Psychobabble . . . ohh Psychobabble, and the Cunning Fennec Fox

29 November 2013

1102 hrs

Dear And Patient Reader,

       I welcome us both back after far too long a break. 

  

       Excuse me if today’s post is more confusing than usual; I am very tired.  Too much L-Tryptophan in my diet, perhaps.  Fruggin’ Turkeys.  Not that that is what I was doing- I was merely eating one.

       So I was giving much thought recently to my Memory Palace.  Originally put in to play by ancient philosophers- Cicero, Quintilian, et al- The Memory Palace is a mnemonic device used for the usual purposes we incorporate mnemonic devices.

       I use my own to gather together the memories of my life.  Now we are told to not live in the past (or the future, for that matter- stand with one foot in Yesterday and the other in Tomorrow, then all you do is piss on today, right?) and I do not necessarily do so.  I simply try to write my past as a cautionary tale to myself, as well as organize them into the many rooms within this palace.  
       
       I am going to share a bit of this Place Within My Mind with you, with your patience, as usual, of course.

       On the outside, my palace is a Queen Anne Victoria.

 

        Now this is a photograph of someone’s home, and I hope that they don’t mind that I use it to represent The Castle in my Heart of Hearts.

        I saw the photo in a random wandering session in The Web many years ago, and it moved me to my own designs.  But I digress . . .  (I know.  No Way!!!  Right?)
 

       Shall I simply get back to the matter at hand, Patient Reader?  Splendid!

       It is thus externally:  It is horizon blue- the color of a past love’s eyes.  The roof is gray slate shingles and there is a Widow’s Walk.  Its property abuts the sea, you see, but it lies on a coastal desert.  I picture the Namib or parts of Brazil where ancient sea beds, sand dunes that yawn and stretch onto some ancient land made up of the First Stones- the accretions built with the gravity of our infant Sun.

            The porch, of course, is the wrap-around veranda that continues round the hidden aspect of the house in the picture.  Next to it grows an herb garden, fragrant with basil and dill and seven species of pepper.  I open the windows adjacent to my quiet garden; other times I sit on a bench I placed there, made from the beams of a European cathedral a thousand years old, torn down to make way for progress.  The rest of the lumber from this weary house of gods has paneled certain rooms within my own.
       I will never own a place like this in this world, but the real estate of the mind is limitless and the funds are endless.

            But I have not yet opened the door, have I?  And what of the door? 

            The door is a vault door, and should it not be so?  Do we not guard the secrets within our crania with the utmost security?  Do we just let anyone in?  This is a rare opportunity, Patient Reader, for few have entered here and come out whole again.  Perhaps they came out too whole?  At any rate, the individual never comes out the same person as he or she did going in.  This is what I do.  
       As I step to the stern of the vessel of my life I see the same old sights; sometimes flotsam and jetsam; sometimes lifeboats bob like floats on a fishing line; sometimes the bioluminescence of beautiful organisms are left in my own wake.  Sometimes I see the dead; those I have drowned with my carelessness; my absence of Compassion.  My neglecting Wisdom.

       One has to remove his or her shoes before they enter.

       B was allowed inside.  C and K and K and ten thousand others all stepped through the doorway, past the foyer. Past the busts of Galen and Hippocrates; of Marcus Aurelius and Plato and Pythagoras and Ptolemy; the bust of Nero and the gold mask of The Buddha hanging next to Carole King’s tapestry.  
       Sometimes I lie prone on the marble floor and rest my fevered brow against the coolness of a memory.  Sometimes I sleep and dream of words.  B and C and K and K all saw me do this.  They saw me and they wept for my febrile brain.

They and many others sat in the parlor and heard my guitar; dined at my Great Walnut Table in the hall, my ninth grade biology teacher and an unnamed ex-supervisor serving us at the ring of my small bell.

A smaller number than that watched TV with me in the den or listened to Jackson Berkey on my stereo.  Even fewer were allowed to choose from my collection of music.

Many stood in the kitchen and drank my beer.  Even fewer were allowed upstairs; even fewer in the study. 
  
A mere handful crossed the thresholds of my bedrooms.

         The upstairs is laid out in Japanese fashion: the aesthetic ideal of emptiness, according to Wikipedia.

       Shoji­ separate and draw together rooms of ever-changing size and shape; festooned with bamboo and miniature ­torii , I lie on futons made of silk and rest in the quiet places of my mind.

            Only sometimes do I hear knocking on some distant door.  Within?  Without?  Does it really make a difference?

            I will not write of the basement, the cellars, or the attic.  At least, not here; not now. 
 

There is a trunk in a closet where I keep the photographs of all whom I have loved. Brothers in blood and otherwise; sisters of the same; pets and old lovers that exist now, only on the paper in my brain.

There are two locked boxes therein; my mother in one and my father in the other.  For diametrically opposite reasons they do not share the same space occupied by the others, nor the space occupied by their mate.

The trunk smells of the cedar from which it is made, and faintly of perfume and promises made and promises broken; these smells are bittersweet.  A sachet of heartbreak and . . .  redemption?

There is a special box made of silver and locked with this key right here, that holds whatever remains of a dead fiancée, taken before she knew how much I loved her.

