the sunday rains brought you to my dreams
and you stayed
for sweet monday kisses  

ache

the only word that fits

i ache for you

longing mixed
with regret

my hand reaches across the key board
touching an image on the screen

so close
soooo far

i can still taste you, smell you, feel you

impossibility overwelms me and
i ache

Summer Lovin'

I'm on a 4 day road trip with my sister.
I love these trips. I can have a beer or 2 or even 6 if I choose. Ahhhh, the thrill of freedom!!
During the day we go junkin' all day 'til our feet ache. Then we chill at the motel, feet propped up, each doin' our own little thing. She reads, I listen to "new to me" music and blog with you.

It's after 9:30 and this girl is "worn out!"
I'm gonna call it a night but first some music that brings back memories of "Summer Lovin"; 


"Beat This Summer" brad paisley
http://youtu.be/73tkJPTNxdg

"Yeah looking at you, girl, standing there
Got your wayfarers on and the sun in your hair
And just like the song in a seashell, you'll be stuck in my mind
Bouncing around in my head
And baby I can tell

As long I live, whatever I do
As great as it is, you know what's a bummer
I ain't ever gonna beat this summer with you
Baby it's true
The taste of your kiss is so bittersweet
I ain't gonna beat, no way I'm gonna beat this summer with you."

"Postcard From Paris" the band perry
http://youtu.be/H_WjCfxB4Qc

"......but one look at you and I was through
My heart switched up on me.

Like a postcard from Paris when I've seen the real thing.
It's like finding out your diamond is from her old promise ring.
A call back from your fortune teller, she read your cards upside down.
The meanest thing you ever did is come around
And now, I'm ruined.

In the evening you can catch me daydreaming.
Did that moment send you reeling just like me?
I should have gone over, right over.
I should have never let you leave.
But it's the never-knowing that keeps this going and drives me crazy....

....Just when I thought things were alright,
My eyes play tricks on my mind, yeah.
Will I ever be satisfied cause all I ever seem to find is a...

Postcard from Paris, when I need the real thing.
It's like finding out your diamond is from an old promise ring.
A call back from your fortune teller she read your cards upside down.
The meanest thing you ever did, the cruelest thing you ever did,
The meanest thing you ever did is come around.

I am ruined, yeah I'm ruined.Now I am ruined, yeah I'm ruined"


Does anyone else remember a summer love that ruined you for life????
A first love that plays tricks on your mind?
I do.
"It's the never-knowing that keeps this going and drives me crazy".
"The taste of your kiss is so bittersweet."
"Just like the song in a seashell" you're stuck in mind.

My life is a country lyric that begs to be played backwards. A do-over.
A do it over right song...that's what I need.

Good night lovies :)

 

Feeling wanted

"Wanted" by Hunter Hayes
I remember being 15 and desperately wanting to be wanted...
some things are meant to stay the same.

http://youtu.be/WZqvXWSMEMk

When easy becomes complicated...

I was up most of the night contemplating life.... again.
A lousy sexual encounter left me questioning.....again.

As the hours drifted on I wrote the most beautiful wedding vows and even composed the perfect  song. This wasn't asleep, this was me daydreaming in the middle of the night doing what I do best....fantasising. Leaving the questioning and the contemplating behind and dreaming "eyes wide open".

Some things can be so simple yet so complicated at the same time.
Life, love, sex....
Everything starts out so easy. As a child life is a breeze, as a teenager love is around every corner
and sex??? well it doesn't get much easier than passion and fire ;)
How is it that we wake up one day to find it's all very complicated?  Life is work, love is a choice and sex is very different when the fire goes out.

Perhaps it's all perspective? or "the mood of the day"?...
Reading my own blog yesterday, I was searching for a post on Spring (how could spring come and go, over these 3 years of blogging, and there be NO post from this lover of all things "springy"?).
Instead I found unknown treasure. Hidden within the countless posts bemoaning my miserable state of matrimony were a few well hidden but beautiful reminders of why I've chosen this man over and over again. They were posts about happiness and "falling back in love with my husband". Posts about the comfort, safety and peace I feel with him.

