Similitude and adoration seem felicitous ingredients for relationship; yet not in all cases.

We were both bonded to our mothers. Hers died young from breast cancer. Which is her inheritance now.

Mine went through several medical crisis that threaten the tenuous adapting I'd gone through with my mother. The first, at six, newly reunited after a year's family separation, my sister was born. Everything began to skew from that epoch.

Her father was emotionally distant, as mine, for similar reasons; it was the model of their fathers to be so. Pleading silent incompetence leaving child rearing to the mothers. Adored of course, the mothers were our first experience of god like love and dependance.

Both had tragic childhoods explaining much of our relationship now. Perhaps ending too soon for us; yet prized the moments together, our love is unusual; two solitaries, we probably will never marry.

Her keeping on keeping is a daily concern for me. Frantic as the time mom was cut in half for gall stones removal. Yet she is no mother to me more nearly an older sister if you will, or must, title or define.

Our love seems at this remove -- oh yes! Its not Sunday and we won't have lunch tomorrow. She has an appointment with the surgeon dealing with her cancerous breasts. As she is, she's more like her father to me? I love her yet my love seems to roll off her in distrust. Curious isn't it to know her so well assembling the pieces of our puzzle in a pleasing, or at least manageable, picture in a time of persistent stress. My crisis sailed thru minus one testicle; the pathology report benign.

Last lunch. Last goodbye. At our age last things are preeminent. Sloughing off of prized possessions identifying our lives apart and together. Ourselves in preparation for the dawn when one of us will not witness it or show up for water aerobics: three times a week. The exception being an Advent/Thanksgiving event celebrating turkey day, her birth day the next longest day after winter solstice, then Christmas. A gathering of friends and family; fabulous. In times past she would leave for California to visit her son and other family and friends returning to water aerobics some time around Epiphany. Christmas' Twelfth and last Day. Always agony for me my son died 10 December thirty-five years ago at age ten. His sister preceding him a few years before at 18 months.

Blanched with pain, older than I, laughing, smiling and scowling or simply being The Sphinx I adore. In all kinds, sorts and conditions. She will not give me permission to . . . with only one exception . . . publish her portraits by any effort of persuasion. And I love her because she is from first to last beautiful, kind and generous. Once proclaiming she must change venues from the hospital rehab to water aerobics due to pain. She added; "This won't be a divorce, we'll still meet for lunch . . .  Of course I followed her making no difference to me where or how I rebuilt my stamina from which early on I'd decided to end my life so limited it had become. I've always been attracted to beautiful older women. She is all of that and more so much so.

Once a forensic psychologist for the State of California and in private practice there. Something she did not tell me until long after we'd become the best of friends. She saved my life. Then gave me a reason to have a life where before I'd had none whatsoever. Moving through the days from pillar to post and back again. So if you think of us, remember we are or were: Lovers of a certain age reborn; expecting to meet again in heaven with her husband and a wolf named Nazoni.

God bless and be well arrived from all your travels.

120925 19:03 similitude
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

"I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do." --Salma Hayek

Sheds water like a duck, wattles and quacks; but it is my mother who shunned my love, attempting to lend her some sense of being loved for herself. 

Lord love a duck. Lordy, oh Lordy in a G-String. Am I soo tempted to buy me a Rome Stainless Steel Gazing Ball, Silver 12" for every room in my apartment and non-existent front yard. Maybe for a hood ornament on my car; remember those?

Reminding me of "God's all seeing eye," the vision from which no secrets are kept. The hundreds of thousands young adolescent girls like Anne Frank who died in German built crematoria without notoriety. 

Or millions of nubile girls banished along with politically inconvenient parents to Gulag.

I once viewed a snapshot of mom and aunt Nina in bathing costumes standing upon the shores of the Ohio River . . . and fell to wondering why me, the egg fertilized and nearly killing her being delivered: 58 hours of dry birth, Christ Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio at 11:59 November 8th, 1940 . . . Dad's whereabouts either unknown or never mentioned. Except approximately twenty-eight-years later when she said dad wanted her to be The Virgin Mary & A Whore?!?

Oh sweat Jesus on a BIG WHEEL racing thru rush hour traffic in Chicago, snow, sleet, freezing rain and dark of night no headlights

why me?

Jesus Christ! 

Married? 

. . . what part of gnosis do you not understand?

Sometimes I lose all control of my autonomic nervous system . . . you know! Just laughing my posterior off. Whadaya tink Gangsta rap sans violent redundancy is poetry nonetheless! YES! And YES! i have immutable confidence in the future, even if I resent being White. Not really my fault, i was born that way. Add that I will not be here to bear the consequence of unbridled reproduction; the crowds, the chaos the wars for space, water or the waste, human polluting everything; what disables ants from becoming Elephantine. 

I wish I could afford Cable TV just so I could replay what Fox TV had to say by way of infotainment regarding Jesus screwing around with women. TiVo it and reply in an endless loop. Despite the flashing thighs, high heels, tits and ass -- beauty being a prison or trap -- Love actually has no sentimentality. And the Love of God for us is objective not subjective -- no wishful thinking -- no ego, no desire, just unconditional.

I am not oblivious of Saul who became Paul and his metaphoric reference to the mirror in 1 Corinthians 13. Nor am I ignorant, or unconscious, that I place all women upon pedestals; M most of all: Imperial, enormous reverence for her resemblance to the Sphinx yet by nature, nurture and choice she remains humble the true sign of genius. Genius does not take kindly to flattery and deferential regarding the observations of any critical nature. Pro or Con. All to aware it is easy to kill instead of love anyone or anything. No one, not even God, takes kindly to being made an idol of. That is except phonies and posers; what drove me from Facebook.

