Imagine someone you See…
Someone who is so beautiful beyond the words to say…
Someone who holds himself in his Own Cage…
Prisoner of Himself…
Held within webs of the past
and
No matter how you try…
No matter how many signals he gives..
No matter how many times he says… Please…
Help me… Please…
Please can you tell me… what can one do…?
…. i’m publishing this amazing picture of you…
_________________________________
“Do you remember George?” he asked…
It was late November, 2005, and my plans had been set.
I would be in Rio for New Year’s Eve… and he had
Big Plans for the night.
As well, his studies were over, he had taken the Big Test back
in October, and although some relief had set in, the long wait
for results and his Captain’s License loomed ahead.
Remember George? I thought. Of course I remember George….
George and Angela! His long time friends in Ibicui, Angela with
her lessons in making…and drinking…Caipirinhas.
Ah, Caipirinhas, Brasil’s intoxicating drink, made from Cachaca
and fresh limes, (pronounced cashasa, a colorless liquor similar
to vodka and tequila, made from sugar cane) mashed to bring
out all those wonderful sparkling tangy flavors of pulp and peel,
with a touch of sugar, pounded over and over in mortar and
pestle, adding sugar, adding cachaca, pounding pounding,
until at last… ready! and strained over ice.
And it was the Best Cachaca…. I had bought the Brandy version
at the Cachaca Museum we’d visited the day before….
Wow, did we get ploughed that night!
“Remember him? of course I remember George…why ?”
“George was shot. He’s dead.”
The words hung in the air, from a long way off. I couldn’t wrap my
mind around the words… I couldn’t speak.
“He was shot by two guys on motorcycles. They just drove by and
shot him. It happened back in August, but no body told me,
probably because I would go and take care of it.”
“NO…..!!! No, oh No.” I was instantly sobbing, and the memories
flooded back, of the time we stayed with them, of the boys coming
back from the bar all silly and tumbling into the upstairs apartment
like puppies.
Angela with her big smile and warm heart.
George with his roaming eyes, as he met me, taking me in
top to bottom.
“Angela!….” …my heart leapt… “what about Angela?”
“Oh she’s somewhere staying with friends. She left ”
“Why? do you know why?”
“Oh…I guess he was doing something he shouldn’t be doing…”
I remembered sort of understanding that when the boys got
together and went off, there was more than beers and scotch
going on…
They both had a weakness for powders. Angela and I had stayed
home, and although neither spoke the other’s language, we laughed
and traded words, laughed some more over our accented attempts,
and those Caipirinhas definitely rounded out any differences,
between smiles.
Now I realized that one area where Alcir and George bonded was
their bandido-ness. When they were together, I saw the bad-boy
in each, paling around like school boys on a mission.
The next layer hit me. It had been our dream to move to Ibiqui,
this tiny ancient fishing village along the coast north of Rio.
Quiet, quaint, slow…. as we’d walked the cobblestone streets, Alcir
smiled at me, his big arms around me, warmed by the sun and salty
air, sounds of the little boats bobbing.
Slowly, he shook his head…
“Oh Babe….this is Us, Babe. We could get a little house an you
could sell your jewelry on a little cart on the beach.
I could make a big barbeque out of a barrel…I know how to do that…
an we could cook chicken outside in the yard, an sell it to the
tourists who come here on the weekends.
I could get a little boat….. we’d always have fish to eat.
I could sell the extras…”
Our beautiful dream, out of time, slow and easy, a time to just
be together and float for a while…. our dream was gone.
Alcir could never live in that town, never again, connected with
George the way he’d been.
It was gone to us. Ibicui was gone.
__________________________
It was different this time….this time back in Rio …
Everything had a different feel, except his space, which was
as small and sad as before.
He seemed angry and distant, as though he wished I hadn’t come.
He even told me later that when he saw me and my luggage at
the airport, he was scared, told himself
“Oh no! she’s moving here !”
as though that hadn’t always been the intention when I left Rio
many months before.
