Tag Archives: love

by

…be careful what you ask for…

Journal entry…
December, 2004
“She paged down through the poem…
CAROL!… and as she read each line, it dawned on her like a
velvet sledgehammer… It just built and built…
no wishywashy here…  here’s a man of action…and….
oh shit…I have a tiger by the tail.
Holy shit…. to be the love of my life?  … Be Mine…?
Her heart beat itself out of it’s chambers, and flew round the room.
Oh my God, oh my God…she paced, she emphatically pulled her
hair back, she swore…
She wanted to call someone, anyone close, closest, must share,
must pour out, must have support…
But then she stopped.
Whoa girlie, just slow down here, just stop for a minute…
This is big.  This is something entirely different.  Not high school,
not movie romance…
This is the most devistating man she had ever met, coming back
after 15, no 18 years, and basically proposing to her.
Too much, must absorb, must breath, must take time here.
She decided to put the lid on, turn down the heat, let it
percolate a while.
Let it sink in, let this mortal mind wrap around this here thing…
Hours passed before she slept.  Waves crashed on shores of sanity,
dreams washed over her, past footage reviewing itself,
replay, replay… then….now…..then……now….
Him then….him now….. melding, morphing…pulling itself through
a wormhole, to pop up into Now.
On the phone, she could hear the change in his voice.  Softer,
a little weary, not so testosterone based, so deep and insistent,
the ego had polished up it’s edges a bit.
His daughter interrupted, and it pleased her to no end to hear him
pattering with her in Portuguese, hear the patience, the tenderness,
the Realness that he shared with her…
He talked freely with her in spite of the fact that she was there.
He’s so comfortable with his animal…
“I’m a millenium father… my daughter will know about things…
Know how to handle herself in situations, know how to give pleasure
and not endanger herself…”
“She’s very jealous”, he told her… “All little girls are having sex
with their fathers…Oh I don’t mean literally, but in their mind…”
He was right, I guess.  She thought of her father, and how being
with him had made her feel as a child.
He was safe, comfortable, warm, unthreatened and unthreatening.
And Physical… they’d wrestle and tickle and horse around, and she
loved it…when she heard of other girls having creepy feelings
with their dad, she couldn’t even relate… he was never like that.
“And I always wanted to win over Mom,”  she thought to herself….
I thought I was better for him…….Mom was mean, she didn’t
understand him and me…”   All her life, she realized, all her life she’d
had some competition for the daddy going on, in one place or another.
But it was hard for her to think of her daddy as a sex object… it just
wasn’t there at all… she wanted his focus, his attention, but not that…
Maybe that was why short men never did it for her.  Or maybe
it was because the more ineffectual her daddy became under the
duress of years, the more she fixed on tallness in a man.
“Oh give me a big yummy alpha… make him smarter and stronger,
please dear God I can’t do to him what my mother did to daddy..”
And now… Alcir is here.  Mr Alpha Man big Alcir…
He is back and is ready …
He is asking me to come and live with him in Rio.
Oh, I need to write it every once in a while, because my poor brain
is having a contortionist’s challenge, wrapping around this one…
I’m rushing toward it, and
I’m terrified.
I’m hiding while …. I can’t wait.”
by

…a name by anyother…

By now, perhaps you’re getting a sense of that which had accosted me.
I believe most adjectives would fall short, and my heart was set adrift
with both nostalgic yearnings and terrified anticipation.

I fondled the photo he’d sent me. I found scraps of memories in my
journals…
This one still is particularly poignant, from when he wrote out his
full name in his bewitching script… he did it for Piney, but I took
ownership immediately.

I stared at his picture now.  I saw the same man, a different man,
a different world, with twenty years and 14,000 miles between us.
Was this even possible… was I crazy…?

 

 

 

by

…the poem…

After our notes back and forth, I of course sent him my number, and
very soon he called.  I have no remembrance of what we talked of,
just that it was stoney, heady, transporting.

The next day I received this email:

“I will published tonight kisses

Alcir

……………………………

Carol  !


Hear your voice

Made me feel capable of

Fooling the time

Flying around in a dream

Returning to days when life was truthful

And love dare to defy

All mediocrity and nothingness.

That surrounds and kill

The beauty that we can create

When we are living in love !

