what is real after death? after love? after life?
a real-time hyperfiction experiment
After a while, your kisses and cuddles
will dim, dull, and die.
free audiobook
It’s very odd to know your writing is being monitored for offensive ideas, language, and gossip. Um, if you want to weaponize my own writing against me or my loved ones, you’re going to have to dig a bit harder. But, wait… Why are you monitoring my poetry? Don’t you have better things to do?
As the rain finally waves through, after misting, spitting, and torturing us most of Friday evening playing mixed doubles with 16 other friends. The cool is passing through my open house. Windows, cats, candles, breezes, and purrs. I’m happy alone. I am seeking my forever home again. Ho hum.
So, anyway…
Welcome, trolls and Bad Sisters.* Welcome former sweethearts, enemies and fans. Welcome all who care about the word, my word, my voice. Welcome, rainy day and heartbreak. I know this moment all too well. When you start learning a new sport, you need to be prepared to fail and fuck up. Beginner’s Mind is a lovely zen principle: learning a new sport, yoga form, or breaking up, it gets easier and more simple. There’s no harm intended. It’s simply over. And now, we move on. You drop out of my story. After a while, your kisses and cuddles will dim, dull, and die.
We are in the dying phase now. Twitches of regret, hope, empathy, and loneliness. Except, I’ve not been lonely or bored for quite some time. I’m not lonely. I want my partner. I want my contact. I want skin-to-skin with one other human. A rainy day wrapped around my partner. My lover. My beloved.
I want Rumi but in real life. I want yogini but with emotional intelligence and a large fun-money account. I don’t want to wait any longer. I tasted oblivion in a woman’s embrace, and though I have ashes in my mouth, today, the day before Easter, I’m a bit more motivated.
I know how to be in love. I enjoy the chemical highs that fuel the unfettered bonding and mutual hallucinations. I want to learn how to cultivate that over time. Over a lifetime. I know how to do the three-year shuffle, the seven-year itch. I know how to be a consistent and willing dance partner.
The problem comes in when trauma informs too much of the loving relationship. An unhealed person is difficult. It takes them a while to catch up. The real sad news: they may never catch up. There are no shortcuts to recovery. The sooner you start the better. Get out from under the toxic relationships in your life and memories of your past. Process them with god, a therapist, a priest. Maybe not your best friend or brother. They want something else from you.
Some people, even people close to you, do not want you to succeed. They encourage but with an eye for vulnerability or doubt. Still, there is much work to be done. AA or Al-Anon are great places to share, find community and like-minded people on a journey to heal themselves. And at the end of the meetings, you get a group chant of the Serenity Prayer and a hug.
We want to escape the pain. Jump into the fire with a lover. Live happily ever after. And… curtain.
Part of processing memories, good and bad, can come from writing the ideas and narratives down. Writing my story, helps me articulate ideas with more confidence. Gives me phrases that mark my new perspective, post-writing, post-journaling, post-blogging.
A song can be a valuable partner in growing beyond our trauma, our illness, our afflictions. Listening to music can change your mind, your brainwaves, your heart. The right song can trigger happiness, longing, nostalgia, and memories of many seasons of our lives. Music is a gateway.
Writing a song is another level of processing. Some forms of music are more raw and folksy. Their songs tend to be sad, heartbreaking, and remorseful. I am not a fan of the genre cluster swing/bluegrass/folk/singer-songwriter. I want rock. I want complex orchestrations. I want pop but with a catchy chorus and words that go beyond trad rock. AC/DC for example, wrote some great rock and roll songs. And while I prefer Bon Scott, the original singer, far and away their best song and album is Back in Black, voiced by Brian Johnson. AC/DC has no love songs. No emotional strings that pull you in. Highway to Hell is a sentiment many of us identify with.
We would not want AC/DC providing the soundtrack to our wind-down and pre-sleep routines. For me, I don’t want Woebegone anything. The country fair performing act with fiddles, banjos, and ruffled skirts. More of a square dance type tune. Not me. Those songs bring little or no emotional response from me. There is, “oh no, yuck,” but I don’t hate it. I do not choose to stream those songs into my head and heart. Just a preference.
Life is a song. We sing along. We try to learn the key and chord progressions. Do we go with guitar or piano? When I am experiencing life in high-def, I am absorbing on all of my inputs. Eyes to see, ears to hear, tongue to talk, and taste. Life is a melody. If we learn it, we can sing along. If we ignore it, bury it, numb it with alcohol and drugs, we miss the richness, the fullness of life.
Capturing my life in song, verse, and prose has been a mode since I was in elementary school, with a literate single mom, handing me a piece of paper and pencil and saying, “You should learn how to be patient.” I think she meant to not be bored.
*Bad Sisters, a show on AppleTV
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