Keeping it out of the Bedroom......

There are some 530 phobias in the world and generalized fears are an individual thing and count in their infinity.

I fear very little in life. Phobias I have none. That’s not bravado speaking, just the simple truth. I have over the course of my life faced many scary moments, I even enjoyed a near death experience, bright lights and all. I’ve faced fears of the body, financial fears, emotional fears and fears for others. But none have had a lasting effect. I got over it all.

So its safe to say, that the only things left that truly can make me quake are the words “I’m Late”, and I don’t mean to dinner, or the words “we need to talk”, whether the latter comes from a girlfriend or a boss it does not need to matter.

Oh yeh and black ice on the streets of Toronto or Montreal. Everyone should always be scared of that stuff, it hurts like a real.. “$%^&^” when your butt hits the pavement thanks to that slippery devil.

Mr Twenty Something that works along side me , is tough, fit , uber-masculine and uber-fit . He is almost model material, so good looking is he. Girls can just not get enough of him and his gravity defying hair. He should be fearless.

I have long know that Mr Twenty Something fears love. Actually just those three little words. He is what most men believe that they ought to be. He is what most women think they want. Yet for some reason, Mr Twenty Something can not see that within himself.

When push comes to shove and the three words need to be spoken, he freezes. And yet another relationship slides away from Mr Perfect.

But hey, we are all allowed at least one foible aren’t we. A fear , a phobia.

So prior to the last Halloween I was sitting having a conversation with Mr Twenty and joking about how his costume for the coming Halloween party should be a love heart, due to his phobia of not being able to say “I love you”.

His face went dark and I was about to be shocked myself.

“That’s not a phobia, not like the others I have.”

 “Others”

He continued,” Aren’t you afraid of the paranormal”, he asked with true fear in his eyes, “and what about needles at the hospital, they make me pass out”

I wasn’t sure for a moment if he was playing with me, so I had to ask with great concern ,”Are you f**&^ serious?”

“God yeh, this stuff is all out of our control.”

Now I grew up with Steven Speilbergs’, Poltergeist movie and I think it bothered me for a whole ten minutes out side of the movie theatre. But hey I was 10 years old, so cut me some slack.

Mr Twenty Something is close to a name change, that close to the big three zero is he. How could he be scared of ghosts and goblins.

Then I remembered, in my day, we actually had to go to the theatre to watch a movie, scary or otherwise. Mr T and his flat mate just bought large flat screen tv’s for their tiny apartment bed rooms. He now watches cinema standard movies from the comfort of his bed, and just prior to sleeping. Or trying to sleep, in his case.

In my day when we journeyed to the theatre, when it ended, we had to battle crowds to get out, we battled them again to find our cars, driving home, get changed, ready for bed and then go to sleep. Sometimes we had a meal in the middle.

So even though the movie freaked us out and we probably discussed it a few times over dinner or on the way home, fact was we got over it, before bed time.

Mr Twenty Something on the other hand, as masculine as he is, watches the flat screen at the end of his bed, turns off the scary movie when it gets too much for him to handle, rolls over ,and tries to sleep.

That in itself scares the hell out of me, on his behalf.

I read once that if you are having trouble sleeping then one thing you shouldn’t do, is to check your email before bed time. Seems most emails make your blood boil and thus keeps you awake after logging off the computer.

It is less the experience of ghostly and paranormal activity that scares Mr Twenty Something and others , as it is the fact that we bring it all too close to home. In this case, too close to our bedroom.

Most kids , have feared what lay under the darkened bed at night. Active or over active imaginations. Imagine then having cinema size flat screen Tv’s in your bedroom telling you something is under the bed, then trying to sleep?

That scares me to think about it.

As much as technology has advanced our lives, I am starting to see my parents words were smart, “No TV before bed-time”, seems a wise move now.

Imagine if we made children read a book before bedtime. Scary or not the active minds of children might actually do some good.

Keep the technology out the bedrooms and leave it in the living room where the living are.

Bed is for resting. Nothing should be less scary to us all. 

CLOUD BUSTING

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.

Christopher Morley  (US author 1890-1957)

I love my life at 35,000 feet, I  now know why…it’s perhaps the closest I’ll ever get to the life of Jean luc Picard and James Tiberius Kirk et al.

Here in the stone cold silence of my home above the clouds I have lost the shackles that bind me, the ties that keep us emotionally bound…otherwise known as gravity.

