What She Does for Us

I am meeting with a new friend, and we are talking about our common Muse.  We are madly, hopelessly, and eternally in love with her.  The both of us.  After we exchange stories, he asks me: “Why do you love her?”

I start googling my own brain for the “obvious” answers, but my dear brother-in-love does not give me a chance to reply.  “She makes me happy, man,” he blurts out like he had been waiting for a chance to say it all his life. “That’s all.  When she’s around, I’m just happy.”

I nod, and we share a good minute of silent agreement.  And then we drink to that.

All the details of what she does for me adds up to that sum:  She makes me happy. It is that simple, and it is that true.  However, a cold bottle of Pepsi makes me happy too.  I cannot put the love of my life on the same ground-level pedestal. 

So now then, since words are my tool, and I am – as I said – madly in love with her, I shall build a shrine for my Muse.  I will tell you, because it is in your interest, why we love her.

She tells the most wonderful stories.  She talks about the world and the many characters in it.  Her world becomes mine.  I hear about people filled with love, hope, pain, dreams.  I hear about sweet grandparents and beautiful sisters and troubled teenagers.  I hear about death, and I hear about lessons learned.  She introduces me to places and situations that I never could have experienced for myself.  In so doing, I become part-owner of these experiences.

“…plain old Jane told a story about a man who was too afraid to fly so he never did land.”

She teaches me to listen.  In fact, most of the time, she only lets me listen.  She cannot be interrupted – if I so much as think about speaking, I will miss the wonderful things I could be hearing.  I do not want to miss a single beat of what she is telling me.

“…And there are voices that want to be heard.  So much to mention, but you can't find the words.”

She makes me feel larger than life.  I listen to her and I am drawn into a bigger universe.  If I listen truthfully, I will feel what she feels, which is what she wants me to feel.  My life is much richer for this immersion.  My life spans time and space.

“Meet me in outer space, I will hold you close if you're afraid of heights.  I need you to see this place.  It might be the only way that I can show you how it feels to be inside of you.”

She is the beat I live by.  Without her I am an ant strayed far far far out of the line, walking sporadically in randomly generated directions.  This series of random actions may move me a mile, or it may move me a grand total of six inches.  Without her I am an aimless wanderer.  She rescues me from this existence.  She calms me, fills me, fuels me.  I find my feet – no, my whole body – volunteering to move to her beat.

“Go on hitch a ride on the back of a butterfly, no better way to fly to get to me.”

She shields me.  In a world constantly disintegrating into chaos, she gives me a line of order to hang on to.  She protects me from all the senseless chatter.  As I walk with her, she takes me to a space where there is only the two of us.  We share each other with no other.  The time we spend together stands still.

I cannot be overcome with the weight of the world when my only duty in these moments is to be with her.  She lets me in, a guest in her magical bubble, and lets me be held by her.

“This time, when kindness falls like rain, it washes me away…”

This is what she does for me.  This is how she makes me happy.  Now look closely at my shrine, because it is yours.  All that she does for me, she does for you as well.  Put on your headphones, and let her love you.

“Softly, deftly, music shall caress you.  Hear it, feel it, secretly possess you.”

My Muse is Music, and all she ever asks me to do is to receive her, except I never listen well enough.  I get it in my head that I am going to return the favor.  I want her to receive me.  I want to give her all of me.  I try to sing over her voice.

“I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on.  I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on.  I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down.”

My Muse is Music - my flawed emotional human ego wants nothing more than to hold her and never let go - but she does not belong to me.  She is everything to me, but I cannot be anything to her.  She will not let me secretly possess her.

She leaves because she is not mine.  As her voice fades, I feel the pain of the inevitable end.  I cry “Wait, WAIT!”  …and I am suddenly alone.  I am at the very opposite of ease.  I love her because when she is here, I am happy.  But what happens to me when she is not here?

“Will it be the end, or is (s)he still ascending?  But if (s)he’s all you say, would (s)he fly from heaven to this world again?”

Swords of panic dangle over me.  I know that even the best songs ever created will come to an end, but I harbour a hope that some songs play forever.  …Or maybe I don’t need her.  Maybe she was never good for me anyway.