But today I can't find them. Seriously, I reread the same 6 posts and found NONE of the good.

How is it that I so easily forget the good and overshadow it with the hopeless???
How the hell can I read the same words I read yesterday and only this catch my eye today;

"10/13/11 "Torment"
That is my life. The hope that spring will come soon and I will thaw and
bloom like I did before the world went dark."

I've spent this morning traveling the trail of new music. I was trying to find the same excitement expressed in this article about Justin Timberlake and his song and video "Mirrors".
http://music.yahoo.com/blogs/video-gaga/justin-timberlake-celebrates-grandparents-love-story-mirrors-video-024807971.html.
But it just didn't happen.
I may need to work on my love for JT because "it just ain't there" for me.

But "never fear" I can always find a jewel when it comes to music.
Today I found it in my weekly favorite, "My Movie Song of the Week" from "Super Marcey's Super Website".
How did she know I have an intimate connection to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova??? :)

I fell head over heels, with this blending of perfection in voices, the first time I heard them sing "Into The Mystic"
http://youtu.be/dlftisKf8Mc
This morning I "sailed" once again listening to them sing and feeling the music they wrote for the movie "Once".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_(film

I journeyed on unhindered, through the fog of their love and life collaboration, as I watched them share their "love story" in this video;
http://youtu.be/hQey9Qt_RVA

I was promised tears and the need of "a box of Kleenex" as I watched the JT video about his grandparents love, life and loss. But I didn't cry. I'm sure their love was deep and moving but  personally I wasn't moved.

But my heart broke when Marketa said "for some reason it just wasn't meant to be"'. I felt a deep sense of loss watching the face of this man who obviously still loved the beautiful young woman sitting next to him.

If life were only like it "should" be then it would all end like a dream.
"Soul mates" would always sail away together into the mystic
and sex would always be passion.

Loving the music
(and the dream),
elle

My heart tattoo

I'm not wild about people explaining "why" they haven't blogged....
like they've been "too busy".... yada, yada, yada....

I've never heard anyone say "I was tired of blogging about my negative attitude, I've been really depressed and accomplished zero, nothing in my life has changed"... yada, yada, yada.
But that's me.

My mind is just aflutter with thoughts lately.
I truly have no one to talk too and talking to myself????
borrrring! :)

This morning I woke up cranky. My hubby brought me coffee in bed... just like everyday...
I felt so lousy, so guilty, so unfair....
how would I feel, if I was deeply in love and dedicated to him, and he treated me with the same disdain I show him. My "you're not wanted" attitude is sad, BUT how do you pretend you want someone when you DON'T?
I live in a constant state of confusion.
????? a question mark is tattooed on my heart.

This is the same quandary I've faced for years. It's grown from a little bug in my ear to a pounding, ever present crescendo....
Can I live this life?
What are my choices???
I HAVE no choices.
I CANNOT leave this marriage.
Only death can separate us... but I don't want to die and he deserves to live and live happy.
My husband is the one in this relationship who has given, sacrificed and dedicated himself.
I'm the one who took.
I'm the one with the most emotional baggage. The one in addiction for 30 + years.
I've always seen myself as the "bad" one and him as the "good" one.
It only makes sense that the "bad" one should die and the "good" one live.
This is my life....
a strange version of the "walking dead"...
a perfect example of "quiet desperation".

I don't know how to go back to the subservient, mildly content, safe, compliant woman from 3 years ago.
I don't know how to move ahead.

I will do my best to write more. Not because you want to hear more of my whining crap :)
but because I do think good things, worthy things, interesting things...
just not as often as I'd like.

AND there is so much music I've wasted. So many fabulous songs I long to share....

Always, elle

"You talk when you cease to be at peace

with your thoughts."
Khalil Gabran 

Yes, I do. elle    

is my "new" just recycled "old"

Hi guys! Long time no talk :(
I've been holidaying. Way too busy and glad it's finally fading.

