I ended my 4 or 5 night streak of good sleep last night. My son began texting me at 11:30 last night that his car’s valve cover gasket is leaking. His service engine light had just come on. It will cost $500 to fix.
11:30 is way past my bedtime, I was in bed, and falling asleep. I was up kinda late, because I went to open mic, and then came home and wrote for awhile to unwind. After texting back and forth for awhile, I told him to call me this morning and we’ll talk about it. I went back to sleep for 2 more hours, and then woke up and was wide awake. So, I do what many of us do, I got up, got on the computer and wrote some more, to empty my head. Then at 3:30 went back to bed, took a half an Ambien and fell asleep til 8. Or so.
Now my sleep schedule will be messed up. But really, does it matter, LOL. I’m retired. I don’t have to be anywhere at any time, except at the doctor today at 1:30 for a therapy treatment. Which is a back massage……
Had a good time last night at open mic, as always. Both of my good friends who go with me were sick, so I went alone, but knew I could hang out with my other friends. My friend P welcomed me with a hug, and walked me to my car at the end of the night. What a good guy.
A man I’ve been messaging with has expressed a wish to go to open mic with me. He plays guitar and sings and also is a boater/sport fisherman. He said he could play a Buffett song. That crowd would love Buffett. So who knows, maybe. I like him a lot. He’s a sweet man, so far.
I splurged and bought myself a leaf blower that also vacuums leaves to deal with the leaves from the banyan tree, which perpetually are falling off. Much easier to blow them than to try to rake them. I also bought a push broom and a rake. Push broom is to allow me to scrub my deck.
I guess it’s time to take the Christmas tree down. I am usually anxious by about this time, to get the house back to normal. Even though, my house has not been “normal” really. I wish I had everything in it’s place but I still don’t. I need to though. My friends from high school will be here in 2 weeks, and I need it better organized than what it is now, since they are all staying here one night as we try to recreate our high school days. But, it will be the night of open mic, so we won’t be hanging here all night, which is something I’m glad about.
It’s cool here this morning, 51 when I woke up. The house was cool. But the sun is out brightly though the high will only be 61. I love living in a place where “cold” is 60. LOL. It’s been snowing up north in my old home. Not missing it at all.
Open mic is such a cool thing in this little town. I was supposed to meet my friend Beth there. She said she was going early to practice a song with a couple of guitar players, but when I got there she wasn’t there yet. The friend I’d run into Wednesday was there, sitting with a few other friends, and he right away motioned for me to come over and sit with them, which I did.
I got into a conversation with a woman who I was only acquainted with before, when I asked how everyone’s week was. She was telling me if it could go wrong it did, lol. Then we got into a discussion about how Mercury turns retrograde Monday the 19th. And kind of wondering what effect that will have on the Electoral College vote that day. Mangia Gourmet Cafe is a rare place in FL where you will not find any Trump supporters, so it’s safe to talk openly about him, and not expect any arguments.
Beth showed up, and as is her way, she flits from table to table because she has known everyone for so long. She kind of settled across the table from me, next to our awesome transgender friend G. G is 69 years old, and trans-ing from male to female. She is so open, and funny and she sings beautifully. Next to G was a performer who comes up from Sarasota, about an hour away, on a regular basis. The table was rounded out with D, the wife of the shows MC, who is an actress, having taught acting her whole life, but is now retired. She and her husband are equity actors, meaning they get paid for their work, lol. However, she considers herself a sculptor. I have not seen her work. Such a lovely funny person.
We were talking about the music they were all playing, and I leaned into the table and said, “I am waiting for someone to get up and do some Van Morrison. I’ve never heard anyone sing him here.” B, the guy from Sarasota, nodded his head, and looked like he was thinking about what I’d said. Well, when it came to his turn to sing, he first did Harvest Moon (Neil Young), then maybe one of his own compositions. Most everyone was doing just 2 songs, but we kind of egged him on to do another. The MC told him to go ahead, and B said, “Ok, well I have a request…” and he pointed at me and began singing “Moondance.” So everyone at our table started clapping. Somehow he transitioned Moondance into California Dreaming and that into All Along the Watchtower absolutely seamlessly. It was so awesome! When he was done I gave him a big hug, thanking him for all of it, especially Moondance.
