…HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY MOMMIE…. I MISS YOU… I LOVE YOU…
Tag Archives: love
…a happy he…
…the days…
He slept now, and she went to find herself once again.
To feel need, to feel wanting seemed foreign to her now, and it
disturbed the center achieved in three years’ aloneness.
Tears rose up, and she pondered the strangeness of the day’s
passages. Each day rolled like waves upon one another, creating
a layered mass of nothing but change.
She was in search of self here, and togetherness only spurred
on the quest… Contrasts creating stretch…
A blue truck drew away her focus. Old blue truck, careening
down the winding stone street, large warm drops touched her
hungry skin, cool point of light on browning edges, edges of her
self…where she stopped …where other began.
So immersed was she in it now. There was no room for thoughts.
She reached for words, familiar touchstones to what she knew,
to what she had known, but three days ago. And now what?
No clues, only moment on moment, flesh touched for the first
time in so many how longs.
Skin hungry yet hiding…for fear.. for fear of what?
Discovery…real discovery.
…a carnaval birth…
The story of his birth during Carnaval, an incredible time in Brasil,
had the doctor watching Samba Schools pass by out the window…
Each Samba School has lots and lots of members, and they each take
their own special time to show their stuff.
The doctor said he would wait until ‘his’ Samba School passed by.
(this confused me, because he had told me a long time ago that
he was born in Honolulu. Sometimes I have to question his stories…)
“So my fader got his pistol and held it to the doctor’s head and said ..
“Let’s do it Now!”…”
“So what could come from such a beginning?” he puzzled…
“I came out all tangled in the cord around my neck and I looked
like a wreck, my fader said.
One side of my face was all messed up, from how I had laid or som’thing.
My grandmother was there. When people kept coming by to see me,
she kept putting the good side up”
And then there was the popcorn issue… when I’d first met him, I had
offered him popcorn, a popular food at my house. His response was
to tell me stories, that when the doctor birthed him, he’d said
“This Baby Cannot Eat Popcorn!”
Actually, I guess several Santerias did tell him that. He added that
once after he ate some, and he crashed his car or something,
he then decided that was IT. Never eat popcorn!
He says he’s not drinking, and he’s working out every day.
“I wan’ to look good for you. I’ve shaved off my beard, I was looking
like Buffalo Bill or som’thing. I don’ wan’ to look old…”
Martha Stewart just got out of Camp Cupcake, and he commented …
“Martha Stewart is going to rise like a Phoenix… but not just Any
Phoenix…. no…. but one she’s Made Herself!”
We remembered that night on the beach, the July 4th night, and
how he had ambled up to me, and joined me and the girls on that
huge log near the fire.
“How are you?”
“Oh, I don’ know…. new kid on the block”
“What do you want?”
“To be happy…”
“What makes you happy?”
“I don’ know…”
“How’s your spiritual life?”
“Oh it’s going right along I guess…. I don’ know…”
So now I ask … “If I ask you today, what would be your answer?”
and he said he thinks he now knows what makes him happy.
Today he said he is happy when he is on or near water.
I wan’ my boat, to sail anywhere. To maybe live on it, to make
money with charters, to live minimalistically, no luxuries,
just simple.”
“Vitoria can come with me if she want to, or she can stay with
her mother….”
And me? I didn’t ask. I know the answer. I can come.
He has it in his mind that he wants to make money hunting for
sunken treasure. By now, I think well….yes, if anyone can…
He has maps of over 70 sunken ships… oh god, I think…here we
go again… Does he ever stop?
Can you imagine? He’s a world class diver…why not…?
Maybe I can make videos, and we can work with National Geo,
or something….
He says he’ll start by going and picking up what he already Knows
is there…. even Piney is ready to go on That expedition!
This is a man who thinks of himself as alone. Probably always has,
and he may always…
But he has never had a real partner in his life. If it’s there, if it’s
as I believe it to be, then will he be able to prioritize it?
Right now, he is saying “It’s a new year, a new beginning,
an’ I wan’ to do things right.”
but he also says…”I’m not going to change…..
and so you just have to find a way to live with who I am.”
…internal journal…
January 6, 2005
So… the talks we have, long and into the night, are frequented
with lots of booze, but when he’s inebriated, he really talks,
expounds with theories and diatribes, on ethics and commitments,
on his mind set and why.