“We don’t have to be friends, let’s pretend to be enemies.  Yeah, whatever makes you happy…”

My muse is Music, and she now leaves me alone.  In my reckless passion for her I speak too soon and too much.  I let her song pass me by.  I punctured her magical bubble with the very swords of panic that I tried to leap away from, and now the din of the outside world finds us.  It drowns out her beauty, so she flees.  This silence is her parting gift, and it is what I deserve. 

“I will go in this way and find my own way out.  I won't tell you to stay, but I'm coming to much more Me...”

She does this for me.  To let me breathe.  To give me an interlude so that I might hear my Self.  This is supposed to be good for me, but all I hear from my Self is a plea:

Dear Muse, please don’t wait too long to come back.  I suffer this lonely silence so that I might hear you again.  So I can be with you.  When you return, I promise only to listen, and to laugh, or to weep.  I promise to speak no more, except to say “Thank you” for the inspiration.  And, “I’m sorry” for trying to possess you.  And “I love you.”

“I wish I was a radio song, the one that you turned up.”

Ah, when I am ready to listen, there she is.  She teaches me Faith.

As I Talk To Me

we take comfort in our words
within them we are together
we are safe
our words celebrate,
a recital,
the vehicle of our arrival
brilliant, absurd

if a naked flag of silence unfurled
glory, we are here
not safe
though not sorry
are we but two pieces of a great story...?
brilliant, absurd

no
and no more words,
were your words
i want to see you in discomfort
feel you
hold you
know you
brilliant, absurd

The Scoring of My Life

My life is a movie. 

I do not own a submachine gun, drive a black van, or have ten uniquely talented friends to help me break into a vault, so my movie is kind of a Chick Flick.  I am obviously the main character, and there are many supporting roles and powerful cameos.  The best supporting role award, however, must go to the role of Music.

Opening credits. I wake up to the phonograph playing the music my parents put on.  Here Comes the Sun, so I open my eyes to look out the window because I am a child that believes in what I am hearing.  The Sun is warm and beautiful.  I hear about Michelle, and I wonder if she is warm and beautiful like the Sun.  I wonder about Love.

Almost every song I hear is about Love.  The Beatles put an idea in my impressionable preschool head: Love makes people sing.  And yes, Love makes people Imagine.

Act One.  I Imagine Love – and because romantic notions are an alien concept to me, I Imagine being loved by everyone.  I begin with imaginary friends, but as preschool turns into Grade School, I Imagine being able to earn the love of my older cooler neighbours... cousins... peers.  If I can be as cool as them, I will be Loved.

I stop looking out the window.  Instead I stare at the FM Radio, where a blank cassette tape is constantly on standby with the play-record-pause buttons pressed down.  At any moment, XB102 will play Tears for Fears, The Smiths, Care.  I have to be ready to spring and unpause, so I can steal their cool and show it off to my friends.

This is how I learn to download, sort of.  More significantly, this is how I learn to build a personality using the coolness of others – Whatever Possessed Me.

In this developing Mad World, cool was defined by a New Wave - after all, “new” is always cool... and Waves, definitely cool.  I assimilate the gelled hair of Curt Smith and that arm-flinging excuse for a dance that Roland Orzabal does.  Someone tells me I was born on the same day as Roland Orzabal.  I believe we are twins.  I am cool.

High School, towards the end of Act One.  I continue accumulating quite an impressive amount of cool.  I do this All For Love, and it seems to be working out amongst my peers... but what is the deal with these girls?  They don’t seem too interested.  Meanwhile, I am suddenly finding them extremely interesting.

I daydream about Michelle, except this time her name is Bee (not her real name).  I wonder what I would say to her if I ever got the courage to talk to her – to Say Anything.  I have not yet learned to Act Naturally, so my words will have to be carefully mapped out.  I want to speak plainly, but I need rhyme and meter to hide the fragile heart behind the composed personality.  I am not alone.  My peers are with me.  We are metamorphosing together: from Boyz2Men.

