Waiting for my life in boxes to arrive

These are somewhere between "there and here." I need all the contents quite badly:- 2 large ebony elephants to stand on a shelf; 12 photograph albums; 700 CDs; 110 DVDs; 50 books; filter coffee maker; motor cycle leathers; toolbox; hi-fi (oh and a few clothes and other basic essentials.) Meantime I make do with what I have.

Tagged by Doughgirl

6 Weird things about me.......

1. I have six wrist watches but don't wear any of them.

2. I was too scared to fly in a plane until I was forty-five. I have flown every year since then and this year I have made ten take-offs and landings, the final one in an eighteen seat aircfraft.

3. I smooth all bank notes in my wallet and spend the dirty ones first, saving the crispest little beauties for last.

4. At 30mph in my car I shift into top gear, whereas on a motor cycle I am still accelerating hard in first gear. (Actually that's not so weird!)

5. When I climb a staircase I always count the number of steps.

6. This year I switched from wearing exclusively white socks to exclusively black socks (with denim.)

The Remedy

Nature is notoriously parsimonious with pleasure so many try to engineer their own. Throughout recorded time humans have sought a higher level of happiness to soften the hard edges of life. Lush leaves in Amazonian jungles have long competed with fiery liquids distilled from grain. The trouble is, chemical stimulants have a woefully short-lived effect on mood. Mind-altering they may be, but not for long.

I wanted a happiness molecule, a slice of hormone pie. "Anyone know how this hypothalamus works?" I might have shouted. "How do I dial up more Adrenaline, Testosterone or Serotonin?" Many years ago I swallowed a big daily ration of liquid brewed from hops to numb my pain and distort reality into something more sufferable. I chose to swamp my brain’s natural chemical balance rather than try to understand it. "Hey bartender, gimme a pint of Endorphin!"

I read but failed to grasp the wise words of philosophers who spoke of the courage to change what I can, the strength to accept what I can’t and the wisdom to distinguish between the two. I was miserable at work, at home and at play but instead of addressing those issues and developing solutions I drank the day away and pretended tomorrow was light years away.

What I really wanted was steady and reliable happiness but my immature mind and undeveloped aspirations had not figured out the most effective solution. Oh, and I was also waiting for a certain someone to be born and grow up, although I didn’t know that then…

***
In 2006 these events have happened to me concurrently.

Divorce
Early retirement
Major change in life habits
Sons leaving home
Sale of house
Emigration

I show signs of anxiety but they pass. Matters beyond my control still frustrate me but I take a deep breath. In my thirties I would have collapsed under the weight but approaching fifty I have somehow acquired the strength to cope with these experiences.

I wonder if you can ever proclaim you are cured of the thought processes associated with addiction but certainly the evil seed can be rendered dormant or even impotent. Skills acquired during sobriety form a foundation and it is up to us what we build on it. For many years I regarded building that foundation as my sole objective.

My long march through time took me through bland countryside, along narrow, mundane roads. I saw the horizon but distant panoramic vistas remained just that. I existed in a world of waiting, strengthening my foundation. Eventually I had put sufficient time and distance between me and my youthful demons for enthusiasm and interest to raise their sleeping heads. I began looking more closely at my surroundings.

True, I had achieved some stability and reached a plateau of comfort. But there must be more than this, oh so much more…

***

I had tricked myself into believing I was waiting only for some catalyst to explode me from my rut but in truth I had been prepared for longer than I thought. When love came she arrived hard and fast without warning but I was ready. No respecter of age or geography she wrenched me into a new life of excitement and potential, a beautiful life in which two souls can live like one.

Every day a natural chemical rush tells me this is life and how it should be lived.

"All I want is 20/20 vision
A total portrait with no omissions
All I want is a vision of you"
Blondie – Picture This

Packing a life in boxes

... in a material sense, all I ever wanted fits into a dozen small tea chests. But reduce life to its core value and all I ever needed is just a long-haul flight away. Possessions are what define us so I will ship my boxes and enjoy opening them under a different sky.

Vanishing point...

... is reached sooner or later.

Ageless Love

dismantle my life
with precision
and love

wrap up my previous me
bequeath my treasures
before I go

it’s time to live fast
i am an outlaw now
tearing across the divide

arctic delta blues called
from a whisper to a scream
now I am inside you

i am leaving everything
behind for you
i am your pillar

ageless love
tomorrow when I am old
care for me

hold my hand
say my name
fuck forever

Silhouette

The man shielded his eyes from the low sun and scanned his new horizon. Late afternoon and the beach was already deserted. He lay back and pressed a head-shaped hollow in the sand. Behind his closed lids heat dots swam left to right chasing those tiny threads that look like life-forms under a microscope. Travelling light was liberating, credit card, toothbrush, tousled hair.

The kaleidoscope of swirling light made him giddy so he opened his eyes and stared vertically at the deep blue zenith. A silver needle, almost too small to see, grazed the high cobalt in silence. He remembered the noisy jets which dropped from the clouds near his home, by contrast they scored the sky like nails on a chalk board. Several minutes elapsed while he allowed his focus to lengthen to infinity. Thoughts shrank to notions as his mind steadily emptied. He liked this process.

Relaxed and calm, he propped himself up on elbows. The ocean was a flat mirror, blinding in its intensity. He squinted hard and thought he could make out the upper half of a cruise liner, buried partly beyond the earth’s curvature.

Suddenly his focus pulled to the foreground and fixed on a head and shoulders emerging from the water. He reduced his gaze to slits and saw a slim torso with long arms wading slowly from the mercury sea. In the shallows, slender legs were revealed and their stride became easier. Now he sat upright half smiling, half frowning. The huge setting sun made a sharp silhouette of his visitor as she crossed the sand to him, ocean water dripping from long, long hair. Her languid motion brought her smoothly to within a few inches. The man looked up into her shadowy face ringed by sunlight, “Jo?” He ventured…

… she smiled sweetly.

And he cruised on the weekends just to be seen
And they all made fun of him yelling, "…where's Josephine?"Slobberbone - Josephine