It’s pretty darned interesting, but it’s also a lot of work. I feel
exhausted from it, and I’m not quite sure of the whys.
I feel like I need to record this, and that it is important somehow.
But why do I feel this way?
It is important because he is a movie in the making, because his
voice is a broad band of incomparable experience of Maleness
in this world.
.. or am I just puffing it all up with importance…?
You can see the cover of my old journal, and it speaks for itself.
I knew what I was getting in to, yet there was no going back.
Interesting things are occurring in my brain throughout all of this…
First there was the fantasy, the romantic movies that were left in
my storehouse, replayed so many times that I was truly unsure of
what was the truth anymore.
I remember writing quickly, to remember clearly, so as not to distort
it, but still after all this time, I am no longer assured it is the truth.
No one else even knew him, except my daughter Piney a little, and
she adored him. A couple people MET him, but I know no one else
now who Knew him then.
So as these weeks have passed, I notice the old movies fading, and
a new gathering image formulating before me. One based on bits
and pieces, gleaned from long conversations, one building upon
another, like pixels filling in the dots to dots, and a new man begins
to emerge before me, in my mind’s eye.
Yet these eyes, which lived to eat up his countenance, these eyes
which were so delightfully pleased with the sensual pleasures of his
physical self…….they are not allowed to be involved in this re-
formulation yet, this complete re-assembling of information.
And now I see the brain attempting to overlay one upon the other,
the old, or rather Younger Alcir, the iconic hero character who
flashed in and out of my reality…overlayed like images on Velum…
over this new Alcir, the more complex and complete picture of the
man, without the eyes filling in and informing my soul.
These eyes see much, and I depend on them to grant me information
that they grasp on so many levels. Will they adore what they see,
or will they speak of pain and sadness, and too much to handle?
This other life that I head towards, this being that impacted my orbit
with great explosions and re-adjustments…that in effect changed
some of my life’s directions.. enlarging my horizons, and filled in
spaces by his very existence..can I now integrate him into my
daily life, can I hold it all, and still keep hold of myself?
We are tumbling towards eachother, as surely as stars on trajectory
into a future that holds more explosions and murgings, to
create a new being, a new reality, a new star in the night sky.
What will this star pour out into the universe?
And what is IT’s life about?
This particular evening, after he’s heard I have a ticket,
a date, a plan…
…..after he’s been back in the shadows smoking his cigar,
hiding his hopes…
After spreading himself like jam on my toast …
with that poem, that said his heart was new and open…
….after the shared heart stories…
….his youthful joy renewed…
He’s been back there, waiting for my true reply, waiting to SEE…
“I want to SEE it” he’s said, over and over.
So he leaves the phone to pee…and when he comes back,
his voice is insistent…
“One thing just occurred to me…
You’re not Bullshitting me, are you?”
It was a statement, not a question.
… first journal entry of 2005 …
I’ve been thinking about how I got into Brasil, how much the world
has opened up to me since Alcir first stepped into my life.
After him, it was the music first, that caught me. I would hear a
voice like his, hear that accent. That music station I found that
played global fusion jazz stuff, where I first heard Djavan.
The world beat program from Mendo, with Lilia, a Brasiliera.
The diversity of music blew me away…
The African beats, the syncopation, the many layered subtleties…
I’d never heard anything like it. From there, of course the next
was the language.
I could hear the like-Spanish sounds, but again so many more levels
and intricacies … more like a combination of Spanish and French…
it tickled my ear, and brought back his memories… the sound
of his accent… so I got some Portuguese Language tapes, and
began understanding a little.
I began collecting CDs, and saw the faces of Brasil, understood the
cultural mix of Portuguese, gypsies in a way, having been on the sea for forever…the Latin feels… the Indigenous, from the Amazon with
their wild and savage ferocity and their forest sounds, and African
rhythms from the slaves they brought in and screwed.
I learned of the vastness and diversity of the country itself, noticing
programs on Brasil, the Rainforst, the Amazon, the abundance and
the pillaging of resources.
No one had ever taught me that Brasil is Bigger than the States!
