mother and I sat down to order flowers for the funeral. Nelson's Flower Shop still sits in the center of downtown Strathroy, Ontario. The small, quaint depot is welcoming and pretty, like the gifts they bestow. Tuesday, February 14^th 1995 was a Valentine's Day to remember. My Mom and I found our way to a cursed event. We sat down and waited for the attendant to help us. I was weary and humbled and trying so hard to hold on. I thought ordering a bouquet of sunshine might distract me, if even only for a moment. It did not. We sat and we waited, for what seemed like hours. The truth be told, what should have been a 15 minute endeavour turned into 60 minutes of pure horror. Slowly, then to pace, love flowed about the room like molasses. The air was thick with sentiment, heavy with an unending, in my face ruckus called love. It may have seemed much to do about nothing but every lover just made me cringe. As we waited, patron after patron rushed in to buy roses or some special gift for their loved one. At some point, the experience became less about ordering and more about hammering. Every one of them that entered made me feel like a nail was rammed into my head. Dozens of men, conned into thinking it would make any difference, came then went, pummelling my brain with mini-daggers of doom. One after another, each a deliberate assault on my senses. I could barely breathe. I could barely speak. Needless to say, Valentine's Day is not filled with wonderful memories for me. It does not find welcome every moment of the day. Every year I try to make it fit again but I am left with the pain, the agony, and most of all, the feeling that it was all for nothing.

"Classic case of boy meets girl

Moving in the same direction

You're not asking for the world

I'm not asking for perfection

Just a love that's well designed

For passing the test of time

I'm here to tell you

I'm here to stay

Every hour, every day"

            Being with someone for almost two decades means you have to make certain adjustments in your thinking. I can't always have it my way. Valentine's Day is a prime example. It is the last thing in the world that I give a shit about. I'd rather chew glass than give in to the sentiment of the day. I have to fake it. I give my partner Valentine's gifts and he does the same for me. There are cards, candies and I have even baked a heart-shaped chocolate cake just for the occasion. I go through the motions because of my responsibility to my relationship but certainly not out of some want. Every heart thrown in front of me, every cinnamon candy or sweet red rose, returns me to that torture room, just on Front Street in my hometown. Throughout the day, I feel more like Pinhead than

a man who has moved on. I am unsure why this experience, above all others, lingers with me. I don't know why I make it through the rest of the anniversaries without such a tactile and physical response. On the day he died, I am sad and empty. On his birthday, I am blue and resolved. On our anniversary, I am reflective and resigned. On Valentine's Day, I would rather rip your face off than see one more fucking flower or witness Cupid making his play. Every year I get nailed all over again.

"Every heartbeat bears your name

Loud and clear they stake my claim

Ask anyone and they'll tell you it's true

Every heartbeat belongs to you"

            You shouldn't need hearts and endearments to convince the one you love that you love them. Valentine's Day should be irrelevant. It matters only on some level of recognition. Loving someone romantically should be an action, not mere semantics. Every heartbeat should hold more than candy or flowers. People convince themselves that a few moments of thoughtfulness are the truest expression of the love they feel towards their better half. This is just not within the reality of being human. Love can be an awful place to visit and I don't understand why some people choose to live there. It is pain and loneliness and hurt and abandon. More often than not, it is rarely worth the complication, let alone the chaos. Still, despite the misery loving has brought me, I find myself carried away on clouds of wonder. I am constantly aware of all the positives that loving has brought me. There are moments from my life so powerful, so engulfing that I can barely breathe while they occur. Yes, romantic love is often more hardship than healing, but it is also the blood that flows through each of us. While I often wish I had played it safe, avoiding all that caring for another can bring, I know I would be a lesser man without it. I am not fond of the deliberate way love rips your soul from your body and pisses all over it.  I would trade it most days for some semblance of peace. It thrives within me, regardless of the constant war it rages deep inside my being. All I do know is that I am cursed and blessed at the very same time. As with everyone else's experience, love has been a struggle. Unlike with most people, it has been easy for me to find. Twice over, I have come to know how duplicity rules the heart. It is both good and bad, happy and sad. I am sure that it might not seem worth it but it turns out that in the end, it always is.

"Yeah, sure maybe I'm on the edge

But I love you baby and like I said

I'm here to tell you

I'm here to stay

Every hour, every day"

(Every Heartbeat, Amy Grant 1991)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcYIZ-cduvM

Photos

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/06/hellraiser-stories-end-novel-the-scarlet-gospel-clive-barker

Unknowable

“We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all.” (Karma-Ran-Byun, Tibetan writer)

            I once believed that anything outside of Christianity was not only bad for me but was also the devil, evil, trying to take a hold on my life. Ideas like those found in modern spirituality were as foreign to my conditioning as tolerance is to Donald Trump. It was throughout more than twenty years of study and analysis that I slowly realized how silly that ignorance really was. The entire gamut of religion itself began to leave a bitter taste in my mouth. I slowly started to realize that exposure to other theologies wasn't evil, rather as much futility as looking for Jesus ever had been. The God that this reality clings to has never really existed. I could not find Him. It was fruitless exploration, the senseless wasting of much precious time. I had once surrendered myself, giving all of me to a greater cause. I chose to follow, abandoning reason and letting God lead the way or, to say the least, what I believed was the way. I had to assume, I had to trust, that in asking to be taken to a place, I am where I am supposed to be.