There are always makeshift bands that play together, to back someones music up. My friend Beth did her two songs, but then joined in a bunch of others. Everyone loves her to sing with them, because she knows all the music, and can sing harmonies without thinking about it, and puts on a fun show while she’s up there. The last song of the night was Minnie the Moocher, (old Cab Calloway). They had 6 or 7 performers up front, and Beth was singing the scat part of it, she is so good at that and loves to do it. Everyone laughing and clapping, everyone having a good time.
“Minnie the Moocher” at Mangia Gourmet
At the end of the night, a few people were saying how Mangia is needing a bigger space. Because it does get really busy, people are out on the sidewalks.
God, what a fun night.
Tonight is my date. I got a text from him last night saying he hoped I enjoyed my open mic night, and that he was really looking forward to tonight. So am I!.
What a rough life, lol. I slept til 7:30 this morning, that is SOO late for me! But I’m glad, hopefully it will mean I won’t get tired so soon tonight.
I play music pretty much all day, until dinner. Then I turn on the tv for a couple hours. But all day while I’m writing and working in the house and driving in the car, I’m playing music. I have a real soft spot for Van Morrison, and for Beth Hart. Tonight, Beth Hart’s songs “Hold Me Through the Night” and “Tell Her You Belong To Me.” are echoing in my head, so I thought I’d put up this video of “Hold me Through the Night.” Hope you enjoy it.
I’ve been hearing a lot of Leonard Cohen’s work this week. I’m sad to say I was not real familiar with his work before, I don’t know why. But I heard this tonight, and it might be my favorite. Anyway, it suited my mood tonight, supermoon or no. What a brilliant man. this is my belated tribute to him.
I’m feeling pretty good this morning. Yesterday, despite how tired I was, was a good day. I got back/neck therapy which is always nice. I took a nap in the afternoon. I talked on the phone to a good old friend I hadn’t talked to in a long while.
I was too tired to cook. I thought about driving a half mile or so to get Chinese take-out but was too tired even to do that. So, I made myself a PBJ, lol. And dang, it was good!
Right after, I got a text from my friend Beth, who was at the community garden where she helps out occasionally. She said, “Do you want some bananas?” I said “Sure!” She was at my door a few minutes later with a HUGE bag of bananas, fresh off the banana tree there. She said they had to pick them, they’re very green, before the squirrels get them. So now I have about a dozen bananas, right off the tree!!. Looks like I will be baking banana bread!
Before she left, we made plans for her to go with me today to get my FL driver’s license and apply for my Homestead thing, (not sure what it’s called but it takes $50,000 off your assessment for property taxes because you live here), and go to a couple thrift stores in search of a tv stand and kitchen table for myhouse, if there’s time. We’re supposed to a poetry reading at the library tonight by Peter Meinke, Florida’s poet laureate. Seems like a nice plan for the day.
I settled on the couch, intending to maybe write. I opened the computer and turned on The Voice. After the first couple of battle-round competitions I promptly fell asleep for at least an hour. I woke up just in time to hear this fabulous couple doing a Beth Hart – Joe Bonamassa tune I had not heard before. They are becoming an obsession with me, I have to say. I have so much of their music on my phone now. Anyway, it was called “I’ll Take Care of You.” The couple singing it were amazing, really really good. He played guitar to it, and they both sang. Anyway, I will end this blog with a link to the Hart – Bonamassa version, for those of you into blues. Enjoy.
A blog I follow, Edge of Humanity Magazine, put up a post linking to a video of Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane singing “Need Somebody to Love” at Woodstock. (https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/23191541/posts/1034769613 The quality of the recording is not so good, but it’s Woodstock, and the performance is iconic.