 

Your words touched my days

Of loneliness and sarcasm

Of cynicism and doubter

Hear you brought me back to a time

When love was solemn

And ruled my believes.

I remembered your taste

And the perfumes of us

Together

As one.

 

Lovers of life

That discovered the fluorescence with in the movements

The beauty in the penetration of intimacy’s

The truth in the orgasm of souls.

I woke up to a dream

And I want desperately to live it as my life

I want you to be real

I  demand you to be the truth of my days

To be the soul that I never had

To be the light in my darkness

To be the love of my life.

 

 

Somebody to relay in the moments of doubt

A comfortable lap in the stormy nights

A truthful north in the dais of lost

A time of peace in a life at war.

Meet me in a timeless world

Were we can be ourselves

Were we are who we are

Were I can be a true man who’s capable to love

A real woman without limitations

Without lies

Free to become the most of our possibilities

Without the smallness

That these days

Impose to our lives.

 

 

I want blindly to be mesmerized

By your touch

By your mouth

By yours censes

By you coming

By your love

Be mine !

Alcir”

……………………….

 

by

…until next time…

I remember the last time I’d seen him.   I hadn’t heard from him in weeks, when suddenly the phone rang..
“Hello…?”

“Halllooo…. so…. I’m on my way….”
“What?……  where Are you?”
“I’m in Marysville…….  I coould have gonn to Reno, but I’m cooming to see you…”
“Where’s Marysville?”
“About 200 miles away….”
“…so….so you’re saying you’ll be Here in four hours?”
“Yes……… So eeef you haf a Boyeefren, you bedder tell him to Leeeeef..”.
His voice got a little deeper when he said that…

“No…. no boyfriend… ok….. so…. guess I’ll see ya..”
“Yes…. bye….”

When he arrived, I remember little, except that the wait was endless, sitting in the upstairs window, leaning in with every car sound, until at last he was pulling in, his new silver truck announcing arrivals.

I recall his perusing my albums, and chuckling…. “Awful lot of Donovan albums here…” smug lips…

“Ya…. oh shut up!’…. laughter.   There was always laughter with him.

I remember how exhausted he was, as he lay in my arms after love.  Once more I felt like Isis, and my warrior had returned, albeit briefly and for unknown time and reasons, and he quickly slept, although restlessly.
That was unusual for him.  Strange as it may seem, this man was the most peaceful bed companion.

Our lovemaking was briefer than usual, he doing his best to stay with me, and I remember his comment…”I won’t be happy til you orgasm…” and I truthfully said that I didn’t care.  Just to have him there was all the orgasm my heart could take.

“I know I’m not heeere much, but I wan’ you to know…. You get the Best… eeets true…. you always get the Best.”

Next morning after coffee and breakfast, we drove around, and up Fish Rock he spotted a large boat, down a little road below.  He stopped and ran over to get a closer look.

“Oh that’s a gooood one…. I wonder eeef eeet’s for sale…. I wan’ my boat.  Do your vooodooo, I wan’ a meeelion doolarrs”, and I told him of the visualizations I had been doing for him.  Visions of him on his beautiful sail boat, big grin, heading towards a magical island, money pouring down all over him from the sky, and him…. laughing his big glorious laugh…
“Oh, tha’s beautifulll” he smiled.

Soon he spoke of leaving and things calling to him.  His plans were up in the air, once again nebulous, changing in unexpected ways, he was agitated, and when I got just a little upset, he looked at me sternly, and for a long time.

It was like at that moment, he just shut down, made his decision, and took me home.
“I thought you said you could stay another night…”
“No…. I haf to go… ”  he trailed off.
Quickly he was loading the truck, as I sat on the steps watching.  My sadness was overwhelming, and left me unable to talk about anything meaningful.  He was already gone to me.

His truck started up, and we eyelocked.  Endless time swirls passed between us, as we both just sat there, staring, taking in eachother for perhaps the last time.

At last he turned off the truck, got out, walked over, and as I sat immobilized, he planted a long long hard pressing kiss that made my face surrender backwards in a swoon, and lasted forever.  A desperate goodbye through lip talk that stayed with me, full of sadness and resolve.

As the truck pulled away and grew smaller, finally vanishing out the driveway, I sat stunned, really groking the last 24 hours, and knowing that he had slipped through my fingers, perhaps forever, and yet he would never leave my soul.

