Old Doug
Posts: 8279
Joined: 5/12/2011
From: Atlanta, Georgia, US
Status: offline
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Your mom picks up the phone, and she starts crying.
"Well" - oops, what is "well"? How subjective a beasty is that? From what standpoint, what frame of reference, what mode of view do we approach? Or is it "beastie"? I'm thinking like "Scotty" on Star Trek would say, the immortal James Doohan, who I would have figured for a Scotsman, but a Canadian was he, and a good life lived. On at least one episode of the 'Star Trek' TV show he evinced a liking for 'Saurian brandy,' and 'tis certain sure that a stout beverage it would be. While back in the real world, ol' Jimmy boy stormed Juno Beach, Normandy, on D-day, then that very following night a scared Canadian machine-gunner let loose as our intrepid James made his rounds, hitting him six times with "friendly fire" (now how tough would that have been, to swallow as a metaphor at the time?), improbable after that that life remained, middle finger, right hand, later had to be amputated, ah ha - didn't know that either - four shots to a leg, well now that would be thought to be well-fatal, but no, and one in the chest besides, where a silver cigarette case preserved our man's life.
Well - I guess that's really an interjection, then, as it were, as they say. "Well." The memory of what I first intended is long gone, like last season's shooting star. Mister Cabernet and Ms. Port have come, but not gone, and they sit above and slightly behind me, watching, as my consciousness, or as that odd, slowed-down scenery of apperception we sometimes have in times of recollection, or at times of extreme stress. I remember - and make no mistake - ever and anon I'm forced to correct increments of spelling here - "ever," ah ha - reminds me of "ever present danger," and how nice a sound is that, "trochee" it is called, eh - those syllables, three times in a row, "accentual meter," it is deemed; they have a nice flow to it, those words. To switch horses;
But my words, like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed...
In the wells... of silence.
Heh - another "well," of a sort. Simon & Garfunkel, 'The Sound of Silence," written by Paul Simon after President John Kennedy was killed, which was a big deal in the US. Acoustic version 1964 and before you knew it out came the "charged-up" piece the next year with an electric guitar and bass, and some drums pounding away - that was the one that really grabbed me, yes, tiny tot though I was, though I love them both to this day. I remember, well it's the first thing I remember - my mother, standing so impossibly tall at the wall-mounted telephone, getting the call which told her the President was dead. I was four, and for the first time, something was "out of control here," and my mother was more human than ever before. :: choke :: sob :: She'll be 75 years old in exactly four weeks.
I remember Sabine. A chance meeting in the Mojave desert in California, March 1985. Then against now, I was exactly half my age. "Then against now." 'Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History' (published in 1959, a very good year) - by Norman O. Brown, now how about that for a book title? Sabine was from Switzerland, four years younger than me. We barely met, I knew some things of the Golden State from my peripatetic visitations (though I was from Ohio), I could get free maps, said I'd send her some. Uh huh. Talked on the phone a few times and well, yeah, I was in love. She and her girlfriend Therese came over in the spring of 1991 and visited me, and that following summer I went to Europe for the first time. 6 years had gone by, but something had smoldered on. I first typed that as "smouldered," but then again I've always been an Anglophile. Sabine was always so matter-of-fact, while I was more emotional; she'd ask me something, I'd be thinking how to reply to her, preserving what I saw as my interest while not really contradicting her, rather just somewhat clarifying things. "Well..." I would begin, as if to validate what she had said, and not to disagree, directly, but to note that things were not just that simple. I smile now, thinking of how she would interrupt me after I first said, "Well..." - saying the same word herself in gentle and loving mockery of me. Well, of course in the end things really were that simple. I'm still good friends with her, but she never diverted from her path, which seems to be philosophically against marriage, while I've been married now for 11 years.
To a woman who, when we visited an ancient monastery in the interior of Sicily, told an ancient monk, "I'm not from here," when he addressed her in Italian. He must have been asking her something about her origin or home, because he then said, in English, "Your eyes tell me you are from here." Dude - her grandfather was from Agrigento, not that far away. My wife knows a little Italian, and I'm married to one. She's also half Mohawk Indian. She and her sisters (definitely from the same parents) - it's something to see. She's the oldest. One sister is "brown," and when we go into a Mexican restaurant, they always speak Spanish to her. One is "pink" and could be from Ireland, England, Scotland, maybe even Germany. My wife is "green."
