Thanatos

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.
The Truth the Dead Know ~Anne Sexton

There was a time when my father had an opportunity to repair some of the damage that he had (unknowingly) done in my childhood. I think that he truly didn't understand the depth of my hurt. That by leaving when I was young he gave me a lifetime fear of abandonment... and a feeling that I wasn't worth staying for. Something deep and painful that still raises its head from time to time. And he could have repaired it all.

Maybe he still can? Who knows?
Maybe there is still time. I seriously doubt that his heart has the epuipment necessary to undertake such a self-sacrificing endeavor.

It's simply about 'listening, validating'... asking for forgiveness for things too numerous to fit on any list. Mostly it's just that a girl needs to realize that, although she's sure that her father went day-to-day without so much as a thought about her, that he had a new family and new children to care for, that he did think of her. Maybe he just did not know what to say?

Perhaps he was even a little afraid of her... to admit what damage he may have done to her? That damage he saw in her whenever they met, over a long weekend or a couple of weeks every other summer. He must surely have seen it in her face. Some lack of trust she had of him, some part of her that could never quite let go of her fear of him? Did he notice her at all? That his careless words could strike her silent with their gentle cruelty?

That she stood back and watched him as he took care of his children in ways that she had never known him to care for her? She knew that he couldn't really see her, feel her presence. She was a spectre moving amongst his happy family, a reminder of his rejected life, the one he wanted to cast far from himself, and with that life went a little girl. One who loved him desperately.

And she knew he loved her - just not in any way that was desperate or protective - or he never would have left her to fend for herself.






**This post is about emotional abandonment.
I'm sure I don't have to say that, but I feel compelled to say it.
A parent doesn't have to physically abandon their child to damage them.
It is truly a matter of perception. A child's perception.
The only one that matters.

The Road Home

The King and Queen Towers.
The beacons that call me home.

The railroad track is miles away,
And the day is loud with voices speaking,
Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,
Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,
But I see its cinders red on the sky,
And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing;
Yet there isn't a train I'd rather take,
No matter where it's going.

Travel ~~Edna St. Vincent Millay

I drove home at dusk.
My view relaxed, I was able to perceive my home in solitude.
A rare treat-
A situation not often afforded in the stir of humanity so tightly confined here.

I love this city for its warmth and chill.
Its solidarity and independence.
Everything.
Everything one could want, from the passion of the arts to tests of human endurance exist here. Every day here is a marathon, a challenge to be undertaken.
Therein lies her charm...

A whisper of traffic,
brimming life that intersects and parts, rarely touching, yet, like all I have known, affecting me with its motion.
The rise and fall of lights,
a nightly landscape of contradictions
that speak of diversity and commonality.

Of all of the places that I have lived I wouldn't say that this one suits me best.
The sea is too far, and yet, here I have found contentment.
I only hope to stay my restless spirit long enough to truly appreciate this place, but wanderlust is calling
and we are old friends.

A Perfect Storm

Growing up on the Eastern Seaboard meant many travels through fishing towns when I was in High School and College. I have always enjoyed those travels most of all. It inspired a passion in me for travel. It inspired the need in me for the ragged coastline that I called home for so many years.

The little bars along the shoreline are always full of fishermen. Not like Navy sailing men, the ones I knew at home, not even close. These are men who work the docks unloading fish, crabs, and the men who have the job of actually going out catching swordfish, tuna and shark.

If you spend time in these bars, if tales of fishing adventures and shipwrecks are one of your passions, as they have always been mine, then these are the places you enjoy going for your weekend retreats.

My favorite song of all time.
By the Irish, artist, poet, lyricist Van Morrison.
Into The Mystic
Van Morrison
We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won
as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
into the mystic

And when that fog horn blows
I will be coming home
And when that fog horn
blows I want to hear it
I don’t have to fear it

I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
Then magnificently we will float
into the mystic

And when that fog horn blows you know
I will be coming home
And when thst fog horn whistle blows
I got to hear it
I don’t have to fear it

I want to rock your gypsy soul
Just like way back in the days of old
And magnificently we will float
into the mystic

Come on girl...

