Winter...and living is like Seattle

I sit blogging silently, gazing out the window at grey clouds hanging like a dirty curtain over a grey street in a grey neighborhood stealing itself back from dilapidation, and I am stir-crazy. Winter here in my childhood was much brighter, or perhaps it was my youth and optimism that brightened my skies. All I know is that I hate it now. I long these days for a sunnier part of the state. The dark wet forest creeps into my mood.
Loneliness and boredom are the hobgoblins of depression. Insidiously, they slip in behind open doors and warm feelings and spread their feelers looking for a day like today....a dark day when motivation is lacking, sleep is impossible, and hope is a dull ache in the back of the head.
Between jobs I am trying to write music I do not consciously know how to write and find words to express my fears, joys, flaws...tell better stories than the ones I've heard.
But there is nothing new under the sun, and I can't see it anyway.

The bobbing blonde....

No, this is not pornographic!!! I sit across from my beloved as she blogs in earnest, about what I can only hazard a guess now. She raises her eyebrows...nods....wrinkles her nose...grins. She clearly enjoys what she has to say and it gives her comfort. I love watching her do this. It makes me happy to see her so engrossed...lost in her thoughts...bobbing, as if she were boxing with her imagination. The tone sounds, the screen snaps into lockdown....and she has won this battle.

a long journey through night...

25 years..... kids.....a career......smalltown stability.... over.

I truly believe that love is never wasted, so I have much stored up for the rough times. I did not divorce myself from my children, though. I feel deeply for my former lady, but my soul had to break free. Holding someone's spirit down, whether by design or ignorance, will one day send that person out....away....to what but freedom? I have found that which I knew was there all along: love, intimacy, friendship, joy.

My career is intact, having left no bad feelings back home with my workmates or bosses. My subjects are bewildered but hopeful that my moving on brings me to a better place. And of small towns? I found this one suffocating in it's social familiarity and in my case a wide notoriety of sorts. Nowhere to be anonymous, no room to grow, stretch, re-invent. A dusty box too small to contain it's hold.

She has known me since adolescence, accepted me as I was without judgement, patient in her passion unrequited. She would not be a member of the slut parade.

She is my soulmate. Corny, I know, but true nonetheless. She believes we have traveled in other lives and brought that love with us. I have traversed mountains, beaches, snows, and skies with another but she I carried in my heart. I believe she is right. I believe in her.

Yes , I know...women will say I should have left long ago, given my feelings. I grew up the son of a man in love with liquid death and nothing else, so stability was a worthy trade for me to know my children. I was solid, supportive, nurturing, fun. But also reclusive, aloof, sensitive, isolationist... No doubt the conflict in my heart carved a chasm between us. But I would not miss those moments with my children, and I did not. My former mate is a beautiful person. I hope she finds someone who can tame her wild horses. I would not.

I am much older now. Much the wiser, and yet I still had a deep longing for my soulmate, like the alpha calling her from far-off valleys to join him on his nightly runs. She would not answer except in short, knowing the risks and not wishing the destruction of his pack. So he ran to her.
And now there is peace, adjustment, and hope for the future.