I was confused, and somehow at this point, found ways to
blame myself for his dark mood, which was my way at the time.
I felt as though somehow in the 8 months that
had ensued, he had become a different person.
That first afternoon and evening, we settled in with cooking
and moving things around. He wasn’t present, eye contact was
scarce, but he talked about his plans for New Years again…
it was the end of the year, I had spent christmas with my family,
and when I was leaving Cali, he had crowed on the phone…
“Oh, yer gonna have the Best New Years Eve Ever!”
He had big plans, and was pleased with himself…
During those last few weeks and months before I had made the
decision to just to Come to him and face it all, he had distanced
himself from me a lot.
He had been studying for months for his Captain’s License Test,
very important to him, and he was often out, often distracted,
and the phones in Brasil go out a lot as well.
It had been torture for me, and conveying any of my reality
to him, just floating and waiting, seemed nearly impossible
at the distance we were dealing with.
Journal entry… 1 nov, 2005
“At this point, nothing is sure, all is thrown to the wind.
I am so full of sadness, confusion, anger, fear, a soup of a mess.
I can’t deal with cold anymore. I need my own home and car.
I am sick of being alone…and where can I go?
I’ve risked everything, and now I’m the Girl on the Half Shell…
the Waiting Girl on the Half Shell…
For me, it’s all about me now. I sit tight here, risk as little as
possible, work as much as I can stand. Hold my money,
hold my mouth. Commit to nothing. ”
At this point, I felt so adrift, I considered every possibility
in my knapsack of options….
Oregon? too cold …Hawaii? not now… Stay in Cali? no income…
“He teases me, just out of sight…as usual, and as always, I wait.
I may Always be waiting. What a cosmic joke it is becoming…
a great romance, and it never gets here.”
Journal 2 Nov … the next day…
“Know what? I’m going. I’m not going to be played, I’m not
waiting. I’m not going to react or retreat . I’m going on the
course I feel is correct…the Course we had planned together.
We need to be together for Both of us.
It will Never be perfect…. it is how it is, and we need to
BE together, and figure it out Together! We are both scared
to death
We have been eachother’s fantasy, and now, the What Ifs start in…. ”
As he had said one night, one of those nights when he was
conscious and present, and communicative….
“We will put our doubts together, and figure this thing out…”
I think that was the same conversation that included one of his
more hilarious and dark comedic moments:
“I was trying to figure out if I should kill myself or not…. so
I decided to eat some jello…”
_____________________________
The plane banked over that giant Bay, with curling coastlines and
mountainous mounds, little lumps poking their heads up, between
the blues. The Bay that held Pao d’Acucar and it’s little Trams …
….sugar loaf in white man speak …. gatekeeper to it’s glory.
The Bay with the battered ferry boats trekking back and forth to that
ancient City on the mainland… that City built, century upon century,
in styles and cultures from nearly everywhere, as they passed
through on their way to their next incarnation.
The Bay, the Port of a million years, the bridges and beaches of what
seemed a dreamland paradise…
My heart pounded and my breath came quick…
He would be there waiting for me, after all this time.
The view that i’d dreamed of once again filled my sights, and still
I wondered if I was ready, if I could deal, face the real, make this
thing work in person.
Months of long distance rings, missed connections, echoing words…
please pick up…..what? please repeat.. when will you be home?…
…i miss you, can you call back, it’s a bad connection…. I miss you.
His laughter, his voice, the times he was really There despite the
distances… the photos over and over, holding the connection
like a candle, shielding it from the winds of fear and change.
The unloading, customs, paperwork, luggage, head swirling,
watching and waiting til the moment, and then….
far away in the crowd he stood, and something on his face when
he finally caught my eye brought my stomach to a standstill.
The old Raybans I’d bought him were successful in masking his
mood, but body language, no matter how closely held,
like cards to the chest, revealed so many confusing signals to
my senses, and i fought deciphering them at this crucial moment.