The stories of the 'longliners' as these men are called, are always very fascinating. Understanding their need for the ocean is not difficult, but the dangerous nature of their work never ceases to amaze me. The Grand Banks, George's Bank, the Sable Islands (The Graveyard of the Atlantic), and in the more cap prone northern Canadian waters places like the Flemish Cap, those areas reaching into the Sub-Polar Gyre are the places these men know well. Their stories never fail to excite my imagination. Stories of storms at sea, gales, Nor'Easters and friends lost at sea. Tales of ships that went down and their own close calls have always fascinated me enough to sit for hours listening, rapt in their tales. Fishermen are the best story tellers.

I spent many weekends with my best friend Paige visiting these tiny fishing villages. Both on the Eastern Shore and traveling through Canada.

As the cold winds continue to whip here, carrying Winter's chill in the air, I am lost in the memory of those tales knowing that the best season for the bravest of the longliners has just passed, and knowing that some ventured out, against the advice of friends and loved ones, to risk the Winter seas in hopes of bringing home the big catch.

They did, and will continue to, venture further and further out in search of their pelagic harvest. I'm sure some did not return.

My thoughts tonight are with their families, their mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children. My prayers also go out to all of the men and women floating tonight on the turbulent Atlantic. As Bobby's mom told him in the movie 'The Perfect Storm', "The Grand Banks are no joke in October."
The Grand banks are 'no joke' any time of the year.
I imagine tonight must be brutal.

Fisherman's saying...
'In the offing'

Today if we say something is in the offing, it is about to happen.
The origins of this phrase are definitely salty. The offing is the distance a ship at sea keeps from the land because of navigational hazards etc. It is generally in waters too deep for anchoring. If inconvenient, or dangerous to approach a coast, a ship waited in the offing, or just out to sea, and was visible from the land.

Here is one of the more interesting places I would like to visit.
NEWFOUNDLAND

A while back a friend of mine introduced me to the BBC Shipping Reports that you can listen to on-line. She used them to lull her restless thoughts to sleep. I am afraid that I am also addicted to the reports and the radio announcers voice is now my only remedy for a sleepless night.

You can listen to it on-line here.
Scroll down the right side bar and click the link in the green section.
It will open up the shipping report in RAM.

HNT - Punditry

I have weathered the storm.
Thanks to help from friends.

Today I am adding the PA Pundits to my featured links. Two guys I consider to be good friends.

They rant.
They rave.
They are caustic.
Rude.
Funny.
Obsessed.
They write a LOT!

They make me laugh.
They drive me crazy.
They make me think.

They have huge cajones and even bigger hearts.

They cared... when no one else seemed to.

Osbasso

The Sea... He is my lover

I MUST down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
Sea-Fever ~John Masefield. 1878–


I have a fantasy that I never fulfilled.
I started imagining a lover when I was a teenager.... who didn't?
He would come to me on the beach.

I used to lay with my body right out of the surf and let the warm summer water tickle my toes, then, as the tide rose, it would eventually begin to lap at my thighs. That feeling is beyond words. It's like gentle hands moving and caressing your body. Little wonder it brought me to thoughts of being taken on the beach by a Poseidon-like figure who would magically step from the waves. Isn't that what all teenage girls are supposed to dream of? Soaking wet men who cover their bodies with gentle, warm, salty kisses?

I loved being close to the sea.
I miss it now in a way I can't begin to express.


Now that I know winter is almost over and soon nature will begin to change and don it's spectacular spring colors my heart is crying out for our jagged, rocky coastline.



I used to have a little yellow convertible. Not much in the way of fancy, but fun to drive along the Eastern Seaboard. I used to just drive for hours along the coastline and then sit out on the rocks daydreaming in the late winter. I had one of my dad's old crew-cableknit cardigan sweaters and his black catburglar hat (my nickname for it) that I would wear because the wind off of the water would hit me like a blast of cold air, sometimes sucking the breath right away from me. Hard to believe I won't be able to do that anymore. I have no idea what the end of winter will be like this year, ice storms are usually how nature greets spring here, but, regardless, like most years, I assume that it will have it's own individual splendor. I just hope it doesn't leave me too homesick.


