Yesterday, Pt 4, The End

This is the final episode in a four part series using song lyrics from the 60's and 70's to explore a rekindled friendship from the past. To go back to part 1, scroll back, they are posted in order. Or, click on 'Yesterday' in the labels section of this post and they will all come up. (Hint: Don't read the last part first or you'll ruin the surprise ending!)



Tuesday afternoon-
Baker Street, Boston.


“It’s been such a long time, maybe I’m amazed! You are so beautiful. I can’t get enough of your love!”

“I wish.”

“What’s going on? Who are you?”

“I’m a psycho killer, que’ce que c’est? A killer queen. Tonight’s the night.”

“Oye como va, peligro!”

“Right, you’re bloody well right.”

“How long to the point of no return?”

“25 or 6 to 4:00.”

“Who, who, who, who?”

“Aqualung, my friend. A horse with no name.”

“Rebel rebel!”

“I think I should be going. Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?”

“Hey, hey, my my…”

“I’ve got to fly like an eagle. Life in the fast lane! You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

(slam)

Macarthur’s Park is melting in the dark. Sitting on a park bench…

“Aqualung, don’t you see it’s only me? Walk this way.”

“Back stabber!”

“Are you reeling in the years, le freak, you’re just another brick in the wall.”

“I don’t want to die!”

“Now it’s all over Danny Bailey, the harvest is in. You don’t have to live like a refugee.”
(bang bang, shoot shoot)

Way down the street there’s a light in his place, you open the door, he asks you where you’ve been, you tell him who you’ve seen and…

“God save the queen! Tell me something good!”

“Smiling faces tell lies. Help me! I think I’m falling.”

“What a fool believes!”

“One way or another…”

“Why do we never get an answer when we’re walking out the door?”

“Because the truth is hard to swallow. This is the end my only friend, the end.”
(bang bang, shoot shoot)

"One is the loneliest number, I can't live if living is without you...happiness is a warm gun."
(bang bang, shoot shoot)

(the sound of silence)

Yesterday, Pt. 3

This is the third episode in a four part series using song lyrics from the 60's and 70's to explore a rekindled friendship from the past.


From: layla@70s.song
Subject: Ruby Tuesday
Date: May 22, 2009 8:02:00 AM EDT
To: BBLeroy@70s.song
Reply-To: layla@70s.song

Leroy Brown, Let me go crazy on you, you’re a magic man. I’m leaving on a jet plane, ruby Tuesday.

I hope today will be a lighter highway,
L.

____________


From: BBLeroy@70s.song
Subject: Re: Ruby Tuesday
Date: May 22, 2009 8:03:00 AM EDT
To: Layla@70s.song
Reply-To: BBLeroy@70s.song

Layla, Ruby Tuesday, out on runway number 9…wild horses couldn’t drag me away.

I’ll be there, you got me on my knees,
Leroy

Yesterday, Pt. 2

This is the second episode in a four part series using song lyrics from the 60's and 70's to explore a rekindled friendship from the past.



Black Magic Woman,

The first time ever I saw your face, blue eyes, golden hair, what a tale my thoughts could tell. Fire!! We learned to find love in the back of my van, nights in white satin, beyond Silverlake. I could drink a case of you, I’m a lucky man, still, you turn me on! I think I’m going to love you for a long, long time. (Breathe deep, the gathering gloom…)

Four and twenty years ago, on the 25th day of September, me and Bobby McGee hitchhiked all the way to New Orleans. I took a walk on the wild side, bad company, smoking in the boys room, cocaine running all around my brain, rock and roll all day and party every night. Everybody must get stoned! Then I found myself on my knees, when the lights go down in the city, say a prayer for the pretender.

Day by day…truckin' like the doodah man...

At last I've found you, don’t you know you’ve got a friend? Take a look at my life, I’m a lot like you are; you can't hide your lyin' eyes.

Oh dreamweaver, dream on. Imagine, into this world we’re thrown, we’ll do the roundabout. Have you never been mellow? Mellow yellow, a lighter shade of pale, I honestly love you. It’s alright if you love me, it’s alright if you don’t, try not to get worried, everything’s alright, yes everything’s fine. Don’t fear the reaper, we have got to get ourselves back to the garden, become comfortably numb. We are family, I’m so tired of being alone.

Miss you, please come to Boston,
Piano Man

Yesterday Pt. 1

This is the first episode in a four part series using song lyrics from the 60's and 70's to explore a rekindled friendship from the past.

Hello its me,

Welcome to the machine, it’s been a long time running, it appears to be a long time gone. I’m tasting the smell of toast as the butter runs, here, there and everywhere. I’d love to change the world, climb a stairway to heaven, find myself knockin on heaven’s door, but I don’t know what to do. I learned the truth at 17, that I was born to run, born to be wild; that’s the way I always heard it should be! But now I’ve gone and blown it all away, running with the devil, don’t take a slice of my pie the landslide will bring it down.