I got a couple movies, after the Bravo Station TV showed me
‘ Dona Flora and Her Two Husbands’ (with Sonya Bragga),
‘Bye Bye Brasil’,
‘Xica do Silva’,
and of course Raoul Julia in ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’.
Here he plays a Brasilian Revolutionary in a Sao Paolo prison.
He So reminded me of Alcir, so angry and discouraged, his young
ideals dashed like stormy waves on the rocks of reality….and
with Sonia Bragga as three different women: the real one,
the imagined one in the romantic story related to him by his
gay cell mate, and the morphine dream one, well,
I immediately identified, and watched it more than several times.
In the scene where he is dreaming, after pain and morphine have
taken over, in that dream she comes into the hospital and whisks
him away to a small row boat… and she rows him out onto the water,
and although deeply in pain, he begins to relax… and she says:
“This dream is short, but it is happy” …
well, the parallel was uncanny.
From there, it was Payakan, one leader of the Kayapo trying to
save their villages from the disasters of logging and gold mining…
and more CDs from the different areas and varieties of style.
Sting and Trudy, and the Rainforest Foundation…and then
The Djavan Concert ! that was maybe ’89 or ’90… took Piney and Lily,
danced shoulder to shoulder with a huge room of crazy Brasilians,
and grokked the energies for real. Such a filling of knowing.
Met Piney in the city at a Brasilian nite club, and drank their fruity
Rum drinks, ate fried Yucca with hot salsa… I was hooked big time.
Oh The Feojoada! I invited about 25 of my friends for a nite of the
whole real deal, with the many traditional dishes,
…and with Brasilian Movies, and Music playing in
the background all night. It was a sensational success!
(it’s sort of like their version of Thanksgiving, but I discovered later
that because it is a meal based on African roots and foods… poor…
it is Not enjoyed by more Aristocratic Brasilians!)
The David Byrns compilations, and beginning to understand the
differences between the regions, Rio and Bahia, and all those
reflections in the music styles.
After a few years, I focused more on certain singers and composers,
especially Jobim, Caetano Veloso, Milton Nacimiento, Joao Gilberto,
and of course the old Samba stuff, both traditional street samba and
Bossa Nova, with Jobim, Joao and Stan Getz, from the sixties.
Terrific stuff.
Back in the sixties, I’d seen Brasil 66 at the Hollywood Bowl, with
no clue whatsoever on who they were at all.
Now I listened and Got it all.
**JAN 4th… by now Piney has offered me her Travel Miles, and I
have told him the news. It’s really happening now.
Well…. he called tonite, and asked if I could call him back, because
his rates are so high there. It was nice to have him call and miss me.
It seems he had a story to relate to me… TWO of his exes came by
to see him at the same time, and after fighting with eachother
(scarey women), they Both turned on Him!
Ha ha ha…wish I could have watched! Brasilian Novellas are
really really melodramatic and full of sound and fury.
So now he’s been drinking Vodka, and was very talkative and funny,
as well as rather philosophical.
He started talking about Colin Powell and Congoleeza, and said
he didn’t trust women who don’t have orgasms… which led to
having a hard on, which he called ‘a woodie’…. whereupon he said
“Oh, this isn’t a woodie…. this is Hardwood” and
so I added ‘tropical hardwood’… mmmmm!
He began reminiscing… “when I kissed you, I felt life. I was Alive.
We found eachother in a very common way.
With you, I was fucking Life.
I was filling up myself with Life, I was mesmerized by you.
I was not amused with life at that time.
I am not the person I Am right now.
I’m just a regular Joe Drunk… I do nothing. I don’ have to work,
I do drougs…
But with other weemen, they don’ add anythin’…
they take…I take…
a little piece of ass or sometheen… But…I’ve seen beyond.
Oh, I have a big hardon, where you can sit and make yourself
comfortable. We’re just a couple of Sr Citizens….”
“NO! I’m not a senior citizen!” I jumped in…
“I wouldn’t be fucking a Sr Citizen!” he laughed…
” I would be expecting a Boy Scout to come by an say ‘NO!…
you can’ Do that!…. oh here, can I help you across the street?’ ”
We were both laughing now. He said his bottle of Vodka was
half empty, and with the talk about his cynicism, I chided him
with the old… ” it’s half Full ” thing…
“Well,” he said…”if we put you an me together, we have
a Whole Fucking Bottle!”
