Rum Road contemplations, pt. 1
i wish i could afford to stay in Puerto Rico for more than the 7 day whirlwind visit i'm making next month to attend my son's wedding. i've never been anywhere tropical. and i haven't been off the North American continent since 1984. i'm reading Hunter S. Thompson's "The Rum Diary" now to get a little more in the mood for this upcoming, opportunity... the following passage spoke strongly to me and i want to expand on my thoughts about it.
"Then I saw two figures clinging together near the reef. I recognized Yeamon and the girl who had come down with me on the plane. They were naked, standing in waist-deep water, with her legs locked around his hips and her arms around his neck. Her head was thrown back and her hair trailed out behind her, floating on the water like a blonde mane.
At first I thought I was having a vision. The scene was so idyllic that my mind refused to accept it. I just stood there and watched. He was holding her by the waist, swinging her around in slow circles. Then I heard a sound, a soft happy cry as she stretched out her arms like wings.
I left then, and drove back to Jesus Lopo's place. I bought a small bottle of beer for fifteen cents and sat on the beach in the clearing, feeling like an old man. The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories - not of things I had done but of things I failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back. I envied Yeaman and felt sorry for myself at the same time, because I had seen him in a moment that made all my happiness seem dull." (page 37)
i'm actually not sure where i want my thoughts to go about this. clearly, the intent of the writer is to arouse similar feelings of regret in the hearts and minds of other men, because it's a lonely moment of realization when you are faced with the blatant reality of someone else's great experiences. i don't want to take that bait though. i pretty much stopped seriously comparing my life to others' back during my ashram years when i learned the practices of detachment from the prizes of material life.
still, there are certain elements of this passage that i cannot deny the verity of. i have never stood naked in the ocean with a naked woman. it would be a lie to say that i have not been at the ocean with a naked woman though. hmmm, now that i think about it, there were two times i've been naked with a woman near the ocean. and there was a third time that i actually spent the night sleeping curled up with a woman near the ocean. hmmm, not such bad memories! (side note: when i lived in Mendocino county and worked at the Mendocino Hotel, on my lunch breaks I would go out to the bluffs and climb down to this isolated beach and skinny dip in the river that led to the ocean. 30 minutes was all I had and i never returned late. that was before my son was born. would have been fun if i had a girl, at some time in my life to do such things with though...)
and that is the gist of what i think Thompson is getting at here. what have we accepted in our lives as "being enough", when there is opportunity to "have more". i have become very, very okay with the lack of my desires being fulfilled as "being enough" any more. my days have become dull and i just accept it. the dullness is more a result of aging than bad luck, or ineptitude though, to a degree at least. i mean, there is still a rough edge to the veneer of how i get through a day garnered by the way i think about things. the way i look at the world, the way i react in my mind to what i see... i am sort of an interesting person.
but i hide my light under a bushel for the most part. i am a silent participant. in situations where Yeaman might have made a suggestion to a woman to "get naked and make love in the ocean" i traditionally play the role of "kindly brother". i don't make moves on women. never have. do i regret this? there have been times when i have regretted it, yes. overall though i think i have saved myself from more heartbreak and monetary expenses than other male compatriots of mine in the world have.
but what have i lost as a result of this. how many times could i have had the simple experience of being someone's boyfriend, if even for just one month. and be rewarded with the memories of the sweetness of the feelings of love those experiences engender. i have craved such love over the decades of my life and have only experienced it a few, seemingly forgettable times. and now it's been so long since it last happened that my memories are no stronger than whispers that images on paper arouse for me...
i do think i've lived a dull life in comparison to many of my compatriots. what can be done about it. pray for rain? (didn't know where this was going to go. not sure if i feel any better since saying it all. i think i messed up how i was trying to be valiant in the beginning and succumbed to ruefulness. guess that couldn't be avoided. damn you Hunter S. Thompson! ;)
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on another note, i had an experience the other day while i was driving on the freeway. it was something that i used to have happen quite often in the years before i became so medicated for the bipolar. back in the years when i meditated and chanted and loved god and guru. my heart used to be such an open channel of communication with other people's spirits. anyway, i was driving down the freeway, listening to Opeth, and suddenly i feel this wave of love-energy wash into my heart. it was not from the Opeth, believe you me. it was so strong and refreshing though it made me smile so big, and i actually started to laugh it felt so good. but i had to pause for a second because i didn't recognize who it was coming from. that's the way it always used to work. when i would get hit with these waves of spiritual inflow, i'd be able to tell who it was coming from. most times back in the ashram days it came from my guru, but i have not felt such a connection with her in a very long time. this was not her.
no, who i determined that it was coming from was my writer-person FLB. she has shut down communication with me on the physical plane, but our psychic/spiritual connection has not been severed. that just doesn't happen. not easily at least. here is the course of events that led me to identify this wave of love-waves to her. Saturday night one of my Cemetery Girl models went to Francesca's house to attend a party she was throwing. i was the one who informed this person about the party, and i asked her to mention to Francesca that she was one of my Cemetery Girl models, and that "she would know what you were talking about". so even though i know FLB has tried to put me way out of her mind over the past year, i found a way to slip a little "hello" back in there. and what must have happened is that Francesca actually took time to look at the photographs of this girl, and maybe felt some of the initial joy that she felt last year when she herself was interested in modeling for me.
the feeling was over after about one minute, but it was long enough and powerful enough for me to be able to feel a little bit of ecstasy and reconnection with someone i highly admire, and wish i could slip back into the good graces of...
