Suspicious path

My subscription to the New Yorker allows me to have access to their articles online. For this I am grateful because I wanted to share one from the Mar 14 issue. It unites the theme song for my day with the daily thought to ponder: “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis and “A keystone is the wedge-shaped piece at the highest part of an arch that locks the other pieces in place.”
Aren’t we always looking for the missing piece that connects everything in life? What if we find it, then we become suspicious, could this be true? When will I wake up? Can I let go? Do I just keep moving on blindly, aggressively, ignoring the path laid out of rose petals on your right. No, shaking your head, that looks too pleasant. Better take a left, we are supposed to suffer. What feels good can’t be the missing piece. The Keystone. Right? An uncomfortable battle it is. I believe in you. I can start believing in myself – let the guard down, the sun shine through the blinds. Thank you for holding my hand.
No one wants to be as uncomfortably miserable as the following fellow:


Going for a Beer
by Robert Coover
He finds himself sitting in the neighborhood bar drinking a beer at about the same time that he began to think about going there for one. In fact, he has finished it. Perhaps he’ll have a second one, he thinks, as he downs it and asks for a third. There is a young woman sitting not far from him who is not exactly good-looking but good-looking enough, and probably good in bed, as indeed she is. Did he finish his beer? Can’t remember. What really matters is: Did he enjoy his orgasm? Or even have one? This he is wondering on his way home through the foggy night streets from the young woman’s apartment. Which was full of Kewpie dolls, the sort won at carnivals, and they made a date, as he recalls, to go to one. Where she wins another—she has a knack for it. Whereupon they’re in her apartment again, taking their clothes off, she excitedly cuddling her new doll in a bed heaped with them. He can’t remember when he last slept, and he’s no longer sure, as he staggers through the night streets, still foggy, where his own apartment is, his orgasm, if he had one, already fading from memory. Maybe he should take her back to the carnival, he thinks, where she wins another Kewpie doll (this is at least their second date, maybe their fourth), and this time they go for a romantic nightcap at the bar where they first met. Where a brawny dude starts hassling her. He intervenes and she turns up at his hospital bed, bringing him one of her Kewpie dolls to keep him company. Which is her way of expressing the bond between them, or so he supposes, as he leaves the hospital on crutches, uncertain what part of town he is in. Or what part of the year. He decides that it’s time to call the affair off—she’s driving him crazy—but then the brawny dude turns up at their wedding and apologizes for the pounding he gave him. He didn’t realize, he says, how serious they were. The guy’s wedding present is a gift certificate for two free drinks at the bar where they met and a pair of white satin ribbons for his crutches. During the ceremony, they both carry Kewpie dolls that probably have some barely hidden significance, and indeed do. The child she bears him, his or another’s, reminds him, as if he needed reminding, that time is fast moving on. He has responsibilities now and he decides to check whether he still has the job that he had when he first met her. He does. His absence, if he has been absent, is not remarked on, but he is not congratulated on his marriage, either, no doubt because—it comes back to him now—before he met his wife he was engaged to one of his colleagues and their co-workers had already thrown them an engagement party, so they must resent the money they spent on gifts. It’s embarrassing and the atmosphere is somewhat hostile, but he has a child in kindergarten and another on the way, so what can he do? Well, he still hasn’t cashed in the gift certificate, so, for one thing, what the hell, he can go for a beer, two, in fact, and he can afford a third. There’s a young woman sitting near him who looks like she’s probably good in bed, but she’s not his wife and he has no desire to commit adultery, or so he tells himself, as he sits on the edge of her bed with his pants around his ankles. Is he taking them off or putting them on? He’s not sure, but now he pulls them on and limps home, having left his beribboned crutches somewhere. On arrival, he finds all the Kewpie dolls, which were put on a shelf when the babies started coming, now scattered about the apartment, beheaded and with their limbs amputated. One of the babies is crying, so, while he warms up a bottle of milk on the stove, he goes into its room to give it a pacifier and discovers a note from his wife pinned to its pajamas, which says that she has gone off to the hospital to have another baby and she’d better not find him here when she gets back, because if she does she’ll kill him. He believes her, so he’s soon out on the streets again, wondering if he ever gave that bottle to the baby, or if it’s still boiling away on the stove. He passes the old neighborhood bar and is tempted but decides that he has had enough trouble for one lifetime and is about to walk on when he is stopped by that hulk who beat him up and who now gives him a cigar because he’s just become a father and drags him into the bar for a celebratory drink, or, rather, several, he has lost count. The celebrations are already over, however, and the new father, who has married the same woman who threw him out, is crying in his beer about the miseries of married life and congratulating him on being well out of it, a lucky man. But he doesn’t feel lucky, especially when he sees a young woman sitting near them who looks like she’s probably good in bed and decides to suggest that they go to her place, but too late—she’s already out the door with the guy who beat him up and stole his wife. So he has another beer, wondering where he’s supposed to live now, and realizing—it’s the bartender who so remarks while offering him another on the house—that life is short and brutal and before he knows it he’ll be dead. He’s right. After a few more beers and orgasms, some vaguely remembered, most not, one of his sons, now a racecar driver and the president of the company he used to work for, comes to visit him on his deathbed and, apologizing for arriving so late (I went for a beer, Dad, things happened), says he’s going to miss him but it’s probably for the best. For the best what? he asks, but his son is gone, if he was ever there in the first place. Well . . . you know . . . life, he says to the nurse who has come to pull the sheet over his face and wheel him away. ♦