Conclusion: I have not seen a gazing ball in years. They seem to have fallen out of vogue. Yet when in dialog with someone like M; a welcoming listener generous enough to attend my meandering discourse; I would use a gazing ball in the rain to describe and define my frustration at loving my parents. Never conscious of having become, superficially, like them, malevolently self-negating, addicted to avoidance and denial in all things: save material acquisition and status symbols. 

If tears, like rain, are prayer; all mine have been answered. My gratitude to God, M and all who listened is endless loyalty and faith. Each in their own way have given me 'virgin' birth. I suggest in closing that you seek your own.

“When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that,' it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.” --Chuang Tzu circa 350 B.C.

"Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world." --Blaise Cendrars

"I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do." --Salma Hayek

"Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place." --Billy Crystal

120925 07:44 gazing globe

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved 

wisdom common or uncommon or collaborative

I have become considerably more flexible, or fluid, in my assessment of those who I intuit have, having, a successful marriage; become in friendship as peers; meaning equals. 

As indicated, personally, I had difficulty in socialization. Yet only now know that had my parents not left me with my maternal grandmother -- what Jung referred to as The Great Mother (by extrapolation and experience, her second husband, not biologically my maternal grandfather, was my Great Father. One of my more significant dreams: He WAS god in a sweat stained fedora hat. I the child he the Man yet a man telling a young man he'd be okay.) -- I would not be myself as I know myself better each passing day. It was he who first informed me that I am/was; "Crazy as a bedbug/June bug." Upon which continuously improvise in response to "How are you?" And remain nearly as fond of replying "Compared to What? Additionally, several men have remarked, our sense of time was off: "night for day" and "where have you been for so long?" And of them I am disconcerted the number of us, young and old, who no longer have hope of a future, in life or death.

Lovingly will I long remember those beloved of me at hospice and their discomfort at the sight of me. 

Acutely aware of all the strays in this world, homeless and dying of neglect: dogs and cats, road kill, PTSD and co-dependents, 'mentally ill.' I have learned the hard way never to treat a woman of any estate of attraction or age: youth or crone as a vehicle of my sexual gratification -- it bores them. 
It enslaves them.
Making them less than equal in all regards . . . 
and if pressed to express their feelings and values will tell you explicitly why they have no interest in men . . . especially a 'dirty old man' like me (self-assessment without deprecation.)
Sadly I seldom have come to a position of emphatic trust with a woman until M. 

Though several exceptions come to mind: Women who were kind, generous, affectionate and willing to play "talk 'dirty' to me." Not gratifying in a sexual or voyeuristic way but merely to be honest in the sense that they accepted me as their equal/friend/peer. 

I awoke thinking of parenting, the sacrificial nature and pragmatic reality of being one. Realizing that had I thought I'd have time left to me I'd do so, by adoption . . . but then I can as well be a foster parent, i.e. as with Big Brother/Sister. Although should they, the Authorities, know me as well as I know myself, i doubt it. 

To others who love and know me deeply I am the Flying Saucer of Boomerangs. A simile used to describe what M says when in vocal mode. Her words come out and like a the scythe of death cuts me not into half, but slices and dices cell from cell, killing then resurrecting me instantly. . . .Such, for me, is the true nature of love: equality in all things. 

What would Jesus be like after witnessing two thousand years of what has become of His reputation? The millions slain? Northern and predominately Protestant Ireland: Belfast? -- is this were my "irk the ire" of those who are politically and physically potentially/realistically violent comes from?

Some of us are allergic to NICE or NORMAL. And some are quite violently and unconscionably rude about aggressively destroying that in others. . . .I know The Holy Roman Catholic Church as originating in God, but at times, and to degrees, not kinds, too capable of being asinine. 

No longer ashamed of loving men but not being attracted or inclined to them sexually -- as I am still at 72 towards women and one woman in particular (well, i lie: many women but willing to die for one only M.) If I want to make Denis speak (my friend and expelled priest,) to jerk his chain and get him to bark, all I have to do is ask a theological question and it is a napalm enema but I am made of sterner stuff: asbestos. Why scatological? Some of us, or we men, are more intimate and confident in one another that others ever dream of being. Retroactively at times I'd like to expunge the entire Mayflower passenger list and start all over again. . . .No more smug self-righteous white people who, being lunatic fundamentalist, aborted Habeas Corpus . . . or so I am lead to, or merely believe.

I am essentially attracted to women with "Balls" powerful assertive and independent people who happen to have been born female. Or more like Lilith than Eve is portraid. A significant part of my education is the eventual hopelessness of it, myself, in life or death. The issue raised by comparing Lilith and Eve or the suggestion that Eve preceeded Adam. I am not ignorant or stupid but merely willing to acknowledge the limits of my knowledge and understanding; which is, to me, wisdom.

e.g. If I say I wish to make God available to you, my thought and ambition becomes oximoronic, since you already have both God & yourself; as I do. The difference is that I know and accept. While to my eyes and experience you deny or flee. I think-feel-sense-intuit with coupled equally male/female intuition and or other qualities having nothing to do with hermiphadict sexuality that I know Jesus through omens, dreams, portents and the simple choice of being generous instead of selfish. It is not His, or my story that interest me but your's and ours before we become extinct. 

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Amen.

120925 02:20 common wisdom

© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved