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11/21/2017 1 Comment Once more, with feeling.. Does anybody else out there ever experience the phenomena of attempting to pour their heart out only to find five minutes later that someone has done a far superior job?
In my case it's Eric Clapton. Some lyrics have been fluttering around in the back of my brain for months and they all suddenly came rushing to the front just after I posted my last entry. Instead of waiting for another one and musing (plus rambling) on it, I decided to damn the torpedoes and post a link instead. Thanks, Eric. Promises by Eric Clapton
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11/21/2017 1 Comment Confessions I tried. Honestly, I really tried. I tried to care. but I couldn't. I tried to love, and that failed too. I tried everything, and in the end I came up cold and empty. I can almost remember what it felt like to be in love, but not quite. What I have felt in the last few years, what tiny amount I have allowed myself to feel, is a pale reflection of my memory of love. Honestly, I think I've set myself up to fail. At first I obsessed over women who were unobtainable. Then I set my sights on those who were unreachable, and ultimately on those who were unreasonable. A perfect hat trick. I did my subconscious best to avoid those with whom I had any chance, and by then I was too old for any of them. And by then I was too far gone to try with any others. I know, there is no try. But let's face facts, Yoda is fictional and I've done the best I can to make sure I face my declining years alone. So after way too many years I'm going to admit to my ultimate mistake. Amanda, I done you wrong. It's too late for that to be of any use, but I'm admitting it. You were my soul mate, and I drove you away. And I regretted it, and was sure that was the end for my heart. Then I finally found Foxglove, and for a long time, without know it, I had found the other part of my soul. She was perfect, she was unobtainable, she was safe. On the other hand, she was a liar, a manipulator and a fake. Then all at once the paradigm shifted, and I failed to ride the wave. Foxglove, we had a couple of hour of near-perfect communion, whether or not either of us can ever fully admit it (though I guess I'm admitting it now though you never will), but a couple of hours in an August long gone are far from the time needed for two souls to finally weave together. You've gone your way and I've gone mine, and I don't doubt a bit that I'll be missing you for a very long time, and I will live all that time with the fear I'll never find another like you. Honestly, once again, you're in the past. And in the present I've found only one to compare, but she doesn't see me in the same light; any light I might find in her eyes is eclipsed by the darkness you still spread across the landscape of my existence. I've heard that confession is good for the soul. Now I've confessed. My soul doesn't feel that much better, but maybe it will tomorrow. I think I would give my right arm to be in love again, but I don't think it's ever going to happen. I'll die alone, and I think I'm finally coming to terms with that. So the keithalman.com blog has finally become my secret confessional. So be it. So it goes. It is what it is. Things are as they are. I'm still going to be lifting a pint to the beautiful woman in the pub, but now I think she's turning away from me and our eyes will never meet. I'm not okay with that, but I'm beginning to accept that it's our destiny. It still hurts, even if it's fate. 10/17/2017 0 Comments Chilly weather It's been a long time since I watched The Big Chill. I first saw it in college and I never dreamed that someday I would be one of those people. Scratch that, I'm older now than they were then. For them, fifteen years had passed since college. For me, it's a hello of a lot longer.
