Tiger Fish Intelligence

Tiger in a Storm

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:50:00 +0000

Padding out of the house, like a Tiger in a storm, I was showered by crisp gilded, flecked autumnal leaves. To know that another season left its mark, and already the frosty wind, that cut through to the chilled bones, was in a feud with winter : to grasp moonlights frozen fingertips. I pulled my collar tightly around my neck, and love was the warmth, that melted my thoughts, as the leaves curtseyed, and trotted like golden ponies around me. So many of the braver leaves sparkled in gratitude, for the appreciation, that was conferred upon their crumbling fibres, and leaf tissue disintegrated.

Then the gold-leaf dust became swirling calligraphy, I would learn to draw, long before another lifetime, in which I would learn to decipher. I experienced, there and then, that enlightenment cannot revert to facing the past; just as the shattering leaf could not be again, verdant flourishing. So it was with youth, and the loss of naïveté’. I could have driven away but hesitated, and soaked in the full appreciation of the moment, that awakened me. Sometime later that would be stimulated by colour reminders, of how beautiful it was to be there, in that moment, outside my mother's window. Watching her move slowly from the front door to go inside and switch lights off because she could do so herself, with the pride of an Augustan lioness: ageing majestically.

Even reversing out of the drive, and crushing leaves, that crunched their last sounds were already shattering into dust. With it knowing, that the memory of such customary times, would not recall as deeply perhaps, as when they were understood, for how precious these were, and beyond riches, that could pass though my hands.

Then as I sped away, and though tumbling leaves, raggedy paper, and the wind that was fiercely in love, with the shadow of the moon, simply glanced my way: but hardly with any more interest, than when a burst balloon loses its clutching hand, and is replaced with one, that is inflated and promising. Oh, but if you had been there, then you would have felt, the exaltation, of the two lovers, as they sought each other. Only to then fall away, in the disarray, that such encounters, of ardent passion, and cool dissuasion, produce in those initiated, in such miraculous wooing.

I sped through the frolicking dancing leaves, and felt the wind spurred by the retreat, hasten on; and play cat and (something that was akin to my own spirit) mouse, chasing outstretched arms, and forms, that seemed to tumble over and around my car; across the bonnet where some of the leaves caught my wipers, and others seemed to cling to my leaving, unsparing. For a moment the moonlight was covered in leaves, and the wind’s angular potency, sharp features seemed in the frosty night, to reach out to her, and she to him. I saw her breath steam my windscreen, as their eyes met fire with ice, lust with confusion. A bas-relief from a Corinthian order frieze, flame wisps, that straddled each other, and then released a low relief, of raised ice smears across the glass, making me feel guilty; turning on the windscreen wipers to destroy those tantalising forms.

Even as I accelerated forward, I knew only the sightless, would comprehend the pain of the estrangement, that was felt by the wind, in all attempts to saturate, with loving embraces the moon shadow, that it believed was love unrequited. Yet not, without remorseful tear-fall.

So the shadows leant and dove, and sometimes seemed like an elk; to leap into the wet light of a gentle sprinkling of rain, that now made the dry leaves gleam, in gilded ivory and coppery umber. I imagined myself the predator in that merry electrifying chase, and pulled my sleeves down further, over my wrists, towards bare knuckles which could be paws, and razor claws that made the wheel appear loose and light. I chilled at the colour temperature, despite the radiator blowing hot. Yet my breath warmed, and smoked like the steam from the nostrils of a wild thing.
Then like ice skaters their release and turns brought them together again, curling around each other, and removing the outer layers of excuses, that ignited delightful laughter, in the howling wind.

Even as I took corners slowly, or quickly, depending on the curvature of the road, or its gradient; the dance surrounded me. I felt the pull of it to look with the bewilderment of being enchanted, at times amused by such exhilarating flirtation. In earnest respect I headed to the motorway, and became another driver, passing all the others in our shared travel, without knowing, if my own future or past friends, were amongst those on the highway in that moment. If only to have shared it with you, there, in the freshness of the moment, and known you understood it too.

Speeding alongside road, and grassy verges, where trees swayed, and allowed the wind, and the moonbeams, to adorn the empty branches. Yet, only for temporary moments, with broken leaves or man's wasted refuse; that for a moment appeared so beautiful, in movement and Delphian translucency. Even plastic bottle tops - each destined to be there. Fates measurement, by design a polythene bag, here tattered, frosted glass was less dangerous. As if, all had been shredded by a playful tiger, torn ribbons appeared like wisps of electric lavender, and metallic lilac, whilst a frayed rope, seemed to sway like a glistening viper, in a jungle, eerily mesmerising Adam & Eve, with its phosphorescent eyes' light beam, intensity.

The sensual earthy beauty, that continued to transpire, was one of soft purring murmurings. Whispers that only those, who have felt loves' tender touch, would comprehend, and reveal in return for another. Such precious chance to display, the same contented calm outside, whilst the inside was in turmoil; like thunder, that I could hear, bellow in the distance. Even, as I saw the rain dance, to suede soft brilliance, along the pavements, that I travelled beside, I turned up the volume, to music that deafened the colour. Hues that sprung, from the moonlight being cherished, and coveted, and drawn away into the night. Each, to experience a ceremonial tea serving encounter.

The shapes that followed my peripheral vision, were no less than that of entwined limbs, and the flavour of sweetness in the dance. Footsteps, that few can forge,t as an impressionable image, caught in shattered ice. Yet they lived, and yes they moved, with the same fluidity, that one can transpose, on the sound that laughter makes: inside a conch shell. I used the back of my hand, to push away my hair, as a tiger might preen, and pause, then continue, to preen, in self imposed feigned, feline indifference.,

As I pulled outside my home, I glided up the drive, and heard the crunching of stones, and leaves, and in what seemed, a calm transposition: chess move. And my eyes followed the wind, that embraced the moonlight. In a sparkling embrace, and a kiss followed, that created snowflakes, across every Lustalux tinted window of my car. Acid-etched icy kisses that spanned each pane, with beautiful silver frozen orchids, butterflies, chrysanthemums and lilies, dragonflies, and muted sylphlike forms that melted. Even, as so many had shared a moment of their blissful ecstasy. I turned off the ignition, with it the radio, and watched in breathless silence for a moment ,and hunted for my purse in the darkness. I saw something transparent, and tissue light, tossed on my bonnet.

Holding breath, I squinted to try to gauge what it could be, then stepped out to the scent of fresh flowering spring, and the seashore in my nostrils. As I picked up the frozen translucent dahlia, that caught my breath with it's fragile, silky beauty. I smiled inwardly, for it was a memory of moonlights elegant dignity, and the wind’s whisper ‘…forever thine’….

Holding it softly, I walked to my front door.

In the Stillness... the Artist touches my Soul

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sun, 13 May 2007 00:39:00 +0000

The ARTIST

“Hello…~.”

His salutation opened a dialogue of quicksilver arrows from my copper quiver.
I felt reflected in his mirrored noble shield.
Futile sparring, whilst he knelt at the shimmering lake of alluring repartee.
His own weapon was left hanging in its wooden carved scabbard.
In the high oak limbs, his sword, swathed in roses and ivy, swaying in the breeze,

I imagined soft full lips that sipped liquid moonshine, cupped by his beautiful hands.
Even as my first salvo’s missed their mark, he took his time to wet his brow.
Patience in the deepest eyes, from the heart of a child, elusive if ever searched.
His responses melted any stony heart, as he drew me in with tenderness.
His features were stillness itself, beneath which pulsed overwhelming emotions.
I recall the first time I discovered him, a magical ascent to private mountain valleys.
I stared at the photograph, and felt an instinctual epiphany.
A lighthouse beacon couldn’t be brighter than the fathomless thoughtful, dark gaze that shrouded the colour of his eyes in greenish gold pools of sombre shyness and privacy.
Excruciatingly beautiful - an assault to the soul via the senses ...
That to me was the first moment of setting eyes on this inscrutable creature.
His sullen almost shy pout simply took my breath away.
So this sphinx could be my soul-mate, a silent symphony echoed.
The recipient of privileged love tokens was willing to sacrifice tranquillity forever.

There is a sensual broodiness that is simply magnificent in the enigmatic Artist.
A ‘doubting Thomas,’ he had no idea of his own fascinating beauty.
His quiet, strength was like brilliant sunbeams, to my eyes.
His tenderness rose from a fountain of pain, comprehension and soft urgings.
A fascination with sensuality inspired within, a multilayer of earthiness and passion.
When touched by his illusive spirit, kindness left a feeling of soul-ember warmth.
Control, soft restraint, and beguiling tenderness such emotions are only possible in a true individual; delineated by the twinkle of his deep set hazel eyes.

Sunlight broke through hazy grey clouds.
I shivered knowing our first predestined ‘hello’, inner turbulence would quell.
An elusive chalice revealed as perhaps initial fascination, ripened to a spiritual quest.
A delicious sip of warm awareness as his face lit up by the magnificence and intense glow of the spirit of someone he become enamoured by.

When it spills, fears fade as if rain splashed and mingled all the bold colours.
Through his warmth, his lack of artifice, and his genuine humbleness, Life felt joyous.
Just memories of his spilt emotions blended colours to swirl into luscious rainbows.
The first time I had heard his voice, he stammered, shyly.
In that second I was completely charmed and under his sweet spell.
Entranced I smiled forever recalling it, and evermore it would be remembered.
His soft murmuring whispers commanded my senses to quell inner queries.
Though the stillness of icy air chilled the mood, his voice had amber tones.
It felt as if warm pink gold to silvery bluish waves, surrounded us.

A throaty whiskey laugh and a voice modulated perfectly for romantic exchanges.
I discovered mutually exchanged moments like bonbons...
When I am away from him, I remember such tantalising episodes - simple - for an apparent lack of artifice.
Perhaps I was too busy toying with artificially strung cultured pearls.
If so, then he was the Oyster... creating his own unique symbolic perfection.

It is the delicious appetising taste of succulent possibilities...
His appreciation blossomed in stages, which showed his surefooted moves.
To prepare to execute in equally memorable feast to all his senses...was a challenge.
His spontaneity was marked by degree of intellectual precision.
As curiosity about each other grew, a poetic melody, initiated imaginative play.
Our lives would intertwine and slowly evolve entirely differently had we not met.
Few individuals made such a lasting impression on me.

His gentle strength and presence forced a transformation in my entire being.
Swift shadows devoured by moonlit corners were less frightening.
Observance of simplicity in such tremulous lyrics flowed.
His penmanship, quelled even the most unruly thought.
A charismatic creature with creative skills that left me in awe, he prepared his fishing rod, and succulent bait, as a lure.
My impressions would hereto be guided by subtle influences that included him.
He would engage in different degrees of masterful dialogues, to charm softly.
Sometimes the swiftest tactic is no tactic, just a kiss.
Alluring inducement such as a tantalising aperitif, may have bought him greater amusement for he found a distraction in the challenge itself.
Where other men hesitated, he discovered that he stayed a little longer, and sipped his Chablis with the appreciation of a connoisseur, as he cast his line.

From this moment onwards, I would find my internal clock matching his timelessness.
I would admire how he constrained his own animal instincts, within him.
Irresistible intellectual gratification in his art intensified his words.
His reality is always about being genuine, and without frivolous agendas.
His power of creatively renewing himself through such craftsmanship, developed.

He was opening his beautiful hazel eyes to the cold daylight.
The second he woke up, no matter how far apart we were, my tempo changed.
I knew in an instant that he had arisen from a dream.
I paused, and listened intently to his waking change of breath, and smiled inwardly.
I felt that his eye lingered at a wall or a ceiling that surrounded his reality cell.
I imagined that to vocalise was impossible for him.

The Artist was troubled.
The days’ colours merged into their own distinct hues: hurting his eyes.
He felt surprised since it was a grey; he could have been anyplace.
His city forest of cement and metal, led to a winding lane to the edge of woodland.

Thinking of me, his whole being for a moment felt awakened and he hesitated.
Fish scales, of metallic shades of golden apricot married with green-copper pastels and he tensed his jaw, as he stared intently into the dark night’s ocean.
He felt that intense broodiness so familiar to him start to envelope so that he shivered.
Royal dungeons of distilled emotions to other cavernous areas were hidden.
I knew part of him was always sheltered from those too shallow to enter.
Like a haunted romantic of each of our collective consciousness, he was ambiguous.
Ensnared in depths of tangled heart strings, he seemed distant.

Agonising soul searching seemed almost playful, even as pink rose petals singed with bronze fell around us.

Heartstrings that I would wish to disentangle from his brow.
Just as he freed his spinner baits and prepared his pretty bass-lures and fishing rod.
To smooth that ebony lock of his hair that sheltered his eyes from an inquisitive search.
In his own space angling, he comfortably managed to get by in perfect silence, save the dragonflies and moonlit sea ripples.
His outward silence was in sharp contrast to an inner voice that was turbulent at times. He was daydreaming peacefully, escaping from the mundane.
I shivered; perhaps we were linked by some kind of invisible wave.
It felt as if we fused our emotions along an emotional string.
It felt as if his heart strings pulled, I followed, the urgings, and lifted my head.
Hearing his thoughts mingled with mine, in a private, gentle dialogue.
As he left a room in his own space and time, we touched from a million miles away.
The smile that softened icebergs now felt; the senses heightened to fell an oak.
Humour on its own is one dimensional.
Humour as a facet of a multidimensional personality, is exciting.
It is intoxicating as another facet of a diamond-cut dialogue is possible.
One may yield to it with the willing submission of a prize bull.
An electrifying dextrous matador, strumming soul strings like a maestro!
A personable man he was averse to alienating anyone.
Yet despite willingness to be engagingly playful, there was an impenetrable shield.
An instinctual epiphany lowered the drawbridge every so often, to his hearts fortress.
To allow rare glimpses, velvet richness, crimsons, provocative purples pulsated.
A thoughtful day of liberating expressions and influential impressions was at play.

Here we are smiling at each other.
He seemed to watch me intently, as he sketched my features in polished charcoal.
Every so often the corner of his mouth would arch into a soft smile.
His chin tilted as his cheek rested on the knuckles of long beautifully artistic fingers.
The palette of colour he used was a poor match for the vivid hue, in his deep set eyes.
Below his tense jaw and pursed pouting, simmering a cornucopia of intense emotions.
An alluring kaleidoscope, of bewildering intricacies: in a secret chest of love letters.
I knew at some impermeable level that I felt infallible adoration
He arrested my creative consciousness.

An unresisting fascination, of his enigmatic, mellifluous personality, intensified.
His soft heartedness and quiet, gentle, melodic personality was calmness personified.
In contrast to any jaguar sneering passionate complexity, he seemed unperturbed.
I was mesmerized by his primal nature, masked by an urbane elegant wit.
His masculinity, and handsome, classic looks of timeless aeon’s man
And then there was his liberating literature, his passionate work.

He had cherished within himself and held close to his heart.
Over time, revealing it only when his trust grew in the Universe.
As I discovered such faith exalted - sheer meekness and pious self-effacing charm...
Qualities, those of humbleness, and humility, I found touched my very soul.
For me these were excruciatingly delicious to my long cherished conceptions of him.
For arrogance and conceit appeared ugly to my inner calm, and repelled me.
Inner completeness would forever quell the energetic nature that was dissonant.
I discovered that in our sometimes quiet solitary silences padding together an eagle that seemed to follow the shadow of a softly padding panther.
This is how it felt, as if we had equanimity.
Even passionate complexity simplified to whispered softness of unspoken understanding between us.

Observe the petals of vibrant pink tea-roses torn by their own thorns and feel the same.
As he sauntered along his routine paths, he felt familiar and comfortable to routines.
Yet very soon he felt the stirrings of an unknown scent.
Changes in the air, his nostrils picked up the rush of humidity and cloying moods...
He would very soon change as it struck a long overdue chord within him.
A gentle hum or whistle as he changed direction, that was always meant to be.
Then he would step out of secure shadows into bright lightening blazed pathways.
Evolving, naturalness, in our dialogue calmed the stormy waves of my restlessness. Calmness seemed to rein in any urgency that I felt and kissed away any dissonance.
I felt enraptured by the simplicity of his words that always seemed to beat with a meticulously timed metronome to my own rhythm.

Our language was richly haunting at times, and melodious sensuous messages.
A breezy banter that engaged both a light and upbeat tempo was only a glossy veneer.
Beneath such restful layers, almost medieval, dark magnificent beauty within him, enticed you.
Fierce matador tenacity in creative intuitions sought to seduce his bull like character.
His Life seemed touchingly severe.
His delicacy in nature beguiled you to embrace his spirit, and invite him in.
An excitement towards generosity: investing your self wholly in his cause.
His jocular wit would impress proving his cultivated, debonair intelligence.
An artist who was self sufficient could also be achingly desolate and lonely.

Romance, was never more distant than in the flicker of his slow fanning eyelashes.
A topaz sparkling tear drop settles un-glimpsed but by the privileged few.
Those who were blind saw only mystery dark brows, sometimes gentle broodiness.
Aurora Borealis tinted imagery could only exhilarate our self discovery with light and darkness.
Often, I would scold him teasingly, provoking the chromaticity intenseness of my own emotions depths, by his purity of rawness.
His soft whisper of subtle assurance, contrasted with my waterfall of encouragement.
The distraction of the timeless quality of our exchanges altered scenery.
My words fell like snowflakes might have on the flame gold leaf of his glances.
He created a snowstorm with subtle elegance in witty repartee.
I found myself growing snowflakes on his needle-pointed, richly sublime thoughts.
An un-melting snowball in white heat in the tapestry of memories sizzled.