So now, once again and years later, I held him for a timeless moment; his voice was distant, yet his presence strong, and I sensed a softening, an effect that had washed over him in the brief, intense two years that had transpired.  I couldn’t even imagine what he’d gone through, and it was only many years later in Brasil that he began to share with me some of the things that had transpired.

So there I am, lying on the pantry floor, cold I couldn’t feel, pasta I couldn’t see, every nerve straining to absorb every molecule of him that slipped through the wires.

“So….” he began again… “I wan’ to coomm back to the states, when they let me leeeff..”

“When will that be?”,  my heart racing at the mere thought of the possibility of the maybe someday…

“Oh, in a year or so, things might be better…”

I breathed deeply, taking it all in.  There was no time for reflection now; all focus was intensely on the Now, and later I would replay the conversation as best I could.  I felt myself straining to reach him, glean any morsel that was gleanable at this foggy distance.

“I’ve never forgotten”, he repeated once again.
and then he said something that went through me like a blade of fire, branding my solar plexis, the recording in my head playing over and over again, as I saved it for posterity.

“I’ve never forgotten….”   … there was a long pregnant pause here……
“…..It is not often that a man can find Peace…………”

by

…awakening…

The phone rang.  Busy making dinner, Lily answered for me, while I obliviously continued my quest for dinner.

“Mom!  some lady’s on the phone, and she says she has a Collect Call from Brasil…”…she shrugged…

Oh great, I thought.  Some friend of mine is messing with me… they’re so sick of hearing about Mr Brasil, and now they’re giving me grief….

“Here hon, give it to me…”  (damn…)… “Hello?….”

“Halllooo?  Yez, iee haf a collect call from Alcir…  yooo doo not know sumone named Alcir?” came the dusky,  accent laden voice.

“Uh………yeeessss….. I slowly pulled from my mouth, while brain went into permafreeze…. silent moments passed…..

“Hallloooo?  Eeeeez Theeees Reeely Yooo?”  came that old familiar dark deep voice, that voice that seemed to go right to my nether regions…

I took a deep breath, and in my confusion, suddenly everything stopped.  I had a house guest… one of my absolute favorite friends, playmates, collaborator,  D I shall call him, and he and his buddy were up from the Bay Area to find large driftwood for his new store in the city… and dinner, D, Lily, time…. all became temporarily irrelevant.

“Yessss..???” which ended in a question, because there was no where else for me to go with this.  I hadn’t seen or heard from him in Two years, and frankly, knowing him as I did, I found myself at times wondering if he was even alive.

Oddly enough, I had just gotten a Card back, return to sender, no such animal, that I had sent to Tahoe weeks ago, in desperation.  My mind had been plagued with terrible wondering, I couldn’t stop thinking of him, and I had written something simple, direct inside:
“Come Back….. At Least let me know you are Alive”… It had a tender print of Isis holding a wounded Osiris on the front.  I still have it.
Weeks had passed, and then there it was in the mail…  oh no… I may never know…
That was but Days ago… and Now…?  how can this be??  I excused myself to the pantry.  I needed isolation, focus, clarity, a brain please.   Shake brain like Snow Globe…. let dust settle….

“Where Are you?” I semi stammered.

“In Brasil… tonight there hass been many celebrations, with many friends and family from long ago …I Had to come back.  Eeeets my contree…” he trailed off.

Long ago, he had left Brasil, run actually, from an inevitable jail sentence, perhaps death… and his Grandfather had given him money… he’d bought a 30 foot boat, and sailed away, alone, around the Horn all by himself… he was maybe 20…
“I was a Revolutionary.  I robbed banks to finance the Revolution.  An’ then a coople of peeeple got Keeeeled, an I had to leeeef.”
That was over ten years ago, ten years he’d spent in Norway, Hawaii, and finally,  and mostly, the West Coast.  He’d acclimated quickly, Loved it.

“What … where ..have …you been?…”…( so he just Got there? tonite?)…

“I waz een the French Foreign Legion” he told me.   OK… another brain freeze.

“What??? what was it like?”

“Hell…  Eeeet waz Hell. But I got out, an came back.  ”

“What …. like what do you mean?”