I had to hold to myself, be here Now, wait til he was close and
in front of me to understand.
And then face to face. I threw my arms around him, and breathed
deeply, hearing his heart, once again smelling his closeness.
He was talking with another man, and shared some sort of irritation
when he saw my luggage.
Eyes rolled, something in the face that wasn’t for me, but for this
new guy friend who somehow understood what was up against.
I felt strangely marginalized. Part of me was crushed, wishing for
that beautiful rush together that I’d envisioned, the
movie moment replayed in my head.
Part of me knew I had to wait.
I’d brought a big plastic tub, filled with art materials, books,
journals, jewelry findings and stones. I had to have things to do
in that tiny space of his that only held Him.
I had to hold on to something of myself.
He, after all, was a known factor, and it was easy to be caught up
in the all consuming largeness of Him.
It all seemed quite natural to me, but somehow he wasn’t really
present, something was not aright.
And it felt like a wall…. not of bricks, I hoped….but perhaps of straw,
hay bales, something that i could huff and puff and blow down.
But for now, as we awkwardly trekked to his little Gersel Jeepy car,
we made small talk, and his mood was dark and tired.
Was he glad to see me? Was he hung over? Had he not slept?
Was it worry or fear, over amped or regret….
He had that ragged look to his eyes, his skin, that I’d seen before.
He was hung over and sleepless…
After we were in the car, after the miriad of turns and trails, when
we were on automatic, and on our way, did he tell of how long it
had taken to find a parking spot, and how little he’d slept, and
how long he’d been drinking.
The Aeroporto was on the same large island in Guanabara Bay, and
we’d only to drive to the other side to be back in his little cave, where
he could relax and begin to grok the reality bubble we were now in.
He poured drinks for us, and we began.
The Day had come, and here we were… each in our own way doing
our best to come to grips with this rush towards and
away from eachother.
_________________________________
It was autumn, and the Harvest was in full force.
I was fortunate enough to have more than several friends
who worked the green, chanced the marvels of easy money
and big risk.
Friends who delivered The Best there was to offer, and
shared their bounty with folks like me, ready and eager to
help with artistic eye, to create one of the finest products for
humanity…. magical herb, beautifully cleaned and packaged,
with the best energies….if you’re into that sort of thing…
that the Planet had to offer at that time.
I had enjoyed my friends’ companies, living spaces and
comfort zones… extended family for sure. They knew of my
plan to return to Brasil to be with my crazy Brasilian boyfriend,
and cheered me on…. I was listening to them, to him, and
to MY Self…. and so the day came…
“I’m coming…” I announced.
“Where Are you?”
“I’m here… in Cali… but … I’m coming. I can’t wait any longer. ”
I could hear the Thud at the other end of the line.
“I have to leave soon. I just can’t let my life drift on hold any
longer… I have to either come back, or make plans here for
over the winter… so … I’m coming…”
and then I said something that he’d said to me
Oh so many years ago…
“So…… if you have a girlfriend, you better tell her to Leave.”
So many years ago, more than I’d care to renumerate, he had
called me out of the blue…. I do believe it was in the late 8Os…
and I hadn’t heard from him in more months than I had hoped,
and he Announced on the phone that he was leaving Tahoe, and
would be at my house in a few short hours….
‘So…you’re saying you’re going to be here in 4 hours?” I repeated
in a sort of daze, mind doing it’s best to catch up with Now.
“YES…..So….eeef you have a boyfrien’, you better tell him to Leeeef”.
He said this in his most bandido, revolutionary, deep voice.
I figured at this point, it was only fair to turn his words on him,
and he could likely handle the mirror …
He bullied up to the challenge, said OK, and my plans began
to take shape.
I was going back to Rio. And I would stay as long as it took
to figure it all out. It would be Hard, It would be Real…
and somehow, we would figure it All out together.
I believed in US….together… and that we could Do it.
I Believed in Love and Fate and All of it…..