I do miss the coastline in the tempestuous winds of late winter on the Eastern Seaboard. Maybe it's almost time for a trip home.

HNT - Buckled Up

I hate and I love,
and if you ask me
how this should be,
I do not know, but I do.
And I am torn in two.
~Catullus




Osbasso



I got this Valentine's Day card.
How romantic.

..and so am I. Bah, humbug!
happy VD day.
Love, xx

Nothing like a good friend to brighten the day when you're feeling down.
Thanks kid.

Chariot

But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in they marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,

And your quaint honor turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
~Marvell



Tonight it is cold. The skies were clear today. Clouds evanesced in the sun's warm rays, enough so to remove any insulation they may have provided to the night's cold winds. And in this wind I hear a voice. Distant yet clear. It calls to me across dark waters and draws me to the shore. A muse, a siren, that begs me to stick my toes into that roiling, seething expanse and threatens to overtake me with the coldest of passions.

I submit, my heart the weakest part of my armor, and answer to the call of Prometheus as he taunts me to frigid play. His waves batter upon me, cold fingers that dance against my skin and leave their damp trace upon my hair.

He caresses me and leads me further into the sea, until I am at his mercy, only his buoyancy keeping my head above water. I am his. To do with as he pleases.
No more than his plaything.
No less than his lover.


Life is too short, and people are too valuable, to be cast so easily to the side, and so I make my stand. My body my only weapon, I lay down arms and submit to his bidding.

Whatever he may ask of me shall be his.
I have no fear.



And tonight... the words that whisper me to sleep, as Mnemosyne spreads her long fingers across my eyes, pulling my lids, like a shroud against the night's faint cries, the mother of the muses, the Titaness of memory, she haunts my waking hours and embraces me in the dark...

I want to hold the hand inside you
I want to take a breath that's true
I look to you and I see nothing
I look to you to see the truth
You live your life
You go in shadows
You'll come apart and you'll go black
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with what's not there.

Fade into you
Strange you never knew
Fade into you
I think it's strange you never knew

Unbound

I was not bound. I let myself go completely; went
To those indulgences, half actual,
And half were turned about in my own brain;
Went into the illuminated night;
And drank strong wines, as when
The champions of pleasure drink strong wine.
I Went ~Constantine P Cavafy

I fell asleep early tonight.
I had put on 'Gone With the Wind' and soon the familiar dialogue began to lull me to sleep. I often fall asleep to one of my favorite old movies, 'Rebecca' by Hitchcock or 'Wuthering Heights'. Both of these star Sir Lawrence Olivier, my favorite actor from days gone by. Sometimes I put on 'Titanic', but it usually makes me have very sad dreams and I am trying to avoid that, so it has gone into the bottom of my 'sleep movie' stack.

Sleep was not my friend tonight however.
Like many nights I awoke and had trouble getting back to that restful state.

My mind has been restless of late, as have my hands. There is something of longing to this, longing for a time when the nights were full, when a restless spirit such as myself kept me from the darkest of night's spectres. That time is no more - and yet it resides somewhere near; in the whisper of wind upon the window sill, in the shadow of clouds racing across the moon. Forever trapped in memory as a still life, a moment frozen in time. And gazed upon from this distance, hands clenched into fists of torment whilst the mind reaches with fingers of desire for the past.

And so tonight, in this state, in this place of intimate remembering, I will once again unbind myself, and let memory take me where the body can no longer go.
That place where my heart resides still.



Happy Valentine's Day.

The Monkey Personals

Hi, my name is Nikko.
I'm a 50 year old flying blue monkey.
I'm looking for a mate, someone who looks good in a pointy hat and knows how to handle a broomstick.

I'm a recent widower, but feel I am ready to start dating again. I have a good income, but I have an abnormally small, ummm... tail. I prefer women who are whiny and needy. If you are interested please feel free to email me.