“Will you ALWAYS be here?” I asked softly... without blinking, whispering his name even more tenderly.

“I WILL”.

... And then he asked,

"And you?"

"I AM", smiling, I replied, unswervingly, and soft enough for him to know it was true.

Waiting for the wakeful smile....

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:05:00 +0000

How strange, that at a time when some of the world news and tabloids, notified those of us who are living in peaceful suburbia, that so many were engaged in the struggle for war and in violence and almost insane thought processes... Yet, there were those dedicated to healing and repairing Life itself, whose battles were also raging. I experienced this realisation when my mother went into hospital on the 4th of August for a couple of days; it was a harrowing time for my family. Like each child in the same position of uncertainty over the possibility of losing a parent, I had the sense of fatality and nothing could quell or assuage the fears that slowly gnawed at my day to day emotional tethers. I kept wondering how others held up in similar situations. It was a straightforward operation I was told, but the one and half hours became three and half hours and during that time, although she had a private room, it was isolating and the month leading up to the operation now seemed to me a dream and one where nothing I had done for her or with her felt meaningful. I came to know every inch of her room.

‘Courage, just feel it and live by its honourable banner’.

There are moments I shiver waiting in that warm humid room, the walls are superficially aesthetic like a hotel room, and I have memories of many other times I have been sitting like this with a relative who was sickly, or would die, this is for me a minefield of emotions, I doubt myself when it comes to handling a situation regarding my loved ones. I turn on the T.V and Thunderbirds are on, I am so relieved, it is one of childhood favourites, and I curl up my knees on the small soft armchair that I have curled up on, I pull up my knees to rest my chin on them and hug them, I remember this particular storyline very well, and feel that I suddenly jumped centuries. The fact that I hate being around hospitals is the very reason I force myself to be there, at any opportunity, I have to face what I feel are areas of uncertainty it is almost a compulsion for me.

‘Comfort is an illusion that fast becomes quicksand, security follows it’.

I am having flashbacks of my relationship with my mother and some of the visuals are drowning me, I know there far more important things I wanted to share with her today, and I am trying to think whether she felt I was wasting her time with my chatter.

‘Fragility is always an irresistible quality that draws me to touch it tenderly’.

I have chosen to be here on my own today, I felt this was a challenge for me to face and I want to allow my mother every opportunity to heal in an environment which allows her the dignity of not being worried about whether her lipstick is on, she has old fashioned values and likes to look lovely when she has visitors. Ruthlessly, I have mentally planned that I will forbid any of her friends any opportunity to see her until she is fully recovered, unless she permits it, I am selfishly guarding this frail creature who has given so much of herself to the Universe and others, even when she was ill she would visit friends in hospice or shortly before they died, in their most fragile states they requested she came to be with them and she was there, yet I am clinging in my mind to the ill-thinking that energy spent on others who appreciate her less than I do, may in some way take away energy I need her to have to heal herself. I realise this is an illogical, and I am slowly rationalising to be more balanced but I want to protect her from being tired due to others who I mistrust as being really as generous as she is. Of course, this is foolish thinking, I know they love her and want to be with her, and she will love to see each person regardless of their importance or priority in her life, because she has that gracious goodwill spirit that is free flowing.

‘Enduring glances will reflect only the beauty that flows from deep inside and captures them’.

I cannot stop my eyebrows from deeply furrowing; it is the look of worry, of anxiety, of tension, of concern, of a feeling of powerlessness. I feel my jaw line is tense, my teeth seem to be clenched and I cannot conceive of eating, drinking or breathing until I see she is safely back with me, but I remember reading Buddha’s teaching, and I am entirely dissatisfied with my own beliefs and what I know to be reality, that suffering is inevitable, so is pain, and the struggle to overcome these qualities of Life.

‘Personal attention is limited only by the depth that is at the heart of its focus’.

Once the point when she was supposed to be back in her room had passed the clock seemed to be faceless to me and in those moments I thought about my immediate family and what losing her would mean to us and in my mind the trauma of such a loss began terrorising me. There had been no time for flowers, and cards for it was very matter of fact, the routine we would follow was almost one of denial. On the floor from my lap a notebook collapses falling with a thud on the floor, it is filled with my scribblings of this afternoon… I have titled the words, ‘All that I am’. Then she eventually arrived, weak asleep and then startled as the ward orderly, medic, nurses and I began swiftly, efficiently gently rolling her onto the sanitised hospital bed.

‘Passion, don’t lose it, Life is coloured by it’.

At the same moment my phone gave a pulse that there was an incoming message to the phone, and precisely then my brother rang, he is extremely close to her and he had a message for her. I advised him of her condition and he coolly, said, it was brilliant that she was out and for her to call him as soon as she could. His exuberance and energy acted like a fire alarm it prompted me to follow the simple rules of responding intelligently first, emotionally afterwards.

‘Creativity, bloom, be inspired and grow’.

At the sound of my talking to my brother, my mother woke up and I heard her softly say, ‘Thank you,’ to the orderly, and then she repeated the words to each individual that was there, personally and memorably she graciously thanked them for her safe delivery, their efforts, and then she asked someone if her daughter was there, they replied, and then before I could reach her, the doctor was beside her, and she asked him softly how the operation went, he was pleased to tell her it was successful but there had been some difficulties, she hushed him and I knew she was aware of my presence and didn’t want me to hear this at this moment.

‘Friendship, priceless, it is unconditional’.

She called me and I kissed her softly on her lips and shared that bond daughters have with mothers, telling her she was safe with me now, and how I loved her. Then I watched with great admiration at manner in which the staff quickly made her comfortable and instructed each other on her health status as the process of her recuperation and post-op went underway.

‘Kindness, the spirit of it nourishes the soul and heals’.

As she stabilised and fell back to sleep due to the drugs, I looked at my phone and read the messages. There were three in my inbox, and my heart leaped a single beat, my Friend a 'novelist', Michael, was the first to respond, all three were his... When she is awake and I tell her this, she smiles, and replies, 'He is a lovely boy'... (he is a grown man, I smile at this response.) For almost a month from the second I had mentioned her forthcoming operation, this giant rugged 6 foot six, Taurian, the kind of man who one expects to see on a porridge oats pack or jolly green giant food tin, for sheer physical stature… with soft greenish, brown, lazy hazel eyes, a New York accent and the gentle strength of being someone whose comprehension of humanity is simply astounding, had kept me propped up with daily checks as to how I was, how was she, and he never missed asking about her, it was always first and uppermost in his dialogue with me. I was absolutely taken back, at how many friends (those that knew about her condition) had shown me such consideration, in fact he had almost with ESP written to me exactly the moment she had come back to me, and believe me I thought and prepared myself to go home alone when I realised she was so long in surgery.

‘Safety eludes each of us when we are without God’.

I replied quickly to him and felt a wash of pastel colour suffuse my light as if just his thoughtfulness was itself a salve. Over the next couple of days, I felt touched as other friends took time out to call me or email me, and every day there were texts back and fro, from them asking what I needed and how she was. ‘Fear, only through it can one comprehend self awareness ’.There was another giant, Laurent, again a handsome Taurian who had written every day asking how I was holding up, and even though he was in the South of France he quickly committed to being prepared to take time out if I needed him to, and as with all Taurians there was a complete comprehension of my dislike of hospitals, and reading his softly worded emails was a great comfort to me, each one always started as is his way… in the most unique way as if he is my knight and I, someone of regal standing… it is just the way that he phrases his language and the respectful way in which his mind works, charm that is old fashioned and reminiscent of some historic past that those of who dream of idealistic utopia may in our dreams only prospect for like gold nuggets. Any offer from his heart is always unconditional in it’s essence it has a purity that rings true in all his undertakings, and I always feel this stems from someplace within his enormous heart. A passionate reader he loves literature and when he communicates it is with timeless and has within it recognition immediately of what is required without effort.

‘Attachment causes us pain, and results in us seeking remedy’.

Then even as I felt waking up each day that her health could worsen, I discovered as I came to my desk and sipped coffee or fruit whilst responding to my emails and work requests in my inbox, there at seven o’clock in the morning was Nathanial, like Michael, his New York hours were always so far behind mine that it was interesting comparing notes on our lives and where our times lines were leading us, I to the gym, they were up working, I waking up, they were asleep, but here he was… ‘I just knew you would wake up worried, thought I would be here for you, so was looking out for you…’ he wrote, and now here we were sharing information, sharing common knowledge, and here he was this golden Viking, with sharp precise features and a voice that from the first sounds reminded me of my strongest allies over the years. He always laughed frequently when I updated him on my latest adventure but here he was now, just sympathetically responding with the quality that I always appreciate in this my third Taurian Friend, mentioned here… the ability to comprehend the practical considerations of what illness meant to those affected by it, and how it changed our lives forever when it was someone as precious to us as a parent.

‘Empathy revitalises us when we realise how it links us to each other’.

I was astounded at that fact that he had stayed up especially, he sounded so tired but at no point did he put his own interests before those of a friend, here I was that friend. ‘You must be tired…?’ he quickly replied, that he was fine, and as usual, he lived up to his highest sense of sensitive attentiveness. His words flowed quickly, with purpose and delivered aptly.We shared anecdotes, and quickly I told him about my beautiful Friend Susanna whose words always began with humble prayer and whose resourcefulness and intelligence coupled with her generosity made it possible to rediscover one’s self realisation.

‘Affection, is felt without confusion, and accepted by those ready for it’.

Other friends quickly came forward, 'checking-in', from time to time, and it occurred to me that there is nothing absolutely, that can compare with love, with tenderness and with the compassion one can find in others who have the humanity to present it with their soul to you.

‘Thoughtfulness, needs no further clarity, it is itself clear’.

I read my mother her emails from her own friends and each day she reminded me to thank my friends for their emails to her, their wishes towards us all and most of all their love for me, it meant more to her than I had expected, and then I understood why, because even for her, it was a realisation that at this time in her life when she is no longer youthful, the precious years ahead are those that she had once witnessed as a young vibrant, energetic woman to be those years of her own mother, her grandmother, and others who she saw as being ‘old’ she herself is ‘old’. Now here she was, and her tenderness towards me made me feel gifted and for her, it meant a lot that her children were loved, supported and cared about, by others, when she herself felt unable to do all she could, for which mother would not want that for her children.

‘Faith is beautiful when the inspiration for it is through spiritual comprehension’.

As she recuperates, to my great surprise, my friends continue to be considerate, not one has taken what I felt for granted or trivialised my self expression; none of them it seems consider my personal suffering as of surface interest to them. I have always found it easy to share, express and listen to other's experiences, I can make a lifelong Friend in a heartbeat, and feel I have known them all my life, and I am not limited by the phrase 'I can count my true friends on one hand'... that 'clique-like' sentence limits one to admit that their heart is too small to capture more than what they can manage and control, and accept. For me no such limitations apply. I can spread out my arms and feel that there are this many people I adore, the numbers are limitless, I treat each person as equally important, it never occurs to me to anything but wakeful to this realisation. I rarely feel that I have any limitations within myself to demote one person in favour of another. It simply isn't my way. I realise that I have come some way on this journey of friendships and relationships, that my family extends beyond what is considered normal to others.

'Brotherhood, is inner radiance expressing itself'.

Others, came to me quietly, and then softly told me that they admired my frank candidness about my experiences and that they felt inspired by some aspect of what they perceived were my actions; I felt it was unwarranted merit and explained that it was down to Friends, that without them perhaps I would be a different person myself. When I am asked about Mother, or a dialogue is initiated between us, I am quickly reminded that these friendships are about mutual empathy, whether lasting or only whilst the need expresses itself, and that only when one can feel the same compassion towards others can one find it within oneself to provide it in equal or greater measure and to make the necessary steps to actually act on those reassurances. I found it easy to accept it from others, because it is always ocean deep in me. I thank heaven that I went through this process with my family, it has left a deep indent in my journey, a groove that I know I shall pass through without being able to avoid but with the feeling that I am not alone, in trembling questions, even if I feel secluded in the thoughts that decant into a crystal glass transparently fragile.

‘Love, is between you and I, and it occurs at any time in all seasons’.

Were you waiting for someone to wake up today and smile at you ... and when they did - did you find the true meaning of Life - which is being alive?"

Baron VIP

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 11:04:00 +0000

As Baron turned his chiselled jaw towards the brightness that poured through a window that seemed almost like a skylight, the column of light that shone through it was metallic and greyish steel. For a moment his eyes seemed metallic and greyish steel. One moment more and he would reveal in personality just another sliver of layer beneath which, other such subtle layers were waiting to be caressed and then awakened. A duality in purpose and interestingly complex for being so.

He retained who he was in his dreams, which was first and foremost a sympathetic companion... with the potential for abiding love. To store up daily events and process them during sleep and when awake, find that most situations are well read, he did not have to work particularly hard at trying to resolve them...

During his dreams he was unsettled and on quests, but in wakefullness was constantly alerted to situations where he might communicate across complexities in such a way that reality was an extension of his dreams and not the other way around...
Something within that resonated in response to seductive intelligence.

Like a butterfly alighting softly on a flower... and the tremor that seems to flicker through it's wings as it draws in the nectar...

Something caught his eye and he turned to his computer, and wondered for a moment whether to open the e:mail now, in this rare moment of contemplation, when he saw it’s source, the author who he barely knew, he felt a need to respond to it, albeit tentatively. Pale lilac petals from someone's window box in the city drifted on air streams to land on the outside edge of the windowsill and he gazed at these, tattered delicate petals flickered over and over and then blew away.

Opportunity and providence, vulnerability and security, each situation deployed something of each of these. What enchantment could bring was an irresistible attraction towards ethereal pact-sealing commitments, but to make such pledges would require more than self-sacrifice. It would need clarity of purpose and the desire for more than the mere gratification of superficial needs of the moment. For him, each professional endeavour generated the same exciting delight.

Whilst others found their being in creative employment he genuinely enjoyed his work, so much that he could merge himself entirely within its folds and crevices.

Each time he read the words she sent him, a dull hesitation, before he felt a rise of some unfamiliar stimulus almost like a stylus playing the first notes of a melody on an old bluish-black record, something unique to him. A crackling unamed tune that felt coldly stark, off beat and startling, or perhaps it was like her the Viennese Caprice.

As his impeccably manicured fingers hesitated and he carefully considered that her emails would inspire him to break his linear mental speech pattern into a small stepping stone phrasing… Very carefully, hesitating, then tensing his jaw, as he re-read his typed words, and then quickly reversing his ideas and deleting the sentence. He seemed so still, almost posing for an old sepia photograph, as he began to type: two-fingered military clicking, again.

More often dissatisfied, with any imperfections within himself, he hesitated before he shot ‘send’ and the words flew bulleted… through cyber space…and he would have to wait for the reply he dismissed as important to him in the larger scheme of things.

Metallic and greyish steel, his thoughts appeared that way, aloof, airless. Hers in return crackled like lightening striking a ship's deck, coppery rust through ice: shattering under foot.

An uncertainty awaited him, even kindness could be brutal.

Sensitivity for some was a long sought after emotional condition one that scarcely required dialogue but within him there was always a gate placed in front it and guards around it. The freedom of choice whether wanted or not was always in the hands of those who least needed it.
He waited a moment longer before he completed the thought.

With his hand resting on his desk, the glossy surface of the table glistening like wooden mirrors whilst the afternoon slipped past him.

He took a sip of what was now a warm gold drink, each gulp swirled like a small stream around his mouth and then down his elegant throat.

He looked back at his eleven-word sentence, too many words for the day.

He gently flicked his fingers through crisp layers of tissue thin documents. In deep thought not really reading the pages, almost from routine habit, and then glided his thumb across the embellished artwork of a gold scribed heading.

He knocked a perfectly sharpened pencil from his desk as he hurriedly laid his glass down and watched for a milli-second as the drips of liquid-gold from where his lips had sipped the edge slowly dripped down and onto the leather surface that protected part of the desk. He walked towards the windowsill. He saw papers that seemed to flicker at the corners only for a moment during his passing, almost turn themselves over in his mind, for although he had read the tower of documents, briefly he knew the contents of each at a glance.

At a glance he surveyed the street below, and marvelled how the angles of people mingling and walking seemed to change quite dramatically, angles that he studied much as a bird might before its flawless descent. Just as he had watched the pencil fall like a small spearlike javellin.

Seven people counted, for the summery quietness of the afternoon was being celebrated elsewhere, and the city corridors seemed empty and vast.

Self imposed isolation overcomes loneliness as the instigation of new undertakings supersedes any personal interests or vocations that might distract from essential matters that must be sustained for the sake of duty.

In sliding his hand slowly through his dark wavy hair he could smell aftershave that had stained his bluish-gold sleeve and he also caught a whiff of something else, perhaps the ice cream that he had indulged in earlier that day.

He wasn’t sure but the sweetness was subtle and obscure, saffron came to mind. Perhaps it was the ice cream she had enjoyed a million miles away.

Sweet subtle obscurity, something he enjoyed.

His mind was constantly deployed, details were vital and meticulous reasoning within parameters that exposed others invisible weaknesses. Earnestness had little place for rewards that earned bountiful harvests. These were often the hardest to earn. He felt weary and for a moment attempted to catch his breath.

A plane overhead cast a swallow shadow for a moment across his desk, it stretched itself out and then vanished across the rooftops. In his left eye the glisten of silver and bronze metal slipped away as quickly.

