resonance

an all the way to your toes happy buddha smile when you hear that voice.
everyday conversations that leave you feeling better than you were for no particular reason.
childhood story telling.
exploration of a private universe.
a chuckle that sparks the spidey senses to tingling.
ageless.
finishing each others' sentences.
finding more connections than you thought possible
a mere touch that heats like an acetylene torch.
the freedom to say what you really feel not what you think they want to hear.
everything fits.
anticipation.
shared silence.

ch ch ch ch changes ... turn yourself around ...

Foreign countries are wonderful. Every breath you take is new. The preconceptions that you have lived with daily for decades do not necessarily apply.

culture shock.

The best way for me to get over it is to jump right in. I may blunder around a bit at first but I have found that I am pretty quick on my feet when it comes to adapting and a smile and a sense of the ridiculous work wonders when you make a mistake.

It only took me 4 days to learn to HEAR what was being said to me. At first I simply could not wrap my head around it. Then I almost didn't want to because knowing me, it might not be a good thing for me to believe what I found myself immersed in. And then it was too late.

Only a few times in my life have I experienced that intensity of positive attention by complete strangers who looked me directly in my eyes when they spoke to me. Softly but with a conviction and body language that could not be denied no matter how paranoid I was at being played. Intense and steady like the ocean. The quiet refusal to take no for an answer, and I said no many times. The persistence to find me three or four times a day for a conversation or a knowing wink and a cheshire grin - so sure he'd get what he wanted.

The infinite game of cat and mouse that has mesmerized humanity for millennia. Yes no maybe. The flash of a smile that read like an adventure novel and a sense of self that simply refused to be ignored. It was like looking into a historical mirror. I knew that guy. And gradually I realized I was still that girl.

He innately knew just how to find her. Laughter and smart ass cracks, crinkled eyes and and a voice so deep you wanted to find out how deep the well was. Always with the quick repartee, the master of patter trading shots with the newly minted come back queen. Brutally honest and straight forward and simple words. Full of himself and going after what he wanted. An ambitious young man with a plan who still took time to play.

We traded stories and secrets, laughed at ourselves and our framilies. Compared recipes and educational systems, politics and travel. We questioned each others motives and principles. Where did you want to be someday and why? What would you do there? What's the best/worst thing about your life right now? If you could change one thing what would it be? The answers from both of us were surprising. And music. Endless conversations about music.

An unexpected hand on my elbow as I went up the beach, a mug of magic coffee early in the morning, a brush of a hip, a breath on my neck as he whispered a compliment. Never overt, it was against all their rules. I caved. I wanted to play the game.

A last adventure with no hidden agendas. A tiny villa in Negril town, wrought iron grills surrounding the almost empty bar instead of walls. Ice cold guinness in the heat. Jazz in the background.

Beautiful hands and a kiss sweet as demarra. Smooth, lean, strong and with a latent sense of purpose that you could cut with a knife.
Hot showers. 1 towel.
Fingerprint bruises.

Welcome home girlie, you've been away for looong time.

coincidence

How often do you experience coincidence or deja vu? Is coincidence really a force outside of one's self or do we create it through our thoughts and desires? Is deja vu a ghost of a previous lifetime/s or a precursor of what is to come? There are so many philosophies that revolve around both that I find it immeasurably difficult to determine what it is I believe.

I do know that my life has been filled with both. I have watched/listened to myself have the exact same conversation with other people while having it with the person in front of me - knowing exactly what will be said next, and been beside myself to change the words coming out of my mouth. I meet people that I KNOW but have never met. I know the lyrics to music I've never heard. Too many times something will happen, or someone will show up just in the nick of time to resolve some critical problem or offer the precise assistance that I NEED RIGHT AT THAT MOMENT. Always grateful yet sometimes frightened. Am I crazy? Oversensitive? Extrasensitive? Drifting in the time stream where the receding current pulls you back through ages past?