All ages welcome.

PS. All applicants must enjoy water sports and not melt while doing them.

HNT in the Forbidden Zone

Sometimes a girl just needs an escape ya know?



Calgon take me away!

Rules for commenting in the Forbidden Zone

Get your hands off my blog you d@mned dirty apes!

Welcome to the bi-annual, semi-simian, american anthropoid meeting of the Swirling Monkey's Babble Study Group.

The rules for this revival have been firmly set forth as follows:

1) You are required to comment only in Turret Zpeak as described in our invite to David. *Who has in no way agreed to be affiliated with us, but we don't care. We are apes, he is human. We will give him the hose if he dares to argue. Nothing worse than an uppity human.*

Like this:
I would f*ck sh!t h&ll love to join your sh!t b!tch group.

Right now I don't have a sl*t f*ck car. Can I n!pple @ss f*ck ride with you b!tch motherf*cker sh!t?

* This rule was never approved by David, but we shall blame him anyway - because he is young, attractive and we have a sneaky suspicion that he can zpeak. Something we loathe in our humans.

2) You must use zymbols in your Turret Zpeak, as in *&%$#@!!!.
Like all good Christian blogger-apes we may well approve of saying curse words, but not in writing them. Oh H&ll NO! We will heretofor refer to this as the 'Jocelyn Loophole'. *Don't ask why. Just seems like an appropriate name for a loophole.*

3) Please do not bite your neighbor.

4) Please refrain from picking fleas from your neighbor during lectures. There's plenty of time for that during the Orangutan's Reception after the group study.

5) Ants on sticks will be served after the meeting.
*This is 'bring your own stick week', Do not bother thumping your fists on the floor or pounding your chest if you forgot your stick. Besides prehensile hands (and feet, you lucky apes) you were also blessed with four opposable thumbs (except Curious George who should never have been allowed into that bakery without the guidance of the Man in the Yellow Hat) and a higher-than-human IQ --there is no excuse for not remembering to pick up your stick and bring it with you.

6) Please refrain from throwing poo until the guest speaker has finished his lecture. Anyone caught throwing poo during the lecture will be forcibly removed by the Gorillas and hosed in a 'human cage'.

7) Members of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys are forbidden from attending lectures. There are only seven of them as you well know. We feel it is a poor reflection upon all primates that they cannot count.

I am so sorry

Really I am.



Tonight we mourn...


and...


and....
Well I think I got the whole lot of them on the last one...


Unfortunately, I don't think this little guy is going to survive the night...

Shhhhhhhhhhhhh

Don't look at me.
I'm invisible.


Really...
Nothing to see here folks.
Keep moving.

Beware of Ants

Don't tread on an ant
he's done nothing to you
There might come a day
When he's treading on you
Don't tread on an ant
you'll end up black and blue
You cut off his head
Legs come looking for you

A Waking Dream

I awoke in the night covered in perspiration. My heart was racing still from the dream. I was alone in the dream. I was panicked and running from something that was loud and destructive following just on my heels. There was nowhere to run, nothing but sea all about me. I stared into the nightmare waves as the sound of footfalls drew near and, raising myself on unsteady legs, I contemplated plunging into the sea or waiting for certain death that was fast approaching on the fleetest of feet.

I awoke with a start. My breath still held in my lungs and I reached to push the heavy blankets away.

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
Rime of the Ancient Mariner~Samuel Taylor Coleridge


It was in this place of not-quite-awake-yet that I felt him there. Felt his body molded against mine. Felt his warm breath on my shoulder. The feeling was so real I immediately thought I must be dreaming still. I settled back under the covers and let my eyes close. My heart was still racing from the nightmare that had woken me.

I lay there, drowsing in and out, feeling secure in his arms, feeling his presence absolutely. I did not want to wake up. I did not want the feeling to leave me. I wanted to stay there just a little longer, to make the feeling stay as long as possible.

I wonder why he came to me last night? Did he realize that I needed him like never before? Did he just need to be with me? Was it me comforting him in my bed this morning or was it him comforting me? I cannot help but wonder if he felt me wrapped around him too?