Here in my space ship above the earth I am finally free…I’d live here forever if I could. I have never felt “at home” on earth and have travelled far and wide trying to find somewhere to settle down….perhaps the reason why is that instead of settling down…I should have always been looking to settle–up!

Up here!
Floating as we do in these amazing cigar tubes of the air,  gives life some perspective as we drift in and out and between clouds.

Pretty, gorgeous, and just out of reach…puffy..magnficent, intangible and unable to be tamed or grasped, turbulent , rocky, full of destruction, floating, calming cooling….

Sounds like many of our relationships yet I discuss only clouds….and I think we could all name someone in our lives that has many of these characteristics…a cloudy person !!…

And that’s a little why clouds scare me..

You see, I’ve finally found the second most amazing person on the planet…after me that is!

And she really does “complete me”…..she dot’s all my “I’s” and she crosses all of life’s “t’s”, she truly is my north, my south my east my west….my morning sun and my midday rest !! ( borrowed words!)

But just like a cloud…I’m not sure how to hold her down?

To catch her and to entrap her within the confines of a relationship,  will her perfection discipate as fast as the moist humid air that creates a cloud,  if captured.

So many of my friends have relationships like that, many have divorced because the magic has dissolved faster than a cloud in the morning sun.

A reason I have remained single for so very long.

Fear of cloud busting!!!

But what if this is my cloud…Do I catch it or do I let it go?

I guess just like the creation of clouds I see at 35,000 feet, only God knows the answer to all these questions !!

Wouldn’t it be nice if he shared this little bud of information with me, with all of us really !

Just this one time before my head which is currently stuck in the clouds, descends back down to earth.

Life up here seems so justified, so right, so much ability is possible , I have freedom and emotions which just are never there on the surface of the planet. Up here, I have so much possibility in life, so many dreams seem real and achievable. Relationships up here don’t scare me, for we would both be free, both have no worries……

I guess that’s why life is so perfect on the Battle Star Gallactica, deep into outer space, gone for decades or with simply no home to return to…you are free… there is no need for banks accounts, mortgages, cars or insurances. You live for the team and the survival of it all… If you don’t succeed then either you won’t be going home or their will be nothing to go home to…. A simplistic existence.

So anyway… our plane decends yet again, the clouds  once light and freeing, beautiful and resplendent have enshrouded us and toss us around to shake us up before the reality of life on earth begins again….

Again a relationship in the making…wondrous and romantic, before the shaking and enshrouding in fear and the final jolt back down to earth.

I’m off to email the second most amazing person on the planet and tell her how she makes me feel…she deserves to know before either of us decide to be a cloud ….and disappear !!

and May the God of your choice answer your prayers too.

The Happiness of Self

In the words of Lao-Tzu the sixth century founder of Taoism, ”a journey of a thousand li starts with a single step.”

So there is was sitting in the lobby of my hotel awaiting to leave to my next destination…a glass of 30 year old malt in one hand, over ice, and a dragon fruit in the other, well, it was actually 2 dragon fruits, both sliced and plated from the breakfast buffet.

And before you go on about my choice of beverage at breakfast, just know that its better than the diet I got used to previously… no milk available I was actually reduced to coco pops and muesli and in the absence of milk I invented a concoction of vodka and coffee mate. Let me tell you, it’s a hell of a way to start the day!

Anyway, so it got me thinking. The flavors where amazing. Theologian and writer James Claire just wanted to don a chefs uniform then and there, and make a dessert from this collective of dragon fruit and its seeded glory in both white and purple and the flavor of the beverage at hand. Together they were stunning, and I could make a delicious and stunning dessert from them. I wanted to give up writing for while and just cook.

A friend of mine, who is a chef, has recently discussed giving it all up to find a permanent career in writing and journalism. He is a great writer after all, but its a big issue at mid life to change direction like that.

Then there is the case of a certain young lady that means a lot to me. She loves my nose, my eye colour and my white skin.

I adore her eyes, her dark hair and her nose and especially the golden caramelised colour of her skin.

You see, we are all the same!! No matter what we have, we all seem to want something else.

Some of us stay indoors scared to have the suns rays touch our skin for fear it makes us darker , others can’t get enough of the sun, its rays or anything that will darken us, tanning beds, tanning booths and spray tans to name a few.

I know friends who use whitening creams, powders and bleaches to remove what most of us seem to spend a fortune trying to brown up.

Why is it that we are never happy ?