Perhaps coincidence is the physical manifestation of unvoiced desire acting through the unconscious. The mind IS our most powerful tool and I have spent a lifetime trying to keep mine open. I am quite sure People being people, even with the infinitely random events in each individual life there must surely be some crossover point, and coincidence happens when that crossover occurs with two people in the same place and time, or between an individual and a specific event. I'll go with that.

Deja vu, on the other hand is an intimate haunt of mine, or maybe a karmic hurricane warning. I wonder how many lifetimes you have to live to get smacks in the forehead once a week? The dream that you wake up from with a picture of someone you haven't seen for umpteen years yet run into the next day, or see their obituary the day after. The sense that you MUST DO SOMETHING but not be really sure what. It's a double edged sword is deja vu.

And then when you apply either or both to individuals ....

for instance: to get on a plane for your first vacation EVER, to have the airline make a mistake with the seating, putting you with a stranger, who feels so comfortable that you quickly fall into conversation, who lives in your city, who knows about 50 people that you do including framily not just long gone acquaintances, much laughter ensues, fears openly discussed, politics, sport, friends, food, travel, history, family, stories, hours and hours on the phone, when neither of us usually spend much time on it at all, and it's the OTHER person who utters " it's like we've known each other for a 1000 years". That sense of comfortability that takes years to find with most, that you share with your besties, and a new one is added to the list. It always makes me wonder how many lost friends I still have floating around out there. Did I run into this one because I made a concious effort to be more open to it? I don't know and this isn't helping.

Maybe I'll just let it go and see where it leads and try to keep my questions to a million or two.

good for the soul ...

He smelled of ocean and sun and testosterone. His smile lit him up from the inside and he had strong rough fisherman's hands, agile with the most unexpectedly delicate touch. I'd seen him on the beach with the rest of the boat/seadoo guys several days running, and spoke to him a couple of times. He figured I needed a Jamaican boyfriend, and that he'd be the man for the job. I wasn't sure what I wanted. Well I knew what I wanted but wasn't sure if I could talk myself into actually doing it.

Nothing if not persistent. I like persistence, and cheek. Every morning for 8 days he'd be down on the beach as I headed up to the resort for breakfast. Always with something flattering to say. Always with the invitation to go for a boat ride. Now I'm no blushing teenager and I was quite well aware of the subtext and I would flirt right back and keep on trucking, but it certainly made me wonder...

And one morning I decided that it was time to go for a boat ride. I went to the same spot I usually sat, brandy in hand a nice fatty to greet the morning, except I didn't meander up for breakfast, I was waiting for a particular boat to show up. And then I wasn't and then I was ... and when it did my breath got short and I decided nope - not going. It was like I was 13 all over again. Stupid for an old woman I'd expect.

But as with so many other things, it works itself out. I pretended to read a book until he came over to chat. I declined his offer of a ride - he kept talking and seeing that wasn't getting him anywhere he pouted a bit and went back to talking and laughing with the rest of the crew. I would have paid serious coin to understand what they were saying right then, considering the looks I caught coming my way. So I decided I was chicken and started to get ready to head for breakfast when he couched his next invitation in a smartass comment. So I asked him why I should go in his boat. Fresh lobster for lunch out on Booby Key, and since he had given me a handsome excuse I said ok, let's go.

If you've ever been out on the ocean in 5 foot wide 18 foot long wooden fishing boat you know how the swell moves you, and once you integrate that with the woody vibrations of a fair sized outboard motor, the tropical sun beating down and the occasional burst of salt spray as you crest some cross chop you have a good idea of what was going on in my - cough cough - head.

It was freeing that ride. It was where I belonged right there, right then. Every time I turned around Bobby's eyes met mine. A wordless understanding and I almost got lost there. I didn't have to speak, just lean back and let the wind clear my soul and ride the mother sea, knowing that if I lost my balance the captain would be there to catch me, and he was.