Like them, I struggle to be sincere, but just end up being cheesy.  I have no ambition, except to win affection.  I cannot imagine being in politics or public relations, but I harbour illusions of becoming a published poet.  This is supposed to make me happy and get me a lot of girls.

Act One ends. I never get a girl. 

Act Two. I am a college freshman, and a girl gets me.  This girl waits on a line of green and blue just to be the next to be with ...me.  (Technically not true, since she is the first to be with me.)

I am floating, flying, and as I experience getting to know someone deeply for the first time, the sounds of Motown play in the background.  I Heard It Through the Grapevine.  These are the songs from her own First Act, and she brings them into my movie.  She helps me find Reasons.  She brings me sunshine on a cloudy day.

I settle into the idea that I am (finally!) loved by a girl.  My Girl.  I made it.  The histrionic girlie-guys screaming for attention on stage can now afford to mellow out to sing More Than Words.

The mellow doesn’t last long, however.  I learned a thing or two from Boy Bands about expressing Love and enjoying its sweetness, but they never quite prepare me for the bitterness.  The Tenderness – or lack of it.  The falling apart.  The irrational behaviour.  The betrayal.  The disappointment.

I now find it impossible to believe that All You Need Is love – I am convinced that I need anger, and I need to use it to make the pain go away.  The cheesy introvert wants to learn to burst out screaming.

Candlebox strikes a chord and makes me want to leave everything Far Behind - I think that I am becoming more expressive, but I only become more aggressive.  Still, it helps me flex a newfound extrovert muscle.  I go out and meet new people.

I meet Eddie Vedder.  No, not personally.  But the more I hear his words, the more heroic he becomes to me.  He is able to make a point with what seems like anger, but is actually all the fury of a soul screaming with passion.  This new score opens my ears. 

Times are Black and I don’t see too well, but I hear Eddie and I am Given To Fly - how can Eddie Vedder take my cheesy loneliness and turn it into a moving and liberating experience of Despair?  I follow him and I fall in love with his Evolution: from angsty young underachiever to a messenger of peace and stillness.  From raging river to deep bountiful ocean.

I want his Evolution.  I want to know Who We Are.  I want to live in the Present Tense.

I swap infatuation for Evolution – Love of Self over Love of (Ex-) Girlfriend.  For the first time in my life, I begin thinking about having personal ambitions.  Along the way, I hear Counting Crows and think they are on to something.  Mister Jones and me, we want to be big stars.

I love the way Adam Duritz lets the rules fall away:  he doesn’t have to rhyme...he doesn’t have to shout...he often doesn’t even have to sing...some songs he kind of just speaks while music plays in the background.

He tells stories.

I want to tell stories.  I want to live like this – with music playing in the background while I tell my story.  To not have to be angry, or scared, or dissatisfied ...or cool.  To just speak melodiously – and, if I am not done at the end of the bar, to let my words simply spill over into the next measure - to never have to sing the same song the exact same way.

Adam Duritz makes me want to sing because he makes me believe that even I can.  If all I have to do is be honest and forget about performing, then I can sing.  He can get away with it, so I believe I will be able to as well.

Another hero who gets away with a lot is Dave Matthews - getting away with what, to anyone else, can be considered lewd – glorifying one night stands and hiking up girls’ skirts so she can show the world to him...asking softly, Lover Lay Down.

Dave talks about sex and turns us on everywhere but in our groin.  He gets into our heads and swims around in it with his childlike wonder.  How can he sing about the dreariness of Ants Marching and still make me prance about happily like life is so great?  Is it the sound of the lonely violin blending with the Joy Of Sax?

Dave Matthews teaches me to look at the Best of What’s Around.  This optimism helps me believe in myself, and in the power of joy.  This belief helps me achieve.  Where Boys2Men failed, he succeeds.  I begin to really feel like a Man.

I meet a beautiful girl and ask her to Crash Into Me, and she does.  With my confidence at an all-time high, I start a Rock Band, and it makes my new girlfriend giddy.  I am going to sing in public.  I am finally coming out of a shell I built from other peoples’ cool.  When this Boy-Turned-Man comes out, she is going to love me more than I can ever Imagine.