(It’s a little bit funny…yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away now I feel like makin’ love. I’m a gypsy acid queen, feel me, touch me, I’m hot blooded, touch it and see!)

You’ve got me hanging on the telephone…we are the champions, looks like muskrat love! Don’t go breaking my heart, we’ve only just begun to live. Baby, I’ve been learnin’, you need schoolin’ you got me in a spotlight, dancing in the moonlight. Darlin’ can’t you hear me SOS? My aim is true. I’m so lonely, sometimes I feel like I’m dyin’, but I’m as free as a bird now, I am woman hear me roar.

I feel love, I need a hero, I want you to show me the way. Won’t you take me to funky town? Burn down the mission if you want to stay alive. We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.

Wish you were here,
Your song

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 5

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries. You can view the entire series (in reverse order) here.



Sept 19
Media conference begins.
Not at the beach.
I have blisters on my feet because I had to wear shoes and forgot socks. Didn’t have a chance to buy more. Blisters on my heals.

Sound and vision blasting me from all the booths. It’s overwhelming. I make the rounds, hoarding freebies and stashing them in my free conference loot bag.

Looking for enchantment.
Find the magic,
Seize the moment

Cease the moment
Now sell, now buy
Beach memories
Beach longings
A black cloud over Joel’s head
Barefoot on the beach
Miss Joel, he’s gone
Body here, he’s in some other place
Surfing the perfect wave
Where am I?

The day ended, now I’m here at Bea’s, she is making a fabulous feast for her daughter. It is good to see family. I can’t remember the names of the kids. I quietly asked Silvie the baby’s name. She won’t care that I had forgotten. I come inside and pour a glass of wine.
Call Gavin. Good to talk to Gavin, good to hear him moan in response to my telling him my feelings of longing, of how good it is just to hang with him, how much I like him, just like him.

Bea thinks I’m nuts to want to be with Gavin. Maybe I am. I can’t believe what I’m feeling…Gavin, are you my soulmate? Are you? Are you missing me? Longing me?
I feel these things. Your smile, the twinkle in your eye, mmmm….

Blisters on my feet are the opposite of what sand feels like.

Want to be back at the beach!

9/21/00

Today was the equinox, and this is the first time I realized this…I wonder if it had anything to do with the funk we were all in today. Tired now, focused a lot on Joel today. Didn’t want to talk to Gavin for some reason, probably because I feel so cranky, but I called him anyway. He was UP tonight, had a good chat but felt slightly strained. Probably because I felt cranky, and I am now worried about Gavin too. Finally managed to discover that he was about to walk into a bar. Maybe part of why conversation was strained was his reluctance to part with that tidbit, juxtaposed with him wanting to tell me, not hold back. So I’m glad he told me, and I hope he behaves, and I’d be lying if I tried to cover up thoughts of Joel, not sexual though I do find him very attractive, when I think of sex, my thoughts float to Gavin, but I’m in love with Joel too. He is just wonderful, supportive, thoughtful, generous, but…he’s not Gavin, BUT it’s the equinox isn’t it?

9/23/00

I’m leaving early. The thought of going back with Joel and Larry, especially Larry was so unappealing I cried at the thought of it. Larry just looks at me and I know I have failed in his eyes. I just can’t be around that for two whole days. I’ll miss Joel tho. Something magic happened with Joel this week. I wonder what will happen with all my feelings when I return to Gavin. It’s almost as if the more time I spend with Joel, the more Gavin drifts further from my thoughts. I also know that when Gavin seems to be getting manic, I feel a wall on my feelings for him. Self protection I think, he’s not so nice when he goes UP.

So I’m sitting at the airport with Gia and Penny, waiting for the Southwest 90, 4:15 to San Francisco. Really anxious to see what happens to my heart when I’m with Gavin again…

A funny note: Last night Joel and I went dancing with the cuzzins. We had a blast and tore up the dance floor. Joel is a WILD dancer, all that hair flying every which way. Bea grabbed me in the bathroom and confided to me that Joel would be a much better choice, that I should be with him!

Joel and I decided to go have one more walk on the beach, and so around midnight we were down at Pacific Beach walking in the sand. He started talking about communication and how it was so good with ours. Then he asked me if I thought of him like one of the girls. I said, yeah, it was kind of like that. He said, well, I’m very much a guy, and you’re very attractive. My heart fell out of my chest and landed on the sand. He said he had just broken up with Susan and the timing was weird considering I JUST got with Gavin. I agreed with him, part wishing he would just throw me down on the sand right then and have me, although a bigger part of me was withholding those kinds of thoughts. Then he said that he thought that if we got together, I’d suck him dry and he’d become an emotional wasteland. Something about me just told him that.