It reminded me of the time back in maybe 1974 or 1975, my ex was driving to Boston in his new Jaguar XKE 12 cylinder convertible. British racing green. He had a CB radio. He pulled up alongside a tractor-trailer. The graphics on the side of it were “Jefferson Airplane”. It was their stuff, being hauled to Boston for a concert. He got on his radio, and managed to hail the driver of the truck. They talked for awhile, and he finally asked if anyone in the band was in the cab with the driver.
“Yeah,” the driver said, “Paul Kantner is here.” Then Kanter got on the radio and talked to my ex for awhile. When he found out my ex was driving the Jag, he asked him if he could pull into a service area, and Paul could ride the rest of the way to Boston with him. Then he invited ex to the concert, backstage, to meet the rest of the band, etc., etc.
My ex had a business appointment in Boston that day. To do what Kantner asked, he would have had to blow it off. So, he declined the invitation.
That was when he was 25 years old, lol. And trying to build a future. But what an opportunity he missed! I was frankly surprised when he got home later that day and told me about it, and that he’d said no. I thought he was so dedicated, to us, to our future, I was impressed. We’d been together by then about 5 years. We weren’t married, but we had a life together. Still.. I was surprised. He could have made up an excuse to the appointment, and had a night that he never would have forgotten. It might have changed his life forever, who knows?
Years later, when I thought of it every once in awhile, I thought and still think about 25 years later when he made excuse after excuse about why he couldn’t get into work on any given day, how he had so much to do. It was our own business by then, and I was there, running it, handling it, enabling him, to sit home and do nothing, except become a seriously abusive alcoholic. God forbid I should ever question him. God forbid I should ever object. Doing that could end up with no dishes left unbroken in the cabinet and food all over the floor. To question him was an unforgivable sin.
Well, I did, finally, when I left him. When I got a job outside the business so that we could eat, because his disinterest in running his own business over the years caused the business to go from gross sales of about $2 million, down to about 10% of that. But getting that job enabled me to execute a plan to leave him, to get away from his abusive ass, and get my son away, and salvage the rest of my life.
Another instance of misplaced trust. Because he did big things, like not miss an appointment in exchange for a chance to meet the Jefferson Airplane, I trusted him to be working toward a nice life for us. I guess he did for years. Just like I trusted Scott because he told me about the prison whore, showed remorse, tried to repair the damage. I thought, if he’ll be honest about something like that, he’d never lie about smaller little things.
But it’s the little, insignificant things that count. Being there, listening to you, wanting to know how you are, if you’re ok, respect, taking an interest, being proud to be seen with you,….I could go on, and on.
My ex was all those things in the beginning. As he began to withdraw into alcoholism and became more and more abusive, sociopathic…he began to isolate himself and his family. Scott…always had isolated us, I kept waiting for him to open up. I kept waiting for him to make me part of his whole life, not just one facet of it.
I could beat myself up over that. It seems so stupid in hindsight. It was such a red flag flying. But when we were together, it was so often magical, it was fun, it was loving (even though he denied that later). I honestly thought he was just afraid, I believed him, that he was afraid of getting hurt again.
My ex….is just such a sad story. He’s just destroyed his life. But he abused us so badly, when I left him I was completely out of love with him. It took me years to work through the anger at what he tried to do to me. I guess I didn’t completely work through it, because I fell in love with a man a lot like him, a pathological liar who could deceive much more expertly than my ex could. My ex actually tried for years not to be who he became. Scott worked at it his whole life, and it shows.
I learned about trust. With both of them. It will be a long time before I trust a man again. I am grateful to Brene Brown for dissecting trust, and showing us how almost every moment in a relationship is either an opportunity to connect or an opportunity to betray. Every small little moment. The few large moments that these two men didn’t betray should not have outweighed all the small, every day, seemingly insignificant moments where they did. Over and over.
I saw my ex do it to everyone, lie and betray their trust. I blew it off for a long time. When he began to do it to my son is when my eyes began to open. It was the unconditional love I had for my son that opened my eyes to the truth. It was a gradual understanding that everything he said was a lie.