A certain friend of recent past, constantly said her father complained and picked at little things, but she could not see that “SHE” was exactly the same.

Not a day went by when she was not complaining about something, usually to do with me. Had she just conceded to a life of happiness she would have seen that she has a great job, an amazing life, an amazing future and someone that loved her no matter what.

But before we find happiness there is one thing more important that we need to do… In the words or Lao-Tzu, “a single step”.

We need to love…

And I don’t mean others… the depth of love we should have is not for others, friends, lovers or companions, but for ourselves.

If you do not love yourself, if you are not comfortable in your own skin, if you can not look in the mirror and be proud and content, then how are you ever suppose to love another or be loved.

We were never all meant to be superstars, some where born with the DNA of models, many are not. But does that make us lesser people. Hell no !

I was born with the DNA of a “hippo”, my friend with the DNA of pastry chef, both of us are large guys. And not much to look at. But one thing we both actually have in common is that we are comfortable within our own skin. People can call me fat and I agree.

Does it mean I will lose weight immediately, I doubt it. Sometime in the future I will need to for age and medical reasons, but will I do it for the cosmetic purposes for another person. Why should I.!

I love myself and I don’t see reason to change for anything.

True love is to look past someone’s pitfalls and to see the beauty inside of the soul. That’s why perfect partners are often called “soul mates.” There are times when we have all seen a couple who look mismatched according to our stereotypical expectations, but the couple are so happy together. They probably can’t tell you why, just that they are absolutely in love with the other person.

Now that’s love?

We need to learn to be happy with what our lot is in life.

There are so many others, billions in fact who would swap with each us in a heart beat, for there’s truly is a tough existence.

Love what you are, love who you are and love doing what you do. The grass always seems greener on the other side, every job seems to have it easier than the one each of us has, but life could be much worse.

The bank account, the fashion sense and the social status of a person is no indication at all as to the one you think you’re loving.

Love yourself first and foremost. If others can’t love what and who are on first sight, then take a pass.

Love should be more than skin deep. Look at the soul, the heart and the ideals of a person and you will find a truly beautiful human being to spend time with.

If we can learn to love ourselves, it would stop us being envious of others too. There would be less fighting in the world, less squabbles and less desire to win at all costs.

Love can change the world, but it’s ourselves who must be the centre of our own attention first, or else everything else is superfluous.

In the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America of 1776 it is stated, “all men are created equal. They are endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

So if we are all created equal, why do some of us think they are better than others? Why do some such as my recent friend find it easy to tell me how to better myself? Why do we all try to be what we are not or why do some try to deny where they were born and why do others in foreign lands fight each other over disagreements of how each should live?

Lao-Tzu’s words of , ”a journey of a thousand li starts with a single step”, should be  our first consideration before we hurt another with words, fists or arms.

We are all born equal !

If as a “first step”,  we learnt to love ourselves and respect ourselves, we might see that we are equal! But whilst we remain unloved to ourselves, we shall always find things in others that make us envious or crazed.

Lets start this long journey to world peace and true happiness with a single step – self love, self appreciation and self reflection. Then we will see that we are indeed created equal and deserve love, life and happiness as equals, each and every one of us.

Anyway, till then, I’m off to write some more. I’ve eaten the dragon fruit and thrown back the beverage, I’ll send the dessert concept to my friend the chef and tell him to cook it. Food is what he does best, and we love him for that.

Besides, writing is not as easy as one thinks, the breakfasts alone can make you tired.

History Lesson

If there is any doubt that we never learn from our mistakes, then I am living proof.

That is, I have lived so long already that I have seen all the mistakes of our parents and grandparents come back and be perpetrated by our own generation.

What is our problem, even way back in 400 BC, Euripides stated, “Who so neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.”

Over 2000 years later I think we have much to learn indeed.

I remember the stock market melt downs of the 80’s , the 90’s and what did we learn? Seems very little! Greed lead us down the same track yet again within the  new millennium. It just keeps coming!

When I was young I remember the Australian dollar being equal with the US dollar. It took twenty years for my parents investments to get back to being worth something. Now the US Dollar and the Australian are past parity again. I’m resolute to hang onto everything I have for twenty years more, if I have learnt one thing at least it is that everything that does go up, will not stay there for ever, if it doesn’t, I pity my children.

On top of things we seem destined never to learn, there is a growing list of things that have just stayed the same. And I mean have not changed one ounce despite all the technology , all the smarts we think we have?