            I firmly believe that when it comes to God, there is no truth. There is nothing we can possibly know for sure. We can weave guesswork, thousands of years of it, melded together in cascades of exogesis and isogesis and every interpretation along the way. We personify the things we don't understand so that we can understand them, at least from our mortal vantage point. We have created an anthropomorphic version of ourselves. It comes with all the demons, all the human traits but much less compassion than you would think a God would have. Even though I had wandered away from my birth religion, I spent great time and resources studying other religions, other ideas on the Holy. In the end, they were all the same: projected ideas from the reality we are familiar with. They are laced with guilt and a sense of obligation. So many souls, each one searching, but finding only what they can comprehend through their own experience. We are conditioned to think the way we do. We are told how not to behave but never why our feeble lives are important enough for us to behave.  Doesn't anyone else see that the God we worship, the gods of this world, we have made far too human?

            I am not an atheist.  I still believe in one true God. I no longer believe that the

religious paths men take have any validity outside their own experience. We all believe the same and yet at the very same time, we all believe differently. The variables are written in who we are and how we think. I have every reason in the world not to believe in all this religious fluff, but I remain constant in my affirmation that I do believe in God, just not your God. It's ironic. The very same character I was drawn to as a child, stands as the closest thing to what I indulge in spiritually as an adult. The road I have travelled seems to have come full circle. The innocence I once had as a very young boy has not returned to me. The moments of emptiness I once knew no longer haunt my very being. I am free, but I am drawn to it. I am pulled into thinking that everything will be okay. I view through rose coloured glasses, harkening on how things used to be for me. The distance I have always known with God is now unbendingly clear. I was on my own from the start. We create our gods, then worship that which is not there.

"I believe that the only true religion consists of having a good heart." (Dalai Lama)

            Discovering that the God of my birth faith did not exist was an evolution in my spiritual thinking. Realizing there was nothing there at all just made it all make sense somehow. I had been preaching to the choir as no one listened. At first, this new emptiness left me cold and afraid. The consequence of worshipping a mortal-like deity is always guilt and shame and a state of unrighteousness. Deserting my Christianity cut me to the very core. I was left with no choice. My awareness increased but so did my conviction. Letting go made me feel like I had betrayed Jesus. I found myself floating in the very void I was trying to flee. It's a difficult thing having to explain to yourself that God is doing you no good. Leaving the idea of heaven behind did not sit well either. Everything I knew had to be abandoned. All those words and ideas and conjecture were all just noise. Fruitless and broken men flay about, praising a creation they know nothing of. I finally surrendered to the nothing. I gave in despite much doubt and no formal invitation. It is not that there is nothing there, rather our human limitations strain us, restrict us from recognizing that which we cannot know. All that we do know is really just illusion. In the end, religion is not of God but rather of man.

            There is great emancipation, a freedom in my ignorance. In recognizing that nothing is real, I have gained a sense of wonder and much faith. Understanding the truth has not separated me from the Holy. In fact, my newly reconstructed respect, and humble admiration, has also restored my trust and optimism. I am whole and healed for the first time. I still believe. I still hope. I still have awe and wonder. I am no longer bound to the anthropomorphic interpretations man has manifested through religion. In a sense, God is now an otherland, a place to go but you create it all on your own. You pull from this experience and that belief, constantly growing, constantly shifting, rethinking your approach. Everything that is, is, but it is a virtual reality we create for ourselves.  

As with the Lord, each definition, each manifestation is pure reflection. We see what we want when we venture this way. We determine how the world works for us. What we hold on to, we become. I had to let it all go. When you recognize the truth, you cannot go on denying the lie. You cannot depend on others. You must see it all on your own. You must save yourself. No one can swim to shore for you.  

"Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others." (Gautama Buddha)

            Let me get this straight. Everything is nothing. I am part of everything and so I too am nothing. Nothing is everything and everything is nothing. All we know of nothing is that nothing is everything and everything is really nothing.  I sense an echo. I am witness to a paradox. Everything that passes before us as we dwell in matter is relative to our perspective and a unique, and very subjective, interpretation. We grow into our reality, each moment of our lives gathering like the rest and mixing in with the absence of anything truly tangible. There is a list for who we think we are. We know what we are taught. We know what we experience. We know what we conclude, based entirely on the previous two. We can only hope to understand the futility of anything filtered through a mortal man. We are corrupt from the get-go. We are biased, basing our entirety on who we think we really are. The spectrum of mankind's existence is illusion, the creation of what we think into a perceived reality, which in no way makes it real.

            It's not all lies. It's not all wishful thinking. If everything is nothing then nothing itself is something. We are not bound to know but we can bet that there is much more to the nothing than nothing at all. On this I think I can rebuild. I can remake me. It is better for me to reconstruct my Faith on not knowing than to believe that I do know. I cannot give any answers. There is no icon to praise, no deity to bow down to. There is no guessing, no question to throw. There is nothing there to answer, nothing there to give one a clue. I still find myself thankful, praying in my way and how I have come to be with God. There is a still, small voice I can see in the starshine, hear in a child's laugh and feel on an Indian summer's day. It is with me, but there is no one to know. In the emptiness and all the darkness, I can still feel it. It is here although it has never been with me. The familiar sense of longing that I experienced as a child has come to me again. It ignites my soul and sends me reeling, In the silence, and the absence, there is something calling, waiting, joining the universe in a glorious display.

"The only true wisdom is knowing you know nothing." (Socrates)

            When it comes to knowing God, there is no truth. Speculation rather than dogma, trusting the unknown rather than doctrine, these are as close as I can get. Subjective, reflective and sometimes mass hallucination, all for naught, all for naught. Somehow in this distance, in the space between before and soon, I find myself. I find myself facing the unknowable, still, I often succumb. I still put human traits on God. I still talk like someone is listening. I still search with the hope that I will be able to see, or at least see more clearly. I am waiting for nothing.   

"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those

 who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29, NIV)

Photo

http://www.artcollectormaine.com/art/unknowable