Goodbyes

“You’ve just been erased.”
~ Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eraser

I could write a memoir of past goodbyes – not all of them spoken or written.

Often, friends and loves slowly faded away, as if walking towards the sunset, maybe turning around a few times to wave hello or goodbye, but continuing their journey to somewhere else. An almost imperceptible withering of connection, incrementally turning down the volume day by day, until there was absolute silence – a switching off – leaving very little behind of themselves, other than my already eroding memories.

There were unanticipated exits as well. Sudden departures due to a change in circumstances. No warning, other than the terminal, loud bang to my heart, as if the door were slammed from behind, shutting me out in an instant, the weight of our previous years mounting no defense against change.

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No guarantees

“It’s the possibility that keeps me going, not the guarantee.”
~ Nicholas Sparks

We live in a universe of possibilities with no guarantees. The combined effect of imagination, attitude, behavior, and fate determines what transforms from the possible to the probable, and less often the actual. “Close, but no cigar,” may be your most reasonable expectation in life. You are a player, not a guarantor, within the universe of possibilities; the co-creator of your experiences, without having a say in the final outcomes. That is the house rule, whether you accept it or otherwise.

Lust

Lust is God’s cohort, AKA the trickster: the ever present two-headed serpent, tempting us onto the path of somewhere, a convoluted journey to nowhere. They are the straw that stirs the drink, the manipulators of divisive consequence, the mistress and master of crashed endings and slippery beginnings, Ms. Femme Fatale and Mr. Homme Fatale incarnated.

Breaking the mold

Break the mold, she told me. Do something adventurous and bold. And so I broke with her that day. Just like that!

Told her I was off to being exciting, provocative, and bold. And for a moment, she just stared: open-mouthed, eyes dilated, and face in a flush.

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Men without muses

Aging memories and youthful desires in perpetual flux, expanding and shrinking to the calls of unknown voices – sometimes friends and sometimes foes, directing and misdirecting, TELLING but never SHOWING. The trickster, STILL slithering around the proverbial garden, spouting the same old lies, leaving a trail of dead poets waiting to be reborn: Agonizing trinities of father, child, and vacated lovers.

SHE remains elusive, incommunicado, camouflaged among prickly underbrush and apparitions of yesteryear; taken hostage by the thieves of muses and destroyers of gray bearded men with orphaned writers. HER fiery womb appearing far-off in the distance, bubbling up in the heat of bone-dry pavement: ILLUSION set ablaze by the desert of shame.