“oh…. like walking for twenty miles with a hundred pounds on yer back, an eeef you fall down, they Keeeek you…”

“How did you get out?” I asked, for I’d seen enough about the Legion to know that once you join, you give up all rights, all contracts, all everything, for Seven Years.  How could this man…?”

“Oh… they deedn’t know whaat too doo weeth me for a while… All three of them had mee in a rooom for a few hours…”  He referred to his double citizenship… Brasil, US (he’d been born in Honolulu while his parents were traveling) and I guess France and the Legion.   I fantasized him escaping, running through the jungle, dodging bullets… big grin on his face…

“I Love You” he breathed softly…

“What..?” I squeeked, breath gone.  He’d never said that, ever.
Once I had said that to him, in the midst of love, and he busted out
“Nooooo, don’ sayee thaaat.   Why, because we have good orgasms?  Nooo…don’ saayee thaat.”  It was like an allergic reaction…

“Could you say that again please…Words, I want to hear words…” I coughed.

“I Love You…. an I Alwaays Deeeed, an I woould not wan you to theeeenk somtheeen deeferent.”

Breathe, Carol, breathe.

“I’ve never forgotten”

“..and I’ve never forgotten…”…

We stood there… half a world apart… and it was alive, still alive.  I didn’t care how much it was costing, how long, nothing…

“I’m sorry for calling collect,” he said…”I’ll make it up to you when I see you.”
My knees went weak.  By now I was lying on the bare floor of that narrow pantry, staring up unseeing, at shelves of canned beans and pasta.

 

 

by

…the cove….

When I think about the Glam House, I remember Good Times.  It was on the Ridge, part of what was called ‘The Banana Belt’ around that NorCal area.  Micro climates were common, and that area had better weather, warmer temps, happier gardens, and in general also had higher prices.  I felt privileged to live there, and so deeply wished I was in the position to buy.         But that was not to be the case.

I asked both my Brasilian, who had property in Tahoe, and also another long term friend, sometime lover, and business partner, and frankly if either had agreed to come up with the down…$50 thou… they could have turned it in five years and we all would have made a bundle…. Five years later it sold for a half Mill…. and later the whole banana.

The asking price at the time I lived there was under 200, more like180, but they needed a big down.  Just like my Point Arena ‘boat house’ creation.  Desperate times, for some reason.  Those who hung in there made a bundle later.
Those who used to sell cosmic crystals, then started studying Massage,
and then moved on to Real Estate…

So meanwhile, I just Loved the place to death.  And that Brasilian, although I must admit I didn’t see much of him, when I did, it was always The Best, and sort of like a movie…How much was Him….How much was Me?  and does it really even matter?

One day he was in town, and drove up in a new car.  He loved this new car, as it was a classic Big Fat Thunderbird…. What we referred to in the islands as a Huna Car… short for Kahuna…. Those powerful shaman of Polynesian persuasion.  Big and Cool and fun.

He drove it up on the lawn, got out the hose, and proceeded to give it a bath, as I watched from upstairs, and put on Sade….

When I went to the Faire on the weekends, he came and watched my house. It was fun knowing he’d been there looking around and touching things, thinking of me.

One afternoon, Lil …then about 9….and I went down to the cove, about the time the divers came in… and believe me, there were women who showed up every afternoon just for that event.  I remember my son hearing about that, and about one particular one who came regularly, and he wondered if it was me, his mom, who was one of those women he’d heard about who waited to greet the divers, because they, indeed, were a special breed of man.…  But no, it wasn’t me, although it turned out to be someone rather close to the family…

Remember the reality show… ‘The Most Dangerous Catch”…?    Well, Alcir had done a couple seasons up there in the frozen seas….  Working the King Crab Boats.  He loved it, craved the excitement and the danger.

So one afternoon, Lil and I went down to the cove to have some fish and chips.  Now the cove was an experience in itself, and let me briefly describe the scene.  This place had been there forever, down a winding road leading to the cove, which is one of the oldest coves on the northern California coast… one of the few safe harbors for hundreds, maybe more, years… lots of history, lots of ghosts.

When friends came to visit, one place to take them was there, for that was the true old point arena.  It was a ramshackled place, run by an older Greek woman, with the numbers on her arm.  Sophie was tough, and could run out the biggest and the drunkest, all Four Foot Ten of her.  Late at night, if she was in the mood, and you were lucky, she’d put on a Greek tune on the box, get out her hanky, and do the dance with one of the locals.  What a show.