Normal will begin again on Monday and I'm doing all I can to cram as much "non normal" into my few remaining hours. This a cherished time of year for me. A precious few weekends of "me" time.
BUT this weekend marks the end of deer season. Time is quickly ticking away and I am trying desperately not to think about this "new" year as a continuation of many, many "old" and unchangeable ones.

I thoroughly enjoyed a forbidden glass of wine with my dinner and this afternoon I treated myself to some movie heaven as I watched Les Miserables. This was my first time to see it and I am forever "smitten". A love affair has begun between "me" and the characters, their plight, anguish, fears and joys. A shared struggle between "law and grace" joins my soul with theirs.
It's a story as old as time. One that repeats itself generation after generation. Each of us playing a part in the grand opera of life. Equality, fairness, justice and ease are guaranteed to none.
The great question "why?" continues it's haunt.

I drink in movies like I do music. Some just roll off my back but the ones that touch me, touch me forever. Les Mis reached a place of ache in my soul that rivals that of Jean Valjean, a despair understood by few but shared beautifully by Anne Hathaway as Fantine.

It's after 3 in the morning and I'm sitting in the middle of my bed needing a shower and sleep.
I've fought a battle these past 2 days and though I've done all to include another in my "me" time, I have once again failed.
Slowly and with mounting despair I lost my battle against the deep dread of lonliness.
I can "dream a dream" but there is no escape from reality. Not only is my bed empty but so is my email. My text's go unanswered and I have once again begun to doubt what seemed so certain.

I sit with ear phones on, listening to YouTube performances of some of my favorite music hoping to find something that will make me smile. Everything from Memories with Susan Boyle, I Dreamed A Dream with Anne Hathaway, Shine with Collective Soul and Somewhere with Barbra Streisand (of course). Reaching out to Gnarls Barkley, James Taylor, Simon & Garfunkle & Norah Jones. My ever favorite Alison Krauss, The Rolling Stones, Santana, Robert Plant and Keane...
These are "life songs". Songs that have worked their way into the fabric of who I am and more importantly songs that touch the sore spots and threaten to wound rather than heal.

A wiser one than I would turn off the music, but I am the definition of "insanity". I will continue to do the same things, always believing for a different outcome.

Monday will be here soon enough. Hubby will be home, the holidays gone and I will settle into 'normal' one dirty toilet, load of laundry and grocery list at a time.

But for tonight "I Dream A Dream" and cherish my "Memories".
Ever ElleE

The holiday blues caught me
when things were going so well.
Now I have zero desire to finish.
If I were a crab I'd hide in my shell.

Lousy poem.
Matches my mood.
If I thought it would stay
I'd put cyanide in my food.

now i'm :)'ing,
elle e


12/12/12
It's 2 days later and YAY!
The holiday blues went away :)
I'm back to busy, much to do
But always time to say "I love you".

the deafening sound of quiet

Ernest Hemingway said to write clear and hard about what hurts. Here's what hurts: nostalgia. It hits hardest in the winter, when trees are bare and the sunshine is weak and the long nights just mean more time to reminisce.

I'm watchin' country music videos and singin' my own version of the blues.

It's been an emotional few days. High "highs" have been followed quickly by the low "lows" of disappointment.

someone i love bared his heart as he shared the pain i've been carrying for the last year. the pain of reality vs fantasy. what we want vs what we have. "if only" vs "there's just no way".

But fantasy can never be reality.
A "fantasy" is always perfect and even a perfect "reality" isn't really perfect.
No individual, no couple can exist in such an imperfect fantasy of perpetual perfection.

In other words:
if you had me I would disappoint you. sooner or later.
i feel like i disappoint you now,
and i'm often disappointed by you. and i grieve. one day you are so "here" and then like a whisper you are gone. i need you and i reach out for you. but the place where you were is empty and cold and i don't know when or if you will return. and i grieve.

anger, hurt and a wounded pride make me bitter and i wish i'd never known you.
but loneliness, love and longing win and i wait anxiously.
i stand at the waters edge and watch for your sail on the horizon.
i refuse to hear the truth in the wind saying "this is only the beginning of another end".
and even though I know the tide will turn and the circle of loss will begin again i hope against all hope that this time will be different. but it never is.
how tragic that "every hello is the beginning of a long good bye"

Maybe that's why so many couples don't make it.
Over time the fantasy of perfection begins to crack and then one day they wake up and find two very flawed people in a bed that once held two who were perfectly joined.
I wouldn't know. I was never joined in perfection. I was joined by necessity. I was thankful for a place of escape and safety.