Man never returned to the moon if indeed he got their the first time! (before you bark, show me proof!) and man never did get to Mars- wat of the childhood fantasy novels of our youth!!

Of things more Earth bound, we learnt in the 70’s and 80’s of millions, dying of hunger, poor medical, poor sanitation, lack of water.

The borders have changed, the names not the same, but it is still there. What has changed is that we now have billionaires, but what has not changed is the numbers of those living in absolute destitution. If it has , it’s only gotten worse.

What about things closer to home. Technology and our airports. They are all much bigger than ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Many more of us travel these days and corporations running them have made massive profits. Yet we are still required to line up like cattle and to catch a bus to the airplanes.  We have spent billions building newer more modern airports, yet planes still don’t fit and their still is not enough  space for them all.

In the 70’s we thought of the Jetsons  animated cartoons as being futuristic. Yet forty years later compared to them, we still seem to dwell Earth bound like the Flintstones.

My other said of things like this, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”

I never got that for about 35 years, but it’s becoming quite clear now.

We are moving so fast down the road to technological advancement that we seem to be missing things, quite glaringly obvious things in our quest to slap ourselves on the back and be proud of the few things we are achieving.

I guess it was that ignorance, arrogance and stupidity that lead to General Motors going bankrupt. Continually coming up with new cars, just failing to ensure that enough people where actually buying the old ones. Some things seemed to get missed along the highways of advancement, I guess.

History is our greatest teacher. We should stop for a while and learn from her. An article in a newspaper recently stated that many school children know everything about modern celebrities yet 65% or some ridiculous figure thought that Buzz Lightyear was the first man to step foot on the moon.

If it wasn’t true it would be funny.

I grew up as part of the age that questioned everything, even we conspiracy theorists are glad that Buzz Aldrin seems to finally be getting his time in the limelight.

We as a generation, think we are so smart, yet we are not teaching our children properly about the past. We don’t have to live in it, or dwell upon it,  but we should learn from it, so that we stop repeating past mistakes, learn from our mistakes and move forward as a race.

Otherwise we are bound to end up like the Egyptian, the Mayans,  Aztecs, the Romans, people who built great empires and then disappeared forever.

If we don’t start to learn then the words of W. Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993) will hold our future, “Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival.”

The Truth Does Not Always Set You Free !!!!

A colleague stated today that “I am stupid when it comes to love.”

Funny that she is closing in on 30 and still has the same issues as the majority of us, and is single.

If there is a singular topic that could be endlessly debated amongst people more devisive than religion, politics or sex, I truly believe it would be the issue of “Love.”

“Love” is to everyone person, something completely different.

As I have learnt, just because you love someone and are injected with a passion of a thousand suns for them, just because you can not breathe when they are not with you, just because when you are with them the world feels whole, complete and at peace, unless the other person feels the same, it means nothing toward the chance of a relationship.

I was also told that I “cheapen the word, "Love" because I use it too easily,”

I do not agree.

I am 40 years old, am widely traveled, have enjoyed two successful careers in two vastly different areas and am comfortable in life. The way I see “Love” is that if I feel it, I should say it.

That simple! 

I will not psycho analyse the hell out the situation. I feel love, I feel loved therefore I say I love you.

If that just happens to be the second time I’ve met you then you know what, how about you trust that at 40 I’m actually in tune with my self, my soul and my body and believe the words that I speak.

These blogs where never set up to discuss the trivialities of my love life. 

Even I’m bored about the whole subject. 

What gets me hot is the fact that others see me as crazy, see me as being impetuous, as ruining the word love.

Seriously! You who question me, have never stood in the shoes from whence I see!

You do not know the heart ache and heart break I have endured and you have not endured the life and times that I have, never known the speed at which life can be extinguished leaving you to wish you had said more, faster.

What I learnt from this whole exercise is that we truly are different and unique individuals. 

That love is a fickle topic. 

Just because one person feels love for another, does not mean that happily ever after will ensue.

But what it has shown me even more so, is that even when you speak the truth and plead with another that what you know you are saying is exactly how you feel, well, unless the other person is open minded and can allow themselves to see the world through your eyes, it does not matter, they will still not believe you.

I am starting to see now how someone could be mis-judged guilty when actually innocent of a crime.

The Truth does not always set you free !!! 

It may make you feel better inside about yourself, but it does not mean you will be believed.

I always thought that most people did not like me because I spoke the truth and the truth is not what they wanted to hear all the time. 

