Let me prove to you... he said... then smiled....

Grogan painted by my Friend, Antonio Guzzo, Canada.


'This is the Real-Ideal'... was a romantic soul who always consistently wrote romantic lines, very rarely did he develop a theme to beyond two or three-phrase words, but those few chosen sentences were enough. He was a Leo man from up north, muscular and as he matured into the very first steps of being forty, he showed his sensitivity by turning his face from anything that made him feel he was being strained by an invisible rein... such that he almost tore away from his partner. In each whisper of estranged silence he vanished slowly away, taking inside him all that he had once ventured to say, by a wall of relinquished power. In his way he was driving wedges between himself and those who had any chance of discovering the incubating thoughts that he was slowly developing and appeared on the verge of sharing before he receded into his own sky reflected thoughts.

Standing beside the car that he had on loan, he propped an arm on the top of its roof, whilst the rain began to fall and for a short while he captured my attention enough for me to forget that it was a fresh evening and that my hair was beginning to stick to my head, whilst I shuddered when I heard a crack of lightening some distance off blaze for a short second.

I stopped to look at him more clearly. Isn't this what made him so attractive, this ability to appear to be all things? Even as the strong scent of Lilac and tea roses of pale almost lavender pink swamped the senses and I watched the rain drops trickle off each bud and flower heads become heavy to then slowly drip and spill their teardrops of rain.

I would hesitate before speaking to him, the words, 'When in doubt - do not...' came to mind more than once... Of course in the face of danger, courage will fear cower in front of...

When he spoke of his past and his experiences of Human Bondage, adversity, sin, realisation, redemption and purification, I listened intently and wondered how he appeared so intent on restraining himself to the point of almost starched collars and puritanical virtues. What seemed to be the normal animal instincts in him seemed trained and comfortably at ease with the fire side armchair mentality that so many slip into forgetting the hunger of instinctual drivers, and instead accepting the safety of a warm hearth.

A blanked mind that seemed to almost be in a hypnotic state just listening to his expose's of Life's surface appearances.

As I watched the rain trickle down the side of his ear, I realised he had stood in the pouring summer rain for more than ten minutes just talking to me, and every so often nodding intensely as I replied hurriedly. I wanted to duck for cover, but I love rain, even on cold wet nights, it brings to my mind memories that overshadow all discomfort.

What was it he had just said, I found it hard to concentrate on his voice, when the main thought in my head concerned the very striking impression that he made in my mind, one that I would be able to recall constantly with the same intensity. He was reminding me that it was always essential to carry out tasks that appeared to one not to be too urgent or difficult, as these were always the last on our priorities, he continued that once these were completed the tougher jobs could be handled more concientiously.

I saw his cuffs were undone and that one of his cufflinks was different to the other one.. (in case you asked, one was a single pewter dice, the other was a small dog...).

I liked his solid reasoning, and the way he changed from being intense to being light hearted as if he remembered that afterall it was alright to be fragile and he did not need to be guarded. I reached up and stroked his arm, to try and comfort him was always difficult for he quickly withdrew the heart on the sleeve that he seemed earlier so quick to have revealed. For like a young puppy, he seemed to be searching the air for the familiar scent that would reveal itself and guide him to its source. He recognised that impeccable actions rarely grew out of questionable motives and intentions. Therefore, the reasoning itself would be the guide of the lost soul.

Such interlaces of Life’s drama took over his memories and whenever he shared any experience from his past each episode was interwoven not only with intense imagination so that it was difficult to see where the truth began, and fiction was leading. This was the price that his fatalistic lifestyle, self gratifying and full of avoidance, had compromised his clarity, health and sense of self worth.

Some place in his teenager years he had stepped off a double decker bus and lost his way, when found he was mislead and for the next eighteen years had sought the arms of those that he thought would make him feel less uncertain and more secure. The specifics are unimportant now when I recall how to comfort him all one could do was to pat his arm or just squeeze his shoulder, sometimes I would stroke his cheek with the back of my fingers, knowing this was the closest to intimacy that his disillusioned personality would allow, for any kind of physical contact was frozen out although he was communicative and able to share his thoughts quite gracefully.

Being alone was only one aspect of being on a journey, there were other ways to reach the sky, and good companionship, and spilling the hearts content, would shed a light on what was hurting inside.
As I felt drenched to the bone in the unremittingly rain, I wanted to interrupt him but at the same time I was fascinated at his enfolding story. He was comical at times and laughed at his own misadventures and the dark side of his past of feeling trapped and safe in the entrapment made absolutely no sense to me, as a free-thinking, free spirited human being, I am incapable of toeing the line for anyone I cannot respect, and in his case he had willingly done this, accepting that the sacrifice he thought he was making was in his own words, ‘seemingly the right thing to do’… Of course now it was different, he had escaped the situation that had for so many years in his early growing up period held him captive. Believing in God was easy for someone who wasn't lost in material self warming, giving of himself was effortless and he made it appear so.

Like a St. Bernhard castaway orphaned dog, he was in need of a new home, and he seemed to stand proud, what was a summer thunderstorm to him when he had faced and overcome so much that had made him weep from within, tears that couldn’t find an outlet and just year after year filled him with emotion that was overwhelming to him.

All he asked of me was someone to listen to him and at the most basic level to nod my comprehension that he was real, existing and a survivor. Not for him to sit and watch the grass grow whilst those that could feed from it slowly died, something so many are prepared to do whilst they direct their energies towards situational objectives that leave them empty in the long run. For him there was no long-run goal that was unending and fruitless.

When he had fallen in love with an old school friend, whom he had discovered again at a reunion, it was to him the most astounding landmark, he was proud to show me her photo and to be able to share his gratitude and he thanked me for what he conceived as loyalty and devotion on my part to his cause. To me it was very little for me to do – but show him the kindness that each of deserve, and the respect that each of us who is travelling the time lines of being alive today, and as I write this, should expect from all in the world.

Brilliance wasn't enough of a companion, nor was surface beauty. He wanted more from those of us who came to know him, he wanted trust and dependability, anything less was to him a sign of moral weakness and indicated an unsubstantial person.

Like a beloved canine companion, he had discovered that Friendship and unconditional love can go hand in hand and that he was no less important than anyone else at a time when he was struggling to assert himself through a redefining of images, profiles and self expressions.

He left me pondering one question:

‘….. Who, should you explicitly thank today for the same level of devotion and appreciation that perhaps you overlooked…’

I made that call, will you?