He lifted the pencil and cradled it in his palm before resting it gently on the desk in line with the
the loneliness of his circumstances. Such self reflection would always be something that he could not avoid, as a silver metallic greyish steel nail, amongst wooden pegs that were in round holes, he made his own kind of silent noise.

He deleted four words and left seven on the screen. He added a new word. He took a sip of recollection, he dismissed the thought. He deleted one word. He knew had mispelt the third word. He liked it that way.

Like walking past a chess board with every carved piece central symmetry on the board... sliding his finger at the base of the Queen's pedestal and moving her a millimetre closer to the King.

She preferred to be nearer the knight.

A silence in the noise of chaos that the material world presented was something his mind could efficiently create, and composure was easy in comparison to finding peaceful harmony, in disarray.

Heritage required no less than noblesse oblige, and objectivity was instantly the easiest deployed quality, natural and providing the absence of conflict.
If there were such occurrences as Karmic results and consequences; than he was definitely someone who appeared unsullied and steadfast in his personal code of conduct, and naturally righteous.

Where was the humour one may have asked?

In his day to day living, humour was often on the back burner where flames below it ignited only a bare flicker of what he was fully capable of expressing.

Proficiency and skill often creates a new demand on the individual to lose the playtime that each of us adults needs to engage in to continually renew ourselves. Self renewal within was only layering more and more polish on polished surfaces of his identity. In such an accomplished individual the mental librarian archived childhood, and bedded it down to be recalled only in situations where it was least likely to prevail spontaneously.

The sound of his heartbeat revealed more than even his eyes. For how could anyone surmise that somehow in lucid dreams he explored realms unknown beyond the boundaries of his reality, and returned enlightened?

I would wish for him to lose his usual precision, logical approach and sharp intellect and be less of all of these things and more able to think in streams of consciousness where more elusive (sometimes considered meaningless by those from the kind of upbringing where such deviations are shunned)… philosophising could take place.

I wanted to reveal the layers with a surgical pair of tweezers, and an incision blade, slowly taking each layer off him. Curious as I was to discover what could release him from his devotion to a career that was an integral part of his psyche and lifestyle, to something that would be alien to him, and might have tested his mind to be alive and vibrant in a different way, engaging perhaps in sensory pleasure.

But a part of me sensed that he was too entrenched in heritage and applications of aspirations that would empower those that depended on him, so duty would reject spontaneity. Sometimes courage requires valour and valour requires self imposed discipline and the need to work in isolation away from lemon-drop sunlight and scented wild flowers.

Wild bluish-gold flowers kissed by lemony sherbert sunlight… I wondered how his face would glow if he were to lie in long grass surrounded by the light that sparkled and bounced off a wild free flowing stream.. . Where meadow fern and loosestrife purple buds slowly swayed over him. There, staring up at the sky overhead without a greyish steel grey metallic building for miles.

The contemplation of all, had he known this... might have made him day dream, as he pressed ‘send’ and his email fell into my ‘inbox’. I smiled, and braced myself, for the saffron flavoured ice cream was colder than I could forgive.... Afterall, so was He sometimes, yet...

.... Could he have understood that each word that was read- revealed a little more of the bluish green and gold… glistening of wings that appeared folded behind each of his shoulder blades in my mind as he revealed the slivers of depth beneath each sliver of steel grey metallic surface charm.

"SUUM CUIQUE" ... TO EACH HIS OWN

Peacocks above: Photos Credit: Sean Cronin, Berkshire, U.K

.... Did the clock like dedication to chimes of precision mean you missed the ice cream van's jingle? ...

...Stampede....

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:23:00 +0000

Stampede....

"Where are you? "

He made it sound as trivial as he could, keeping his voice monotone, (an upward palm block pushing away any discomforting fire-fly sparks to his brain) in case any subtle inflexion might betray his inner well where the small bucket that drew up watery emotion rattled... against damp, mossy walls.

"I wondered all day what you were up to…"

I heard the voice on the other end of the phone, pause, then with a hurried underlying tension to the voice, add, “… not that I missed you or anything…”

What is the ‘anything’?

Not that I missed you, or ANYTHING.

A backhanded compliment, this merits attention... Is he saying I am so unimportant to him, or insignificant that he can be without me and forget me. An outer block - our hand sweeps the other person away from our heart. Is it that quick cover we use to outer block ourselves from entering our emotions and search for what it means to us even as we say to others to dissuade them from doing the same?

Are we scared to invoke such triggering queries that might then force us to address the answers if we have the courage to acknowledge them?

I wait until the Ansonia, New York, antique clock finishes it’s distinctive chimes, it is a gift from Camilla Gitten (she is often in the subtitles of films as the buyer of SFX - special effects materials), my friend, and her talented witty, Father who repairs clocks as a hobby… I adore the sound, always crisp and echoey. The first time I saw it, and heard it's chimes, I walked over to it and whispered, you shall be mine! I stroked it's tobacco coloured wood and practically kissed it's face, I loved it so much. I told her this, once I was hugging the clock in my arms, a year later, cushioned in bubble-wrap and she laughed.

[I smell my wrist, I have just casually sprayed some perfume on to it, and it is a gesture of mine to show I am hardly bothered by what I sense is pain in his voice. Even then my hand moves in an inner block move... trying to bring him closer to me emotionally...]

‘You always speak from a position of emotional trauma’, I thought, yet to me your life is one of comparative ease, a healthy salary, a relationship that supports you through your day to day mental disturbances, and then the work that you do, something that keeps your pocket-watch, mental cogs whirring without too many mistimed chimes. Unlike me you never needed to roll with the punches.

“Define ‘anything’…” I retort.

He laughs nervously, “Well…”

[I have added a little high-tone perfume to the dents behind my ears, and I am now taking deep whiffs of the flowery scent, you see, I am heartless when I know I am being drawn into an emotional battleground… In my mind my fists are close to my face, on guard, protecting myself and ready to jab.]

I don’t let him finish, maybe I don’t want to know how he defines ‘anything’, maybe because I know what that means. It means he hesitates all the time before committing anything to me that might mean he has an anchor and whilst he looks like someone with a complete command of his circumstances, I make him a little nervous, I dangle thoughts in front of him like pieces of choice succulent fruit… juicy morsels that he is unsure are poisoned with a truth serum. His ego is easily dented, by even a soft upper-cut from me.

I replied, lightly, “Oh, I have been so busy, I wasn’t neglecting you, I just get caught up in the realities we all face”. He interrupts me

[I find a lipstick and now balance the phone under my chin, and peer into the mirror, frowning because, I am preparing myself for a quick retreat, I am not going to be drawn into a restless wave of confused dynamics with him... I find I have a fixed stare into space as I try to imagine his eyes now, without being able to see them, I just don't know how serious he is today].

“… Emailing, and responding to your friends, family... Strangers… all day… yeah – really busy… there is no selective discrimination, you have to be everyone’s Friend…” (there is his hammer blow, always a supposedly impassioned, hypnotic suggestion... I felt).

“(I continue) … – the day to day routines and then the numerous emails I have to respond to – I am simply compelled to be earnest, not for me the superficial shrug that turns away anyone, who becomes special to me... Usually simple gestures of kindness towards me, from all sources… someone wanting to share a picture, or a poem that they feel brings me into their world... It is simply wonderful! Or maybe it is a need to let me know that they have experienced the same situation or moment that I have shared with them as being important to me. AND you know what I am like, I need my finger on the pulse of my ‘friends and associations’ – I like to know they are alive, I see them as fragile in Life... I am genuinely interested in them, I am not play-acting it is part of who I am, I thought you understood that by now! (there is the left hook).”

[I am holding the lipstick open in my hand, and jabbing the air with it! Pointedly trying to stab at him in my mind, to drive home my point.]

Why did I feel like I owed him any kind of explanation, maybe because I feel guilty towards him?

I re-arrange the strange twisted vase that only holds three sweet-pea stems… enabling them to twist around each other and then flop their heads wearily.

Actually do I really feel guilt towards anyone who invests time or affection in me and where it is sincere, when I think or feel I have neglected them. Naturally, I would - except that I do not feel guilty, because I do not feel anyone wants to own me or I them, so there is no duty between us. Therefore, I cannot feel guilt where I have not failed.

Yet, I am aware that he wants to put this thought out for me to address.

I am avoiding it, maybe I do feel guilt, or is that it is too much of a mental strain to talk to him knowing he is harbouring this need for my attention when I am already overloaded with my own burning desires to fill in every waking second of my day with activity, purpose and productivity, and reality… (as if I have swung a back-fist into his head).

[My mascara wand has painted insect legs on my nose; I am erasing these and now have smudged my lipstick].

A reality that to me is defined as being an active participant in the universe and those that inhabit it, embracing the good, the bad and the downright ugliness of it all without allowing any of it to taint me or who I am, I always ensure that I balance my thinking so that my personal sense of nobility, or integrity cannot be corrupted by whatever I experience. I am not a connective organ to his organs...

I take the lipstick and drop it into my pocket for later, to hear its metal tube rattle with some loose change, as I do my sleeve brushes against the flower buds. The petals from the sweet-pea, deep pink, fall. That upsets me, I hate it when they are broken.

It is not easy, sometimes I am beguiled by the treats on offer, but I find I can say ‘no’, easily to temptations that do not forward my steps towards my spiritual path finding (I am not even on a journey, I am still trekking through sludge and fogginess trying to find the first step and path to it).

I feel like a dynamo, just on a different time clock to everyone else.

His voice laughed nervously, “Oh, yeah – right, I forgot you are a busy lady, always in demand”.

I felt his under cutting remark was to incite a response of …. “…but I always have time for you”.

I felt his hurt, a sense of him feeling left out of my time giving to others. I felt a mixture of immediate responses rise inside, the thought that it makes one weary, to have to provide assurances sometimes. (Downward block... followed by spear to the head). Why doesn't he just speak to me the way I always speak to others, openly and without agendas. I will quickly say to those I adore, or love deeply, " I missed you all day, honestly, I just felt I wanted to call you but I couldn't, you were always at the back of my mind you know".

[My hairbrush is dragging hurriedly and fiercely through long tousled hair that is knotting as I am starting to build my mental castle of playing cards].

“… I always make time for you”, I said this softly, trying to moderate the tone of my voice so that I didn’t sound unconcerned, “You are important to me, and for you to doubt that, concerns me. Look when you, yourself appear distant and elusive, I accept it – I don’t particularly like it, it feels as if you are lost to me, but I accept that it is your way of withdrawing to think, and I know you feel powerless to attend to any matters that I have presented to you and want to analyse these and process the thoughts in your head. At any rate you always need so much time to process the simplest requests, you cannot quickly respond and just act on the thought, I leave that to my own clarity, rarely have I put my own needs before another when I know it is within my power to respond quickly, since many situations require speed and efficacy.

By the time you are clear headed, I am already beyond that moment of need, or requests and I have resolved my difficulties and challenges without you. Now you call me and it is with a sense of personal injury, I mean are you really trying to make me feel some part of your own hurt, but I am damned if I want any part of it. It always feels to me as if I am listening to your boredom with your comfortable life and now it is time for you to inject a little real depth-feeling, but of course I am the source of that inspiration for you, you almost vicariously live out of my self-determination… well no thanks!”

Silence at the other end.

I close the window the breeze lifts the corner of my paper, and ripples across the tea in my porcelain cup… I stir the settled brown sugar (which I prefer), and take a sip, carefully letting the cup sit in its dainty fluted edge saucer with its lilac wisteria etchings.

[Inside my head the playing-card-tower… collapses, as I lay down my hairbrush].

(Idiot, now he wants me to probe him and prod him to see if he is alive! I am not going to ask if he is still on the other end, because he wants me to, if he was sitting in front of me, I would have to stroke his arm or his cheek and say ‘there, there’, I am NOT his mother, social worker, does it say either of those labels on my forehead? Forget it, he can sulk and progress that thought, inside my mind I am pacing up and down, frowning, and now I am drumming my fingers. Continued silence).

“ALRIGHT!”

I hear my voice, (I am impatient sometimes)… “Look, what do you want from me, blood, do you want blood, here is my finger, here take it and stick a pin into it and see me bleed!”

“Uh… No… Sorry, I was just checking my phone, I think the battery was loose, what did you say before something about having some difficulties, what difficulties have you had? Are you okay, why didn’t you call me, and what is with your finger!?

IDIOT! I am not sure who I am calling that, me or him.

“So, everything okay with the family!?”

“Yep,” he replies. He is always so good natured and relaxed once he has extracted that typical knee jerk reaction from me that shows him he has gotten under my skin!

Now I am searching my memory, for something I can pick on and throw back at him, but I cannot think of anything really meaningful, that isn’t a pile of inflammable rubbish!

“So, you missed me?”

“Yeah, I did, I always miss you!”

“Good!” I add a forceful intonation to my voice in that single word; I want him to know this is important to me. I am irritated, that he tried to make me feel guilty, and I don’t want to hear that excuse that ‘no, you are the only one with the power to make yourself feel guilty, no-one else can do that – it is you , all you’. I want him to miss me and to long to see me, and think about me, yep I am that selfish, I want him to wonder what I am doing, and who I am hanging out with, and if he isn’t I now want to see if there is anyway I can leave him with the kind of thought that will completely throw all his normal, restrained, well-controlled, logical, linear, sensible, rational, thinking processes out of sync… You want guilt, I will give you guilt! Is this what we women think like? I want him to veer off his path, and find that he keeps turning around to see if I am following like some predator or panther… I want him to suffer a little of the fear that a deer feels when it is grazing softly and wondering if there are eyes in the forest depth.

Those are my eyes, and they are firmly watching him graze, him with his so-important meetings to get to, or bosses to see, or friends to hang out with! When he is busy, he expects me to be waiting! Well I am waiting all right, but just wait until he dips his 'oh so pretty' nose into that lake edge… I will be right there to push him in! Or drag him to the edge and hold him down my teeth in his jugular… he has a nerve trying to make me feel bad for having a life! You know, now I think about it, this is what he always does, he neglects our friendship and then when he suddenly stops grazing and looks up and thinks, ‘Oh, I wonder what she is doing, she seems a little silent, not like her at all, probably means she is plotting or scheming something, or met someone she is intrigued with and on a mental chase… always ends badly, she will call me!’…. THEN decides to pick up the phone and find his index finger to dial… AND expects me to just be here without any battle ground scars… well!

I start to laugh!

“What are you laughing at?”

“Oh nothing… really nothing at all” I reply, and then softly add, “I love you – you know!”

“Yeah I know!” I can hear his voice smiling back across the universe….

The seconds tick, tock…tick ….

The herd stampedes.

... How often do we find inner balance and harmony with just kind words spoken from the heart... did you communicate softly, kindly, and honestly - today too?....

Thoughts uninterupted...

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:11:00 +0000

“Hello”,

I said it softly, not to wake the motionless spider that hovered petrified in the frozen web, or even to send a tremor through the icy cold air that made my skin shimmer on this frostiest of mornings.

I was at college, and had spent three days in a brooding heavy mood, one that my brother might have called a ‘sulking, and pouting strop’, (I have had a few of those in my time too), this time it wasn’t the silent treatment of the precocious child in me. The splendour of winter’s elegance was wasted on me that year, for every day felt unfulfilled. As if the heaviness of unforgiving mental mirrors that reflected back all that I wanted to improve or change within myself bound by the sense of failure that I was somehow unable to affect change. The changes were never superficial ones concerning any self-images, but more about how disenchanted I was with the focus many of my friends appeared to have on material vestiges of their perceived success. Some would boast of their latest vehicles, others were proud to admit that they wanted to be financially superior to those who they felt had downtrodden them... with a typical 'I will show them'... driven bent to their vision of success.

“Can I come in, do you think?”
I asked who was there at the house, a small terrace, 'railway terrace', that my friend Marc, a recently ‘outed’ man had moved into with his boyfriend, a cruise-ship steward.

He gave me a warm hug, and then we both shivered.

“Come in my precious Snow Queen!”

He reminded me that I had a key anyway. I smiled, it was a private joke, for he always saw me in (synthetic) furs, and my so-called ‘cool indifference’ excited him as a person. We always seemed to meet around the end of autumn, sometimes when winter was arriving. It was then that we would ‘hook up’. Due to his role which required him to travel abroad a lot and it was on one of these journeys that he had decided to provide me with a key to his small cosy home, I was friends with his Tabby cat, a creature rather like me...

My residence which I shared with several girls was miles away from the college campus, and he was away a lot, so he had no problem with my using his home, whilst cat-sitting in return.

I told him I wasn’t expecting him home and as I said this I dropped my small cream vanity case with its few essentials onto his foot, as I felt my arm go limp and frowned at myself in his old rococo mirror hanging behind the rather threadworm but comfortable sofa. My face in Winter always appeared the colour of walnuts, but I looked gaunt and lean, something that often happens when I am really busy. His vanity proved that each of us are prey to age and delusions, for there were several jars of face creams, aftershaves and other men's beauty products left loose in his open suitcase laid by the coffee table from his latest trip.

“Can we have a picnic-breakfast?”

“It is freezing, outside and I have just had a hot bath, so I am likely to die out there…” then seeing my disappointment and my lip curl as it does when I am in half smile and not sure if I am on that line between being true to myself or the surface calm that we each have to display, he acquiesced graciously.

“Okay give me a moment, be still my heart, I adore you but I could throttle you”, he quickly accepted my idea, and as he went into the kitchen he flicked the filtered coffee machine on, and set two mugs ready shouting bulletins about his partner, and asking what I fancied for breakfast, but adding that it would be a spartan and austere meal, since he had only been back three days and had intended to be out most of the weekend. His older sister usually dropped by with groceries for him as she ran a small corner health store selling a variety of nuts and pulses.