In other words:
if you had been the "lucky" one, i would have found that place of safety in you.
you on the other hand would find that the temptress in your arms was wounded and cold. in time you would dread being tied down, and used.

this is what i fear most; i need. like a huge vacuum i take, pull and demand. in time you will feel tied down and used. in time your love will turn to dread.

The holidays always shine a bright light on the cracks in my marriage.
There have been some tense moments this weekend. A strain. An undertone of anger, frustration and disappointment.
My husband NEVER verbally shares these emotions. He is a man of complete control. But I know they are there. I can feel them in that place where words dare not go.
35 years of trying to pull from him what he refuses to give has left me quiet. I do not share often. I do not share my frustrations because he takes them personally and his tendency to withdraw becomes extreme. I do not share my joys because he does not understand them and mostly ignores them. I do not share my hopes, dreams, laughter or tears.
During times like this we are quiet. We live in a world of quiet that screams so loud it is deafening.

in my loneliness i reach out for a friend but am left saddened. you have withdrawn like the tide.
i am helpless and powerless to control the uncontrollable.
you are gone and no matter my desperation i am unable to reach across this great divide.
and i wonder how many more times the circle will turn before i am crushed between the two of you.

"To love. To be loved.

To never forget your own insignificance.

To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you.

To seek joy in the saddest places.

To pursue beauty to its lair.

To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power.

Above all, to watch.

To try and understand.

To never look away.

And never, never to forget."

Arundhati Roy
The author of The God of Small Things

This is one of my favorite quotes. It's always challenges me, encourages me and reminds me.
At present I am working on "to never simplify what is complicated".
Which one grabs you????
elle e

"My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres;
it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical,

science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know,

with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."

Alan Moore


I love good quotes. One of my favorite sites:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes_of_the_day/show/701?utm_medium=email&utm_source=quote_of_the_day

Sea sick with reality

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."
William Arthur Ward

I don't know where I fit in the above quote. Obviously my optimist lives between my pessimistic side and my "realist in hiding". I live in a constant state of drastic swings between one extreme and the other which leaves my poor optimist bruised and beaten.

I don't know where I fit. What I do know is that when a ray of sun shines and I believe that the tide has turned....I am wrong and I am disappointed, I feel anger (always a secondary emotion), but a necessary one. A sad form of self protection.

I don't know where I fit in in your life. I've never known.
I don't know why I complain (let myself be drawn in). I know your moods are quick to shift. I am a concern today, a loss tomorrow and a longing the next. But never for long.
I hold so tight to the hope of longing....always aware that it will leave as quickly as it came.
I know to expect the change. But that not's optimism.... it's reality.

"What are you to me?
You're the key
You set my heart free to soar."
(I wrote that once and meant it.)


Photo "Reality" Michae Harris Photography http://mehphotography.blogspot.com/

I've rewritten this one several times. It changes as optimism is drowned in a sea of reality.
"You are the ocean and I am a sea sick boat."

"Let us live for the beauty of our own reality."Charles Lamb

I need Dramamine and fantasy. I need you.

theme songs

New to me music;
"SKYFALL"adele
 http://youtu.be/7HKoqNJtMTQ (my favorite version)

http://youtu.be/StJLvbPIvTw (official Bond)

I love Adele. Her sultry voice just eeks sexy. She is gifted in more ways than one. She and Paul Epworth composed Skyfall, the theme song for the newest Bond movie by the same name.