…journal entry december 2004…
“My mind wandered past years of mind games, years of imaging,
and I wondered: has all this thinking, remembering, replaying
old mind videos made it happen? Or did I just Know to begin with?
Gazing continually at scenes of Rio, Pao d’Azucar, Corcovado,
Guanabara Bay, the Islands, the Music… and always him in each…
Think of Rio visit, and Always in my mind there’s the thought…
I want him to show it to me.
I want to be with him, and see His Brasil.
The days are getting longer again, and just the thought
makes me smile… Actually the thoughts of more than a few things
make me smile…
Such incredible things to look forward to, such possibilities…
My dear darling crazy Brasilian is down and wounded, and I
wonder why… His left knee is bad, and where did that old injury
come from, which dragon was he slaying?
Haven’t spoken with him in many days, and it actually feels better
to take a break. The longing festers…
It’s only been 2 weeks since we first spoke, and so much already.
And I must wait 2 months for Passport, 2 months of selling,
2 months of workouts..
Last times I called, he wasn’t in a talking mood. I felt awkward, like
I was irritating him, and that just led to frustration and feelings
of rejection, so I do not call. He’s in his cave, even though he says
‘call any time you want’… I want Him to call Me.
So now, for one thing, I realize he lied to me when we were together
before. He told me he was ‘tirty tree’, but his real birthdate is
four years later. So he was only 29 when we met! What a Brat!
A brash and bold, incredible Brat.
Now back to December 8th, his first call:
His questions came fast… Is your hair still long? Do you still wear
those dresses and long skirts? You sound the same, he said.
I can see you right now. I always loved your voice…. he’d never
told me that …
“Yes, I remember the hot tub…” he continued. “And it wasn’t just
the drugs… we went someplace else.” (… we had smoked the kind,
but god only knows what else he had done…)
“That was the only time I had Peace. I could fall asleep with my
head on you, on your lap. I never did that.
I was drunk most of the time… I was drunk that first night, but
you sobered me up…”
“So….when are you coming to Brasil? We can listen to Real Brasilian
music, and you can lay down beside me.
I’ll show you the Best of Brasil…”
He told me that after the first email, he had called my old number…
he still had my old shop card, from back in the eighties!
He read off the address, the phone… he’d kept it in a box since
the Legion. He said it was now a store in town, and
they didn’t know me.
My shop had been called ‘Celestial Dreams’… and up floated the
memory of that time early on, when the phone rang…
“Hello..”
“Hallooo? eees thees Celestial Dreeeems?”
“….yesss…?”
“Yes….. I’d like to order one celestial dreeeem, pleees….”
(snickers all around)
“Actually,” he added…. I’ll settle for an earthly one…”
So now he continued… “Right now I am alone. All the time. I have a dog.
I swim everyday. That’s Alone. I want to get a Boat,
I want to sail and fish. ” He said he was semi retired,
living on a small pension from the Legion…
“I have no enemies now” he shared. “And you remember
All my names! Only my grandmother knows all those names!
And I? ….I remember your taste…. you tasted so good….
…..you tasted like flowers.”
…finding my way to Rio…
Suddenly my life had taken the turn to adventure. I didn’t even have
a Passport! The only places outside of the Mainland States that I had
ventured to were Hawaii and Alaska.
Loved Hawaii and could Live there, but Alaska? only wanted to visit.
My time was now laid out… I had 6 weeks to get my act together,
before I left for Rio for a month.
He had set the deadline as February 14th… his Birthday…and so
it was ordained.
I had things to pack and put in storage, for I was staying with one
of my daughters at the time, the one who had secured my ticket….
I had to ensure that my animals were safe and loved for the time,
the Passport App was mailed, and I began making money in earnest.
I am an artist, and have always been fond of a Bohemian life, living
day to day and on Trust. It has always worked, although there are
drawbacks, to be sure. Still, my freedom has always come first!
I was happy to learn that US dollars were doubled in Brasil, so that
made everything seem a little easier!
As I was impatiently awaiting the leave, while simultaneously and
quietly freaking out, I continued my ongoing studies of Brasil.