Daniel

Overcoming self –will, or self-will run riot.

“Daniel my brother you are older than me
Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal
Your eyes have died but you see more than I
Daniel you're a star in the face of the sky”

I am not sure I need to say much more than this.

Christie Lee

“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads” – Erica Jong

What is this, Star Wars? Let’s add another message for today which is “Do not be discouraged”. I suppose our talents can lead us to a dark place – but is it only dark because we forget to turn on the light. There are days when it takes someone else to turn on the light for us to see our own talents…
Good ole Billy Joel’s Christie Lee says

He couldn't see that Christie Lee was a woman
Who didn't need another lover
All she wanted was the sax

It took a while for him to notice
It took a while for him to see
He was never in control here
It was always Christie Lee

We don’t always see who has the control – and it can be difficult to have faith in ourselves to exploit our talents to whomever. The dark place our talent leads us may just be an invitation to go buy the smarts to get a light bulb and screw it in ourselves. Things aren’t always as they seem – Christie Lee just wanted the sax, Billy. She did lead Billy on though. We see what we want to see, or sometimes not at all. So when screwing in the light bulb, be sure it’s ‘brite-white’ 90W and not rose colored. Don’t be discouraged to let go, sometimes the world really is pretty in rose…

Elenore

"Constant effort is necessary if I am to grow spiritually and develop my spiritual life."

How appropriate to have read this today...
Relying on others to pull you out, raise you up, and move you on will never do without the willingness on your part. Have had a bit of a sour taste in my mouth lately wishing I could stay home and watch the rain from a window. This week’s weather is – oh what’s the phrase? “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” . Right. What is so easy is to let the negative wash your hopes away down the drain, tears pouring out in anguish and despair. Could it really be this bad? Absolutely not. A constant effort is needed when one is on the breaking point. Yesterday I was searching for the exertion needed for me to function the days to come. Looking for what it could be that brightens my day, lifts my heart, sparks that smile. I have decided to take from a certain little book a daily meditation (or thought, words, subject – there are no rules as this is my own), and link it with my view and the theme song for the day (chosen at random by shuffle method).
Why? You know that inner monologue? Argument? The judgment of oneself that can break ones spirit? The voice that can be so cruel and unrecognizable to the outside world, for these words would rarely be dished out to them. Creates a conundrum making it difficult to go to work, make a phone call, sleep doesn’t it. It takes ‘constant effort’ to do something to change such frame of mind. A creative outlet? Why not.
One could incorporate self satisfaction, self matter, and perhaps self confidence on a daily basis. I think this has helped me. Still sporting red whenever possible, I can spread the message as to why with a simple link IN the word.
Connecting positive inner and outer, let us dance. Go and Ask Jeeves the lyrics, and sing to yourself that you are your own pride and joy, etc. If you can’t respect yourself, if you don’t love yourself, what good are you to others?