Except she doesn’t.  She dumps me for a doctor.  She leaves me at the beginning of my great adventure, but she helps fuel my journey with the energy of pure and painful emotion. 

I use it.  I use it all.  I use it well.

At the peak of my Rock Band days, Chris Cornell is the voice I want to have.  His are the words I wish I had written.  He sings not about love and lovers, but about needing a Friend Till the End of the World.  About Waving Goodbye.  About Jeff Buckley.

Jeff Buckley, who, like Adam, also breaks the rules by writing a song with neither chorus nor refrain... he starts the song, and keeps going till his Last Goodbye fades out.

He simply moves on, and he teaches me how to as well.

At the end of Act Two, this is the score: I am back where I started.  Heart, broken.  Head, in complete darkness.  Frustrated by the pain caused by the cutting – the ripping away – of yet another intimate partnership. 

Having a girlfriend is like rolling around in the sand.  It sounds like a quirky fun romantic activity, until I realize the sand is actually sandpaper.  And the sandpaper is actually flypaper.  By the time one of us wants to stop rolling in it, it is already fused to my epidermis and the only way to lose it is to be willing to lose my skin. 

To be willing to walk around raw and bleeding for a dark lonely year, waiting to rebound.

This is the time I write my own score, and modesty aside, these are some of the best songs I will ever hear.  This, at the end of Act Two, is where the “Falling Slowly” of my movie is unveiled.  This is where I write my own “Black”...

Act Three.  Eighteen months pass, and I am finally out of the darkness and back on my feet.  I meet the woman I will marry, and my songs take a backseat to hers.  The music she brings is not entirely new, but it is previously under-explored.  I knew Ben Folds Five but not Ben Folds.  At the mention of the Beastie Boys I sing about a Sabotage, but she sings about a Sure Shot.

I am under-explored.

Like the first time I fell in love, I let my life be scored by someone else.  I listen to things I have never heard before, and I do things I never imagined I would.  I dare to dream, care to travel, and plan a marriage.  I share everything with her – Eddie Vedder, Dave Matthews, Chris Cornell…

She says "life is great, isn't it?" ...and I believe her.

I Love, walking around knowing that everything is alright.  I Love, knowing I do not have to whistle a happy tune when I am scared because someone somewhere is going to play the right tune for me.

She plays me a medley of stand-up comedy acts.  After many years trying to learn to love, I realize that I forgot to laugh.  I laugh more constantly than ever.

I will need all that laughter, because this medley fades on cue.

I am the first person I know, personally, who got married in Las Vegas.  I am the first person I know, personally, to get a divorce.  I am cool.  But my mother constantly asks me: Where is the Love?

I am not sure anymore.  I am Setting Forth in the Universe to find it.  I am lost and alone in the age of the ipod and every song from every CD I’ve ever bought, borrowed, stolen, copied, or otherwise downloaded is playing all at once in random sequence.

Everything that had happened before leads to this, the end of Act Three.

I fight an impending feeling of doom: that the credits will roll soon.  My background music is a medley of reprises from all the songs from all the previous Acts.  I have to listen to every one of them to muster the power, wisdom, inspiration, and faith that I need to continue.

Garry Schyman’s Praan plays.  I have never even heard of this artist, but somehow I have this song.  It isn’t even in English – and I cannot make out a word of it – but it is one of the most moving pieces I will ever hear.  I do not need to understand, I just need to hear, and I know I can walk on...

Here Comes The Sun.

I pay attention to the Music and I know that this movie is not over.  The Score of my life swells up constantly, indicating moments of epic glory, even in times of tragedy.  It is the work of generations upon generations of genius and divine inspiration, and it is a work in progress.

I sing along with Billy Bragg.  I Keep Faith.

I Don't See Sexy

So you want to be sexy.  Sexi-er, in fact.  I will tell you how.

