monoceros blogsA fitful sleep on Thursday night and a Friday that stretched for two too many hours. So after several draining meetings, with much relief and happiness, I went to see a friend who prepared me a wonderful dinner of Spaghetti alla Puttanesca (whore's spaghetti), flat white fish, and a side salad. I had two hearty helpings because I'd eaten like a mouse all day. (I only eat like a mouse when I don't like the food; in this case, the food was catered and of the overtly manufactured sort that makes me feel like I'm eating plastic.) For dessert, we had baked honeyed apples - I shoveled down two. We agreed that a day-long beleaguered condition transforms me into a ravenous, insatiable creature.
Thank heaven for the culinary skills and warm generosity of like-minded friends. For the large and little respites we receive. For a well-lit road home, a clean bed, good books, the love of friends and family, gentle conversation, a buckle that stays fastened, wine-drenched songs, dreams in a pie, and unexpected letters whose words nest in our minds.
Songs to end the day with -
Apple, by Dave Hosking
Been a long day, by Rosi Galan
"Horses At Midnight Without A Moon" by Jack Gilbert
Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.
It's been a little hard pulling myself together to write something. DSD and I had an exchange last month about how lazy we've become with our blogs. Perhaps a positive way to look at this would be to realize how busy we've been with...living. Since last year, our lives seem to have been moving in parallel; there've been too many similar experiences to mention, but in the past two months, we've been on brief but inspiring journeys abroad, accepted new jobs, and gotten a few parts of ourselves mangled. (But nothing is beyond repair.)
What is summer without journeys, without the dark and the inspiring? What is summer without the sea and the weight of the sun? DSD and I are very brown now, especially after spending Tuesday on Sentosa where she fell asleep on the sand and I stayed as long as I could in the water, staring at clouds and sky, ships and trees. I cut my foot on a rock but what of that? Little else marred the tender serenity of that morning.
There were visitors too, over the past month, like my favorite from Japan, Barney, (his second trip this year) who came for medical reasons but also to continue our adventures with Lara Croft in Southern Mexico and the Arctic. Between squabbles about who's the better motorcycle rider and bossing each other around to solve the endless puzzles, we also ate fish-n-chips and senbei snacks, looked at special jewelry for his significant other, talked over hot cups of tea about work and friends, brainstormed ideas for his secret project with Jon, and had dinner with some of my visiting friends from Michigan. Dear Barney listened to my tales of happiness and woe, responded with great sarcasm and affection, and reminded me how lucky I am to be who I am and where I am, though a year in Italy someday soon would be a splendid idea. I agreed fervently.
I hate it when he leaves; it takes getting used to. It was just as well I went to meet DSD on Sentosa after dropping him off at the airport. Soon, I will have to say goodbye to DSD too, who leaves for Hong Kong in a little over a month. Another absence I will have to adapt to.
That Tuesday we spent on the sand, DSD and I talked of our restless spirits. Wanderlust, a desire for life to be more than just ordinary. Horses, I said to her. We're horses whose thirst for life and light and landscape is too seldom slaked. We talked of things to look forward to, in spite of the things that hold us down. We talked of skin and sunburns, the human touch and lingering memories, connections between people and the dark yearnings of the soul and body. I fretted slightly about the cut on my foot; she traced the tan lines that crossed her back, hoping they'd disappear in time. I had my own lines, of course, which DSD pointed out to me, as well as the small hairs on my back - "high level of testosterone," she declared, and we laughed about what that implied.
Many of my closest friends live far away from me. For selfish reasons, I lament this. But I am glad for all the adventures they're having and the good lives they lead. They inspire me to better my own. Oh yes, I can hear the horses.
The Horses, by Rickie Lee Jones
On Saturday Afternoons In 1963, by Rickie Lee Jones
A bunch of guys - several of them were friends of mine - re-enacted this scene somewhere in Europe while we were on a school trip. It was very entertaining.
You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin, by The Righteous Brothers
He loved the things about me that nobody noticed. ~ Jane Birkin
Monogamy? I can't wait. I don't practise it, because I haven't met the one I'd practise it with, but I believe in it absolutely. I'd join that club in a heartbeat. ~ Mickey Rourke
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love. ~ Neil Gaiman
Everyone suffers humiliation, we all have our hearts broken, we all become orphans. Everything is stacked in men's favour, but still I wouldn't want to be one. It's more fun to be a woman - a more varied life - and the clothes are better. But then the flip side of "varied" is a life of constant interruption, which, of course, is the enemy of writing. Despite the inequalities that exist, I think educated people can play either way. I don't think it's harder to be a woman; these days I think what's hard is to be young. I'm so relieved that youth is behind me and all the heartache and anguish is reserved for my desk. ~ Isabel Fonesca (wife of Martin Amis)
I'd like to go for a man who is a grown-up. But there are not many of them. That's why I'm on my own. ~ Pattie Boyd