Well, okay - "olive-skinned." And that trip to Sicily - April 2000, wow, now that was a deal. Rome was on the brink of the 2000 years' Jubilee. Tuscany. Bologna had some of the best food, ever. Bologna, they call it "La Grassa," which means "the fat one," or "The Fat." They are not worrying about calories, they are just making the best damn food you can imagine. Siena, the Cinqueterre, Naples, the Amalfi Cost, Sorrento; Corleone, Sicily - we were the only tourists there. Some attraction due to the 'Godfather' movies - big favorites of ours - but in April nobody's about. There is a version, however, of La Passeggiata; Corleone does have a central square, of sorts, though perhaps it's better described as a triangle or pentagon, in the late afternoon and early evening the people take a slow walk around, dressed nicely. And there it was - the most beautiful head of hair I've ever seen. My wife's hair is a very nice dark brown. Hey - I've seen glorious reds, killer blonds, even pinks, greens, and purples in this modern day and age, but this was so dark brown as to be black. It was straight down her back, this hair must have been four feet long, we are talking about 1.3 meters, we are talking about hair so straight and so shiny as to make the gods themselves blink. Past her waist and then halfway down to the back of her knees. I will never forget that.
Although it pales besides Sorrento. Horror of horrors - a third bottle is opened: Dolcetto d'Alba. Nicely lighter after the Port. Crazy, though; 5 hours and I am off to work. Fear not - I leave the balance to tomorrow's hopefully not too-sorrowful reckoning. So then, Sorrento. We were walking along one of the main west to east streets in Sorrento, Italy. I suppose they really run somewhat southwest to northeast - you know how that old sly fox, that sly dog the Bay of Naples (or is it Sorrento Bay?) is, ever the Trickster, hey, that's it - geography can be like that southwestern US deity the "Coyote," or "The Trickster," creation myth or transformative power. I have a sense that old Coyote is actually a pretty good guy. My wife and I, walking along; likely the Courso Italia. Yes, the town and the surroundings - really the whole Amalfi Coast - can be crowded, expensive, touristy.... But hear me - go in the less-busy times, relax and integrate, be one with it, there is great value to be had. Back to business, she came out a door, I think it probably was a door leading to a stairway that went to a second-floor apartment over a shop or other business at street-level.
She was in her early 20's, I think. My wife, too, was taken aback - this was poetry. You know how some slight differences can render huge changes - witness going from the primary color "white" to an alabaster or an eggshell? This girl had skin, and she had dark hair, dark eyes, eyebrows and eyelashes. The contrast between them was transcendant, and she didn't even know it. Just a minute hitch in time as she looked at us, looking at her, then away she was, on the mission of youth, energetic and momentous. Over eleven years forward in time now we are, and to me it is as a few hours ago. On the 'Circumvesuviana' train that runs from Naples to Sorrento and back, you can see the Italian youth, the relative uncaring that is, or that at least was, at the time, there, compared to American kids. Some cultural 'freedom' that I cannot explain, just as I can't explain what seemed at the time to be Italian custom: to give all children turning 14 years old two cellphones and twenty cartons of cigarettes. I jest, but in seriousness I saw this quality on the train - teenagers 'free' of something I expected, perhaps in the end my own timidity and unease at that age. I have never spoken of this - that girl we saw - to my wife; a moment gone, a possible comparison with her, one of those man-woman things. She knows what I mean when such discussions are had, but still, she cannot sit apart as I do, she's in the moment, her stated wish is not for reminiscenses (heh - try typing that one after 2.5 bottles of wine), she's more of a hard-charger, if anything, perhaps she's running a little too hard to stay ahead of the past, while I cannot ever catch up with the present. <~~ I like those last few turns of phrase.
Moment of emotional levity past, I think then to that day. Not much given to religion am I. Make no mistake - I love my wife. I loved her the first time I met her - online - another story there, for another time, probably right here on this thread. Never would have believed it - Doug meets a woman on the computer, she moves in with him, they get married after a few years, live happily ever after. Heck, my sisters-in-law (and, truth be told, likely quite a few members of my own immediate family) never thought I'd get married, period. Yet and still, love found me and has taught me, has convinced me that it can stay, and, just in the past two years - has really shown me how it can grow - even after a long time; this is very precious to me, an old boy now embarked on his second half-century.
Oh yes - you haven't forgotten though, have you? That day. That day the girl came out the door. There is no horrible, life-altering disaster to be described here. There is only a singular event in my feeling. Well - look at that - the last of the Dolcetto resides in my glass.
That day, my wife and I, somehow, some strange way, were in the presence of Grace. I mean no comparison with anyone's religion. I mean no disrespect to anything, here. It is, in a sense, a distillation of the beauty in young faces that we all see, from time to time. I hope we see that, anyway. I wonder what she's doing now. I wonder if she was even real. Since that time, I have never seen anything like that.
And I never will.
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RE: Postings after 1 whole bottle consumed alone - 
April of last year - my wife and I spent a week in northern Sonoma County, had a great time, many vineyards and tastings. One of the most surprising things - along with just how good and unknown some of the wines made there are - was the decrease in Merlots. At Gary Farrell winery (Russian River) we tasted the last of their Merlots - the influence of the movie 'Sideways' had been so great that they were simply quitting making the stuff. "All hail Pinot Noir," I guess. But that was a damn good Merlot.... 
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