I stared into the middle distance where day dreams are only half emerging and then I waited until he carried out the coffee mugs, his beautiful hands cupping mine as he handed it to me so that I reached for the handle. He smiled as for a second our eyes met, and we both felt the recognition of knowing a caring Friend... and then he said nervously brushing his almost coffee coloured long hair out of his eyes, “So how have you been?”

I looked up and stared at him for a while, almost in a daze, and then replied crisply, “Just daydreaming, I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything functional or practical for days you know!”

“So has anything happened?”

“Nope, well yes”

“Okay I am listening, oh wait, I will just get my coat”.

He had one of those wonderful camel overcoats, I loved the colour it was warm and almost a deep gold, he always looked handsome and rather like a business man in it. I watched him pull up his collar and then we both walked out into his garden.

As I trotted ahead of him and then waited for him to open the gate at the end of the garden for me to slink through, he handed me a small tissue wrapped gift.

The garden was unusual, sunflowers grew along one side of the garden, and ivy seemed to choke everything else, there was a small wishing well that was purely cosmetic, and three well weathered gnomes each fishing in the grass, with chipped faces, and broken rods. At the end there was a small black gate with a recently painted picket fence that ensured that you did not fall into the stream that was only eighteen feet from the fence. The edge of a small stream that ran at the bottom of all these pretty terraces, was covered in the jewelled stems of purple loosestrife and bracken depending on the season...

The messy lawn was covered with icy frost, and it was only 7.45 a.m, I had been up since six, and was returning from the gym... with the sun just beginning to melt the edges of the bushes where it could shine unhindered by trees or buildings.

We watched as a neighbour came out and retrieved a frozen pair of briefs and socks from the washing line that sprinkled ice on the tabby that was huddled on the lawn watching some small invisible rodent.

We all smiled the surface smile of polite social exchanges, ones where no more would be revealed apart from acceptance of each others space and territory.

I hadn’t noticed the two large cushions from the sofa that Marc had carried with him, and now he laid them at the edge of the stream’s bank, and we both sat down on these, with me bringing my knees up close to my shoulders, and hugging them between staring into the stream that seemed so slow today.

I shared the anecdote that haunted me and he smiled and several times nodded silently, once in a while he would take a strand of my hair and stroke it between long elegant fingers, and at one point as I stared ahead of me, he rested his head on my shoulder and took a long strand of my hair and tucked it into his mouth, holding it through his teeth, until I turned my face down to looked closely into his hazel eyes, and half-smiled the smile that conveyed an obscure message of incomplete thoughts.

I felt the rapture of finding myself closer to some truth inside my mind that I had searched for with a sense of newly-trodden snow therein.

Then I said, “So will you make me some breakfast?”
He released my hair and he smoothed it down over my back and then he took my beret off my head, shook it, and smoothed it too, and placed it back onto my head tidying my hair which had ruffled as he had removed it.

‘”I will see what I can do…”

“… and would you make sure that whatever you bring me is given to me in a memorable way, I don’t care what it is…. I just need to eat something prettily presented, and can we have incense sticks here, at any rate I want to remember today as long as I live, I think I have learnt something and I want to cherish the moment… I just don’t feel like talking, I just want to sit here and think.”
Unchained thoughts, uninterrupted were my favourite kinds.

He smiled, and he repeated, “I will see what I can do….”
In the distant the smell of coal and wood burning reminded me of the romance of a fireplace and for a moment I felt the realisation that being there, in the cold early morning was an imposition.
Despair would always crowd my thoughts, when I felt I wasn’t somehow being productive.

Within fifteen minutes he returned, with a tray, which he laid on a small wooden bench that was inside the fence, behind us. He came back over to my side, and I watched him light the sticks with long matchsticks that were blue tipped and from Egypt. I pocketed the matchbox and he smiled when he saw me do so…. I have always loved matches and matchboxes, for many of my poems have been initiated on them….

“… No, don’t take that one, you already wrote on it for me….here look”
“So I did”.
I shrugged.

Then he reached over the small wooden picket fence and picked up the tray, and laid it down in front of me.I smiled, he had made more coffee and the toast was cut into little men with a gingerbread-men metal cutter. He had buttered them and some had marmalade and some lemon-curd, and others still had strawberry jam… the final ones had blackberry conserve smeared on them. He had used chocolate and milk buttons to decorate these with eyes. As a final touch he had used a spray cream to dress some in frocks and to give others beautifully wild snowy ‘Afros’. He looked proud at his own creativity. As he waited for me to take one, I reached for his face in both hand and gave him a big kiss on the forehead.

I smiled broadly, and he said, grinning back, that the jams were from the hotels miniature complimentary jars.

I nibbled on these and stared back into the middle distance.

“Why the incense sticks?”

“I just wanted to remember spring; I miss its scents and newness - it seems so far away now”.

“I see”.

I then remembered the small gift, and I used my teeth to tear it open, then smiled when I saw that a small bottle of 'Joy', a rather lovely perfume fell out, I opened the beautiful bottle and had no idea that I would only know one other woman for the remainder of my life that wore it, she was the beautiful mother of a friend.

Then we waited for spring to return… shivering at the urgency with which we both knew I wanted to meet with it again, for I longed for it with a deeper sense of yearning than I knew how to express.

At some point I noticed that he had placed a wrapping around my shoulders, and shivered noticeably even through the beautiful black shiny Astrakhan (polyester, not fur) that I felt enclosed in… and in those deep thoughts, I had dropped a woollen glove in the stream and it was about thirty feet down caught on some frozen branches that dipped into the silvery sparkling, thawing stream.
He patiently let me free my thoughts silently out into the space ahead of me and then when I began stirring from my daydream he smiled and gave me a warm hug, and said… “Okay?”

I watched my glove free itself and drift out of reach forever, I did not feel I needed to retrieve it.

“Yep,” I replied, and followed him back to the house dragging his queen sized duvet across the wet frosty lawn….

.... Were your thoughts interrupted when you really wanted to daydream today? ...

Words

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 09:48:00 +0000

My Friend Jeff Kosiba the poet/writer wrote:

.....The dark of night is when lonely tortured souls
venture out into an unchanging state of total black,
and at least to others,
their tears remain unfelt and unseen......

credit> MoonSpell

Jeff recently launched his new book of poems: "The voltage of illusion", and is based in Cleveland, USA.

Words in email from him leave any tigerfish gasping for more air, as if he offers oxygen to those struggling to breathe. I read his words, and stared into the middle distance, and wondered where he was when he was inspired. His eyes are electricity themselves, they peer into your face as if he has an electric light-bulb searing at you.

Some people 'hurt' your life, as their words are chosen to harm. Others gift your life as their tender words are chosen to quell fears, possibly seeking to find within you the very source of your strength to surmount those fears...

Others again show careless disregard - for them each word uttered is one of haste and ill-chosen to dispel you as one might an insect.. a back handed slap. They have no comprehension of their own insipidness in the face of true strength, even as they conspire towards generating fear and sickly condemnation.

To any rational, logical being, cruelty has a source, some deep rooted pain or trauma that drives some inadequate creature to shove their fist into your face as they drive their criticism into your soul with the same over sharpened nails they might use when pitching their tents for battle.

Those with integrity stand before them with broken sword, cracked shield, and an appeal to the Gods for their assailant to be blessed with maturity and compassion, before striking their final blows in the name of their blessed angels of love.

Do those that will strike you, look you straight in the eye when they dispel their cruelty?

Do they hide weak fractures of their misfit identities in arrogance and spite?
It is with acidic, vitriolic sarcasm that they may incite you to reply.

How is it that for so many when they themselves hurt it is as if you showered them with broken glass, the expulsion of cruelty and the fuse that has been lit is one of rage and demonic volcanic ego...

Then there are others for whom, softness is their only shield, and when they are hurt they withdraw to lick their wounds, one wonders, are they less able to defend their own fragility?

Upon discovery, I am at once at their knee, waiting to march forward to protect them, I feel the sense of mission and purpose rise within me to respond on their behalf. Naturally, then I am attracted to the same strength of purpose in others, those who give no quarter to the ignoble.

Spending a moment with a friend recently, someone who needed coaxing to open up and share the extent of his broken wing, I felt as if I were tending to a small thrush that had flown into a glass window and fallen heavily to the concrete patio. When you run out to lift it you immediately gasp for air. It is so still and yet you can feel it's heart in you hands.

Your fingers tremble to spread it's wing, unsure of where to begin.

The steps that are taken always seem to be so small. Patience is possibly the most difficult virtue for those of us that require immediacy in our requests.

I am not sure, can I do anymore? ... I ask out in a whisper, into the Universe, that question defeats me always.

Who would really know? The answer never comes to me.

.... What question is left unanswered for you?....

"Love has no Reality, Without any Sacrifice..."

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 13:37:00 +0000

[Photo Credit: Tony Stromberg, title, "Fierce Grace" ]

"Love has no Reality, without any Sacrifice..."

I was not born to survive under law

I WAS CREATED TO LIVE IN FREEDOM.

I wait for the hand to hold

Of a heart that is

With mine to own.

Please don`t find in my words, anymore than you need, at the moment you read.
The Spirit takes order from chaos.
Please I am only as you want for freedom love has me, to be whatever you need.

You possess a spontaneity with inspiration, that has everything to qualify.

Joy to be as hope I collect your inspiration. As a flower the morning dew.

The greatest gift I have
to give you are my tears
As a summary to beauty
they are faultless.

To own... You are not mine
Until I am your need.

It is not your attention that I seek but your blessing to see that I do applaud.It is not a desire that I have but for you an inspiration that I do write...

But gone as that ray of light that danced on the brook.

These lines ... written by writer: Simon Auchterlonie

I like to consider my Friend, the compassionate writer: Simon Auchterlonie, an Aries with divine purpose and humanity, a water-bearer.

I am not sure how many individuals truly appreciate creative written self expression... I have had friends tell me they abhorr reading.

It is a statement that is alien to my soul.

Then there are others for whom the written word, the sentence that has been generated from their emotions and triggered by inspiration seems to comes from an outer source that I like to consider a miracle.

That is really how I feel about inspiration... it is something that sets us apart from the animal kingdom, maybe it sets us apart from other beings in the Universe?
The need within us to trigger a response in others, or even an emotion or thought, may be frustrating, or even overwhelming.

What about those who want to share their words... without a need to achieve perfection? A need to be read, with kindness, and perhaps comprehension, or perhaps merely acceptance, perhaps this is what drives it. I am always in awe of those who request only the right to express themselves, without ego, but with a sense of awareness that through their art, their life is freer, and their heartbeat is heard to beat faster, as they soar to through imagination to be released.

Simon is one of these individuals... if I look to inspire, whilst aspiring, he is 'expiration' sending forth a breath... a whisper of words that must be released from inside him.... to a True writer in the keen sense of the word. Through a Friends suggestion, I joined a free dating site, in the hopes of meeting new connections: ideally individuals whose pulse was on my beat... I wasn't interested in dating, just the potential enquiry that enables friendships... and possibilities of new dialogue, fresh and insightful from all corners of the world...

When I heard those words, finishing with 'Bless you...' I was overwhelmed, with admiration.
He sounded exactly like my mother... she speaks like this frequently to me, encouraging and over extending herself beyond her means for her children.

One day out of the blue, he tasked his Friend Tim, an Oxford mathematics graduate, to sort out a state of the art, gift for me. Although, several times I found gentle ways to reject his offer, it was an overwhelming offer, he went ahead anyway, and carried it out, execute the task with diligence, purpose and in the process he was instructional, I learnt that the beauty of real humans as beings is their capacity to love others unconditionally and then to make sacrifices that they can ill afford to make.
He certainly has done so, and I cannot measure the value you can place on the gift of love. It isn't the item, it is the quality of the intention, the purpose it is intended for and the reason one makes the gift.

He made it clear that the gift was to be collected from Tim, so that he could show me his workmanship, and that beyond that, he expected no more than the promise that I would continue to write and enjoy doing so with additional tools that felt an intense need to supply.
You often hear of strangers who will without any hesitation extend themselves to you... I have written about friends such as this in MUSE... people like the Jaguar, Sandeep, or Susana... those that take a step away from their own journey to make a sacrifice on your behalf, and push you a little on your own journey - either in the right direction or pull you so that you can lean on them on theirs... Others are water, cup bearers...

Simon is one of those, his kindness reminds me of the beautifully inspirational moment in the Bible when Jesus is given a cup full of warm water... whilst carrying the cross. Amongst the usual, one struck me as different, in fact it stood out, email from Simon... He asked only to be read.

He never asked to meet me, nor for anything beyond a person, to express the most subtle, and emotionally stirring lines. Each mail was completely unique and unusual. He did not try to impress me, nor over rate me as a person or underrate me as a woman. His famous uncle was Hulme... the Poet, writer... and Simon clearly has similar qualities of sensitivity...
There was always a sweet thank you from him.
'Thank you...' what does that mean to me? Who the hell was I? I never quite understood what I could say that would equalise the obvious time spent in careful consideration by him to share his feelings about life. "Remarkable", I would say aloud.

Then as I filled up the kettle and prepared a brew...

Whenever, I read the words of the new connections I was making, I would smile, to myself, feeling how amazing it was that this small window into their lives was allowing me to share simmering surface waves of ideas and emotions that engulfed their shared moments.
Some of the words would mingle with my thoughts, the spoon stirring them into my tea-cup, and as I would lay the spoon down in the saucer... I would carry it outside, dropping the spoon into the sink, submerged by the lines I may have read and now that made me think, about how it must have felt to have written them.

Gentle murmurings of one's hearts tremors just fill our trembling fingers when we have to hold something fragile in our hands...

We despise those who are destructive, and wish to vanquish our demons, sometimes only with kindness to ourselves and those we consider alien to us. But what if we can just be kind?
I cannot wait until he has his work published - and if he doesn't do it in his lifetime, I will be proud to present it for him. Sometimes... I come home from the gym or work, and in my inbox is waiting a gift... it is Simon... no difficult queries or requests... just the simplest most sweetest open buds of prose, crafted not from any kind of structured methodology, but from within his heart, and soulfully each offered with a humbleness that astounds me.

When your eyes glance over another human's words to you, (and when it is personal, really directed to you, and only you...) ... it is difficult to express aloud what it means to know that someone has taken your personality and then enveloped in their own love for your persona... they don't know you, they may never meet you, but here (perhaps even) they are falling in love with something that may or not be a part of you are to yourself. If it isn't love it is something minutely like it, affection, a comforting sense of belonging, and caring, and then the urgency of looking forward to the light-heartedness of laughter and witty repartee that can arise from mutual comprehension of different life adventures.

Then there were the ones who said.... 'Let me know how you got along at your meeting... '
How wonderful to share an anecdote, and have some feedback, some insight, or even guidance.
When they have gone to some trouble to express their feelings to you, whether it is about their lives, their family or those that they felt they lost through heartbreak, it is only the feeling that you are helpless to do more than comfort them that jolts you to how fragile we all are in Life.

When you share the same, you realise quickly, that the pulse on our wrists is the same.
A few lines... the expression of which is to the heart... the expectancy is nothing... there is no question of requiring a response. It is simply enough to have read it. This is all that is asked of one. When you read the words, it is more than a gift, it is the painful jolt of lightening-stricken broken bark and the doves that died in terror, torn in the branches... Something that reminds one of the excitement of living and then the beauty of the surviving fragile flower that somehow the storm took pity on and left trembling the wind. That is the real gift, from Simon, his total humility... I have never met him, but then he has never asked me to, he presents a simple honest photograph, and the smile that looks up to you is quite lovely. A gentle person and eyes that sparkle despite whatever Life's assaults have made on him. He talks of women as 'ladies'... and he is good natured, and reminds me of a small child who has some humble offering of plasticine and twigs that he has fashioned into a dog, and who brings it to you and hands it as a gift, it is raw, it lacks finesse but you want to cry just holding this gift held to you without a need for approval, just love.

Sometimes, like all humans on the treadmill we call survival, I am weary, and as I decide whether to make a cup of tea, or respond as kindly as I can to the numerous emails that began to trickle into a fountain into my inbox on the dating site... '.. Sorry, thank you, but no...' or 'I am just here for 'friendships...Sorry'... to '... You moronic piece of dirt that got left by the dung beetle when it decided to discard you... that is how low you are... ‘(smile, I can be so sweet)... I get the loveliest communications... artists and writers, (such as Antonio, Michael, and Simon).... and even psychologists... (Nathaniel... ) ...

That I think the pure joy of having outlets to be able to communicate about anything from our day to day endeavours to the personal experiences that have formed us as individuals... the moments are special to me, and the mental stimulation that triggers emotional and physical responses to their lives and them to mine is the part that is so fascinating...

When I saw a fox slip softly into the bracken, the green foliage caressing its legs and tail as it disappeared, I saw it's eyes and we looked at each for a brief second as if we knew what it was to escape. The thing that makes individuals special to me is first and foremost the respect that they can show each other and to themselves... Not for me to be the one who thinks that relationships are purely physical, I can easily adore the person who is willing to be honest, and expose themselves bravely to a stranger... it is something I have often done myself.
"Love has no Reality, without any Sacrifice..."

I love my flesh and blood Friendships, and I love my virtual space Friendships... each fills a void that is part of the compass of north, south east and west within me for reaching out and discovering every outlet of imagination and sensitivity... and part of it comes from how far you will extend yourself to others and they to you. There are healthy boundaries that we all need to create around ourselves, but most importantly there are the those that we must place around others with us to protect our Friendships.