There is little comparison between this Bond song and the theme song from Casino Royale by Chris Cornell. The words, the message, the finality in "You Know My Name" are much darker. It is lonely.
Still I found myself swept along without reservation to the rise and fall of drums, guitars and the texture of his voice. But the lyrics left me uncertain and troubled. Lonely.
"You Know My Name" chris cornell
http://youtu.be/YnzgdBAKyJo

Skyfall on the other hand was safe. Surrounded by danger but never alone.
"Where you go I go
What you see I see
I know I'll never be without the security
Are your loving arms
Keeping me from harm
Put your hand in my hand
And we'll stand

Let the sky fall, when it crumbles
We will stand tall
Or face it all together"

Bond movies capture me, move me, trouble me. In the same way this song touches untapped longings of which I do not speak. A need for adventure and danger. But I'm not a lone wolf. I could not or would not ever strike out into the unknown alone. For a deeper need rules me. A need to be held tight, kissed deep and loved long.

I'm forever in a struggle. Good vs evil, lost vs found, right vs wrong, me vs ????

Good night loves, elle e

sharing

Browsing around and enjoying some of my favorite blogs. There is so much creativeness, so much going on, so much wisdom. Here are a few I'd like to share with you;

"pencils need erasers and keyboards need delete buttons. we know what failure feels like so that there is such thing as success. i love how we learn to mend ourselves on a daily basis" http://teaseyourtoes.blogspot.com/

While we're on the subject of doing things, I wanted to share this quote I came across the other day, in response to youth who complain about not knowing what to do.
"Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, build a raft, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons, and after you've finished, read a book. Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents do not owe you fun. The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy, and talent so that no one will be at war, in sickness, and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It's too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. Someday is now and that somebody is you!" --John Tapene

The Moon Is Her Anchor
"Dusk in late autumn is perhaps the most beautiful time of all.
The trees are cloaked in garments of leaves in the warmer months, but it is not until the garments are shed in the colder months that we are left with the bare, lonely beauty of the landscape. When the wind blows in the winter, it is not accompanied by the rustle of leaves, but rather an aching silence. The numbing, desperately lonely quiet conveys all that winter needs to say--but only the man who cares enough to listen will hear (and understand) the silent message.
At dusk in late autumn, the trees are almost bare but not quite; against inky blueness that seems an almost tangible entity, their skeleton forms are fragile but still quietly stoic; the crescent moon, framed by the colorless branches, seems all the more"
By Carlotta Cisternas

"For me, I want to find that oceans wave that lifts me up and pulls me to the sunset of a closing day as the sun sinks itself into the far off reaches of the water." http://christopherfusaro.blogspot.com/2012/11/short-term-happiness.html

Much love, elle e

But you....

I have everything I need.
For the most part I have everything I want.
The last 2 days have been lovely. I have energy, motivation and a sense that all is well with the world (at least the corner where I live :).

Amidst the cleaning, planning and cooking for Thanksgiving tomorrow I've taken a couple of breaks. I sat on the porch. I listened to the birds, the dogs and the music from my open door. Perfection.
But you....

When we use the word "but" in a sentence it means that anything we said before the "but" is negated.
I'm careful when I use it. It shows the truth. It reveals what is hidden. The secrets of the heart.

But you....
I wish I could explain or even understand what it means or how I feel about it.
Would my life be perfection if I'd never met you? It certainly wasn't perfection before you. I was so aware that something MAJOR was missing. I was existing as a mirrored image of others. I had no clue what was missing. I had no clue I was missing. And then you :)
You brought the laughter and the freedom. With you I felt complete, content, peaceful and at rest.

But with you reality slips away, the lines get blurred and the things and people in my "real" life bring frustration. They are reminders of what I can't have. With you I have all the right feelings and none of the right reality.

Days of perfection are so great. But they aren't really perfect. It's just another illusion. Another way to cope.
I sit on the porch of my perfect life and think of you. I lay in my safe bed and dream of you. I'd give up all hope and go back to the old me....but you

Say less and Hold the rest...

Does your heart ever feel like it's going to explode? So many emotions! So inappropriate. No one to share them with.
I'm learning to say less and hold in the rest.
If I say what I feel it's always too much and the distance grows cold and deep.
But when I say less the distance is less. One heart speaking silently to another. Both knowing.
Smiling through the ache, joined in seperation, eternity in a breathe.
I love you
I love you from afar, through the ache, through the truth
I'd rather love you through the pain than never to have loved you at all.