And when did he leave?

He was there for quite some time, but when I finally awoke to the sound of music coming from my bedside alarm, I realized that he was no longer there.

The place where I had felt him was cold. The gooseflesh had risen on my arms and legs and I hunkered back under my blankets. I could still feel where he had been. Some residual sensation of long, tan fingers upon my thighs. I felt their strength, their raw, wanting maleness in the way they whispered caresses upon my body. The way they brought me to fevered release.

My mind is pushing the memory away, but the body cannot forget.
The heart cannot stop the desire.



*Scrabble Update:
Players in this game, and their final scores:-
Player 1 : T your final score is 266
Player 2 : K your final score is 287
Sorry T, but you lost by 21 points.

Yeah, I went out, but she beat me.
Not a bad score against a snobby Literature Professor at Radcliffe.
Of course she and I are playing while she is lecturing at Magdalen.
I think that means she has the advantage. It's morning for her while I am burning the midnight oil. And her view is much nicer.

PS. I told you I didn't have the Q!


The gauntlet has been thrown.
The next game is on.

You have scored a total of 32 points, for the word(s)
CLOAK (32)

Players in this game, and their current scores are:-
Player 1 : T your score is now 32
Player 2 : K your score is now 0
T, you are currently leading by 32 points.

Magdalen

Who for thy sake would give their manlihood
And consecrate their being; I at least
Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,
And in thy temples found a goodlier feast
Than this starved age can give me, spite of all
Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical.
The Garden of Eros ~Oscar Wilde

I have always had this wanderlust side of my spirit that prevents me from feeling comfortable if I stay in one place too long. Not necessarily that I like to move so much as I need to move about. I hate moving. Packing sucks, unpacking is the fun part.

I've always considered home more as a home base. A place to leave stuff you don't need for a trip. All through high school and college I traveled every weekend with my best friend Paige. We would leave our tiny little East Coast town and set out, map and tent stowed in the seat behind us, and go where the wind took us.


Now my restless spirit is screaming for release once more.
I want so badly to go to the UK. I have been to London, Reading and Oxford.
I traveled to London with friends. We hit the pubs and saw West Minster Abbey. We teased the Bobbies and tortured the guards outside Buckingham Palace, trying to get those poor fellows to crack a grin, but no. Stone faces. We watched the changing of the guard through the huge wrought iron fence. Rode on the top of double-decker buses and saw Big Ben and the Tower of London.

I drifted through the Ivied walkways of Oxford alone though. Magdalen. Solitary in my wandering. My being of no more substance than that of the spirits whose voices filled the air, reciting verse, left long in the past. My mind wandering with my feet. Thinking to myself 'here Oscar Wilde once walked also' and CS Lewis. Then I thought.... hmmmm and Dudley Moore? That made me giggle. What an amazing thing to think that my feet were falling in their hallowed footsteps.

Would it sound odd to say that I was actually glad to be alone on this journey? Not if you saw my traveling companions. If Paige had been with me then, yes, it would have been an incredible adventure. Twice the fun not to have to keep it bottled up. But Paige had gone off to college and I went off to Europe, so I carried her with me in my heart there. Thinking of the things she would have said if she had been with me.

I have a friend lecturing now at Magdalen. I wonder if she sees what I saw on my journey there? I wonder if, after so many visits, it has lost the ability to charm her as it did me? That enchantment that burned itself forever upon my memory. Frozen now. Glimpses, like snapshots, that roll in succession until they make motion and my feet hit those weather-beaten bricks once more. My thoughts find their own words.


And so tonight I sit and remember, as dark clouds hover above and the sky cracks open to release it's tears upon my world. I remember my stroll down sunny lanes and gazing out of the window as the train rushed me to new adventures. I remember a world so far from my own.

I long for it tonight.

Blog Move In Progress

The new blogs are up and *almost* running.
I'd like to thank the team of monkeys who have been helping so selflessly.

Here's to you all.
*naughty hot monkey butt love*