Through the past nearly 20 years since I first met Alcir, the Music has
largely been my passport to the culture, and it allowed me to share in
much of the passion, concern, and vibrations if you will, of Brasil,
and particularly Rio.
I settled on Jobim as my groundwater. The Carioca accent, the deep
warm voice, full of passionate joy and melancholic nuance.
He was the one to bring Brasil to the US, and his melodies are almost
cliche now…. but no, never trite.
It’s odd, because still a lot of Americans (and I hesitate using that
misnomer, as Alcir would laugh his deep and heartful laugh and
remind me…. “don’ call them Americans! We’re American too!!) …
A lot of the US knows the songs if you hum them, but have no idea
of who he is. They still play “Quiet Nights and Quiet Stars”,
“Meditation”, and of course “Girl from Ipanema” as background…!
As soon as it gets romantic or sexy seductive in a film, here comes
one of the familiars, and I’ve often heard them in the supermarket
(the elevator equivalent these days).
So…. since 1985 it’s been my mission to know just what Brasil was
about, hear the language, feel the voices, and get into the mindset.
Beyond that, it was that incredible Guanabara Bay, with Pao d’Azucar,
the islands, the views of Rio with the Concrete Christ, arms spread
and embracing that dear, ancient city, that mesmerized me.
The populace is as varied as the US in some ways… a mixture of the
Indigenous, the conquering Portuguese, and the Africans they brought
in as slaves. Fascinating mixtures that creates this race of people
where each face is completely different from the next.
I was intriqued to see that one or the other had lead in the genetic
makeup, with nuance of the others in the back-ground. Because I’d
lived in Hawaii and saw the same phenomenon, this only continued
the anthropological studies I had begun long ago.
The Indigenous contributed their fierce, wild, free spirit, along with
wonderful instruments and sounds that had worked their way into the
fusion jazz of today…. an area where Brasil excelled with their contribution.
Many of their sounds mimic and include the forest of their origin.
African rhythms are the basis of much that comes out of Brasil, and
the influence in new Jazz directions is obvious. As well, as in many
other Latin countries, the Africans brought their ancient religion,
there called Macumba and Candomble, as well as Capoeira, the
martial arts practice that will blow your mind!
And lastly, there are the many representatives of so many other
countries who have moved there, run away there, or just somehow
found themselves there… particularly the Japanese and the Germans.
Interestingly enough to me, Everyone speaks Portuguese, which
must be a very unifying happenstance. But it always provided a
little laugh for me, to see blue eyed Arians and Japanese speaking
Portuguese, and likely with their own accents.
And then the Portuguese.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve felt that they are the Gypsies, the ones
who were out there so many centuries ago, meeting, mixing, mating
and gathering other cultures. They seem to have brought back many
subtle flavors to mix in, along with the Latin soul and Catholic
mythology that is still so prevalent today.
And I must add here that it has been my experience that the
Portuguese have a superiority complex, and I was to know that
better as I truly met the Real Alcir.
So there I was. Filling my senses with as much of Brasil that I could.
Learning some Portuguese, understanding the Carioca accent and
style, (Rio has it’s own regional dialect)… and realizing Rio was
Ancient in so many ways, and with so much history, and learning
more and more about Alcir, and who he Really was, and had become.
…to be or not to be…
You know, I’m beginning to see readers that are checking out my
story from Norway, Hong Kong, Australia, Turkey, Bangladesh(!)
Brasil, and of course the States…
This is exciting! Although the audience is small right now, to
have such a planetary interest throws me back to one intention
that has been there since before I started this blog….
I’m going to turn this Romance into a Book, sooner or later!
So for now, that’s all I have to say. But as the days and weeks go by,
I may have some more definite plans to let you in on. I’d like to make
it available both on line, and in printed form…
I am always interested in your reactions, so Please pipe up, join in,
and give voice to what would make you happy!
And Please note that when you have a thought, do share it with me,
even if it’s brief. It’s nice to know you’re out there…
Peace to All…..
…it’s all now…
Writing is an interesting process. There’s that word again… interesting.
If you pay attention, you notice changes about yourself… growth,
hopefully, and also a broadening of perspective as you see yourself
as others might see you.
As the years, and chapters, spin by… faster each year, like horses on
their return trip home, one begins to see how the writing
changes the writer.