You can work your body down to a shape that fits into that two piece swimsuit.  You can wear a punishing girdle under that shiny evening gown.  You can hire Da Vinci’s great grandchild to paint a masterpiece of highlights and shadows on your face.  You can tease your hair and spend five hours on it and be prepared to curse out anyone with the innocent-but-fatal urge to touch it.

You can change your name to resemble a softdrink.  Careful though, because while Pepsi Morales is always sexy, and Sprite Querubim is definitely cute, I found that Mountain Dew Gonzales can be hit-and-miss.

You can also have a nickname that suggests sex (like “Bangs” or “Bends”), food (“Peaches”), or a reference to a cute cartoon character (“Buttercup”).  You can go for uber sexy and do a trifecta (“Milky White”).

I know a girl who seemed hotter for changing her name from “Edna” to “Sparrow” – a noble attempt, to be sure, but I thought that as long as she was going to name herself after a bird, she would have done much better if she went with “Swallow”... but that’s just a male chauvinist opinion.

HOWEVER, while these little tricks do make you a little sexier, I can guaran-funkin-tee that they are not worth the effort that you put in (with the possible exception of the “Swallow” name-change).

Who am I to guarantee, you say?  After all, I am no scientist.  I do not read, subscribe, or contribute to Beauty Bibles like Vogue and Allure.  To this ignoramus, Bobbi Brown sounds more like a wifebeater than a beauty resource.  I have not studied fashion, and the only models I know are the plastic airplanes that are put together with glue and spray paint.

Who am I to tell you what is Sexy?  Well I know what I like.  I am a Man.  I am the target market, goddammit, so heed my words!

Sometime ago I was at a low-budget Bikini Open.  In all likelihood, I was probably not supposed to be there, but there I was, like a moth to a lantern, drawn to the collection of meat wrapped in wet T-shirts.

It was supposed to be a spectacle for the testicles.  An Asstronomical event, with more tentpoles than you would have found at Boy Scout Jamboree.  Women came onstage to give men more tits and tricks than an internet FAQ.  Well, they didn’t exactly “come onstage” as it was not that kind of show, but you get the point...

In theory, the sheer amount of Sexy I was being bombarded with should have made brain function impossible.  As a heterosexual man, I was supposed to be reduced to a drooling heap - cross-eyed and bow-legged and grunting unintelligibly like an orc.

But something was not right.  Not only was I still fully functional, I was having a heated debate with my companion about the finer points of playing a healer-class in a World of Warcraft Guild.  How could I talk about a video game in the middle of all this?  What was missing?

Strangely but obviously, Sexy was missing.  I wasn’t picking up The Vibe.  Half-naked vibe, check.  Slutty vibe, check.  Will-take-money-for-favors vibe, check.  Will-agree-to-a-threesome vibe, check. 

If I did pick up the Sexy Vibe that night, it was not onstage.  At this Bikini Open, the fully-clad women in the crowd were sexier than the scantily-clad lingerie models under the spotlight.

How were they sexier?

To answer that question – to tell you how to be sexi-er – I can only help you figure out when you are sexi-est, so let me introduce you to Three Sexy Friends...

(And just so this information actually matters to you, imagine that instead of me – an anonymous and average member of the much-maligned male gender – these words are being spoken by Messieurs Pitt, Clooney, and Ramsey.  I can assure you that what works for me works for them.)

MOVEMENT IS YOUR FRIEND!

Pop Quiz:  On the monitor to the left we have a high-res photo of an almost naked Miss Universe runner-up, and on the monitor to the right we have a blurry video of a slightly-clothed probinsyana gyrating to the tune of “Careless Whisper” – which monitor do the guys crowd around?

A Dancing Woman is Sexy NOT because it can turn into a striptease at any moment (although that is a nice carrot to dangle), but because it is a woman using her body to enjoy herself.

Back at the Bikini Open, the women onstage were not sexy because they were not enjoying themselves.  They were not sexy because they were too preoccupied with trying to “project sexy”...

I found that the lady with the headset who was busy directing the show was a lot sexier.

Have you heard of The Accidental Vixen?  She is sexiest when she is too busy to think about being sexy...

She uses her body and enjoys its power.