The regulars, unwashed and already into their cups, sliding off their barstools, the fishermen, telling tales, and into their cups, and the locals, who consisted of old hippies, descendants of old families, and spawn of combinations of all.  Always different, always the same…

So we are there ordering the fish and chips, which actually were quite good, and quite fresh… and along comes Mr Brasil… he’s all up from being out on his favorite location, and enduring adventures, and he briefly sits down, and does the jolly talkative nervous chatter.  I was feeling quite calm, quite yummy actually, and just did a lot of smiling.  He left rather quickly, and I felt sorta sad, realizing that he was nervous.                                     He didn’t quite know where he fit yet…

Then a while later, as we went out to view the view… so sweet, gotta tell ya…. Of the old pier and the rocks, the surf rolling softly along the shore… and there was big Alcir.

“So… would you like me to find you some deeener?”

How cute is that?  My warrior going out to catch our dinner….

So he did just that.  He sat me up on the hood of his big Huna Car, stereo pumping rock’n’roll thru the hood and into my netherplaces, whilst he put on his fins and mask, wet suit and knife, and proceeded to walk out into that frigid water and down into the deep.

The Primal Feels were enormous. He had a sort of floating basket, and I saw him come up, and go down…. Come up and go down.  It didn’t take him long to get his limit…

Soon he was done, and the warrior in his suit of armor marched up to show me his winnings.  Four Abalones and a couple Perch… which he called “Porch”….

“So”, he began…”I could come over later, and show you how we cook these theeeengs een my coentry”

“Oh, OK… great”  I answered, giving my best blase.

Another time, the divers had been out en mass, and there he was, displaying his wares, out in the parking lot, with the rest of the fellows…

I still felt shy, like some little Japanese girl with a fan or something, eyes downcast, smiling to myself, feeling that I’d gotten my own good catch…

And as he turned over the Abs and other fare, he began peeling off his wetsuit…. A sexual dance unto itself….and talking about his day.    I couldn’t help but be caught up in the display of not yet dead creatures.  I had never seen an abalone still alive, although I’d eaten my share.

As I stroked their smooth and undulating Snaily selves, still alive and glistening with colors and slime, I was feeling their sad surrender to their fate.           They were quite beautiful, and I said so…

“Oh, they’re so beautiful…” and tears almost welled up…

“What are you doing?  Hypnotizing them, before I Keeeel them?”  the word Keeel was emphasized with teeth and nuance.

“Yes, sort of…” I said, and he smiled his best Pirate grin.

It was odd.  I loved his Pirate, and he loved my Hippie.

 

 

by

…now and then….

I admit it.  I am putting off going into my storage, my deep dark pile of the past, and retrieving those journals that strip me bare, and tell me word for word just what transpired, long time past.

Yes, I wrote them for myself.  Yes, I am curious.  Yes, I wonder how my memories stack up against what I wrote in the moment.  I also want really badly to put aside such deep and emotional touchings right now.  Why… ?  because I have armored myself against the hurt.  Yes, Me…. The one always ready for feeling… I have just reached some sort of limit in my life, and have finally become protective of Myself.

And this is not a bad thing.  No, indeed.  I have just now learned the lesson that I might have well learned long time past, when I was young and full of so much…

So do not despair, those of you who await the next chapter, the next word, the next Phase… they will come…..but…. frankly, it’s All a phase, Dear Reader…. and it will come, but….

Just accept the fact….  It’s All a phase, every single day, every single chapter, every single decade………it will pass, and something new and unknown will come along, something you never even dreamed of, and it will overtake your being, your heart, your spirit, and you will say in retrospect…. Damn!  That was the Best!

 

 

by

…the night …

I remember that night, the one I’ve promised to tell you about, like the movie that it was.  How many times I replayed it, I cannot tell, but it was truly one worth re-viewing.

So, you remember it was the Fourth of July, 1985.  We had briefly seen eachother along the parade route, Main Street Point Arena.  He had given me the Latin Stare across the small town road, and I’d invited him with the gesture of a lighter needed.   Later, up at Bower Park, I was singing with a Blues Band, along with Gary Bloom and Barry Bastian (then known as Abdul), and John Scott on base.  I was good that day, and felt in my element, very hot, and really enjoying the crowd of my beloved locals who always looked forward to the yearly happening.
Interestingly enough to me later… I did a solo of a Sade tune….
“Smooth Operator”…… and sometimes it felt pretty right on, Mr Souza.