What is it about me that makes men have that reaction? Do I have
'Femme Fatale' written all over my face?

I’m so tired I need sticks to keep my eyes open. Hopefully I can take a nap on the plane.

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 4

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries. You can view the entire series (in reverse order) here.


9/17/00

Driving to the conference with Joel, his surfboard on the top of the car. We’re on the long and horrible highway 5 and just got back on the road after a bowl of split pea soup at Anderson’s. Joel picked me up from Gavin’s this morning and it was interesting seeing the two of them standing next to each other. Joel seems so bright, his eyes alight with fire and passion for life, and Gavin is like the dark horse, seeming calm but some kind of mischievous darkness lurking under the surface. I just wonder when it will explode.

I just love talking to Joel, it is so easy to communicate, there are no eggshells, the conversation just flows with no threatening overtones. I’m glad we decided to go to the beach, and I’m glad that Gavin doesn’t seem to be jealous and supports it. I doubt if I will be able to read this later, moving cars don’t make for legible writing, I guess I’ll stop.

9/18/00

A little sleepy today because of camping insomnia. We got to the beach last night and immediately dove into the water, soul refreshing! So good after an 8 hour ride in the grueling central valley sun. God, I didn’t realize how much I have missed the beach! Something about these Southern California waters that’s like coming home to the womb. It’s too bad I don’t like SoCal more than 20 yards inland. But the beach, oh such an aching longing to never leave the beach…

Joel and I stopped at VG's Donuts a few minutes ago and bought a huge bag full of heart attacks to munch on, and now we are down at Black’s Beach and Joel is surfing. He wants me to be his witness so I’ll make a feeble attempt at recording what I see as I see it:

Joel’s Witness:

Warm fog obscures the clarity
Sand plovers, pelicans
Misty cliffs in a U
Surround pounding waves
Joel paddles through the rough shore
Finds a calm patch beyond the surf
And waits
Like a string on a fine tuned instrument
He senses the coming of the wave
This is it!
His spirit flares as he turns and faces me
He raises his arms as if to say
“Totally Tubular!”
And turns back to the horizon
Other surfers all facing to the West
Heads bobbing up and down
What’s this?
Joel in a tube!
He dives off the board
Into the drink
He becomes a slinky dolphin
Rising up and out of the water
And in a split second, mounted
Facing the horizon
A true Pisces.
Fog thickens, he is a misty silhouette
In a golden white backdrop.
I watch
He waits
His inner strings vibrate
Again, he senses The One!
He begins to rise on the wave
Alas, not this one…
Back through the wave
He faces West again
And waits

Near me, small birds flock
Running across the sand
In little minute feet.
They stop to stick their pointy
Sharp beaks into sand crab palaces
And run off into the mist
To loot some other unsuspecting home.
The cliffs are shadowy figures
Sloughing off shrouds
As the glow through the fog
Shines to bright gold
And the sun makes its ascension
Over the Eastern hills.
The birds come running back
They are one in their motions
Until all leave and one is
Left behind, but
The three turn back
To collect the one that was left…

I catch a glimpse of Joel
He is riding a wave!
He rides for a long time
Then dives into the tunnel
He turns to me
“See? BITCHEN!”
I respond with my arm
“Totally Rad!”
A lone seagull walks by
Picking up a scrap of sandwich
Left yesterday on the beach
I drift off to sleep on the sandy bed.
Pleasant dreams of Gavin
Tingling sensations through my body
Warm and glowing from an inner
Warmth, tingling on my skin…
Awakening suddenly, I am chilled
Goosebumps on my arms and legs
The fog is lifting on the breeze
Things around me are vivid and clear
A road, a pier, the tops of the cliffs
I take a bite of my VG donut
Noticing the exponential growth
Of surfers facing West.
A seaweed covered form arrives on the shore
Dragging his board behind him.

___
Yeah, that’s Doggerel with a capital D but it was what I saw!

What an incredible day, beach beach and more beach. Fish tacos at Rubios, Gavin called, he sounds a little distant, I’m ignoring it, more beach, all day beach. Calling, calling…Me calling my soul back to life that is timeless.

Joel said he was happy to have a babe witnessing his joy from back on the shore. I am dreading the confines of the media conference tomorrow. I want to spend weeks and weeks of todays. I want to walk on the beach forever.

Gavin, you like the beach don’t you?