When the insects that I love to watch and examine seemed so diligently purposeful, scurrying and grafting... productive and as I learn from their adoption and specificity, I think and hope I appear to the Gods above, the same ... diligently purposeful... productive and instructive. I always protect the ones I love... I believe deeply that such a need to be ethically self expressive comes from the most astounding love I have ever experienced and that was through my parent’s complete sacrifice, and unconditional love.

It presses me to be the same towards others and even though I am often burnt through it because we are not all raised the same, I try to be resolute in my self propulsion through the eyes that look back at me in my mirror, I am Alice in many ways trying to find a way through the cold glass and find that reality window that begs each of us to escape the mundane... Just being inquisitive and experiencing the whole aspect of living ... "Love has no Reality, without any Sacrifice..."

... Wasting each second is simply not my way... Those with the same urgency to live Life with purpose and integrity will possibly find their way into my life to share some of their battles and the injuries of war... Others may just look and we pass as strangers their heads down low, as burdened they are with introspection. I take each situation as fresh and as a lesson.

Strangers are those who have yet to say 'hello'. Great Friends prove it.... unequivocally, just a few sips of water from their cup of humility and compassion. ...

....Will you welcome a Stranger ... such as me... such as him.... or her... in your Life ... with the willingness to treat them as your best Friend... until ... they are not? Perhaps... become a divine water bearer..."

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

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:27:00 +0000

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?

... The Individual...

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 00:28:00 +0000

'Aslan, face of White Lion in South Africa'.

The Individual

Something intriguing about The Individual made him appear to each of us as an unattainable entity. Perhaps it started with the fact that his roots were so unusual, Polish, Dutch, and a Spanish Grandmother, who had raised him mainly. We clicked; I suppose from the moment that I noticed he lacked the simplest working materials that everyone else took for granted… By this I mean having a ruler, a pen that worked and even a sharpened pencil. When he first met me we were doing an intensive training course to enhance Manager’s team building and coaching skills, in Warwick. I thought he appeared wanting. He seemed to lack the usual personal items that most students carry into their classes in affluent societies, from sophisticated mobiles, palm tops, organisers… to their Oakley sunglasses or multicoloured high lighters.

The simplicity which he presented to us was refreshing and in sharp contrast to the rest of the group with their over-labelled trappings even those with basic WH Smith and Woolworth stationery, others had loads of stolen bits from work, from the usual manufacturer own brands.

It began with a gruelling three-day self/others-evaluation and NLP awareness seminar, and culminated once the course finished, with the usual celebratory meal out shenanigans. At the end of each day we all went off to study in small groups and since there was a predominance of male managers in the company I worked at, they tended to hang out at the sports bar. The main outcome I thought at the time was that it made business relationships quite intriguing. Did I feel I bonded much with my fellow students? I can’t say that I really even wanted to bond – not at that particular time, in fact I found myself always retaliating and embarking on singular missions that didn’t include others and caused distress in those on the course that were natural parenting types that needed to shepherd those of us that were quite out of the ordinary and wanted to retain complete independence and sole rights over our decisions, and evening plans.

The few women on the course needed more time to pamper and prepare for their joyous drinking binges, because being typically female they had heated rollers, hair straighteners and other products geared to help them appear natural (grin), and I found that once I left the gym and headed back up to my room to read in advance the next days work as well as finish the night’s homework; I was already out of ‘sync.’ with everyone else who was eating in the hotel restaurant or had split off to find a local eatery for a change. Sometimes, I would have to return to the gym because I had forgotten some personal article such as trainers or shampoo or water bottle, it was a weird time of trying to hold onto my possessions which forever seemed to be disappearing, in my absent mindedness and almost manic need to soak in more information than was being provided I was both simultaneously forgetful, and finding my short term recall was enhanced by the learning process.

When I first saw the Individual, he was looking over a man called Joe’s shoulder at his computer magazine. Joe was a red headed man portly, with a sweet-tooth, constantly plying others with bon-bons, lemon and strawberry. He was labelled the ‘winer’, for he complained to one and all, at the start of each day with feeling frustrated with the lack of commitment by everyone else in his ‘team’, who it seemed to him were mainly there to be on an ‘alcholofrolic spree’. Although he never thought to change groups, he was compelled to tirelessly focus on matching my delirious pace and since being hyperactive I needed constant drip feeds of copious amounts of data to keep my interest upward, then we became formidable rivals in the stakes for matching wit to wit.

Reading this, I am sure you have been in that position yourself, where you feel that excitement each must experience when we are evaluating choices that can change our direction and remove us completely from those we have become accustomed to.

This period gave us a lot of time hanging out together in small 2 or 3 people workgroups which was empowering, mainly due to the sense of being away from any reality of our own lives and isolated at times and therefore acknowledging each others different backgrounds and where we were as individuals ourselves. Being almost 6ft 5”, the Individual was noticeably different, from the onset; we often played tag with me trying to reach my favourite highlighter in lilac held about three feet over my head in his outreached hand.

Then there was Surinder, a stunning Asian man whose parents had raised him in ‘Thets roight, Bear-ming-em’… or Birmingham to you and me… had bonded with everyone and was just then showing us how he had learnt to ski, and then as he was a fantastic mime, he showed us how he fell over. He was going to be forty-seven, but had the richness of his ethnicity and culture as he followed every sequence of Bollywood dance choreography and we called him ‘Swivel-hips Suraj!’ (His wife told us when she came up to join him one evening that everyone called him Suraj). He would teach the girls Bollywood moves mainly to show off his dance steps and his ability to mimic the stars. I recently bumped into him and since I do think that Rithik Roshan the stunning Actor is rather gorgeous on a purely shallow physical level, for I do not care if the man has a brain or not – he quickly showed me Rithik’s latest dance choreography! I instantly memorised it – in the event I need to impress Rithik with my moves, in a non meaningful superficial level!

He was anxious about spending time with his father, who at the time of the course was morose and suffering from depression. Suraj who despite a rich and rewarding career as a teacher, before he entered business, was rarely flattered by gratifying compliments for beneath his affable surface was a man literally drinking himself to death.

Suraj would tell us about the complexity of being pulled by his family demands and those of having a young family of his own.

The Individual would nod softly, and develop a far off look. Something that appealed to me was that his compassion had no bounds. He rarely shut out the world, as so many do, particularly those who come to know themselves to be happier in private fantasy worlds.

Two ‘students’ down from him sat Peachy, a man we all came to consider the fool of the century, not only for his ingratiating approach towards his manager who was either playing his mentor or his sidekick, to the reactive manner in which he demonstrated his cocky style of management. Since he was highly volatile he was easy prey for those in the group who enjoyed taunting naturally masochistic types. He had no idea about any other culture but his own, and even there he was limited to say the least. He was also intimidated quickly by anyone who could build relationships that that did not include him and he showed his contempt for such natural social skills by a simple sarcasm. I often refrained from letting my foot collide with his ankle such that he could have tripped and possibly damaged his conspicuous ego.

The rather rambunctious and energetic Patricia sat in front of us, her fantastic mind taking each grain of information and allowing it to snowball into larger heavily layered ideas and she often was quite dazzling in her willingness to put others first, even as she interrupted with the ferocity of a charging bear down a mountain slope. Such great heartedness on her part was at once both admirable and also a concern, for she could stomp on others feelings as quickly as she could be forgiven for her lack of social graces in knowing when it was rather bad form to call a fellow student a moron rather than wait until he really proved himself (or herself if it were a female)… irrefutably and with some kind of consistency that they were indeed a moron!

The Individual loved Asian culture, and was the first ‘non-Asian’, I had ever met that knew and owned Cd’s of Asian music, and in particular Rafi’s music and shared my love of this exquisite vocal talent! Those who have appreciated Rafi, will consider him to be a man whose heart rending voice achieves the same sensual passion and evokes the very same resonance of tonal perfection that Elvis created. Since music can be one of the most fundamental barrier breakers, it was therefore wonderful to see him talk in depth to the other Asians on the course. I think we were all astounded at this diverse and charismatic man with wide interests and a world view that exchanged information easily and with efficacy.

He was clearly sympathetic to what was hidden and yet had the management style to encourage openness and emotional self expression.

As you read this, I am unsure how you might feel at one of those corporate conferences where everyone is shuffling in their seats with a sense of anticipation, and curiosity about the other attendees.

He had laughed when he saw the accoutrements of my ‘briefcase’. I had tons of ‘post –its’ sticky sheets in 4 bright colours (the colours signifying my energy drivers, of whether the subject matter was intellectual, practical/resource tool, creative or cost/risky. These to me were valued tools which I used to write queries I like to run in my mind, and also to specifically target pages with marble-chiselling observations that I think may channel my brain muscles into some cognitive overdrive later when I was doing my nightly homework. He laughed when he saw me take out an old Rubic Cube block, which had belonged to my kid sister, rather tatty from many handlings, which he took from my desk and turned over in his hands and started to twist in beautifully etched, powerful palms, lovely shaped fingers with strong thumbs. I wrote random words on it, and sometimes asked others to do the same. The labels which I used were easy to remove and from habit sometimes I left some with letters or numbers on purely to make the mental query more challenging.

I told him I didn’t bother trying to solve it as I had done all that, but that I wrote on ‘these labels’, and then moved the key words around to help me creatively think from single word stimuli. He said the idea was crudely logical. Days later when he saw the brick covered with key words, and watched me twist and turn the bricks now pasted sides and then ponder the significance of what were imponderables, he took the brick from me and then he turned it over just once and handed it back.

‘Do you like wooden puzzles?’

‘Easy Peasy’, I said, maybe I sounded conceited, but I always found I was a whiz with any puzzles that consisted of spatial objects whatever their dimensions or configurations, they appealed to my need to be inspired by positive childhood recollections, as a ‘ball-breaker’ around the boys the whole clinical aspect of intellectual challenges remains quite constant in me . On the other hand many a time some man offered me his telephone number and vainly prompted me to try to memorise it thinking it was simple and was then disappointed that I couldn’t recall past the first three numbers, well each to their own. I am also stumped with directions and forever forget where I parked my car and how to find the way out of buildings. One will always see me muttering to myself and changing direction at least once as I make my way two miles until I realise that my car is parked across the other side of the building, town, city!

He had seen (purely a fluke) a three word sentence that meant something to both of us. My navigation around the rubic cube consisted of many unusual words that generated a mental puzzle such that they were cohesive but perhaps indefinite because some were foreign. It wasn’t a particularly special sentence; in fact it may have appeared to others as mundane. But the fact was that I hadn’t actually set this up myself to show itself on the cube… I had been directing my energy in just using the bricks with its scribblings as another way to keep my energy and intellectual timers on a fast forward, as the course after the third day was beginning to drift as people adjusted to it’s flatter learning curve of timings… I had already peaked the first couple of days and now I was distancing myself from what felt to me to be a suffocating environment of too much familiarity and too few new faces around me. At any rate I have always been able to hyper speed absorb data and chunks of information, and only struggle if there is too much noise or distractions around me from other’s who need more time to process information. As an individual myself I fiercely protect my independence and avoid co-dependence wherever it occurs towards me. So any environment that breeds a lack of mental stimulus and the possibility of constantly meeting new faces is boring for me.

The Individual was similar to me, and it was easy to engage his interest in the various curious anecdotes that we both brought to the course with us.

He borrowed (actually he stole) my pencil, my ruler, my sharpener and my silver and my gold pens… You know the types – that write in silver and gold! I used them to give myself stars during the tests we did! Okay so when I did less well, I used a red pen to draw a cross of pain and suffering.

In an area rich in multicultural ethnicity, here was lovely Malik. A man whose children (twins, a boy and girl) called him Manic, was doing a doctorate in the sciences as a home study course and this additional course was putting him under a lot of mental strain, so he appeared to be less effusive and as he sat next to me, he would usually laugh when he saw my frustration at the loss of some article from my desk, my newly acquired ‘tippex’, now on the desk to my left…. He would then lend me his… but keep a sharp eye on it and request it back almost as if it had an invisible elastic band to his miserly (sorry Malik) moth filled wallet. On the other hand he was a Finance Manager….

Retaining his persistent individuality The Individual would glance quickly at the clock on the wall above Maliks head, and then almost appear to be synchronising his own watch to it mentally, for he would rise almost to the minute it was time to go for coffee breaks or lunch. He never stayed a minute longer than he had to.

Whenever I could not put my hand immediately on my byro… I knew the culprit. The Individual smiled at me with the innocence of a Lion who has blood around his jaw line and in his mane appearing as aloof as possible and trying to disguise the missing leg from a hyena that he has clearly absconded with, which the hyena is hobbling about looking for it! So it was that I was not the only person who suffered at the hands of this light-fingered thief! The hyena in question was a rather pathetic creature called Mona. Her public suffering was hard to ignore. She had orange skin that burnt even in the white winter sun, for countless sessions of heat lamps and dieting had somehow left her leathery, and a permanent smile that appeared to the onlooker like a case of botox miss-injected was curiously scary. At twenty-eight, she was more stupid than interesting and more interesting than articulate.

Joe, loathed her constantly laughing at every joke any man made within her earshot, for he hinted that it implied to him, that she needed the attention, and at any rate he always appeared agitated when she tossed her head back and made her half laugh, half snort noises.

When I rang my Mother that first evening from the hotel we were booked into and gave her my usual intense personality profiles of those individuals that really accelerated my thinking processes to delve into their psyche through a pure fascination for the unusual, the attractive… and the intriguing, I included him first and foremost. As always my Mother’s immediate impressions were superbly grafted, with passion and precision two sharply delineated qualities but in her enhanced by her energy for interesting subjects.

‘He sounds like you… a complete person, and an individual, I think you will get on because you both have purpose and a sense of personal space which you can be comfortable in without needing props’.

She was right, although I was at first cautious about this illusive person. Despite the air of a snow Lion, I sensed something more dark and power hungry beneath the outer animal magnetism.

Others on the course would always be remembered by me although we would hardly even think to stay in touch let alone keep those soft vows we make to stay in touch.

Some shied away from Adrienne the spunky spirited straight laced Goth-like bat, who always wore black but secretively envied those who could adorn themselves with colour since like most damaged individuals hiding behind black and white palettes she observed with a stylised cynicism those who were creatively confident in the magic of colour and rainbow.

She had her 26th birthday on the course and was a team leader for returning products/goods. She spent the entire time in her room on the phone to her boyfriend who she reined in with a tight grip and she ensured he shared his itinerary for every living second with her, for her umbilical cord to him was tightly wound around his neck.

At the coffee machine as the Individual passed me the fruit teas, sometimes stopping to smile inwardly at some private thought as he might have read the labels, cinnamon and orange Pekoe, or apple flower and camomile-elderberry… It was strange. He wasn’t his usual scintillating self… instead a shadow of dark oppression seemed to hang over him.

Not least of all because he was so cautious and appeared to be in some dream streams of icy thoughts, his eyes had flecks of gold and were a warm brownish green, rather like the dark pebbles that were covered in soft moss around the alpine ferns, which our rooms overlooked at the conference rooms... He often brushed his hands through his long curly blonde hair and his angular features at once presented a double take that was reminiscent of the fifties heartthrob Lex Barker, (Tarzan for six movies).

He looked up at me briefly, as he emptied his duffle bag (of things that he had taken from my desk each day), smiling as he took another of my personal belongings, and saying softly… ‘I am keeping this’.

(I heard Patricia hiss ‘He is a thief!’ but she meant it to be funny, however she was chewing on rather sticky jaw-glueing toffee that afternoon and it spat out to where even Adrienne looked peeved, at any rate the words that ensued were “He is a FEEF”…).

Yet that particular day; he was more distant than normal; barely noticing me, which was strange since normally there was a trickle of dialogue that always riveted my attention by its lively promise of intrigue or at the very least some anecdote that he had recalled triggered from a passing remark. He almost tripped over loose carpet tiles that could easily pose a hazard to the less vigilant. As the prince of one-liners he often made me giggle when he casually dropped an almost aloof sentence into play, some sly observation, delivered with the ease of a fly fisherman casting a line… ‘Reel them in…’

The lovely Laura who graciously reminded each of us how forgiving, unhurried and graceful she was when others lost their sense of fidelity and self restraint to regrets that would be gambles with their home based relationships. She always came over to me and whispered her concerns and shared her private thoughts feeling a sense of protective calm she said around me. She, I and the Individual would sometimes have a coffee and breakfast as we appeared the last to arrive in the dining area in the mornings – each of us were late for different reasons. In my case, because I had been to the gym, and then logged onto the internet and closed my work emails. In Laura’s case because several years ago, she had lost two and half inches from her arm and had it sewn back on following an accident in a car crash that was due to the driver being stoned in Holland. Her arm appeared at odds with the rest of her. She had been in pain since and sometimes I went over to her room to help her put on a warm coat or do her sleeve buttons, her courage and outstanding resourcefulness were always inspirational.

Touching scenarios such as this were embedded in the very fabric of my existence during that time, as pleasantries that were forced and over polite were always strained, so any small kindness and unspoken gestures that were observed seemed to me to have a lasting quality about them.

The Individual was always particularly thoughtful and gentle with her. He would quickly push the door with his long reach, over her head so that she barely noticed that he had done so, or just get her a coffee, leaving it discreetly on her table without a word.

Over time I came to consider him as one of the most individual characters I know.

