Well Rehearsed

Loves Lost Guarantee
Rogue Wave

Fire's rage down in the north
Hell is here, what a source
Man lost his little machine
hair and bone and maybelline
Then you go for your one shot
to where you are

Bad vibes, from love's underside
it made her bleed he'll confide
beavers are hard to come by
eyes are closed and hands are tied
Then you go for your one shot
to where you are

Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed

Loves comes like a Kennedy curse
The victim whom is well rehearsed
You paint over any mistake
but you cant remove the original thing
then you go for your one shot
to where you are, where you are

Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed

Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed
Oh what you need, so guaranteed
oh, oh, oh...
so guaranteed

There are no guarantees in life, and I'm not even sure if I'm looking for one. I do know that I'm looking for what I've lost though. There's a piece of me missing. But I'm not quite sure which piece yet. I'm tempted to jump to conclusions...tempted to jump through hoops. I'm tempted.

And possibly just a little lost.

Vulnerability is not easy for me. Yes, I know that it typically isn't for most, if not all people. But man oh man. I've been thinking a fair bit these past few days about the ways in which I "protect" myself. I'm a fucking veritable fortress of defense mechanisms and power plays. Anything to not get hurt. Anything to not get close to getting hurt.

I'm ever so clever when it comes to pretense and masks, all in the name of self-preservation. So clever in fact that sometimes I don't even know I'm doing it until later, much later. I've devised some amazingly elaborate ways to hide in public. To protect myself. The problem I think is that with that much self-imposed artifice, one runs the risk of losing bits and pieces of oneself to the "image" - the "lie".

I think that's what I've managed to do. Protected myself so very much from all the possible points of ingress and injury to my psyche that I've somehow tied myself off from the world and from seeing myself as I truly want to be and could be.

Image by Brian Rawson, Spring 2006

The Journey

Changes
David Bowie

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time


This song started simmering in my head a couple of hours ago. At first it was just a gentle background melody tickling my brain....almost like pleasant muzak (is that an oxymoron?).

Then it evolved to snippets of the song. Bits and pieces that floated in from my subconscious and then flitted quickly out again - with one phrase in particular repeating itself more than others. Eventually, it began to get louder and more insistent...building into a dull roar - refusing to let me ignore it any longer. I can't get this song to now stop. It's on constant repeat. With that one phrase repeating more frequently than it is in the song.

And I know why.

I always have sought meaning for my circumstances and situations from lyrics and from poetry. Sometimes I think that I read too much into either or both. And this time, my subconscious did it for me.

I've been ruminating about a challenge of sorts posed to me. A rather tempting offer. Been thinking about it almost constantly for the awake parts of my life since it was presented. Trying to wrap my head around the many different layers...while at the same time trying to *not* get wrapped around the axle either.

Not easy. Not impossible. But not easy.

Interesting.

Not many people can challenge me properly. Or rather have me *take* the challenge. It has to be a careful balance of engaging & intriguing me without alienating me. It was quite the skillful [mental] seduction, very artful indeed.

The cynic in me would say that I have been mindfucked.

I'm choosing not to listen to her, but to listen to the music instead.


Image by Sanders McNew, taken Spring 2007