Living in denial is easier and less hurt ful.

But this whole “Love” scenario of recent weeks has shown me that even as I have pleaded my case to another, I can see in her eyes that she has already made up her mind that I not telling the truth.

She has based my answers and her expectations on pre-conceived notions of who and what I am. 

I am a writer, therefore the words are fictional flowery and perfect all the time.

I love too easily - thus I lie.

The fact is, she is blinded by her past and the actions of previous boyfriends.

I am superfluous to the whole tale. 

It would not matter who I was in this instance, she was never ever going to believe anyone who told her they loved her.

I am the poor participant in a tragedy due to other people’s lies and hurtful ways toward her.

And so what does this teach me?

Well for one, it teaches me to give up on the notion of love. Way too much time and money is wasted on trying to meet the right person, because even when I have met her, she may not believe me!! Mon Dieu!!

And secondly, it teaches me to never stop telling the truth.

This whole situation is because of other peoples previous lies, which makes her not believe me even though I plead and speak the truth.

If we all spoke the truth, if we all taught children to never lie nor to hurt another with vicious words, then the world would indeed be a better place, where love could be felt, could to told and could be believed by us all.

I think I just fell in love with the “truth”.

Music Is What Feelings Sound Like

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

~Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882)

I’ve often wondered at the correlation between our lives and music. Music is not just entertainment value, it truly transcends our souls and the music we love, (it differs to us all) can elevate our lives, calm us, transport us to happiness or nirvana or chill us out when we need it the most.

For decades music to me was on the same level as books. Unnecessary!!

At school, pre-teens, music classes literally scared me to death.

I took trumpet lessons because the other music classes where taken by a behemoth of a man called Mr. Scott. A somewhat famous piano playing aged hulk of a man, who strode the halls of our educational establishment with ferocity. He taught all instruments available to the under budgeted music department not with pride, but with anger. He grumbled, he growled and he scared the majority of us all.

He carried a large piece of dowel which he stated to parents was to keep us in time with the music. We knew it was just to keep us in line with his temperament.

An artist on the piano himself, he taught our generation the flute recorder. No wonder he was angry. One of the most worthless instruments available on earth I think.

I can’t name one famous recorder blower to save myself.

Music in those days had to be purchased on vinyl records. LP’s and singles, cassettes weren’t even popular yet. But it made no difference, my parents would not cover the cost and I was living in a world where 20 cents was monthly allowance. An LP would have taken me 40 years to afford at that rate.

Perhaps it’s this fear of expense that makes music memorable, even at $1.29 a song its not cheap stuff.

The first piece of music that sticks in my memory was not until 1990. Sinead O’Connor’s  “Nothing compares to you”, was haunting and set a rhythm for the remainder of my life.

Music it would seem, has become a mile marker in my life. It designates the stops and starts, the accidents, the good times and the bad.

When I fall for a song , I fall hard. A bit like my relationships.

I’ll play the song incessantly. Some times on the stereo by my bed. Mostly on my iPod, until eventually the magic of the tune wears out.

Somehow, as I look back now, my life has its own soundtrack. If my life should be made into a movie, I can tell you know the songs that will feature.

My iPod is full of memories. Sindead O’Connor sang her song at the end of a four year relationship I had in Brisbane and reminds me of when my house was robbed. Gino Vanelli and his “Wild Horses” was a happy time of my life when I too was taking riding lessons,,”The Verve”, “Cyndi Lauper” and  Enya all joined me for great phases of my career and right now “David Guetta”(feat Makeba) and his “If We Ever”, lyrics, just understand my love predicament (written about below) so well, that I can have tears welling in my eyes on the way to work, just listening to it.

I've been fragile for a long time

A big old hole inside my heart

And I was searching through the valley

Stumbled on love in the dark

Was afraid to try, but afraid to never know

What it feels like to be loved.

I’m actually not one for lyrics even. Ask me about most of my favorite songs and its not the words that connect with me so much as the beat or the fluidity of the music. Words confuse me and my ears aren’t fast enough to understand rap. I prefer to get lost in Mike Oldfields’ “Tubular Bells” or Pachelbels’ Canon (Canon in D major)   by Johann Sebastian Bach or  Ennio  Moriccone‘s soundtrack of “The Mission”, all for the freedom it gives my soul, rather than work hard at trying to listen to words.

Good music fills our ears with joy, great music sets our souls free among the clouds.

