Sweet memories kiss
Time holds me enthralled and warm
I say, I miss you
To Where
You stare beyond me
to where, I can’t know or see
But I wish I knew
Witnessed
“Rim of the World.” She’d spoken without preamble. They’d been quiet for about ten minutes.
Breakfast plates were spread around the table in front of her, along with a cup on a saucer and a silver teapot. Appearing about sixty, she was looking at an iPad.
A man, about her age, sat to her right reading a newspaper. He said, “That’s a Netflix show.”
“It’s on Netflix,” she said.
“I just said that. It’s science fiction.”
“It’s about some kids.”
“I know. I took a look at a trailer and added it to my list. I’ve been thinking about watching it.”
“It’s science fiction.”
“I know. I just said that.”
“Maybe we ought to watch it. It sounds like something we’d like.”
He flipped his paper and turned the page. “I’ll check it out.”
Sunday’s Theme Music
I was streaming this song this morning as I walked through the damp early day. Weather, like many things in life, is on a spectrum of several sliding scales. Weak sunshine was trying to warm us up but had a long way to go, and the wind was being coy about which way it’d blow.
Love and relationships are other spectrums of existence. When you meet someone who attracts you sexually or stimulates you mentally, where will it go? It’s not usually a steady movement. Sometimes it all works, and it comes together, and then…their spectrum shifts. Suddenly, you find that they’re no longer in love with you. They’re having an affair. Although they haven’t told you, they’re moving on.
And you find it out in an unplanned way that sears your heart and numbs your senses.
This song tells a story of one such slide along the spectrum, the part of the spectrum after discovering the betrayal, the part where you’re trying to find a way to go on.
Dean Lewis, “Be Alright”, 2018.
Sunday’s Theme Music
Rocking out to Bare Naked Ladies “One Week” (1998) in my mindstream as I walked today. Why them? Not sure of the stream’s origins. Here are the lines that were in my mind:
Chickity China the Chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin’
Watchin’ X-Files with no lights on
We’re dans la maison
I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one
Like Harrison Ford I’m getting frantic
Like Sting I’m tantric
Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy
The song’s weird rap lyrics, strung around the fight between a couple, appeals to me because of its insights. The guy singing it knows how this fight went, and he knows how reconciliation will go, and he’s laughing at it. Most of us develop these insights into relationships. We know the little steps followed between growing annoyance, rising anger, the fight or disagreement, and the subsequent make-up.
It might be today’s sunny weather that kicked this song into the stream. We were house shopping in California when this song was released and rose in 1998. The connections could be that I was thinking, it’s a a beautiful day. Not being satisfied with that, I went on, flashing on sunshine splashing off waves and lamenting, I wish I was at the ocean. That triggered memories of glorious days in Half Moon Bay, where we eventually bought a place to live.
Or, maybe all that is just bullshit, and my mind just heard a noise that triggered the song, and so it began.
Book Light
She loved reading books, and not just reading them, but researching what to read next, talking about her reads with her friends and family, and prowling book stores with her book list in her hand. Non-fiction, fantasy, young adult, historic novels, mysteries…they were all on her list. She read everyday, often reading four or five books a week. Finding a new author that she enjoyed was her greatest pleasure.
Then her mother died, her mother, who’d always encouraged her to read, introducing her to The Three Detectives series and Nancy Drew Mysteries, her mother, whose idea of a day out was taking her girls to the public library, where each was allowed to check out one book.
With her mother gone, she no longer wanted to read. It was like her book light had gone out, and would not come back on.
Tuesday’s Theme Music
“Smile Like You Mean It” by the Killers was released in 2005. I always took it as a song about putting on a brave face when you run into the ex or something goes wrong. We have so many other expressions to cover it, like don’t let them see you cry, never show weakness, and never let them see that you’re hurt. That’s pretty much how I was raised, to keep pain private, to always be tough and strong. Part of that seemed to be all about being manly, but it was also about not letting others take advantage of you through a perceived weakness.
In Fits.
The start
seeing
noticing
talking
flirting
friendship
lust
sex
love
trust
The relationship
trust
sex
love
support
compatibility
complacency
ennui
questions
regrets
The decisions
disagreements
betrayal
anger
arguments
fights
threats
tears
compromise
counseling
separating
praying
choices
The end
together
apart
resigned
accepting
hopeful
dismissive
optimistic
pessimistic
loving
trusting
hoping
Death.
A Dad Dream
I dreamed my Dad and I were in a store, but a few caveats are needed to qualify this. Much younger, I was taller than I’ve ever been. Dad wasn’t my true father but a colonel I’d worked for in the Air Force. This colonel and I didn’t get along well. Fortunately, he wasn’t in my chain of command. He was the Deputy Base Commander, though, so I had encounters with him almost every day. Another colonel that I was buddies with told me that the other colonel had changed through the years. He said, “He used to seem so happy and had so much fun. Now he barely wants to smile.”
That was my Dad in this dream, not at all like my real Dad. Dream Dad was retired, and I was still active, and outranked him. Neither of us were in uniforms, though. These were matters that I knew.
We were at a Home Depot shopping for plants. Dad wanted to plant flowers at his house. I was there, assisting, following him around. Dad had become forgetful and clutzy. He kept knocking things over. I was concerned, amused, and exasperated as I followed him around and watched the Home Depot personnel cleaning up after his messes.
Dad and I were chatting through all of this, mostly about what he was doing, from what I remember. I began suggesting that we leave but Dad wasn’t ready. It went like this, me following him around as he carried a basket, looking for plants and knocking things over, until I quit following him and drifted away. After I did that, I heard a loud crash. Knowing that he was behind it, I trotted into another area.
A clerk stopped me. “Some hazardous stuff has been spilled,” he said. “We need to clean it up before anyone can go in.”
I looked into the room and saw my dream father standing to one side not far away. Clerks and customers were standing around the perimeter, arms folded, leaning against shelves, as two others cleaned up a mess in the middle.
“Just tell me this,” I said to the clerk. I pointed at Dad. “Did he cause this?” As the clerk nodded, I smiled and said, “That’s what I thought.”
The dream ended.
Michael Seidel, writer 