If my numbers add up, they were the class of '68. Fifteen years later, ten years after the movie, I was the class of '93. And now it's 2017. It's edging close to 25 years. One of my friends turned 27 last week. That was a punch in the gut. (btw, happy birthday, Sam. I didn't have a chance to tell you on the actual day.) For the characters in the film, in 1983, the hits of Motown and the late '60s were nostalgic. A few weeks ago, I was listening to music with a couple of my friends (one of whom is the afformentioned 27-year-old) and it hit me again that the songs I grew up with in the '80s are now considered classic rock. And sometime along the way I got old. My hair is thinning. My beard comes in gray. I'm a modern-day J. Alfred Prufrock. And to answer his question, I don't dare. But that's not the point. I watch this movie and I'm back in my dorm room wondering why it took me so long to see this movie, then I'm back here wondering why it took me so long to see it again. And through it all I'm seeing the faces of the people I loved back then. We drifted apart but I see them now on social media and they look the same as they did back then. They're happy, they're successful, they're well-adjusted. I guess I'm kind of jealous. Halfway into the movie and it's not what I remember. It's actually hilarious and pathetic, not dramatic, and every time it starts to drag me down into the maudlin nearing-middle-age blues somebody says something funny and it's right back to happy town. Lawrence Kasdan, I admire you for Empire, Jedi and Raiders but I am in awe of you for The Big Chill. The best part of rewatching a movie like this is also the worst part. For a couple of hours I got to spend time with old friends and then they're gone again. Old memories come back unbidden but will not depart so easily. A future I used to fear becomes a past I wish I had known. 10/4/2017 0 Comments Two: up yours, Horace Greeley I was in a meeting this afternoon, hearing about changes to insurance and the new hoops we have to jump through to qualify for a discount, and a thought came to me and stayed there.
What, I thought, if I started out walking some weekend and kept going? West, I thought, that's the way to go. Start off on the OHT and go to the end, and then don't stop. Tramp through Oklahoma and keep going. Follow the Joads. Follow Sal Paradise even if I don't have Dean Moriarty to keep me company. Travel without Charley. Look for the blue highways. Could I do it? Could I leave the world I know behind and start off on some damn fool idealistic trip to find the American Dream? Yes, I think I could. But it's not easy in the early 21st century. I don't think you can jump a freight train bound for parts unknown anymore. You certainly can't hitchhike. In this day and age you're more likely to step on a rainbow than to step on the golden road. You have to pay bills, pay taxes, pay utilities, pay for the luxury of having things. That doesn't sound like a dream to me. So could I do it? Damn right. And every day I go to work and put up with life and come home and every moment of that day just leads me closer to the road. I'm reminded of the character Slim Pickens played in "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid": "One of these days,|when I get my boat built, I'm gonna drift out of this damn territory." I can live with that. To paraphrase (or is it intentionally misquote?) Andrew Marvell: "Had we but time enough, and world..."--I've always valued time more than anything else. It's easy enough to find more world, but it's hard as hell to find more time. I've been getting younger for a couple of months, but I think maybe I'll try getting a couple of decades older to see how it feels. Hopefully there's a CTRL-Z to temporal modification.
***** I've always been a great one to avoid problems or ignore them. But only recently have I started walking away from them. Literally. Walking far away. I think I might be getting close to triple digits, considering I'm doing double digits every time I can. But it's not helping. ***** A few weeks (months?) back, I was well into a good sweaty walk when a friend texted me, asking what I was doing. "Three miles into a four mile walk" I told him. "Why the sudden interest in walking?" "It's my penance." "Penance for what?" "What have you got?" He didn't text back. **** It's the mood swings I can't handle. One day I feel invincible, the next defeated. If I could stick with one or the other I'd be fine, but my brain just won't let me. Honestly, I'd be happy if I could just stay sad and not have to deal with the occasional glimmer of false hope. ***** Sitting here slightly drunk and thining about life, settling into a very nice deep depression, poetry is never far from my ind. I'm reminded of a few lines from Poe: Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore-- For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Nameless here for evermore. --The Raven And that leads me for some unknown and ineffable memory to the poet Sappho of Lesbos: Come then, I pray, grant me surcease from sorow, Drive away care, I beseech thee, O goddess Fulfil me for what I yearn to accomplish. Be thou my ally. --Hymn to Aphrodite I.vii and that inevitably forces the back of my brain to remember Catullus, Poem V: Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum severiorum omnes unius aestimemus assis. soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis, cum semel occidit brevis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum, dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus invidere possit, cum tantum sciat esse basiorum. I'm not going to translate that because far better men than I have far better words in which to express it. I honestly feel that poetry is the true language of love and inebriation. Love is much more potent a libation than the finest whisky. I admit that I was in love once, maybe twice, and thinking about my utter failure in those pursuits brings me right back to possibly my favorite poem of all time, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot and the line that, ultimately, sums up my life: And in short, I was afraid. |
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