I always worked the Oyster Bar with John Scott, my long time buddy, and had been given the title of Oyster Brother, one not easily won for a girl, amongst the boys… I dined on oysters, drank micro brew beers, and felt so at home with my neighbors.  Absolutely delightful and blissed out.

I remember seeing him once or twice, amongst the crowd that meandered around the woods and open lands of the park, and even once when I was dancing.  He was always in the background, fleetingly, and  always watching.

That evening, I took my two girls Piney and Lily, then 13 and 9, down to Schooner Gulch, and as we sat on that big log watching the smoke and sparks rise into the sky and blend with the stars…. and as the fireworks shot out over the ocean, blending with the sparks and the stars…..you might remember that that voice came over my left shoulder, that fellow from Brasil joined us on the log, and he revealed the sadness that would capture my imagination, and later my heart.

What is it about the sad hero, the gladiator who realizes he’s not quite received as the hero he thought he’d be as a boy?  This man had grown up reading all the classics, and his heart was one who knew he could send himself forward, sword in hand, capture the maiden, tame the beast, and arrive safely at a home where rewards and repast reassured him that he, indeed, had done the right thing, followed the path that he alone was meant to walk, and in the end it would lead to Everafter.   He was Built for it, blessed with the talents and physical blessings that would enable him to fulfill his Destiny.

Ah… but not so for every hero, or even for a few, not so for every brave gladiator.  Not so for the brave and beautiful, for LIFE has a way of stepping in and letting us know that it is not Simple but Complex…. it is not Foretold, but proceeds on its own path, and none can predict the outcome of the life we lead.

So…. on to what you are all waiting for, I’m sure.  The WHAT ?… after I suggested that he come over… after I put the girls to sleep…. oh you wonder, do you?   Hmmmm?….. And so did I….

I only remember the thrill, the terror, the excitement.  I put the girls down, probably changed into something yummy, although now I do not remember just what.  And I waited…. but not for long.

And then he was there, at the door.  What can I say about his energy…?  He was like no one I’ve ever met, before or since.  His energy field was large, full of sound and furry, and definitely signifying stuff that I’d never known, but wanted to know, to understand.  I didn’t know how much of the longing I felt was because he was from another world… Brasil… and how much was because the life he’d lead was so completely different from the one I’d chosen, and it was very much Opposites Attracting from both sides…. and yet, we truly met on so many levels of understanding and taste.

I know we were both high from chemistry, from drink, and from the greenery we shared.  We never got to the upstairs loft of my bed, at least not for the first meeting.  I only remember the complete and utter surrender I felt, and the swept away feeling that overcame all fear, all doubt, and time itself.  Yes, time became meaningless, and the Fourth of July was omnipresent inside and out.   Skyrockets is putting it mildly.   I remember laughing as we tumbled off the couch onto the rug….

Somehow we woke up in the loft, he leaving at dawn to go dive for urchins.   He sat up quickly, as that was the way he awoke in those days.  Startled awake, no pause for the re-entry, ready for the challenges of the day.   I have no recollection of what was said, I only know that my mind was completely burned, swirling, confused and delighted, all at the same time.  He left, and I was glad, for there was no way we could look directly at what had just occurred.  He was off to conquer the sea and plunder its treasures.

Later that day, in the early afternoon, he appeared at my door to retrieve his wallet.   Aaaaahh! The moment was brief and charged with sparks across the ethers.   He said he’d call me….   and of course I had gone through his wallet, you silly.  Wouldn’t you?   Alcir bla bla bla de Souza.  born February 14th, Rio de Janeiro.  (oh great… Valentine’s Day….) …several cards from those he’d met.  Not much of anything else, not much money.  But nice wallet.    It was funny, because the first time he’d left his beloved divers’ watch, and now his wallet….

“When you leave things, it just means you want to come back”,  I told him later…..

It was the next day that he called and he returned, and from then on  he called pretty much every other day.  We seldom talked about US.   We were each equally swept away, and for those times, there was nothing to say about the experience that this clash of souls had created.

It quickly became the center of my universe…..