No Mystery (Part 2)

A postscript to the importance or non-significance of mystery in a relationship from Jonathan Carroll's latest book. If I'm not mistaken, the title is "Ghost in Love":

The first great real intimacy between two people begins when secrets are told. The time you stole the money from the candy drive when you were a boy scout. The time you slept with your brother-in-law after their marriage dissolved. The lie you told your boss that changed everything and burned every bridge you had at the time. The secret about your parents you thought you would never, ever tell anyone.

But suddenly you do—to your new partner. No matter what happens to you two after that, they know these things now. You can never take them back. They have the goods on you and you on them. At that point your life together shifts on its axis permanently. You have begun to let them into your soul and often we don't even know ourselves what the result of *that* will be."

(Illustration from www.explodingdog.com)

Matud Nila...Usahay...

"And while we speak of many things
Fools and kings, this he said to me:
The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return"
Jose Feliciano, "Nature Boy"

The cruelty of unrequited love, of loving from a distance with no chances of growth and expansion, of loving in anonymity without the hope of transforming love into diverse landscapes and complexion, of not going through the see-saw motion of losing steam and rebuilding it, forlorn of the precious experience of hurting and getting hurt and imploring for forgiveness and second chances.

This is self-contradiction. I swore not to dispense love-advice but unrequited love is something I could write a lousy novel about, if I had the gumption or develop a theory on, if I had the mental appetite.

Comforting a dear friend's sadness, for lack of terms, over let's just say, a boat that never sailed, I challenged her to make a list of those melancholic love songs that drive some people to slash their wrists or jump from a ravine but bring fuego into our otherwise, prosaic, sheltered lives. Fuego, my word for that particular day, as I was contemplating of switching allegiance to Spain, Viva conquistadores!, for the World Cup. But that is still a quite distant future, back to the present.

What in the devil would making a playlist accomplish? Nothing. But the thing I badly wanted to say seemed inappropriate, given that everything was raw and it was wiser to drown every sad molecule in booze.

On this unutterably dull morning, when sober thoughts will likely invite warm reception, let me just say what I wanted to say then: unrequited love is the most arrestingly profound kind of love. Love of country, for instance. How can a man-concocted concept like country or nation love in return? Yet many profess to love their country.

Unrequited love is the most liberating, uncomplicated love there is. Why is reciprocity so important? We don't need validation for love, do we? Just love, period. For the heck of it. I mean, just because the person I am offering my love to rejects it or is lukewarm to it does not mean my love is not valid or real. I have phantom-husbands, without the benefit of acquaintance, for Christ's sake, and that has bode me well - no room for disenchantments.

Seriously, I don't expect this young friend to agree with me. At a certain age, love is a strong possibility. Beyond a certain point, the point where I am now, is an acceptance of its limits, of its finiteness, of its expiration. Love does have its giddy moments but what if you realize it has lasted long enough of its sensible duration?

Using the boat earlier as a metaphor, I would prefer not to set sail rather than find myself in the middle of a godless ocean, losing compass with no anchorage in sight. Dreadful. Cowardly, I know. And this world does not reward cowards.

Seriously (for the 2nd time), never lose faith in love. Ignore the cynics. They were born to be ignored anyway. And rue the day when I start quoting Miley Cyrus - "it's the climb" Jack and Jill went up the hill, you know the story. Tra-la-la...Yeah, Miley-smiley! It's not the view on top, it's the fucking climb that matters. Not with Thom Yorke, I bet.

As for the playlist, I texted this friend that I was playing Sarah in the wee hours in her honor, particularly "Fumbling towards Ecstacy" - I won't fear love/And if I feel rage/I won't deny it/I won't fear love.

But that's feminazi chic. My favorite love song as a child is hands-down, Perry Como's "I Want to Give" - I beg of you to listen to my heart/I never felt like this before/So I'm asking you not to close the door/For I can tame the wind/and smooth the waters/If you'll just let me.

If the Anointed One does not let you, that's his frigging problem. He might as well climb Mt. Everest with Miley, for all we care. Kun nadiri, pirita. Kun diri madara ha sabot, rabot.

Rest easy, mi amigo.

(doodles from www.nougart.net)

A Whale of Love

L is in a gunk of a conundrum. An old flame is reigniting the embers of a love frowned upon by the old folks. "A date is under wraps," her text read. "What shall I do?" Certainly, I cannot unwrap it, can I?

"Keep your nose on the grindstone," I advised. "Focus on your studies, get enough rest," I added, sounding granny as usual.

Can love be put in deferment for other priorities? The rational self shouts yes! But what could be a bigger priority than love? What's eating my bravado, my bold pronunciamento that there are degrees for burn but not for gugma? The phoniness reeks but sometimes, phoniness is the best policy, that much I can convey.

Haay, "how long, how must I sing this song?" - don't come to me for love advice, not until whales start swinging from tree to tree and chimpanzees frolic in the ocean. Have this scientific fact tattooed: Dyndyn, a denizen of Santan Street, is a love-idiot.

Speaking of whales, let me post this poem, my Sunday prayer which I find uplifting, a vessel of hope, transcending all the indignities this world sometimes brings forth.

