Beauty in the Breakdown

Windows

Whisper it...

I dream of a house. Windows open to the scent of alder and cedar trees. The wind swishing through them, dancing against a thousand stars.

I dream of a house. There is color. Burnt orange. Deep chocolate brown. Ocher. The lush cream of vanilla. The clashing vibrancy of turquoise.

He says to me, “You dream in color.” Not a question. But a statement.

There is a long curved wall rising up towards the cedar planked ceiling. Light pours into the rooms as fascinating as the way vodka enters a martini glass. Slick. Smooth.

Detail. Exacting. He says to me, “Is it a premonition?” Yes, this IS a question. Is it? I wonder that myself.

I have to be careful of dreams. They tell me lies. The heart is too strong a voice.

The driveway went down a little hill. A large field lay in fallow before the house. The cedar trees were so green in comparison to the muted sky and lawn. I was remembering Frank Lloyd Wright. Influenced by organics and the way the trees frame a life.

He says, “Was there red?”

It is one of those dreams that keep you awake after the fog fades. Pondering.




G.

Telling Truths...

I wish you could see what I do. The infinite promise. The inner beauty.

I wish you could see the one who lives in you. The good you can do. The way you gift a life. Not just mine. But those that you shine on. Those that snare you with their light, matching one another somehow. Children. Old women. Young women. Cranky old men.

It’s easy to define you, too simply. Yes, you are a man. Mmmhmm. Yes, that means you are messy. That you are distracted by short skirts and breasts. No, you don’t do dishes. Yes, you would rather play guitar all day instead of deal with the minutia of daily life.

I can say that about all of us. But you, you live your life by your own whims and fancies. It takes courage to do that.

I once said that your problem was that you are selfish.

I was wrong. You are selfish in a selfless way. In a way that honors your spirit. In a manner that most of us have forgotten and have grown bitter about. Hoarding our time in front of the TV, making excuses for being a no show…. You have simply said, “No.” We can all learn a lesson from this.

You are generous in so many ways. Not with just material things… but of your heart. Giving away so much. So much. And I sometimes wonder what we give you in return.

I wish everyone could see what I do. How profoundly good a man you are.

It’s almost hard to type that. I know you may think it’s too much. And perhaps my critics will say I am still too much in the bloom of love. But I know these matters. I can read the map long before I admit to it. Sure. The dishes thing will piss me off in the long run. But it’s all petty. Petty bullshit.

I love that you made the bed. Even if you think it was not my usual way. Who gives a shit. I love that you made the bed as a surprise for me.

I miss you when you are not here. Not always consciously. But the house is too quiet.

I am not thinking about how you did not hang your towel up when you are not here. I am thinking about how I wanted to lay in bed with you, snuggled in to the coverlet. My legs twined with yours.

There are times when I worry that I, in my high brow way, will run you off. That the Virgo in me will drive you crazy with baskets and labeled files. That eventually my patience will run out and you will think this means that my heart is empty of love for you.

I will lose patience.

I will not love you less.

And the critics can hush. I have been married. I know what realism is. Seven nights, three-hundred and sixty-fives days of underwear on the floor will break a woman down. But I also know how rare this kind of man is. A profoundly good man. One who will bring you flowers even though it was YOU who started the fight. Or will drop a little boy off at school so he does not have to stand out in the rain. Or says things like “I want in to your life, let me in.”

There is a small part of me that is still closed. Yes. Silliness. But I am coming around. It’s only a matter of time. (It’s still early yet.)

The bones are good. The rest is just … something we work with.

There are parts of our light that matches.

And my life is filled with it.


G.

Where the Wild Bees Swarm

The candles flicker, spitting flames into intricate patterns on the walls.

I love this time of night, when we snuggle deeper into our lives. Cozy in for a good story, touch toes under the feather tick.

I enjoy other people’s stories, other people’s windows (as you know). Have you ever gone walking at night, fascinated by the paintings created in the big glass windows of people’s living rooms? Admire a plant, the color of paint, the tone of light… Wondered about the conversation, the scents and textures…

I love to make up stories about these people.

J. and I were at dinner one evening and there was a table of three older women, one man. I leaned over and whispered, the fancily dressed one… she never married and is a town scandal. She had an affair with one of her professors at University at a time when women did not go on to post secondary education let alone have an affair with a man. She never married…

It’s easy to fool him if only a tiny bitty bit. It IS a small town, after all. He knew it was not true, but I love the act of making up the story. Try it the next time you are stuck in traffic, at the bus stop… where ever. Pick someone. Landscape their life.

I always wonder what story you would make up about me. I think too often we are fooled by the outer layer, too easily attracted by the flash and flicker of non-substance. We are a society of crows seeking out the precious glimmer.

Daydreaming. It’s just daydreaming. Remember how to do that? Or do you need the candlelight to tell your stories in, smoothing out the rough edges and the imperfections?

Remember, beauty is in the breakdown. The imperfections are what make us interesting.


G.

Whisper It...

Amber Leaves

Shell

Through the Tarnished Eye

Beauty in the Breakdown...

Winter's Kiss

Letters I Have Written, Never Meaning to Send...

As moon dances in a courtyard on the other side of my neatly trimmed existence, the sun starts a weak climb into the winter blue sky.

Bitter taste? Love must be tempered or we never understand the truth in our hearts. How wonderful it is to trust we can push away the ones we love, only to dance back into their arms again. Arms soft and safe. Arms that wrap us into the heart, anchor us to reality.

Everything has an opposite engagement. Like the color of night to day. The ink on white paper. Everything has a shadow. These shadows richen the pallet of our lives. Intensifies the hues. Sharpens the intake of pain. The exhalation of bliss.

I would love to walk in the street with the women in sunset colors. Smell the life there. Taste the language of being a stranger. But what relief would come in the midnight blues, the tropical banana leaf green shade. It is hard to live your life completely out in the sun. It’s hard to understand luck when it is the only thing that crosses your door.

Blot nothing out. Savor that bitterness. It is the only thing that keeps you and me real. It is the shadow that makes the words come.

It’s the light that burns them away.

G.

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

~Pablo Neruda

The Littlest Birds Sing the Sweetest Songs...

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