Sometimes, he would be seen talking gently with adorable Heath and Betty, they had started dating prior to the course and now seemed on their way to being engaged. They were sweet together but always appeared co-joined, arm in arm reminding me of those couples at school that could not let each other go.

Richmond, the strangely named American whose parents had conceived him in his name bearing London borough, was the offspring of lavish over indulgent parents, he kept trying to impress me with stolen flowers from the stunning hotels floral arrangements, and quite often got cursory glances when he was caught doing so. At 23 years of age he was the baby of the group. He was a newly appointed team leader who had recently taken over an offshore site where he was working under the shrewd but intuitive Finance Manager. His humour was boundless, always a wise cracker, despite his wealthy upbringing he had a humility that brought him closer to each of us in small immeasurable ways.

However, the Individual, like me left when he was bored, and stayed as long as his individuality allowed him to play the game of social politeness. He was the first to spot that once bored I would be plotting my escape since spending all day with the same people as expected to spend an evening with me was more than I could stand.

Clearly someone playing to his own drumbeat and without any sense of being in anyone else’s shadow or worrying about what he should be doing or not doing, instead contemplating only how he will achieve his single minded objectives. To this day, I like listening to his plots and plans, his subtle machinations that entice and promise to deliver some future realisation, I like Scorpio men, but he is different he has what is termed Leo rising… I can relate to this subtle astrological quality.

I like to see how his mind develops a theme and how he plays it into motion and reworks it or breaks it down into manageable steps that he can spin around inside his head until he has the idea pinned down to where he can share it with those that are going to be most useful to him. He has no qualms about using people or being useful to others. He is matter of fact about the subject and or query and almost meticulously finite at expressing his needs to those who can expedite his requests.

I suppose you have met similar types who choose to be cold blooded when it comes to their work focus or objectives. He is quite simply too mercenary for words but there is an excitement listening to his sharp insights and how far he is prepared to work or not work in order to achieve them. When I was asked what my future goals were by a well meaning Friend, I thought it an obscure query like some kind of question one throws into a cauldron and wishes for a response from the ether. I like planning and in fact pride myself on being an effective risk manager. I like forecasting and speculating and weighting the various consequences until I have a clear agenda and I can balance my lines of communication appropriately. However, we all are fallible, and I suppose situations may depend on or not depending on whether one wants to provoke a challenging contest.

During the course, his Grandmother had died. He received a call on our last day. This was the day after I had sensed he was in an abstracted mood. When he called his mother, she said that it had been a painless death. Just one of those things, she was handling it very well, for in her mothers final years they (his mother and his Grandmother) had found a peace that had eluded them for many years.

The Individual was quite simply extraordinary, three or four times yearly he would call me, from some foreign land, the last place was Beirut. His roles changed with projects. I knew him to be a kindly but as a ruthlessly results driven manager, who delivers precise, bespoke software configurations, with absolutely no interest in the actual fee he makes, because that isn’t what he is driven by, makes him quite intriguing. Yet he has no compulsions towards the semblance of unfavourable chances, and for him each step is itself purposeful and balanced only against the depth of the fall. What could occur to make him lose his grip, his foothold, or his focus?

When he would attend seminars or training sessions with me, I found his polished almost prismatic air quite a fixation. With telling effect he smiled a half smile of subtle understandings. His choice in ties was simply like him, purely individual. I only knew two other men (one is my Father) whose choice in ties were quite simply executed with the exact purpose as a military general attaching his medals to his chest… pride, purpose and some inner creative fire that reminded him of battles won or lost, and the true cost that this symbol of his sense of personal status truly held for him. No matter what the gains were he was unwilling to toe anyone else’s line.

This day was the most curious, for he didn’t seem to acknowledge me at all, and without any ego I nevertheless wondered what was distracting him. I liked to see him most days at the gym, at the hotel, since the pair of us were the only ones who trained every night whilst on our course and when he wasn’t training and honing his muscular angles, he was emailing me his latest tactical drivers, just looking for me to be his conscience and accepting that whatever he did as his friend I would demand his path towards some nobler route to his goals. Particularly as anything less would sit badly with me and would lower him in my eyes – something I worked at personally – to forgive, but still found myself shuddering at weakness and to me any incongruous or dishonourable act would be considered a sign of his lack of intelligence to be able to work through the challenge with mental power.

So what had he been up to that he couldn’t face me or look at me in the eye? Weak people always sulk, and behave embittered and incapable or getting past their emotional immaturity. When confronted by such obvious glaring perspicuity they glare at you and behave injured and can generate endless trivial levels of unseen minefields where you tiptoe around them thinking “…. Good grief, this is a colossal idiot … needs to grow up!

So I looked at him, and smiled inwardly, after all I supposed he would eventually talk to me once he had worked out how he was going to present his case to me such that I might accept it and his methodology.

So the day passed uneventfully, and then it came, as always there was a text first. ‘Can we chat?’
‘Yep, when?’
‘In 5’.
‘Make it 15’
‘Ok’

Anyone who knows me, knows I hate texting, and keep it to a bare minimum, doesn’t interest me beyond bulletins about my ETA’s (estimated time of arrival), or my best wishes on New Years Eve, Christmas Eve… etc.

Anyone who tries to engage my attention with texts on phones is going to get icy responses and mostly those meant to cut the dialogue dead rather than keeping it an ongoing stream of nonsense. My brother sometimes sends me rather wonderful affectionate prose that he has received from some admirer that is endearing and always well crafted, and to my surprise perhaps as it comes from him, I react entirely differently, otherwise woe betide anyone trying to waste my time with idiotic texts.

Righteous indignation, well that sums up what I felt listening to his phone call fifteen minutes later… He was complaining of the political and social issues that change the face of our history daily, and how powerless he felt, and at some level I also felt his frustration was going to be a driver that would put him firing lines in the future, for he is regrettably someone who cannot avoid such unavoidable limelight as dangerous liaisons with authoritative figures.

On the last day of the course, he suddenly presented me with a small package, rather beautifully wrapped. Of course I love presents, who doesn’t, I tend to give far more than I receive as do most people who love people do. I therefore am always particularly moved when anyone has made any kind of special effort for me. It was I-Ching! Just perfect!

I asked him on Christmas Eve, when he rang me to wish me his usual best cheer, he was driving back to his mother’s in Dorset, and I asked him if I could share anecdotes that may have been personal and rather close to the bone here, he replied… ‘Go ahead…(then added) Do your worst, ACE (a nickname gained from my ruthless tennis serve)!’

I supposed he smiled when he uttered the words almost under his breath.

Most Friends I know, panic or try to avoid being written about, and begin their replies with … ‘Don’t you dare!’ Then they laugh nervously, as if somehow I have a torch that will light up the tunnel of their depths and expose all their secrets or mysteries. It always amuses me to taunt them over it, some even blush! It is also rather charming as it indicates a shyness that is often inherent in the most complex subjects! I am always curious about those with smouldering personalities and the Individual was one of those types and remains still, full of embers that warm and at the same time like burning coals can sear you.

Patricia was more than excited when she knew I would mention her here, for three days I received emails asking me ‘When, when when?’ I thought she was one of the brightest women I have met in a long time, well at least since my ex Boss Judy. Her knowledge on the subject of ancient civilisations was simply dazzling, and I would share one of my obsessions – a love of Greek and Egyptian mythology and history, one evening she presented me with a CD which had dozens of black and white photographs from various excavation sites. She had always thought she would be an Egyptologist, but her allergy to dust and her terrible aversion to warm climates made her rather an amphibian preferring instead to go Scuba diving everyplace except the Red Sea!

I guess as you skim over these words you have also remembered someone who like Patricia had an exuberance and energy that engulfed you with the anxiousness of wondering how this energy sustained itself and appeared so expressive when you were yourself straining to find motivation for even the simplest of activities.

Patricia had the kind of brain that concluded so suddenly and so startlingly obtusely that you wondered what planet she was on. Then would come a quiet moment as she revitalised her self expression in a way that it would appear clearer as if she had realised that her originality and earlier ‘thought-aloud’, ideas and views were premature, for she brought intensity and shrewdness to any project she was involved in that was welcome. However, if you had the patience to actually listen with openness then you certainly would not underestimate her sensibility and she was a wonderful flutist whose music often comes to me in small pieces of exceptionally easy to remember fluid notes.

So it started this way…. And since he is more than the average person, much more… than there is more to come… I always know when it is him because he has our three little words from my Rubic Cube sentence. Nothing too significant to anyone but us, in fact rather mundane… But it has particular significance to Friends who can make special experiences count for something unique and illusively irreplaceable.

Unclouded futures that signified some measure of the egg timer that had turned over and released its precious sand into a cradle of lost imagination.

Three little words?

I thought you would ask.

SOS, ‘save our souls’…. But he had changed it to ‘save my soul’….

... Did you find the same kind of syncronicity in serendipity...?

...In a trillisecond of weakness...

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sun, 13 Nov 2005 11:45:00 +0000

In a trillisecond of weakness, He forgot to say…aloud what he might have instantly felt at a more protected part of himself, had he been so secure.

Walking beside each other with revolving thoughts like revolving doors opening and turning each idea around and around.

‘I read your words and just felt my breath was pulled away from my lips and my chest felt the urgency of what I understood to be a yearning to tell you … I warmed to each word…’

Two steps down the yard where two steps down were taken one foot at a time, and each time, somehow he managed to avoid any deeper meanings being revealed.

If he had said this it could have changed everything between them.

Her beautiful wolf-like spirit that would remain untamed by him, he in turn becoming involuntarily exiled.

Her perfume subtle, familiar and a mixture of different toiletries reminded him of spring flowers dampened by early summer rain.

She had no need to hide behind decorative camouflages, yet her natural defences were leading her to disguises.

He on the other hand, was living less by eye-opening ideals and more by those of the paralysing shallow surface views, which he had limply clung to, that maintained him in spiritual vagrancy.

Irrepressibly self-satisfied.

He was adroit at faking listening; ‘I am listening…’ he would say whilst ensuring he was engaged in some pointless mental exercise.

To avoid admitting that in actual fact he lacked any comprehension of the barest dialogue that did not relate in some way to his sense of self-importance he played ‘dumb’.

Who were those social connections that he was quick to hunger for, those that offered him the keys to doors; that crossed into airy light rooms full of superficial ambience and contrived artistry.

Where were they now?

Turning the corner at the post office, where ivy smothered sycamores lined the pedestrian walkway; she was turning a blind corner, one he would miss.

Avant-garde interests had more than once drawn her away, but a conceited part of his pride always thought she would return to him, merely because he thought he deserved such adulatory loyalty.

Her lipstick was already worn away, and every time she bit her lip, he felt unease.

His investment in ‘them; had been little more than verbal impasse, and no further than his own personal safety in comfortable routine.

If he had been more honest, then the response he would have received may have been more than the bittersweet silence distancing them now.

Who could he turn to now?

Quietness starved as it was; moving her far apart to a place he would eventually come to recognise as a goodbye.

Spiralling tailspin of emotions overwhelmed him, engulfed as he was by clouds of apprehension at the impending earth shattering crash that would come with falling hard.

Her hair seemed to catch the light as she turned for a second and looked at him with dismay.

Pausing at the traffic lights, and waiting to cross, the colours wet by rain sparkled and shimmered, there would be little else bright to recall from this moment.

Then there were no more common touches of comprehension for from that moment the burgeoning fences were up around her.

When would he say ‘Yes’ ?

He was quite remarkable for thinking that expressing his desires and appreciation of her loveliness was itself sufficient to bind her to him unequivocally.

He was tirelessly preventing any chance of being embarrassed by the truth, which was that he was simply stupid, arrogant, and hopelessly lost.

In this visual mushrooming of defences, she contended herself to face up to the challenge of knowing from hereon there would be no further pretences of civility between them.

Was she saying ‘No?’

Walking ahead and allowing the distance between them to increase, almost in an attempt to lose him through the alleys and cobbled road.

The down slopes of dialogue that she invited only forced him into a downslide of emotional terror, one which made him feel as if he were trying to paddle through quicksand and mud.

She had no intention of explaining to him where he was, and how.

‘Wait up!’ Catching his breath he felt a sluggishness that pushed his chest into his back as he tried to catch his breath and still keep up with her speedy retreat.

Autumnal rain was colder sometimes than winter sleet.

No more waiting.

He shuddered knowing he was avoiding screaming something wakefully scary into the dark night that might have drawn attention to him that wasn’t that of ego stroking.

Perhaps he had realised this at some subconscious remodelling level of himself, who really knew?

He tried to recall when she last smiled, really locking eyes with him.

Being incapable of meeting the situation head on he would be screeching to a soft landing halt, as he back peddled to get away.

Prolonging the moment that would part them forever.

He was rigidly insensitive but managed to blind himself to such truths, even as he was blinded for a moment by a car’s headlights shining mockingly through wet rain.

Yearning no more.

Right now, in that moment when he had lost his opportunity to rise beyond the pretences of acting in character, he was the victim of closure.

Even now like a fleshy soft bellied maggot caught on the hook of her words, he wriggled uncomfortably but to weak to find the power in words that could have rescued him for power was an alien quality within him.

Folding her arms around her as she fought off the bitter wind, and his inarticulate groan of self-pity.

He stepped sideways to allow a luscious Ethiopian woman elegantly crafted by God, to hurriedly walk past him, pulling her small child’s hand close into her waist as she did so.

The role that he clung to would eventually choke him.

He recalled for a moment the high-spirited mischief that he had engaged in to surprise and impress his dates.

It had developed from those shallow acquaintances and friendships he had nurtured that had eventually he also succumbed to….

In truth beyond being an ornamental crutch to this weak man, there was little more he could offer her than the obvious flattery common to those as ingratiating as he.

Would any such tactics work now?

He had no idea that the future would bring with it awkward silences, and no repeat opportunities to reclaim this precious jewel of a moment.

Wondrous beings that held hands and dissolved into laughter as they shared their private intimacies would be an existence beyond his reach very soon.

Deterioration that would eventually dissolve him into a space that no-one else would wish to occupy with him for his values would dissipate along with his self importance.

“When can I call you?”

A moment that he may have clutched to harder had it occurred to him that he was throwing away another significant opportunity to grow.

In some past ordeal he had thought he had come through such intense emotion with courage.

Not realising it was hardly more than a cat’s whisker lost on the breeze.

Had she answered, she would have flown into his face with claws of repressed frustration for nothing was more repulsive than a weak character to her.

The lure was fatal.

Looking as she always was for rapid-fire brilliance, and finding it to be a rare thing, so instead settling as she always did for silent audiences.

Was it always so easy to step aside and avoid stepping into the same autumn rain puddle that she may have jumped feet first into?

He glanced over to her for a tepid moment; many such instances would become part of his hasty retreat from reality.

Tripping over a lie.

Irrevocably uncommitted as he was, she herself took a small step away from such a funereal walk of lifetime mediocrity.

Away from him she was already freeing herself from remembering his foolishness and believing in herself beyond the lack of such belief in her by him.

“Couldn’t you have ever been more than this?”

It occurred to him that she was never going to comfort, him and he in turn, reward her with his views, since she was no longer attentive to his needs.

Slipping away.

To admit he had been a fake would have undermined his own sense of personal stature in a paddock of mulish fatigue.

“I am listening”, he said (yet ensuring he positioned himself with his coffee cup so that he could see others that may have been more interested in him or interested him.

As if to complement meant to lose something within himself and to be therefore diminished in some way.

She recognised in him what he had always known but managed to avoid facing, that he was incapable of offering limitless possibilities of romance and love.

Rooted in suburbia.

Seated for the last time together in an uncommonly quiet teashop where the draught chilled his neck, and he envied for a moment her warm apparel of scarves, hat and gloves.

Even when the sugar bowl that had salt mixed into it by some juvenile prankster, spilt over his half broken donut.

It could always be explained away by those restrained remarks that he had learnt from others who also lacked charm and perspicuity to recognise what was real and what was not.

Clinging to disbelief.

He carefully counted out his change, trying to appear generous, but acutely aware that he wanted to hold on to every single coin as if his life depended upon it.

Releasing from his clamminess.

Something she was astutely aware of, that made her bite her lip and pull the air and space around her even more territorially.

One such memory briefly woke his senses but was ungratefully rejected by his desire to be in control.

Such helplessness may have been endearing to her once, but now it was no longer stimulus for attentiveness on her part, let alone analysis.

Offering so little, taking so much.

He was no storybook fantasy, in fact he lacked any real cognitive awareness of how far removed he was from any kind of ideal.

Yet he had idealised her beyond her need to fulfil any such prevarication.

She almost appeared to skip away from him whilst he rationalised his thinking to quickly disappear inside himself again.

Thinking it would be easier to come back once the dust had settled from her he was already tricked by his pride and ego into a self absorbed vanity.

Such limited reasoning that precluded the thought that actually he was already a signpost she had chosen in a trillisecond to ignore on a journey elsewhere.

Inexplicably she was gone.

‘In a trillisecond…’ Written by xsapph, 18th October 2001

... Where were you, when you realised you had been exiled from a loved one?...

Happy Halloween

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 21:39:00 +0000

WF would protect his own, those he loved and was devoted to either through a sense of deep felt idolatry admiration or those who he considered sacrificial lambs on the alter of the vagaries of Life, those innocents that only the egoists would call martyrs sarcastically.

In his lifetime he had one key resolution, which was to build a deep lasting and meaningful dialogue at all times with all individuals no matter what the situation or location. His total sense of courage about expressing himself openly and fully, where time or situation allowed made him exceptional.