Maria Sharapova is Sexy for this reason:  Again, the possibility of seeing her undies when she chases after a drop shot is a nice plus, but the beauty – the Sexy – is in the way she commands her body.  Her single-minded Passion makes her put her whole body into motion to do something she loves: diving after some balls.

The Super Secret Law of Venus Williams and Mick Jagger:  While designer skirts and leather pants can augment it, Sexy really comes from all-out intensity and focus.

Meet Sexy:  She uses her body with intensity, and she shows me that she enjoys its power.  She doesn’t just lay there, she moves with me.  And she lets me know she is loving every movement.  This brings us to...

JOY IS YOUR FRIEND!

Is it any wonder, then, that a man’s first order of business when speaking to a woman is to make her laugh?  The phone number comes later, we must first make you at least crack a smile.

Sexy smiles at me.  She shows me that she loves who she is and where she is.  When Sexy laughs, she laughs heartily, and says “YES” with genuine ecstasy.

She shows me what brings her joy, and what she is passionate about.

Sometimes I think I see Sexy – not in clothing or body type or in the way she appears, but in the way she carries herself.  The closer I get, the more I think I can see it.

I might see it in the depth of the pools in her eyes.  In the way she pins her hair behind her ears.  In the tossing of her head.  In the cheese dip at the corner of her mouth.

I see Sexy in her complete lack of self consciousness.

The closer I get, I see it less and less, but I realize I can hear it more - the sound of her voice, her speech pattern, her witty remarks, her side comments, her train of thought, the way she breathes...

As I get even closer, I begin to feel her.

Sexy is fearless, and her spirit is adventurous.  When I ask her if she'll climb a mountain with me, she might say "Sod it, let's climb two - and when we get to the top of that second peak, it better have a waterfall so I can to jump off it!"

Sexy is self-confident.  She moves the way she pleases - knowing what she wants, and knowing she's right to want it - not having to worry about what she looks like.

When she is trying to get what she wants - whether she is rock-climbing, solving a math problem, or trying to have an orgasm – Sexy is intense.

I know a woman who, as she talks about the things that bring her joy and tries to make a point, loads every word with so much passion that it takes everything I have just to stop my body from jumping her… because that would get in the way of her uber sexy talking...

But I will jump her at some point, it cannot be helped.

CONTACT IS YOUR FRIEND!

Whether she is dancing and enjoying the movement of her own body, or speaking passionately about the things that move her, Sexy makes contact.  She begins by looking at me.  She shoots that fierce intense passionate joyful energy from her eyes and uses it like a laser beam to cut through my hypothalamus into my nucleus accumbens. 

Sexy establishes contact, and then dares to close the gap, to get to where she really resides.  She knows that what is sexiest is the way she feels.  Not just the way she feels when I'm feeling her.  I mean the way SHE is FEELING.

In other words:  She lets me touch her, so I know how she feels.  And she touches me.........SO I KNOW HOW SHE FEELS.

When she puts her hand on my knee.  When she twirls my fingertips.  When her thigh brushes up against mine.  When she leans on me for no apparent reason - so close I can smell her shampoo (Rejoice!) – I am too close to see her.  

All I can do is feel Sexy:  How she feels me, how she feels herself, how she loves and enjoys her body and wants to share it with me, trusting me to love it. How she loves and enjoys my body, allowing me to trust her completely with it. I love being with her, next to her, on her, in her, around her. Sexy makes me come so close that it is impossible to see her, so I shut my eyes to feel her and I cannot let go - even after the sun rises on a Saturday morning and there is a doubleheader on ESPN.

Seriously.  God bless you if you know what I'm talking about, because you'll understand why we close our eyes.

If you are a woman looking in the mirror and wondering how to be sexier, you won't find the answer with your eyes.  Stop wasting your time trying to show me sexy, because I cannot see sexy.

MOVE your whole body with passion and JOY, and make as much CONTACT as possible!

And if you still don't get it, here's a tip: if I’m looking at a bikini-clad woman onstage, one thing's for certain: she's over there, I’m over here.

I can’t feel that.  That’s not sexy.