Skip to main content

Ten Years Later

I still miss you almost as much as I still love you. You visit me often in my dreams...and I listen, or at least try to. The world still has so much hate. And worse, people are even more self-important than ever. I cry to think that your death was for nothing. No one learned anything.

I'm sitting here thinking of your smile, your laugh, your touch. The pain is still great but ten years later, its easing up a bit. Its being replaced with sad but sweet memories. I remember the day in the park when you were sewing up my favorite shirt and I was playing guitar. My car died in front of your house that night. I guess it was just another one of those signs that we were supposed to be, if at least for a little while. You were always so proud of the little accomplishments I made in life. More proud than I was. The look in your eyes when you would tell me how proud you were...the thought of it still leaves me paralyzed with love.

My mind keeps going back to the moment I fell in love with you. The moment I knew. We were standing on the corner, waiting to cross the street to go get ice cream. It was such a hot day. But there you stood, Amazonian in stature (I know...you always hated when I called you that). You were wearing shorts and that shoulderless top, hair down and your big ol' movie star shades on. I looked over at you and realized you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen...inside and out. Lord knows you had a knack for pissing people off! But if you pissed them off it was because you were right and they were wrong...and they knew it. You were never smug about it. Just very matter of fact.

I remember that first 4th of July together. Parked down by the river, watching the fireworks. I was feeling my typical nationalistic pride and you shot it down with "Home of the free, my ass!". When I asked, somewhat perturbed, just what you meant, you told me. You weren't argumentative. To you, it was as easy as explaining that what goes up must come down. You pointed out how we here are all still slaves. Slaves to corporations, media, and the almighty buck. You pointed out that most of us would probably run screaming from true freedom. You amazed me.

I remember the many times I would be sitting in the basement, drinking and writing songs. You would come down and just watch. Often with a tear in your eye. God, how you loved creativity. I remember everything about you. About us. Its all like it was still going on. Perhaps it is. In my head and heart.

I have big plans for this year. I wish you were here to experience them with me...but you are. We both know that.

I still love you my little petitsa na poby.

Namaste my love.

M

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let's Talk Typing

When I was a kid, we had an already ancient Royal typewriter at home. Book reports, certain schoolwork, or in my case, just for making noise. Mom had a nice electric typewriter that she used for work. But that old Royal - that's probably where my love of writing began. - MM I was thinking about my old typewriter last night. Writing was serious back then. Forty pounds of steel, keys, and ribbon. No batteries. No updates. No distractions. Just you and the machine. And that machine fought back. Type too fast and the keys would jam together like two drunks fighting in a bar. Type too slowly or too lightly and it might just decide you didn’t really need that letter or that word. Sometimes it felt like the thing had opinions. Like it was quietly judging you. You learned quickly. You learned rhythm. You learned pressure. You learned patience. It was like a built-in editor made of steel and stubbornness. Made a mistake? Start over. Or, if you didn’t mind your work looking like hell, dab s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fags & Faggots

 It was late February 2002, and I was getting ready for my first trip overseas.  I had lucked into a handful of gigs, and I was thrilled by the chance. I grew up watching lots of Hammer horror films, and almost any British show I could find. Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Benny Hill Show, Dave Allen, and Tommy Cooper were regular viewing thanks to public television. I spent plenty of time reading British literature, especially Arthur Conan Doyle. My maternal grandfather’s family was British, so it’s fair to say I was an Anglophile. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of “the Queen’s English.” I was well acquainted with terms like spanner, lorry, telly, and most hilarious to twelve-year-old me, fags (or cigarettes, for those unaware). I was under the mistaken impression that “wanker” could be used as a term of endearment, not unlike jagoff. I later found this to be…not quite accurate. I was admittedly concerned about the food. While I occasionally consider myself ad...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE BOOK I'LL NEVER WRITE

He sometimes said his greatest regret was not taking the old Trans-Siberian Railway eastward to Lake Baikal. Not because he cared much for bucket lists. He considered such catalogs as vanity with stationery, for those who had wasted decades suddenly writing down ten expensive ways to continue wasting time. No, what he regretted was more precise than that. He regretted never sitting in a dim canteen somewhere near Irkutsk while some broad-faced stranger lied to him magnificently over soup and vodka. He regretted never hearing the room laugh at a joke he only half understood. He regretted missing stories that would now likely never be told the same way again. His body had long since vetoed such ambitions. These days he was lucky if the month’s arithmetic ended with enough left over for prescriptions. If Melinda French Gates wished to finance a crippled Pennsylvanian’s global adventures, he remained open to discussion, but until then, conversations near Lake Baikal would have to survi...
Post a Comment
Read more