Scott, I didn’t see until it all hit me in the face, and knocked me down and broke me into thousands of teeny pieces. His well crafted deceptive screen blew apart in explosions, and ripped me apart. I had no idea, and then….I had to deal with and accept that everything for the last 6 months or so of our relationship was a lie. A manipulation. A deception. I still work at comprehending the depths to which he pulled me. Or tried to. I guess he did pull me there for awhile. I can only thank God that I found a way to get back up, from being flat on my face in the dirt, bleeding and bruised, to my knees, to a crouch, to finally a fully standing position again.
I don’t talk to either one of them now. They both remind me of times in my life I’d rather forget. I’d rather leave them in the past. I can’t help either one. I love them both, I love the light I always saw. I love their potential. But their reality, I can’t be anywhere near. It’s one of the things I will be gladdest about when I move to Florida. To be 1500 miles away from the scene of their crimes.
Sunday morning musings. How I got where I am. What karmic lessons I have learned. I know that these two men were my best teachers. These lessons are not textbook type lessons, they are part of my being now. Part of who I am. I have evolved because of them. For that reason, I am able to be grateful for the experience of them in my life. Now, I’ll take those lessons with me, and perhaps in the last quarter of my life, find the love that can last.
Love and light, everyone.
Thanks to Edge of Humanity Magazine for the link below.
Oh man, I’m living risky tonight. My stomach has been better for a couple of days now. Except for the first thing in the am, I feel fine all day. Though, I’ve been careful what I eat,and I’m still taking the prescription med. But tonight I felt like a drink. So, I lived dangerously. I bought a bottle of Kraken dark spiced rum, it was on sale. My son yelled at me, it’s 100 proof…..I poured one drink which I didn’t finish. So far my stomach has not rebelled but we’ll see tomorrow.
I haven’t had a drink in about 6 weeks. Just feeling it tonight. It was a beautiful day. My son was home from work the same time as I was and it was warm enough to sit out on the deck. I opened the umbrella on the table and declared, for the first time this year, “the deck is open.” I spend a lot of time out there when the weather is warm. It wasn’t hot today, but warm enough to sit outside without a coat, and just talk to my son for awhile. God, I love that kid. Just love sitting and having just a relaxed convo with him.
But alas, it got chilly as the full moon rose, and we came inside to eat dinner. Put hockey on tv, and he got me all up-to-date on the Stanley Cup playoffs. Tampa Bay is in the eastern conference finals, so I said, I guess I should start cheering for them, shouldn’t I? Their arena is maybe a haI lf hour, 40 min, from my Fl house.
My friend the blues singer/artist said the Mangia Cafe was packed last night. She and her friend both sang and killed it. I told her I have a new Beth Hart song I want to hear her sing when I get there. “Hold Me Through The Night.” Maybe I’ll put a link up at the end of the blog. I’ll see how I feel.
Since I started writing Haiku I’ve been getting a ton of views and likes! Had my 2 best days for likes on WP two days ago and today again. I love that so many people are liking and relating to what I have to say. Very satisfying. Today someone was reading a TON of old blogs. Stuff from a year ago, when suddenly S was pushing me away, because unknown to me, Betty wanted back in his life. God I was in so much pain, and he knew it, he read every word I wrote, and he just let me suffer. Such a narcissist. Just unbelievable that he got off on my pain, and did nothing to put an end to it. I started to read them, the old blogs, but they triggered me too. I don’t want to remember how that felt. I am almost inclined to delete them, but that’s stupid too. They happened, it’s a snapshot in time. I was decent, honorable, loving…I have nothing to be ashamed of. So many times I tried to break up. So many. And he always pulled me back, every single time, until I was about to show up on his doorstep in tandem with her.
I always wonder who is reading all that old stuff. I imagine it’s S or B, but I don’t think S would want to re-read the pain he caused me. Would go against his grain to read and absorb the pain he put me through. And B…I think she knows all she needs to know. Why she would read more I don’t know. Only if S was trying to hit her up again and she wanted to remember what he actually did to her. Which is highly possible. He hates to be alone and he had no success getting me to engage with him on his terms. He bounced from her, when she told him no, to me to try to get me in his sights again, and then when he couldn’t, is probably bouncing back to her, trying to get her to believe he’s changed.