I believe, as some one else stated, ,” Music is what feelings sound like”.

In the right mood I can be set free by a good tune. It as if  I am  sitting in business Class seat on Gulf Air and sinking back into its depth on take off. I’ve taught myself to pass out with the G-forces, and I love the feeling. It comes second only to drugs being pumped up your arm by an anethitist in hospital. That complete release.

We need that in this world.

Music is valuable to us. I don’t feel bad about paying $1.29 for a song on iTunes. It’s the cheapest form of stimulant around and perfectly legal.

I just wish they could take a list of songs that filled your life with memories and burn a disc for us and send it to us on our birthday as the soundtrack to our lives.

So of the correlation of music and our lives, I really do believe that “music is what feelings sound like”.

Some days good feelings, bad feelings, chillout , lounge of heavy metal. We need it all. Some days we can handle everything, other days we can not. We are some times irritated by music or the type of it, just as we are with feelings.

I am in tune with my emotions and feelings,  I love hard and all encompassing and understand that which makes me tick, because my heart is filled with love for all, then that is what gives my life a tendency toward the music I enjoy.

Some people would like it and me, some people could not stand the music that is my life. 

But that’s the beauty of music. 

It is to each of us, as individual as we are to the world.

The soundtrack to my life is as unique as me.

And thankfully my iPod is filled full of it.





Time Limits For Love?

It can be over in an instant, but is their a time limit to how love starts?

In an era when everything is fast, downloadable and texts are delivered and answered at the blink of an eye, I recently told someone that I loved them, only to be told that it was too fast!!

What every happened to love at first sight!

I met someone on a flight from Paris to Bahrain several months ago. On boarding the craft and seeing her standing in the aisle for the first time my breathe exhaled at her absolute beauty. Had you asked me then, I would have stated it was love at first sight for sure. She glowed with an aura of perfection about her. Not only did she look great, she stood tall and straight, my parents told me that’s how proud people st and. She had obviously had theluck of good parentage as well. She was not shy, she spoke with confidence and she was professional in her manner.

As a journalist I have found that to interview some one I’ve never met before, I should always watch them enter a room, the way they sit and the manner on which they leave the interview and the room in which it has been conducted. Body language and mannerism are a bigger “tell” about a person than words. We can all learn a script, but its hard to hide foibles in our mannerisms, hard to find the right way to be polite, a gentleman or a perfect lady at a whim, if we have not practiced the art form since childhood.

As I watch this young lady go about her duties she was unfaultering. Professional, educated, proud, well spoken, not shy and polite. She was perfect! I was in love.

Sadly , professional that she was, I found it difficult to garner her attention for longer than a momentary Please! Thank you! or Can I borrow your pen?

The 12 hour delay in our flight robbed me of a time to talk at length as sleep filled the remainder of the flight, thanks to the peace I find at altitudes.

On landing, phone number was handed to this gorgeous angel of the skies and hopes, prayers and waiting began.

Two days later, I had to relent. She was not going to call! Some one lucky had perhaps already married her, although no ring was seen upon her finger nor any ring mark, or perhaps my number was merely one in thousands that this poor young lass received per month. So amazing was she, I would not be the first to have noticed.

Had she called I would have done anything to make her happy. I knew from my journalistic summation of her, that she was worth fighting for. If in person, away from work, she was even half what I viewed at 35,000 feet, then I was truly in love. My heart had found a home!

No call came ! Heart broken, love had been lost within two days!

That’s how long it took for my friends to tell me how stupid I had been thinking she would actually call.

I am not unaccustomed to the loss of love. Two days was slow. I have, as many other will have too, lost those close to me. Too many to be fair really. I know how fast a love can be gone, life extinguished, hearts broken. In these instances love can be taken within seconds. A blink of an eye can change your universe for a eternity.

If love can be found at first sight, then love too can be taken, at last breathe.

Three and half months have passed since the flight with the Angel.

A few days back she called. Well it started with a text. She was fishing to see if I indeed remembered who she was. I did.

As sad as I had been from no call, my heart leapt with the giddiness of a teen from the very first text.

To have kept the card! To have retained the number! To have called three months later! Meant to me, there had indeed been a feeling in both directions.

I had summed this young lady up into a package called “perfect” on the flight. To speak with her and hear the fun, the accent, the attitude and the manners in her voice, added to the list of amazing attributes had given her from my journalistic summation, made me fall in love again three and half months later.