"just to be with someone you love."

“'People always think that happiness is a faraway thing,'
thought Frances, ‘something complicated and hard to get.
Yet, what little things can make it up; a place of shelter when it rains—a cup of strong hot coffee when you’re blue;

for a man, a cigarette for contentment;

a book to read when you’re alone—

 

just to be with someone you love.

 

Those things make happiness.’”

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A story....

 

Once upponse a time there was girl who did good and right and well.

She'd always believed, that in a life past or a time before, that she must have been a bird in flight, a wave upon the sea or a shell in the sand.... Perhaps in a time still to come.

Her song was sweet, her heart was big but everything else was small. Her legs were short, her fingers stumps, her body petite (except for a rather nice, plump rump :).

Her capacity to hold was huge!
A lifetime had been spent trying to cram her love of, her excitement about, her amazement over LIFE into her small existence!
She felt everything BIG! But had limited access to expression.

I've see her as a grown woman. She has wisdom and experience. She understands lack and sacrifice (and the kind of love that makes a woman choose both).
I also see the child. Forced to face too much too soon. Stunted in many ways. Still very childlike. She grits her teeth, makes ugly faces and sticks out her tongue. She whines and pouts too often.
Still I think she's grand!!!

I hope she never gives up on the hundreds of simple things that seem so enormous in her eyes.
I hope a day will come when she'll dance without restraint in the sand (have you ever seen a little kid dance???? It's magical. We can't help but smile as they twirl, and float, jig and jag. We smile at the innocence. They are totally unaware of right, wrong, proper and not.)

If I could give her advice it would be; "don't give up that inner child. She's amazing."

Tonight I was a free woman. No deadline, no watchman. I drove my car fast, wind in my hair and played the music loud. I ate at my favorite taco joint and drank fabulous, forbidden cold beer. I dreamed and schemed of innocent things and things carried mute to the grave. Asked a friend to come play but
"no, not today", so I drove home (no speeding!), alone.
But I wasn't sad, 'cause I'm not a child, and I now know the rules from the start.
I don't build my hope around things I can't change, 'cause they hurt and they break my poor heart.

Instead of a frown I drove happy and found 2 new songs and an old favorite too.
Now I've written, had a snack and waited "just in case". My eyes are starting to close. But before I lay down, bathe and drape my gown I'll share some good music with you.

2 new (to me) songs:

THE ONE elton john
http://youtu.be/85B_REWeNcM

"I saw you dancing out the ocean
Running fast along the sand
A spirit born of earth and water
Fire flying from your hands"

"For each man in his time is Cain
Until he walks along the beach
And sees his future in the water
A long lost heart within his reach"

(Oh yeah! I like this song.
  How is it I've never heard this song of love before?)
 

I'm Never Too Far Away jon secada

http://youtu.be/taE36rsEa1I



Need You Now lady antebellum

http://youtu.be/eM213aMKTHg

 

(this one I know. This one always takes all the willpower I don't think I have, especially when it's 1:12 am....)

"It's a quarter after one, I'm all alone and I need you now.
And I said I wouldn't call but I've lost all control and I need you now.
And I don't know how I can do without you 'cause I just need you now."

 

 

My day tomorrow is no storybook tale and holds little to look forward too.
Grands for the day while mom is away, a party for one who is "one". Then a funeral to sing, the sadness it brings as we bury a friend, too young, now gone.
It's a story called "Life", many days lived in strife and struggle and weariness too.

So before I close my eyes I give thanks. Grateful for the moments of hope, rest and joy I found tucked away in today and for friends with whom I can share. For moonlit nights where we meet and hold tight to hands that touch from afar.
Never let your story end.
Good night, elle

Meaningful Moments

"It is always surprising how small a part of life is taken up by meaningful moments.

Most often they are over before they start

although they cast a light on the future and make

the person who originated them unforgettable."
 (last line from Anna and the King)