As I review… Re-View… my journals, I enjoy both the actuality of
the moment, and the perspective I gain about myself.
I still believe the story I am telling is a valid and delightful story,
a classic if you will, with iconic characters acting out some pre-
ordained dance, and I also know that he and I have danced before,
and will again. For life is not only ongoing… it is a forever decision
we all have made, and denial is only a brief retreat from what
our soul knows……. The Forever Dance.
A new friend of mine, reading my blog for the first time, noted that
she hated thinking of me as hung up on some dude, that
she did not see me as someone like that… and so it set me to thinking.
No, my friends, I am not…
Not that type, nor that woman.
This was a chapter of my ongoing life, and I am firmly in the now,
whilst enjoying a story that for me has become something classic
that I want to share.
For there are not only wonderful stories and dreamscapes….
there are things to be learned…. and not just for me either.
When I was a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child….
… I believe that is some bible quotation, but still it renders true,
for the journals I wrote then were truly as a child.
Love, Romance, and all the attached Thrills were my reality in
many ways, and I have paid the price of that naivete.
I have no need to go down that path anymore, for now I see what
I went there to see.
Love has many flavors, degrees, and depths. One can Love, and
yes, truly Love at that; but if that Love is not enlightened by
wisdom and vision, the quest for love becomes a distraction from
the Real, a rush towards emotional sensations, and a mistaking of
passion for Love, of thrills for Love, and worse yet, the choice of
who receives that focus of Love can end up with Love being thrown
at someone who cannot Love at all.
Ah, the Chase, the challenge, the hunt, the seeking of a prize, the
reliving and reworking of past and unfinished scenarios….
I see all these things in my past choices.
I am a different person now. I enjoy my past movies, but I thankfully
have moved on to a realer place, having learned from my
myriad of choices…
I mean…..How many times before you Get it…?
They may come up above ground once in a while, and wave a little
hello to me, but I see them for what they are, for things I already
have figured out, and I smile at myself.
Interestingly enough, most recently I had a visitation from an
old/younger Love of mine, and for me it was a clear reminder of
what I Really want.
He is clear, high minded, multi-faceted, brilliantly beautiful, and accomplished. A musician, a writer, a thinker, and…a grown up.
In order to make these things happen, he has not frittered his talents
and gifts away. Nay, he has made the best of it all, and as we spent
the evening together, I realized that this unassuming and gentle soul
was indeed my Twin Soul in so many ways; ways that created
seamless mind melds and common ahas…
enough to make you believe in the mystery of connections,
the Mystical Web of Cosmic Consciousness. And yet in this lifetime,
we each have chosen to pursue the lessons of life that were needed
to fulfill our promises.
I chose bad boys…. he chose complex and neurotic women…
……funny, huh?
Now, we could have chosen eachother, and it would be a blissful and
heavenly blend of all that either could ever want… that became
very clear as the evening progressed,
and much to our mutual surprise.
Instead, we’ve been doing our homework. I know that we are drifting on parallel paths, and we also know there is a past and
there is a future…….and the Ever Now.
I believe in parallel realities. I know that these exist simultaneously…
so then I was faced with the fact that it’s all just Fine, that it’s
all going on just as it should, just as it will, and just as we each
decide to write it…
I also realized that the He that he is, that I wish I could blissfully
enjoy right now, is there always, for me once I learn what
I need to learn, once I’m ready to relax, to just Be in Bliss….
Oh, that struggle can be so seductive! but
it’s like you never Get there…
I know that the bliss is there, because I once woke up from a dream,
and he was still holding me, my pillow his shoulder, and in the
morning misty wakes, I lay in quiet bliss…
For now, I go on learning my lessons, taking my classes in
personalities, and seductive paths.
This visit with my beloved friend has reminded me of how far
I’ve come, and how far I have to go.
It also has reminded me that I Will Not Settle for any less than
exactly where I am, and where I’m going, myself.
At some point there are Bardos that we reach, and we jump…
and move on to new vistas. I look forward to the next Bardos…
For now, this one has some very nice views and vistas that
I shall enjoy for a while.
The Bliss is there in the future, there in my dreams, and here
in the now as I so choose it.
It’s all here… all of it together …. all Now… all One.
notesfromthelovewars 