Things to do in the Belly of a Whale

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days. Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals. Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices. Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review each of your life's ten million choices. Endure moments of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you. Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart. Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope, where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all the things you did and could have done. Remember treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

("Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale" by Dan Albergotti from The Boatloads.© BOA Editions, Ltd., 2008).

Love will tear us apart

Been going out for coffee lately, feeling like a mermaid stepping on land for the first time.

When I opened the novel I have not touched for 2 days, the pages stared back with hostility.

The exciting stories of T from her Uganda exploits, of icky sensations on the brink of, shall I pronounce it - love, more than compensate.

Yes, Lester Burnham (played by the Kevin Spacey in Sam Mendes' "American Beauty"), you are never more correct in exhorting that we can't be mad because there's too much beauty in the world.

Maybe, I'm just sleepy from all the coffee but yeah, there is no guarantee that by staying furious, the problem takes flight on its own. "Development work" disenchants as it inspires but if you abandon it, what's the tradeoff? In the midst of it, love stumbles, comes knocking.

There are times when we are half-convinced we don't belong. Our choices may not be commonplace but let us not allow ourselves to be exiled. Those who could not live with our choices, they should be the ones to take a hike.

Baudelaire in "The Painter of Modern Life" sheds light:"to see the world, to be at the center of the world yet to remain hidden from the world - such are a few of the slightest pleasures of those independent, passionate, impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define."

T, just follow the dictates of your heart. Fuck Batailee, love is not the most distant possibility. It's within your reach, just an inch away. Move closer. Jump and hold still.

Bye, Bye, Love! Hello, loneliness!

“Hold on, hold on to yourself,
This is gonna hurt like hell….
Oh God, the man I love is leaving” - Sarah Mclachlan, “Hold On”

“He’s not our kind,” my curt statement regarding a prospective get-to-know ritual a friend was about to stage with somebody I knew peripherally from college. Nipped in the bud, don’t lay the blame on me.

Let me get this straight: it’s not in condescension, more of a class identity. As a lowlife, when I say “he’s not one of us,” I mean the fellow is filthy rich, leads a life of leisure, unfamiliar with public transport, draped in designer wear and narcotized in designer drugs, eats take-outs or in fine restos, besotted with expensive gadgets, what-have-you.

Never do I get in the way of my friends’ objects of desire. Just peering from the wings, I blow a bagful of optimistic thoughts to the friendly wind. When things don’t jive, I partake in the mourning.

Break-ups are usually messy but I have learned a hard lesson not to be drawn in any tug-of-war. A cardinal rule among friends: Never ever say a truthful criticism regarding their exes, not even for the sake of loyalty. Never state the obvious that leaving their Significant Others is a good decision than any. Never participate in any bashing, it will surely haunt you round the bend.

Oh, I’ve made costly mistakes in this regard because of my propensity to be insensitively trivial than be analytically serious. In the roundtable, other friends would soberly talk about divergence in aspirations, conflict of passion, intellectual divide, artistic differences, being the nails to the coffin, so to speak, or a 3rd party which they would glamorize as “cessation of attraction,” my sagging butt, as the cause of relationship meltdowns.

Then here I go butting in about the uncomfortable hissing sound a certain Beloved makes while sipping soup; the way he picks his nose in public; having small ears or a narrow forehead indicating something fundamental, I keep them guessing what; the lengthy pause before he says something he thinks is pseudo-profound; his fervent defense of the Establishment; his preference of jazz over rock music and when asked how he likes Thelonious Monk, his greatest jazz artist we find out is Kenny G; his dislike of pop music and his love, take note, love not like, of classical music and his favorite is the prolific pianist Richard Clayderman.

And bummer, there’s a reconciliation because love sucks. I mean, because love is lovelier the second fucking time around and all your common friends remember are the trivial points you pointed out, not their in-depth analysis. And you’re screwed, big time! What ugly face shall I wear to extend a handshake to a friend’s ex who has been re-categorized as a current squeeze?Frak!

Why can’t people cut clean? Why can’t they stand their ground and break up and mean it?

As for post-amorous love friendships, it’s half-foot out of the door as I see it, specially if it’s forged almost immediately. You kinda suspect that these people are still carrying torches, nurturing illusions of reconciliation, refusing to move on.

I’m not saying you can’t be friends with your exes, I don’t believe in burning bridges, just effigies. But you gotta allow little fits of rage before coming to terms. Get real angry, murder your Beloved in your head, get past it, and forgive.

So when somebody tells me they’ve just broken up expecting some sympathy, my curt statement “that’s life” is as trivial as I could get.

Dr. Love

Somebody asked me for love-advice. Why a few people think I have 2-cents in my pocket bewilders.

The specific question: How does one hold on to his/her Significant Other?

My non-specific answer: Go back to Aesop’s Fables.

In Aesop’s Fables, the Wind and the Sun made a wager as to who between them can force a man to take off his coat. The Wind blew hard and the man clung to his coat. The Sun shone and the man took off his coat to enjoy the freedom of the elements.

I think the person who asked for my advice expected a 5-step strategy or a 10-guideline sort of thing. And all I could come up with was an old college lesson.

So I tried to elaborate – it is our prerogative to behave like the Wind or the Sun, whatever floats our boat. And all I got was seconds of dead air.

Now you know I am the last person one should ask for love-advice.