So when his marriage began to crumble, bringing him to his knees, we knew that this was one person who would never slip into denial, and that he would truly explore if not become absorbed by the depths of pain that he would experience. Nothing within him could pretend that his marriage or his relationships were sound when they were not, instead he would answer honestly, frankly and respectfully without losing his compassion for those who he was bound to.

This meant that you were exposed to pure truthful reality, that you were in the company of a man completely without pretences, or illusions, magnifiicent in his vulnerability.

When he would call me for a long conversation it was always with encouragement of whatever I was planning to do, and without the disingenuous motives that so many have. Therefore, it was the least I could do to be readily available for those painful dialogues that everyone who has broken up with their loved one will have delved into to rationalise what was happening to them.

When he spoke of his failing marriage it was with such truthful tenderness and without cunning escapist tactics being deployed that I felt entirely predisposed to listen to him and advise where I could without thinking for a moment that he required validation of untruths.

Month after month, his relationship deteriorated, and he weakened in his resolve to try and keep his wife close to him through purposeful dialogue, week after week, he felt their tentative bonds weakening to the point where he despaired of even hearing his own voice describe another episode that was evidence of the irreparable split that was a fissure which could not be lessened.

Eventually, I received the fatal all encompassing call that told the finality of where his wife’s toxic behaviour had invariable drawn him to make to me.

He said quite simply, ‘I can never be myself again, from this moment I shall be different, I won’t know myself, I won’t feel as I did with her (KC) with anyone else’.

I said softly back to him, ‘My Friend, I understand, and you are right, you are absolutely correct and nothing anyone says to you will make the pain go away, but perhaps this is one moment when you can cherish that you are human and can feel such intensity and how exquisite it is to be human ... and feel such excruciating pain in your heart that you know you are real, when so many are out there faking their relationships rather than risking discovery as you have’.

He whispered, ‘Oh, I have to go now she is packing her last things, and that is it, this is how it will be now’.

Four months later he rang me, and he sounded as if there were explosives plastered to his chest, furtive, and dramatically he hissed to me on the phone, ‘I have a book that you left here when you were visiting ‘HER’ (his wife was also my friend), do you intend to collect it or is this going to sit here forever?’

His voice appeared huskier than normal and I was startled at his entire tone, it was accusingly harsh over some thing quite innocent.

I replied that I would collect it that very afternoon and in fact was pleased secretively to have located it for it had concerned me when I couldn’t put my hands on it immediately I remembered I hadn’t quite finished it, and it niggled me knowing there were some chapters unresolved for me, with an unfinished ending.

I went over to see him and was almost horrified at the change in him.

‘What happened to you,’ I had asked as he slovenly, unshaven and unrepentant about appearing so wolf-life and brutal, (he was banging and kicking and stomping it seemed at every tiny grievance and petulantly like a teenager suffering from hormonal angst) delivering each line with a hiss.

‘She happened and now she is gone!’ replied as if this statement was itself a complete debilitating discovery, one that as he grafted the words made everything flow from them tragically. He handed me my book as if he were intensely taut and his whole body seemed pulled by invisible strings that appeared to be straining as he moved against their pull.

‘I understand, but that doesn’t explain your appearance?’

He offered no explanation, instead he snapped that I had my book so was there anything else I had forgotten there. I fathomed quickly that his rage was levelled at her, and then himself and wherever possible it was forming itself into shards of explosive viciousness at anyone who appeared to him to step in his path towards seclusion.

This certainly wasn’t the person I had grown to admire and know for so many years, this wasn’t the father of a lovely, relaxed and decisive boy who at the mature age of 13 could be more charming, more polished when he turned out to be picked up by his mother after a weekend with his father than most adults I knew.

Then one day, I received a call from KC, by now his ex-wife. She asked if I had a moment or two to talk as she knew I was sympathetic to both of them, she asked if I would go around and see if he was alright as he had quite simply withdrawn himself from contacting anyone whom she knew, and now refused to even see their son.

I felt I was an outsider, and since they were much older than I, although I felt flattered and trusted their need for an outsider to overlook the situation, at the same time I felt disappointed in her for her tawdry affairs and the various times in her life that some extra-marital alliance had distorted her self view, I felt she had slowly enveloped her marriage in a staleness and silent depression one which neither of them would escape easily.

I was privately disturbed by how vicious her statements were, whether it were concerning his weight or his receding hair, she appeared to delight at describing his yellowing teeth and halitosis. I considered such disparaging remarks as not only shallow weakness on her part which made me shudder in the face of such transparent lack of depth, but also as I always do in the company of a coward find myself repulsed by her.

Now, as I dressed and told my other half, who diligently was changing a plug from a lampshade well past it's decorative stage, that I was going to be back soon but not to wait up, I was catching glimpses of a worried expression on my own face in mirrors around the house, showing I was ill at ease. ‘Shall I come with you?’ He had asked, ‘No, I will be okay, WF, responds more intuitively towards me; just feed the cats will you, in case I am late back?’

'But it is only 6.30...', I thought to myself, 'So it is...' However Autumn evenings blend into Winter darkness effortlessly.

I left the house and pulled up my collar as I opened the car door and sighed noticing that the rain had dripped through the door where the window had not been closed all the way up and my seat felt damp. I climbed in and immersed myself in ruminating how the relationship had turned for our friends, and how I was possibly the last person that should have been involved, I despised his wife, yet I knew she considered my ethics scrupilously fair if not clinical.

I drove the two miles to their home where He still lived and noticed how dark it appeared.

I parked and went up the drive shuddering at the sound of the gate that creaked and banged shut alarmingly.

The trees and bushes that lined their drive were silvery-wet absorbing some of the moonlight and surrounding house lights. Some of the pine trees seemed overgrown and entangled, longer and heavier than I had ever known them to be, and the windows looked ominously dark, and reflecting the street lights with a distorted imagery that reminded one of fairground lights shimmering in water.

I knocked on the door, thinking ‘WF is probably in the conservatory (heated),’ where he was known to spend a lot of time alone most evenings, a part of the house that you could not see from the front of course.

I waited having knocked several times, frustrated that the bell didn’t work, which was just as well as it was an annoying tune that I have long past resigned to that part of memory that refuses to be annoyed further by recalling those aspects of my life which are too bland to be replayed.

Eventually, as I turned to walk back up the leafy drive, I heard the door lock click and looked back.

In the second that I did, I froze.

WF looked frightening, his mouth appeared like a gash, and bloodied as if he had just tasted raw blood and I realised that his bloody gums had come about because of the meat he held in his hand which looked like a piece of raw steak, one that he held in his fist. His hair was long and matted and his eyes appeared dark rimmed and tired, as if many sleepless nights were habitual for him. He reminded me of a werewolf from some macabre tale, and I just stood there without speaking.

Hearing his sharp questioning voice startled me back to reality, and I casually inferred that I was passing and just wanted to see how he was.

‘Seen what you needed to see?’ he asked and then he slammed the door in my face and I heard the lock click.

No more words and no more of the person that I had enjoyed many a time listening to across a heart meal, when highly level headed dialogue had flowed from him and he had decanted a wine with finesse and brushed away the crumbs from a pastry tartlet that his wife had made with those chubby but dextrous hands that she had.

My partner and I would sit back and watch them laugh together and wonder if they could be real for everything appeared too casually relaxed and comfortable, she was merely going through the facade, whilst he was deeply transfixed to her with the despair of the one who would never comprehend her betrayels once these no longer were so well hid.

Now as I stood there with the pain that comes from knowing someone has changed and to despair as one takes full stock of what this change means and what has been lost to you. I realised that we all change dramatically, however, most people are hidden under secretative layers of fake pretences, and wondered how my own transformations affected others when I myself discovered I was redefining my own identity. However, one thing for certain, somehow I retained my persistent clinging to being authentic and as they say, 'To thineself be True'... My ideal of definitive self ruling.

Not for me the pitiful expression, in years to come, which hears itself say... 'Why did I stay with you, when we were clearly toxic together ?'

'I cannot discuss my relationship with you in case you see how shallow it's levels are, and how far I have betrayed my value system that you think I still own and resolutely give my pledge to... For how can you know how weak I really am, if I never reveal it in words to you', say the eyes of so many I have come to know.

I went to my car and shuddered with a sense of past longing of the lighter times - all an illusion, I know; when their home was filled with laughter and the colours of the various lampshades and light bulbs were purchased by KC purely for the ambience that they created in the rooms that we frequented.

I was at once filled with dread and suddenly quickened my pace as I felt for the keys in my pocket and although it was Halloween evening, it was not this that made me think that I was at the wrong place - perhaps at the wrong time... I had not noticed how dark Autumn really was, and I shivered quickly locking my door and knowing that WF stood resolutely becoming a stranger to me, his burning eyes and sizzling emotions; at the darkened window chewing raw meat watching me start up and drive away quickly.

Edited from 'The Wolf', 31st October 1997, Xsapph

Who are you neglecting today? Someone you profess to be loyal and devoted to or... yourself?

... Offkey...

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sat, 15 Oct 2005 00:24:00 +0000

B; had an old piano, glossy-brown and dust-ridden, with fallen farthings and ha'pennies in it's insides, that was (in the opinion of those deaf to Wisdom) desperately in need of tuning, but B refused to take such a radical step to affect it’s delicately balanced unique imperfections. For when he played any piece no matter how well known these off key restrictions to what was expected would in fact create such an extraordinary composition that it haunted you from your head, trying to make some sense of communicable expression to your heart which would respond so acutely to the piece.

Such is the sound of intuition, it cannot be contained by the mathematical accuracy of precision, and instead wrestles with reason to prove that imperfections can be perfect in the eyes of the Gods.

I often smiled when first time listeners made a point to remark that the keys seemed strangely curious when they sounded so delicately off pitch.

It added almost the sound one would hear as the echo to the original piece, so it was decided (well at least by me) that this is in fact what he was… He was the echo to an angel’s playing some place far away… and he would smile, you know the smile… soft and then quizzical.

I liked the warmth of his company, it reminded me of a bygone time that wasn’t part of my history but reflected everything I had seen or read of real English gentry.

My favourite moment was when, he softly took my hand and kissed the back of it gallantly. He always held my hand when I arrived for hot buttered scones in the days that wheat was not my enemy… and said… ‘… Aaaah you are here, so the highlight of my day is complete…’. Then he would tremble, and shake a little for he was heavily arthritic, and, already well into his nineties.

Such are those moments that we cherish but cannot fully comprehend until we are ourselves so preciously guarded by the angels as to make us appear fragile in our humanity, yet strong in our souls endeavours towards sincere companionship.

His textures made everything around him appear bland. He wanted to carry out gentle hospitality, much the way that a Geisha might ritually prepare tea, with craftsmanship that belied her millions of years of training and immaculate conceptions of gracefulness. In some ways he was so like this, loving the art of a simple but celebrated ritual, itself, so deliberately timed... and slowly, methodically, with the same reassurance and delivering every facet of the process with the same diamond precise clarity.

Look here are the warmed teacups, and saucers… The teapot is in perfect alignment to the tray and so is everything else, handles all pointed purposely to be as conveniently practical for the receiver. The teaspoons shining beautifully as he polished each slowly, slowly making the gleam appear effortless, and then I would watch him mirrored in the teaspoon dip as he slowly walked away, trying not to let me see him using his furniture to move around since he was proud, and he wanted to show me his vigour and remaining strength which appeared to have been conserved only for these precious moments to him.

Such are the much talked of times that we recall only to those we trust, and we know will accept our words without the pressure of shallow material focuses.

Sometimes he would press a small two-dimensional flower into my hand that he had kept in a favourite book of poetry, and he would say softly, ‘I have a gift for you,’ and this would be not the flower but the piece that he would recite, softly and lovingly read, pretending for a moment in his heart that he was no longer so ancient, but again young, and that he was still able to ‘woo, or charm’ a young woman who appeared to be adoring his very being.

How remarkable his voice was, with a low soft whisper timbre, a slightly provocative lisp that made it appear silky and forgivingly aloof. His favourite colour was canary yellow and he loved one creature above all else, and that was a banana yellow snake, that always surprised me for it appeared so perfect and rubbery in the picture that he showed me he had saved for so many years never quite finding the moment to frame it, he said, perhaps because frames imprisoned the subject. Thus he had no picture frames in his home. Each photo was either kept in a book that was it’s home or stood slightly damaged, often stained and always creased, as it was covered with fingerprints, from years of being handled by him, as he wanted to look at it over and over again, the older he became.

Yellow Snake - picture taken by George Grall

Such are those inaccuracies that make each memory more discerningly felt, that sometimes they become deeper felt than the real moment that we experienced.

I could relate to his oblique imperfections, where whilst he was so delicately preoccupied with detail, he was also so subtle as to be as faint as a whisper heard through long stemmed grass in Spring.

I would sit silently on his small wooden footstool that no one had ever used as a footstool, with its needlepoint that frayed around the straw that it had been firmly stuffed with forty-five years previously, and here it remained.

I would rest my face in my hands, as my elbows rested on my knees, and then I would adjust my position just enough for him to pass me a small green tartan blanket folded to put over my knees, saying, always and the same thing… ‘Here you go, it is cold in here… this will keep you from shivering…’ Although I wasn’t cold, I would always oblige him and watch him take each tenderly painful step to his small kitchen, for he was self reliant, brave and this ‘grandpa Annexe’ was part of his daughter (my friend’s) home. She was a late child born when he was quite nearly fifty… and I would sometimes baby-sit for her, and once the children were in bed I would join him for a little supper. Like me he was a feline who kept unsocial hours, happily whiling away hours into the morning where he could yawn from last night’s chatter.

Cautiously, he might sometimes choose to kiss my hand hello or goodbye, it depended on how much pain his back was in, but always with the graciousness of a true soldier he stood as tall as his weathered bones would allow, and offer me his world of happy lucidity and wonderment. He sometimes reminded me of the beautiful yellow snake, for as time went on his skin tone changed to being more and more pale lemon… and his small eyes always appeared to me to be glazed whereas he was shimmering, nervously, waiting to share a little of his memories, of long ruminations, many hours of playing his piano, and all the years alone without his beloved wife. There were the rumours of privacy and secrets that he kept from the world wrapped in brown paper and waxed string, which I would understand a little of every so often, when he chose to share these.

Eyelash Viper Snake, Costa Rica, taken by Lynn Stone...

Such are those unforgiving life experiences that tear a little skin from under our eyes making it impossible to avoid the tears that humanity imposes on us.

Imagine if you will a small cocoon of amazing history, where from within it’s wrappings you felt he was once more the young man who leapt downstairs three steps at a time to be with his wife K. She had brown eyes as dark as mine and a similar smile, or so he told me, and within his mental imaginings she was more like me each time we met, and it made me smile to know he felt he loved me, for Love could bloom for you at anytime and he was living proof of this bewildering power that emotion can have over us.

When he presented me with the simplest of gifts it warmed my soul, and I would unwrap each article which I knew his arthritic fingers had conscientiously tied with brown paper and waxed string, and breathe deeply to remind myself not to overwhelm him with my effusive energy and excitement at being around someone who quite frankly was incredibly exciting as a person for each experience he recounted had a unique quality of seizing my attention and ensnaring it a vice grip of fascination.

He would give me the most extraordinary gifts, perhaps a small hand made flower that had come from his wife’s ball gown, and that was all that was left of her dress, she had thrown it into an old sewing box, now he found it and wanted me to have it… pale yellow and organza. Another time, a small paste and diamante flower… it came from the late twenties and the metal that held it together (possibly zinc) was slightly blackened from ageing. Another time, with trembling fingers he gave me a book of our favourite writer…A secret that was ours alone… Someone, I would never share with anyone else, and whose lines were so excruciatingly masterful, that it would make me want to cry at reading the wit and cleverness with which each line had been executed… I would want to scream, ‘Read this… it is a line of perfection!’ So tenderly did both he embrace those words in his twilight and I in my early yearnings for beautiful conjecture.

Such are those delightful Romanesque poses that frame themselves in our mental amphitheatre so that they become more imposing and glorious when we think back to those exhilarating times.

He would smile, for he fully understood how important it was to me to ultimately always be in this moment where I could read and read again many times over the same touchingly remarkable line, read it and hold it inside my head, and then turn over the thought as if it belonged exclusively to the reader gifted with the ability of reading it.

He felt the same, so this is what Life was really about. Passion for knowledge, and the brilliance of this banana yellow snake-like man with his imperfect piano renderings, lispy voice that added a stunning vocal dynamic to each poem that he read, so much so that one wished it to be imprinted forever inside that place we each have called emotional dialogue.

I would often walk around the old country house that his family had owned and now it had passed down to my friend, and would solemnly stand by the window feeling the coldness outside shiver my very bones as I watched the willow trees and magnolia that had been planted a little distance from the room we were in, and then the small cherry tree that felt strangled by a beautiful fiery red canopy of Canadian ivy.

This room was once a pantry, which was extended and refurbished to accommodate this wonderful creature of variety, with his many books that were placed in small bundles and every so often a magnifying glass was discovered (he had several, some that were quite old, their handles loosening, fancy and ornate), which he would use to read some of the worn stained pages of novels that were well read and loved.

‘You know I miss not seeing you, when I am doing a double-shift’, I replied, (I worked at Heathrow Airport that particular summer, long ago… in between colleges…. one of many students saving feverishly.

‘I get a strange pain between my ribs, as if I cannot breathe, and I think, you might be dead, and that will be it!, the end of poetry and pianos...’.