She has her very own bedroom down the hall from here, behind a soft blue door originally periwinkle in hue, but darkened by dust and held fast by the dry hinges and the long- unturned knob.  I will tell you of her more, but not today . . .

So why do I draw your attention to the Memory Palace; introduced to me as a child and reminded of it many years later (and many years ago), by the poet-author Thomas Harris (yes, look him up; he's Brilliant)?  
Why do I bring it up in the first place?

Well, I had to get to this box, this chest of failed wishes, and I have to come here where it lies in this locked and unpredictable closet.  Unpredictable because I never know the state in which I will find it.

I dream of loving still, you see, in this heavy broken heart, burned and razed by those within the very box I seek.

I hate to love and the results of it, but loneliness is, at times, even worse than pain.  Loneliness has its own pain, does it not?  Has its own -algia that can be worse than that of a shattered heart.  A comminution of the very soul, weary and compromised by fear and jading.

Promises made in happiness are broken in sorrow.  I’ve done it.  Very long ago.  It’s not that I am a better, stronger man now, only that I no longer make promises without the certainty of permanence.  Maybe that does make me Better.  Maybe that does make me a stronger man.  To recognize a flaw and understand the ugliness in the revealing of it?  To know of it and its signs and do my best to not be dismembered by its whistling blade?

I enter, as you know Dear, Kind, and Patient Reader, into new relationships with few promises, yet they are promises I can make because I can keep them.   
I promise to not do some things, remember?  Not to lie, raise my voice, or raise my hand to another; cuss them or berate; belittle or mock or shame.  I promise not to cheat once monogamy has been established and upon which there is a mutual agreement.  I don’t mean sleeping with anyone that comes along; I’m writing here of exclusivity, dating-wise.  How do you know if this exclusivity is agreed upon without verbal communication?  Through the inherently flawed process of implying and inferring?  Bullshit, even though that is something we tend to do, anyway.

Let’s propose a hypothetical scenario:  A man begins to see a woman on friendly terms.  There forms a mutual affection, more on the part of the female, as her affection for the man is obvious from the onset.   
Early on, she offers to make his life a bit more convenient by handling an expenditure of his that requires a monthly payment, only until his quarterly income hits his account, when the “loan” is paid back in full.

Now the man is awash with reluctance.  He needs this accommodation, but worries about what would happen should the friendship come to an unseemly end.  Despite his misgivings, he believes the assurances that she is not “a vindictive person . . .” and promises on her part are made.  An agreement is reached.  This frees up his limited income, now long spent, to cover other necessities, such as rent, etc. 

Do you see where this is headed?

Soon thereafter, she begins professing her “love” to the man.  Then there are periods of complete schizo-affective disorder; one minute happy and cheerful; the next angry and bitter.  Did I mention that the woman was overcome by menstruation and its inherent hormonal changes fully four times in their seven-week history?  That would piss off the Dalai Lama Himself, fa chrissakes.

Honestly Patient Reader, I do not belittle nor do I consider trite the discomforts of menses.  But if the majority of you can use it as an excuse, then some of us can use it as a reason.  Agreed?

On top of all that, she tells him three times that they are through.  OK, fine . . .  they’re through.  The man has kept all the texts and emails of their relationship.  It’s all right there.  She even suggested that once his finances came in, he should make other arrangements of the aforementioned "agreement." 

Comforted by the lies disguised as promises, the man decides fuck it . . .  there’s no reason to be bored and alone . . .  perhaps conversations with other ladies isn’t such a bad thing after all . . .

So time passes.  Others are met and some friendships are formed, others not, and life goes on. 

Later, the relationship between the first woman and the man is restarted.  Remember, there was no agreement whatsoever that there was mutual exclusivity between the two.  He never once told the woman that he loved her, despite her frustrations.  He will not tell a lie just to make someone feel he is in love.  This reticence only makes his words more precious, do they not?  Wouldn't you rather know that the words of his mouth are honest than to hear he loves you when in fact he does not?
 There certainly was no agreement that he was never to see anyone ever again no matter what, even if she was no longer in the picture.

He sounds like Ross from Friends; that TV show from the Nineties:  “We were on a BREAK!” Ross would screech at Rachel in frustration.

Anyway, The Woman finds out that he made new friends, reneges on her absolute promise . . .  “I am not a vindictive woman . . .”  and the aforementioned financial agreement is unilaterally dissolved.  And the expense in question is a necessity; it is essential to living in our times, and the loss cannot be rectified until January.

The man is not so upset with her.  It was in her nature to be that way.  He saw it a mile off, and yet he went ahead like a doofus.  That’s what upsets him most.  He knew better and still went ahead based simply on the smiling promises of another, despite a cedar chest full of ashes.

 There are, as they say, plenty more beautiful and smart and funny fish in the sea.  There are out there, I swear there are, even some that aren’t crazy as shithice mice.

I’m too fucking old to play games with y’all women.  You don’t get to decide how and when you slap someone away and then surprise them at their doorstep, trying to convince them that they misunderstood; that (some of) y'all didn’t really say that, or this, or whatever.  Then when the proof is shown to some of you, you tell us that your words cannot be used against you in the future.  What kind of Psycho Fucking Babble is that?

It appears that she is gone for good this time, which is perfect.  Now maybe I won’t drive her crazy anymore.