Not a chance in hell he has changed. He’s just lonely and horny.
I will be so glad to be so far away from his bouncing, push pull game. It’s nauseating, really.
I recently downloaded the song Avalon by Van Morrison on to my phone. I love that song. I had to look up Avalon to find out it was a mythical place where King Arthur went to heal his wounds. An island. Maybe the holy grail is there. Anyway, I read it and every time I listen to the song, I think, I’m going to name my Florida house Avalon. Put a little sign outside the door. A place of new beginnings, since the house address is an 11 and that’s kind of the story of Avalon, new beginnings, and a place of healing. That’s what it represents to me. So, I think it might be a good name. Instead of Beth Hart’s song, maybe I’ll put up Van Morrison’s Avalon tonight. You can tell me if it’s a good idea or not, to name my little bungalow a mile from the beach Avalon.
Wish me luck with my house showing tomorrow. I need to be moving soon.
Love and light….. (lyrics under the link)
Avalon of the heart On down by Avalon Gonna make a brand new start
Oh the Holy Grail Baby behind the sun Oh the Holy Grail Down by Avalon
Well I came upon The enchanted vale Down by the viaducts of my dreams Down by Camelot, hangs the tale In the ancient vale
Oh the Avalon sunset Avalon of the heart Me and my lady Goin’ down by Avalon
Well I came upon The enchanted vale Down by the viaducts of my dreams Near Camelot, hangs the tale Of the enchanted vale
In the upper room There the cup does stand In the upper room Down by Avalon
Goin’ down by Avalon Oh my Avalon of the heart Goin’ down by Avalon Gonna make a brand new start
Oh down by Avalon Oh baby behind the sun Goin’ down by Avalon Well the journey’s just begun
Oh down by Avalon Sweet Avalon of the heart Goin’ down by Avalon Gonna make a brand new start
I love this song. I love Van Morrison. Lyrics below the video. Just wanted to share. Enjoy!
“Enlightenment”
Chop that wood
Carry water
What’s the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
Every second, every minute
It keeps changing to something different
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
It says it’s non attachment
Non attachment. non attachment
I’m in the here and now, and I’m meditating
And still I’m suffering but that’s my problem
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
Wake up
Enlightenment says the world is nothing
Nothing but a dream, everything’s an illusion
And nothing is real
Good or bad baby
You can change it anyway you want
You can rearrange it
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
Chop that wood
And carry water
What’s the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
All around baby. you can see
You’re making your own reality. everyday because
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
One more time
Enlightenment. don’t know what it is
It’s up to you
Enlightenment. don’t know what it is
It’s up to you everyday
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
It’s always up to you
Enlightenment, don’t know what it is
It’s up to you, the way you think
This is a song from my way way past. I have so many changes going on at the moment, and some, most are good. Some are exciting. Some are painful. Some will be painful until they heal, and the change is complete. Getting through the sale of this house, the move to Florida, resettling my son in Colorado, and hopefully letting go of all the trauma of the past year, somehow releasing the hold that it has on me. Somehow resolving the conflict between what’s in my heart, and what I know will only bring me pain as it is now.
She says “There are not many things in life you can be sure of….”
Well, one of the things that you an be sure of is that if I loved you, I will always love you. That’s just how I roll. Forgiveness is easier for me than resentment. Love is easier than hate. For me. Not saying that has to be true for everyone, it just is for me. Just one of those things, those few precious things, that never changes for me. And I’m glad to have a few things I can count on in my heart, to bring me home again. Betrayal, inconsideration, disrespecting, it all makes me angry. It hurts me to the core. But it hurts, it angers, because I love. And I always will, there’s not a thing anyone can do about it.
Time for me to let go, open the door again to allow new life in. Welcome the change. But always always love the things and people I loved. There is a reason they are in my heart.
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