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 3

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries. You can view the entire series (in reverse order) here.


ee cummings-somewhere i have never traveled. Performance and slide show by Catherine Vibert.
____

9/8/00

Today I was listening to the ee cummings poem improvisation I made for you. I remember giving you that for Valentine’s Day a few years ago. I always had the feeling ee cummings was speaking of something spiritual when he wrote that poem, but when I made that rendition, I thought of you. The power of your eyes on me…like when you walked into class that day, and sat down next to me and just looked at me for what seemed like an eternity. My blood turned to treacle and I knew then that I was hooked on you, and completely powerless. It has been like that for so many years. That poem for me explains perfectly the effect you had on me then, and still have on me now. I don’t know if that is good or bad. I think I was angry at you at the moment I made it, something about it seems angry…

I watched you from the kitchen window as you focused on your work and puffed away on that silly clove cigarette… Just seeing a look of satisfaction in your face, what a funny juxtaposition against the ever-present wildness.

I wonder what it is about you (that closes and opens) that I am so very drawn to (whose texture compels me with the color of its countries) that brings out all the sweetness I’ve ever felt for anyone (rendering death and forever in each breathing) and multiplies it by thousands…

(Nobody, not even the rain has such small hands…)


9/9/00

Oh jesus, such romantic crap. I simply don’t understand why it is that whenever you look at me, still, I forgive whatever trouble you have caused in my life, and in the lives of all the other hundreds of women you have devastated with that stupid gaze of yours. Why do I do this? There must be something terribly wrong with me. Why did God pick me to be the whole world of second chances? I don’t get it.

A thin veil of glass
Sleep,
Sleep,
It will be gone when you wake,
Love knows no separation…

9/10/00

Joel called today to talk about our upcoming camping trip at the beach before the media conference. I get the feeling he and Susan broke up. Bad timing!

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 2

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries. To read in sequence, click on "Maddening Hearts" in the labels section on the right side of this blog.



9/5/00

Gavin,
You played me a song, about walking on eggshells. I’m sure there was a lot more to the song, but that was the phrase that grabbed me. I wondered whether you felt as if you were walking on eggshells, or you were feeling like the eggshell, being walked over. In a sense, I did fall into feeling like I was doing that at the end of the weekend. I could feel the thin line you were walking, and my own fear of having my heart stomped on, and broken by you, again.

There is a level of comfort that I slip into with you that is beyond compare. A sort of feeling of fatalistic submission and a sense of freedom that goes along with that. Like what you might feel with a family member, someone who just doesn’t leave your heart. No matter who they are, no matter what their mood, you still love them. I feel that way about you, and at times I think maybe you feel that way about me too. There’s a kind of ‘sigh of relief’ feeling when we both relax into that knowing, and just feel that sense of security, knowing that we are truly loved…and gratitude that we have been given the grace to love that way.

And then the veil comes down on you. Or maybe the veil goes up off of you, and the shadows emerge into light.

I know those shadows. I’ve seen them in myself. It would not be good for us to give them too much attention. We’ve been there before, and that hurt us, and others…. You need someone who will stand and be bold and secure when you go into those shadows, not be afraid of them. It helps to remember that your moods are like gentle waves, sometimes soothing me, sometimes a little scary with some rocks to navigate.

God grant me the strength to be strong always, and to love you with confidence.

Opening to you Gavin, is profound beyond words. This is the kind of love that brings me to my knees. I offer up prayer that it fills our souls, and heals the holes in our hearts.

Love you,
Karina

(Note scribbled sideways on the same page, dated 9/7/00)
And what about when
I am weak and my own
shadows dance-
what will happen to us then?

Maddening Hearts in the Last Year of Innocence, pt 1

A serial piece exploring a year in the life of a woman who loved a mad man, as told through her journal entries.

Labor Day 2000,

New journal purchased while puttering around with Gavin. It feels good after all these years of sneaking around, pretending not to care too much, to finally actually get to be with him. After the night he raped me back in '97, I was sure it was finished and I was through. I’m so glad I finally decided to contact him again. The fact that he found out that he is actually bipolar really explains a lot. He seems more self assured, and doesn’t seem to want to play games anymore. I guess the meds have helped him stay out of institutions. I’ve never really agreed with the idea of ‘meds’ but since I’ve known Gavin now for 6 years, and most of them an extreme roller coaster, I can see that they help him. He is calm now, and able to love.

A new era,
A new journal
New dimensions to explore,
Abundance,
A sense of grace…

A new journal picked
With Gavin by my side
Strange, but true
Gavin returns
My heart begins
To burn once more
Perchance, to heal?

Old wounds run deep
Will we kiss the deepest crevasses of them?
Will you stand tall
And face the dark shadows?

If I hold your hand
Will you face the shadows?
Will you help me face mine?
I love you…