"Then I saw two figures clinging together near the reef. I recognized Yeamon and the girl who had come down with me on the plane. They were naked, standing in waist-deep water, with her legs locked around his hips and her arms around his neck. Her head was thrown back and her hair trailed out behind her, floating on the water like a blonde mane.
At first I thought I was having a vision. The scene was so idyllic that my mind refused to accept it. I just stood there and watched. He was holding her by the waist, swinging her around in slow circles. Then I heard a sound, a soft happy cry as she stretched out her arms like wings.
I left then, and drove back to Jesus Lopo's place. I bought a small bottle of beer for fifteen cents and sat on the beach in the clearing, feeling like an old man. The scene I had just witnessed brought back a lot of memories - not of things I had done but of things I failed to do, wasted hours and frustrated moments and opportunities forever lost because time had eaten so much of my life and I would never get it back. I envied Yeaman and felt sorry for myself at the same time, because I had seen him in a moment that made all my happiness seem dull." (page 37)
i'm actually not sure where i want my thoughts to go about this. clearly, the intent of the writer is to arouse similar feelings of regret in the hearts and minds of other men, because it's a lonely moment of realization when you are faced with the blatant reality of someone else's great experiences. i don't want to take that bait though. i pretty much stopped seriously comparing my life to others' back during my ashram years when i learned the practices of detachment from the prizes of material life.
still, there are certain elements of this passage that i cannot deny the verity of. i have never stood naked in the ocean with a naked woman. it would be a lie to say that i have not been at the ocean with a naked woman though. hmmm, now that i think about it, there were two times i've been naked with a woman near the ocean. and there was a third time that i actually spent the night sleeping curled up with a woman near the ocean. hmmm, not such bad memories! (side note: when i lived in Mendocino county and worked at the Mendocino Hotel, on my lunch breaks I would go out to the bluffs and climb down to this isolated beach and skinny dip in the river that led to the ocean. 30 minutes was all I had and i never returned late. that was before my son was born. would have been fun if i had a girl, at some time in my life to do such things with though...)
and that is the gist of what i think Thompson is getting at here. what have we accepted in our lives as "being enough", when there is opportunity to "have more". i have become very, very okay with the lack of my desires being fulfilled as "being enough" any more. my days have become dull and i just accept it. the dullness is more a result of aging than bad luck, or ineptitude though, to a degree at least. i mean, there is still a rough edge to the veneer of how i get through a day garnered by the way i think about things. the way i look at the world, the way i react in my mind to what i see... i am sort of an interesting person.
but i hide my light under a bushel for the most part. i am a silent participant. in situations where Yeaman might have made a suggestion to a woman to "get naked and make love in the ocean" i traditionally play the role of "kindly brother". i don't make moves on women. never have. do i regret this? there have been times when i have regretted it, yes. overall though i think i have saved myself from more heartbreak and monetary expenses than other male compatriots of mine in the world have.
but what have i lost as a result of this. how many times could i have had the simple experience of being someone's boyfriend, if even for just one month. and be rewarded with the memories of the sweetness of the feelings of love those experiences engender. i have craved such love over the decades of my life and have only experienced it a few, seemingly forgettable times. and now it's been so long since it last happened that my memories are no stronger than whispers that images on paper arouse for me...
i do think i've lived a dull life in comparison to many of my compatriots. what can be done about it. pray for rain? (didn't know where this was going to go. not sure if i feel any better since saying it all. i think i messed up how i was trying to be valiant in the beginning and succumbed to ruefulness. guess that couldn't be avoided. damn you Hunter S. Thompson! ;)
__
on another note, i had an experience the other day while i was driving on the freeway. it was something that i used to have happen quite often in the years before i became so medicated for the bipolar. back in the years when i meditated and chanted and loved god and guru. my heart used to be such an open channel of communication with other people's spirits. anyway, i was driving down the freeway, listening to Opeth, and suddenly i feel this wave of love-energy wash into my heart. it was not from the Opeth, believe you me. it was so strong and refreshing though it made me smile so big, and i actually started to laugh it felt so good. but i had to pause for a second because i didn't recognize who it was coming from. that's the way it always used to work. when i would get hit with these waves of spiritual inflow, i'd be able to tell who it was coming from. most times back in the ashram days it came from my guru, but i have not felt such a connection with her in a very long time. this was not her.
no, who i determined that it was coming from was my writer-person FLB. she has shut down communication with me on the physical plane, but our psychic/spiritual connection has not been severed. that just doesn't happen. not easily at least. here is the course of events that led me to identify this wave of love-waves to her. Saturday night one of my Cemetery Girl models went to Francesca's house to attend a party she was throwing. i was the one who informed this person about the party, and i asked her to mention to Francesca that she was one of my Cemetery Girl models, and that "she would know what you were talking about". so even though i know FLB has tried to put me way out of her mind over the past year, i found a way to slip a little "hello" back in there. and what must have happened is that Francesca actually took time to look at the photographs of this girl, and maybe felt some of the initial joy that she felt last year when she herself was interested in modeling for me.
the feeling was over after about one minute, but it was long enough and powerful enough for me to be able to feel a little bit of ecstasy and reconnection with someone i highly admire, and wish i could slip back into the good graces of...
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