But I spoke the words within a week.

“I love you,” apparently needs time.

Perhaps it is her past that makes her sceptical! Perhaps it is mine that makes me rush! Perhaps I value life too dearly and know better than many how fast life can be gone! Why wait to tell someone something when your heart is screaming for the words to be spoken?

Things are progressing , but she fears I’m somewhat half crazed or just a wordsmith thanks to my writing, and she shy’s away now when I express my self too deeply.

Part of me understands, part of me does not! I know what I feel, she knows too what she feels.

But am I wrong?

Why should I withhold the truth and the feelings of love that god has given me for another, just because enough time has not elapsed.

I love her now, as much as I did the first time I laid eyes on her. Time has taught me, that my first instincts where right, but my thoughts have never changed. Should this relationship go the distance, I can tell you now, twenty years from now I will feel the same.

Some times in life, when we meet the right person, the planets align, the sun shines brighter and our hearts open up and engulf our brains.

I know love! I know what true love feels like and this it! Life is for living, love makes that living enjoyable. I have never known such a happy world as since the first text message of my new found friend.

I hope she can one day see that, and her heart and mind can feel the words are true.

If not, then a few weeks or months from now, you’ll have to read a column about how fast a heart can be broken.

Because unlike needing to take time to say “I love you!”, when it all comes to an end , few worry about how quickly they cut the ties.

Seems then,  everyone but me, is in a rush.

Dead To Me Dan

I have a female work colleague. Young, vivacious and stunning, well to others , to me she is more a little sister, or perhaps at my age, as she so often reminds me, perhaps a young niece.

Anyway, she lives life to the fullest. Parties, drinks, enjoys herself and, (how does one state this eloquently), she leaves a similar trail of destruction in the hearts and minds of her partners,  as her male writer “Uncle” once did with his female love interests.

Getting older is nothing if one does not impart a speck of ones knowledge upon the youth whom we see growing up in the same vain as ourselves.

Why must history continue to repeat itself if someone who has already lived the life, knows the sorrow and despair that is to come, and does not tell the youthful colleague before she endures it also.

Which leads me to Dead To Me Dan.

We have this saying at work, once a love interest has departed our transient lives when someone asks about them, we shake our head viciously and simply state,” I have no idea, they are as good as dead to me.”

In little Miss Femme Fatale’s recent history there has been several, including the one we call “Dead To Me Dan.” One day loved, next day not, day after dead to her.

It’s all in jest and fun and most of us around the lunch table have already moved on to other love interests, it just proves what a disposable lifestyle we all have these days. Razors, Cling Film, love interests, all disposed of and sent to the land fill without much of a second thought. (And yes we do lead the lifestyle of the mid-sixties)

But whilst we laugh at the time, it was this morning waking and enjoying my multi storied apartment , making my espresso solo, setting out my own clothing before showering and picking up the morning paper from the front door, that I realized that what is the point of all this if I have no one to share it with.

As fast and as painful as the front door closing on my heels, it struck me just how many “Dead To Me Dan’s” there were in my own trail of heart destruction over the past 35 years.

I am not proud of the numbers. It has never been about a tally or notches in the belt. Simply something within me, never consummates a relationship. I enjoy it for a time and then push away or walk out the door.

I do enjoy my freedom and there are days when married cohorts remind me just how lucky I am. But I guess the true sense of remorse this morning was that each of those whom I have left, must sometimes feel the same as I did today. Even the fact that most are married now and have families there must be a minute per year that they remember. The letters, the cards and the notes I find in boxes upon boxes of my own life history are far too poignant and realistic. Heart felt words truly from the core of their soul, at that moment, to ever truly be forgotten.

In a Hollywood movie landscape, I would at this time of life, before departing on yet another move, contact each one of them to say sorry. I never wanted to fill the world with sadness , hatred or remorse. I truly believe that to have loved for a moment is better than to have not at all. Sadly many of my friends would have preferred to have been the only love and the last.

To all those I have scarred, I apologise, To those I have left mad, I say sorry and to those who think its best to forget and move on, it is not!

I beg you to remember every person who enters your life and never forget the wondrous feelings of early love and the words passed between lips and heart. Those are the true words of absolute love, no matter what occurs in the future.

And as for “Dead To Me Dan”, well both parties of that relationship have moved on, but I hope in the world of my little niece, he is the last person to ever exit her world and to be forgotten.

Peace, love and all things sixties to you all.