We got to the island for the lobster picnic, passed the lobster to the crew who spend the day grilling them over an open fire for everyone who comes out to the island, lots of people snorkeling, out for a catamaran or seadoo ride, and we headed inland. He'd seen me with my ever present camera and he wanted me to see the point break. The trail was a little rugged and I liked that he assumed that I would be just fine traversing it yet he never let my hand go and always made sure I saw the deadfall. The trail was like a green tunnel with quick peeks of azure through the branches, and then we were there.



He talked me into climbing down a bank I wasn't sure I could get back up the moment I felt the strength in has arms and he lifted me over a ledge. We wandered down onto the sandy shoal where the ocean created little pools behind the breakwater, his hand always at my elbow or at the small of my back, just hovering. Twice he caught me as I lost footing on the rocks in the pools. The second time he just smiled, I'll take care of you sweetie, no problem. So cliche now - not so cliche just then. We played around in the pools like children on holiday, and I was happy to have found someone who could tap into their 8 year old child as easily as I could.

Climbing out of the pools we plopped ourselves down in the sand and just leaned into each other and watched the ocean. Our own little corner of the world, seabirds overhead, sun in my face and his heart beating against my shoulder and his arms wrapped around me, I could have stayed there forever.

well my my my, pass the ammunition

I went on my first vacation ever. To Jamaica. Go there.

Hot, humid, and laid back until the music starts, then you just follow the bass.

I am a large woman who shut down all the personal passion play 6 years ago and has recently been trying to convince herself that the blob she sees in the mirror is still desirable. It does not matter what others say, I patently do not believe them. I see beauty in almost everyone yet my personal landscape reminded me most of badly cooked mashed potatoes. I used to be able to get past my own skewed and patently shallow perception of myself but I had lost that ability somewhere along the way. And there were a few other things that I had lost too.

ja mon. thank you men of Jamica.

We arrived in Montego Bay on Sunday and was complimented about my size before I had claimed my luggage. Over the 2 weeks I was there I cannot count the number of times a man approached me, looked me straight in the eye and said "I like your size." The first time all I could do was blurt out - "Glad you do, I don't" which actually made him laugh out loud. Men are beautiful when they smile. And the variety - by the hundred little gods - from 24 to 45, 5'6" to 6' 2", cocoa, espresso, cafe au lait and ebony - and I still had a hard time believing them. Thrice damn North American standards of beauty - they almost made me watch a lifetime opportunity walk right on by.

Almost.

And of course the paranoia, mine own and that gifted to me by well wishing friends before I left along with the "stories" of bringing husbands home or being internationally stalked certainly added to my trepidation. When you have safe guarded a certain status for years the risk you take to let it go is HUGE!!! and scary. The what if's kick in. What if it's just a joke, game, con? What if it seems like a good idea at the time but when it gets right down to it and it turns embarassing, ugly, painful? I was having a ferocious hard time letting go of my own prejudice against mayself, but by the 4th day the person I saw in the mirror every night had started to change.

I was still large but saucy and softer around the edges, more playful and flirty than I'd been since I don't know when. I realized that the solid walk had drifted into a slower more sultry sashay and that the mirror smiled more. I began reading intention into my attire and was tremendously happy that all my lingerie was lacey and matchy matchy. Now where had that version of me been? I hadn't seen her for quite some time.

I started to sing inside and out, whenever the mood took me, do a little two foot shuffle as I crossed the lounge just for the sheer joy of it. Body size started to matter only when it became an inconvenience like a narrow chair or a ladder. I quit taking everything except my vitamins and felt even better. When a man complimented me I started to say thank you instead of looking at my feet and mumbling something unintelligible. The chin came up and so did everything else, I felt taller.

By Saturday I was more comfortable in my own skin than I had been for 20 years, and my skin was softer too, though the hair was a distinct shambles. And I started to get cheeky when the invitations came along.