After all …he called me Babe…. and my heart leapt with the sound.
________________
I called him from the trampoline.
It was out on the grass, beneath tall pines, and with a view
of the ocean from way up high…
My friends’ house was on ‘the ridge’, with far stretched views
of blue going on forever, beneath stretches of pine and fir and
brush that blended together to create the soft muted green
slide, leading to the blue of the Pacific along the NorCal coast.
“I’m jumping on a trampoline”, I told him. He sounded confused.
“Where Are you?” he asked, and the long distance made a few
second’s delay in our already challenging conversation.
“I’m at my friends’ house, where I’m working… ” I told him,
“and I’m outside in the Sun, looking at the ocean, and jumping
on the Trampoline…………..Naked…! ”
I waited for the reaction.
“Reeelly?” …I could hear his smile, and I jumped and giggled.
“Yes…! and I’m Missing you. I need to come there Soon…
I need to be with you Now!”
The jumping became more insistant…
“Waaalll….” came that all too familiar pause while thoughts
gathered like clouds.
“Oh jes geeve me a leetle longer, Babe” he sort of whined now.
“I’m steeel studying for my lisence, an the test won’ be for a while…”
“OK, but I can’t keep on waiting forever” I said.
“It’s already been too long…”
It had been seven months since I’d left Brasil, seven long months
for us both to get it together, and be back together in Rio.
When I left, it was supposed to be Two…
He’d found and lost work, he’d called me drunk, so drunk he didn’t
remember it the next day, he’d called saying “theese theeeng in my
lap eees loooking vary goood to me right now”, meaning the gun he
warmed in his hands.
I talked him down from being sick, suicidal, sad, lonely and confused.
I’d heard him say “I can’t Dooo theeese alone”, meaning he knew he
needed me, and yet still he hesitated when up against the
actuality of my return.
I sorted through the arguments between my head, gut and heart.
Fear clashed with the knowing of connection, and the distance on
that long long line stretching between us made it even more vague.
What the correct path, the righteous path, the perfect timing was,
no one could know.
It had to be a balance between my needs and his, his fears and mine,
but most of all, a return of eyes and flesh in the present, to remind us unequivocally of the undeniable truth that we had found, just
eight months before.
I knew I had to be there, and in not much longer a time,
for both of our sanities.
________________________
I woke up this morning, and I decided to be happy.
I decided to stop wasting my days with Waiting til things
were the way I wanted.
I decided to sing more and cry less.
I decided to say Thank You more often than I cursed the sky
for not being the Color I wanted.
I decided to smile and enjoy each Mundane Task as a
Privilege……….and to remember how many people
can’t even walk to
Chop Wood and Carry Water…
The blessings of life are just that…
It’s the small moments, when
the beetle lands on your hand, or
the jays decide to nest nearby.
All is Sacred………………I am Sacred.
_________________________
Yes, indeed we are…. 
______________________________________________
Perhaps there are still those out there who are
wondering what the what? and so forth…
Just Where has this woman gone, and what is to
become of this half told story anyway?
Does it ever end? or even Continue?
Oddly enough, the point at which I grew weary of
the dips into the past, I later realized I had reached
the Halfway Mark, and nearly told what will be called
the First Half of this Book of mine.
And thusly, I have written this Sonnet…… a little
something that sprang forth last night, and something
with which I am well Pleased!
Perhaps it will help you Dear Readers begin to
understand this strange and sad tale…
And so it will Follow….. Read on!
________________________________
Mine is a story yet half done
The Telling of it Saddens one.
For Romance true and Beautious be,
but just as True is Cruelty.
So True Love starts and fills the Half,
As well as Kisses and the Laughs…
But then the world both Past and Fore
Undoes what once was…… Nevermore!
And so and thus you know the Plot…
We near the Halfmark, told the ‘What’.
But now Before us lies the ‘Why’ and
‘How’ it is that Love should Die.
_____________________
notesfromthelovewars 