He would smile, for only the young at heart can make such alarmingly dramatic statements and be forgiven for their lack of superficial tact, which we all learn to develop to avoid disagreements and agreeable types turning on us with terror.

‘If I leave, you will hear this old piano in the wind…’ He replied.

…. But before (I heard the strains of offkey notes playing in the wind) that, I saw the whole sky flicker for a moment as if small banana-yellow planets starlight had gone out…

‘Offkey….’ by xsapph

20th June 1998

... Did you hear a song today that drew you to backtrack past corridors, that weaved until you were reminded of a door opening to a defining moment with someone special to you?

Runaway Moments

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 22:42:00 +0000

Runaway Moments.... such as these took T, by storm ... and when he felt the buzz of joy that a fresh encounter with dazzling life-forces such as hers inspired, he knew what it felt like to be alive.

T ... sat alone in his car, he had just met the single most significant woman in his life, but he didn't know this yet...

As he watched the Autumn leaves sparkle and turn through the air crisp and brittle landing on his car bonnet, and brushed ruthlessly away by the wipers, he drove for some time before realising that he had forgotten to put the radio on ... He felt an immediacy in their connection as if something out side of himself had beckoned and then when he responded in soul, it had gripped him in its clutches so that he was nervous and anticipatory...

Sometimes he had felt frightened about experiencing anything this unfamiliar. He realised he had felt choreographed to her will, and almost as if he were a silent partner, someone who provided the anchorage whilst she drifted through the crowds entrancing those who willed her to stay.

Was this a real emotion or one captured like leaves turning and falling from his bonnet … as fragile and momentary, gone in the moment that they were threatened by the forces?

Traffic that was becoming heavy, and windows that had already misted up to avoid the gaze of each stranger in the passing cars were surrounding him as he sat at the traffic lights waiting for the lights to change.

Was he as shallow as other friends he watched in their stunted emotional growth; who altered the lies and truths in their memories so that significant interactions became pitiless despair were these to encroach on their safety, or seclusion?

Was he to prove himself as superficial as to play it safe until such time that he the supposedly grown up man, was tested as an adult, and then proved where his inner strength lay, or would he like so many others, be so small a person that he convinced himself that being 'safe', was best.... Even if it were at the cost of integrity or self-worth?

In many years would he think to himself on reflection that he had supported only those dull relationships that helped him to root himself into mediocrity so securely that he was never to be uprooted until he made both himself and his partner miserable with his lack of active romancing?

He certainly hoped he was above that, he committed to Time's crippling seizure of reality checks that made one realise where the journey took a turn and a stranger became less so, perhaps even joined the traveller in more ways than one. He aspired to be a passenger in the same kind of journey the victorious took — those whose courage superimposed itself over fear and anxious need for approval from peers. ... particularly those who no longer supported the ideal which was to be truly embracing change.

He remembered a moment when her long dark hair was caught within the wiring of her umbrella spokes, and she had wrestled for a moment as she skipped over the wet leaves and smiled at a passer-by, almost looking through him, as she sauntered over to her car, which was covered in broken leaves like grated netmeg, confetti.

He only caught fleeting glances of her at work, as if a spell had been cast, but already felt as if she were a part of him in some incidental way, touching the joyful and excited aspects of his nature where he thought immediately when they would talk again, this is what it would always be like. She imbued him with a fire-stone of emotion that warmed his heart and at the same time shimmered inside him like a slow burning flame, so that he felt he had seen her all day in his mind even if it were for glimpses of secondary glances, where he saw her reflection through window panes, or watched her briskly trot past the closed doors barely seeing her form – just being vaguely aware of her presence and energy, perhaps hearing her laughter down a corridor.

Now he was travelling alone and flickers of her image, and then her words would sit still inside his mind and then he would feel that strange emotion that he was yet to name, if ever.

The trees creating corridors of pine tree columns, ash trees, walnut trees, and oaks... Where ominous turns each leaving him with the sensation he was going around and around and in some kind of continual journey that was never-ending.

He remembered that he had watched her discreetly, and felt that anxiety wash over him again as he observed her genuine laugh and softly touch the arm of one of his colleagues, he felt a pang of jealousy and somehow felt protective or was it possessiveness he could not isolate the emotion for it felt unreasonable to him to feel this over someone who he had no real connections to or links … This ever-reaching sense inside him was familiar for he enjoyed the challenge of a romantic adventure, even if it were only choreography inside his mind.

He missed his connection to the turning that would have taken him along the highway closer to his town.

What was the name of the last road he passed, he knew he had to turn left soon, he felt with each turning he left a vulnerable part of himself behind, someone she had revealed within him even though their dialogues were hardly confessional.

Such profound revelations came from the heart.

A small part of his heart felt squeezed, and he felt his thoughts spiral into a confused state of resistance. Was he responding to his guts, fearful of change, or was he just being cautious because there was little control when he lacked the usual control he was used to exercising his life routines?

Did he foolishly balance his life in the tight-fisted way a miserly accountant would, so much so that life and its chances passed him by?

She was enchanting when she touched his arm, and then lifted herself up on toes to be a little closer to his face when she whispered some devilish anecdote of her personal take on Life, giggling to herself as she had realised she had added a spin to the situation that made her laugh as she saw where it was driving to.

He was usually confident and self composed but he felt immediately self conscious and when he did manage to have a brief few seconds of dialogue it was fast and furious her end, as if there was so little time and too much to share, and it had to be now... That urgency reminded him of war time, that whole sense of identities being crushed because one had no idea when it would all end.

He remembered that when she first spoke to him it had astonished him, and he wasn't sure if it were a real sense of mutual understanding or if she were a part of an illusion that he was used to seeing form in his mind, where he wasn't sure of his emotions and therefore submerged them in reasoning.

Would such wounds heal, was he actually wounded, in fact had she even been aware of how intense he had felt in her company or was she toying with him?

His journey appeared circulatory interludes....

When would this long windy road end, there appeared no regular markings and he thought he may be lost.

The trees broke their patterns of predictable foliage silver birch and sycamore, yew trees and holly... and colouring as newer different types of greenery and broken patches of land took over his periphery and he kept thinking one place was the same as the next... The moon was already in the sky in a magical mist that made everything appear dark and almost transparent.

Could there be such a thing as a real enchantress?

When she sparkled and laughed through her dialogue and with flickering eyelashes that seemed to swat invisible flies in front of her nose, he laughed to himself that she was overwhelming but he felt immediately that this was all about him and had no reason for a moment to think she wasn't interested in him...

She wasn't like anyone else he knew, there was a specific quality that he could not label and he knew that he would not find a way back to her on his own, were he to go with his usual thinking patterns... this time it would have to be intuitive.

At some sense he sensed a vulnerability below the humour that was self effacing and at times cruelly enticing. When she flirted with him, he felt unsure whether she really was flirting with him personally or whether this was just social flirting, a way for her to appear friendly but no real intense connection on her part.

For a second he would step back almost to take a deep breath and wait for her to recapture his attention which was lulling into a soft slumber of relaxation knowing there was little required from him other than a little kind politeness for she was simply reeling him in. Other times he would try to test the energy there and take the lead and almost characteristically like a fisherman with a slow motion flick of the wrist throw out his fly and see if she bit...

This wasn't the way he usually drove, but he knew without exception he was lost and had been for some time, and now the darker trees appeared dense as the night began to swallow everything up in shadows.

Mainly he laughed long and hard, because she made him laugh. He put the radio on and would never have been able to tell you what he was listening to, unless he stopped to think about it, for what bombarded his senses was his realisation that his life would never be the same again....

Like a distant shadow she was already fading into his minds recesses, slowly she was lost in some pleasant but unreliable place in his thoughts, a place from which she could only rise, as the moon might out of a mist, with a strange mystery that he would never quite fathom.
His journey was ending he had discovered a shortcut route and now felt on track again back to his comfortable existence of reliable woodland, and scenery that resisted the urge to step outside his boundaries to what was unknown and therefore without signs.

He realised he had been listening to a popular track from his far off past, [Stevie Wonder, I Just Called To Say I Love You], one that he could immediately relate to and find comfort in....

He also found that he was home. ... a place he would never find her....

... written by xsapph...

.... Why are you going, from where, to whom?

Turning the pages....

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 04:59:00 +0000

Slowly turning the pages, as the cold bleak Winter sun settled inside his unfolding open book....

... EP, was charmed by the beauty of the character that unfolded, with each page, within his mind. He felt the comfort of being with a friend as he read each word, his heart filled with joy-words by his favourite author.... Each time, the simplest phrase turned lovingly by his soul as he paused over a deliciously savoured sentence, some new intensity, the old slightly bedraggled book revealed its secrets within it's faded and in some places dusty tea stained leaves.

Even as he gently lifted out the scented silk ribbon of lapis lazuli he had found that belonged to some past lover, to be his bookmark, he paused his mind iterating the previous read sentence over again and again. He paused only to watch a soft silvery feather stick to the damp frosted window glass.

... He had set the scene. First Paganini, and then Vivaldi. ... The manic violin fired his senses, especially when the Winter piece cried its spectacular tears over his kneeling soul, at the alter of some small buried corpse of who he once soared to be in his youth... He felt at once violent and then that feeling he knew to be exquisite in the pain such stunning imagery described; along with a musical accompaniment that spliced through his brain and left shards of spectacular cooling ice formations through his mind through his heart to his soul. He felt the fragile power of visual imagination, the dervish tempest that shattered a tea ship across the oceans bed, until only the dawns silence and gentle mist clouded the memory of what was.

As if to trigger a memory of sufficient detail possible, of the previous time he had been able to be as he was now, he concentrated all his efforts to be the most mentally awakened, he had ever been. Reading as he was, words of silky precision, crafted thoughts that like ribbon rivulets wove their loops and plaits tenderly over and around his seated form, in this, his favourite window seat, where he could see the sky, some simple shrubs and little else to distract from his closeness to the author of this, a book of expansive creativity. Bound as he felt to the author yet released by the strange feeling of affinity this relationship appeared to resonate within him.

For a second, he imagined the author's ghost surreptitiously sipping his tea, and dunking shortbread into his cup...

Such hopeless imaginings are with each of us appreciative learners who read with deep fervour that can match religious zeal, those words that appear effortless on the part of another. In modest comprehension we pledge our allegiance to the artist whose technical craftsmanship is underrated and unimaginable by other lesser mortals who are barely able to clutch a crayon in their laziness to attempt artistic blending themselves. Yet do we attack those who may suppress artistic creativity? Or do we have the courage to interfere with their need to repress creative aspirations by responding weakly with contrived nonchalant dismissal, and a pervasive yawn, showing well worn molars, are we the same, for what they cannot buy or own, they cannot control in this our materialistic world.

He had an elitist disregard for those with the ability to read, blessed even with elementary education, that refused to extend themselves to reading beyond their scope therefore in his view with no excuse to not read.

On the rare occasion he was given to humour, he offered up exposes that were simply side splitting, had his own sides been split, his stomach contents would have revealed a raw scorn, for the banal, the mediocre and most of all the arrogant fool.

He found his cruel observations tantalising and revitalising - particularly when he felt his own shape and form were becoming too hazy.

He considered such subjects or points of interest much as a scientist might have labelled specimen jars so he labelled in private 'idiotic people' those he found limited, as such he had little private regard for them other than as easy prey. He was candid when entreated to explain his harsh and yet lucid and visionary viewpoint.

He devoured them with the devastating objectivity that all birds of prey coolly destroy their hapless victims, although they were unappetising and appalling bad taste to his unsympathetic discerning palate.

He winced when he overheard or had ever encountered any individual who it appeared survived with the absence of the simplest desire to learn, who lacked the patience or appreciation of the written word, who provided excuses for their own inability to choose to 'read.'

This did not mean he rebuked the humble labourer whose daily toils and meagre subsistence made it impossible to do more than survive, or the starving mother whose minute scrambling amongst the barren and arid dirt roads, holding her small wide eyed rodent looking child close to her heartbeat. In his heart, these were the most beloved and cherished children of the Gods, therefore, were his deepest concern, and never for a moment did he forget their plight. With a significant aristocratic nobility he genuinely cared for those he considered Life's real victims.

However... When it came to those of us who had the luck to be part of 'civilised' society with its libraries, and bookshops, newspaper stalls and coffee shops... In his opinion we had no reason not to be 'well-read.'

If he was honest, he was repulsed by them, (those civilised individuals, with their microwaves, tanning lotions, and obsession with branding-labels) he shuddered in his comprehension of what he perceived as a lack, an inferior disposition therefore, want on their part.

He did not care whether they read comic books or the quality of their reading material be it fishing tackle brochures or the daily periodicals, as long as they had read often and with interest... What infuriated him was the well rehearsed excuses he felt they had nurtured alongside what he perceived as ignorance of their own, let alone other cross-cultures and the arts.

He mentally listed the numerous excuses he had heard, from... "You know, I prefer to learn through Life experiences then read.... I would rather see the film then read the novel it came from.... I like to visit Russia rather than read Tolstoy's version of the Russia he knew, any way his Russia is dead history". ...

Or astoundingly, "Americans ( ... Or Indians, Africans, Chinese, in fact 'speaking for a nation....') are far too busy to read (because they are far too involved in their mundane day to day routines of making money, obsessed with surface trivialities, material superficiality. ...) to bother with poetry...."

He begrudged answering the (useless) question, 'Oh what are you reading?' by those who were never going to read anything more than their own astrological chart, horoscope or if they felt special, the latest best seller on some diet fad, or sexually exploitable serial.

As he sometimes squinted despite his spectacles, he realised that he loved his books and how much comfort they provided him beyond even listening to the radio or switching on the television and having his mind intruded on by sudden uninvited impulses and inconveniences as well as those channels or programs that he enjoyed every so often.

In his awakened moments he recognised that he needed little more than one of these early second hand cheaply acquired editions found in some old bookstore or flea market, on days when he had no need for the companionship of the world that was always a stranger to him and he it.

Despite the promises of the media merchants, and marketing pimps he knew that for the elderly there was no promise of splendour, or release through a new car, a matching sideboard or a larger walk in freezer, for food that would rot before it was eaten, or thrown long after it was remembered.

His sharp eagle penetrating eyes which appeared black or possibly the darkest charcoal grey might have easily been the colour of gold speckled black tourmaline or the bottom of a dark pond, moss green or agate ... Who really knew or cared? What was noticed perhaps only by me, but felt with supremacy by him; was that for each day that he was able to studiously, read a favourite page something within his inner battleground found peace, and a new sparkle of wider comprehension grew.

With this deeper feeling of floating on a breeze, as he watched the feather caught on a whisper of Winter breeze, he felt himself enfolding.

When he spilt his tea again over his pages, and wiped them tenderly he also considered (only for a moment) that he was wiping away his proclivities to polish his past so that he no longer needed to reflect and thereby mourn what may have been some intrusive bond with anyone other than his book, which he now lovingly held closer than any lover had held him.

A whisper of blue violet eyes that gazed longingly into a far off distant setting Winter horizon, beyond the mist kissed mountain tops, to be a visual search that activated a closer bond with his maker, and left it's indelible tranquil clarity ... And with this a mental alertness that could gnaw through steely tension and magnified qualms, that Life activated in him as it did in all of us. Beyond reach his piercing gaze glanced into my eyes and perhaps yours, and he saw what we attempted to hide.

... written by xsapph...

.... Importantly, what did you reveal to others, and most vital in your self examination ... to yourself, today?

One September, HH remembers Summer closures...

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 22:00:00 +0000

HH remembered Summer closures as darkened windows reflected back his solitary pathways, in musty rooms, which were holding onto the days sunshine for as long as they could. He would soon stand at the windowsill, drawing whirlwinds with a finger where his broken nail was jagged, and stare out to the gloomy poorly lit street, at the wild grapes, blackberries and apple trees.

It reminded him that this was the only place one would experience the seasons flirting; where Autumn was always shivering the leaves, and tickling the branches that were slowly swelling with fruit, with the view to entice Winter to attend the seasons ball.

Such long awaited summer closures that even those he was.... (in absentminded routine).... very slowly, forgetting to miss were beginning to fade, and no heartfelt apologies would be made for such loss of memory. There was little regret at the thought of a possible future apology forced onto him, and even less regret at the layers and dustier layers of fading blood red tissues that now pastelised to a pale umber, in drawers of wrapping paper that would never need to be used again, for others birthdays were no longer relevant or insistent in his mind...

The air trickled with silvery inconsequences.... trite, and mundane or so it began. His cold nose, sniffled, although his face felt warm, and eyes that always appeared to submerge some private scandalous memory, were watery. He felt unwell, but not enough to stop the momentum of moving deeper inside himself.

Thoughts that made no sense to him in the full scheme of things where he knew that the damp Autumn dew that trickled down his window pain, condensation, he supposed but really it was the house weeping... Thoughts that he aligned to his particular and peculiar quality of assigning each nuance in his character with a colour, so that he could easily recall his own reflexes of repressed emotions... So today he was simply grey....

[... So what colour did you feel today you became...?]

... written by xsapph...

From the last post on Aspiration ...Welcome to Tiger Fish Intelligence....

sapphire@boxbe.com (Sapphire-X) — Wed, 07 Sep 2005 05:56:00 +0000

Stanza from Leopard Eye, written 29th September 1999

xsapph

....Through honeysuckle entwined china-rose briar.
The primrose pink and paper-white sky fades to autumn gold....

Photo credit: Photo by Dennis Conner. Courtesy of Snow Leopard Trust.
Photo location: Woodland Park Zoo; Seattle, WA USA