love.death.love.death.love.sex
before my 16th birthday, my dad took me out for dinner. he said he figured it was time for the “sex” talk. whoo boy.
so we’re at dinner and i say, dad i know about sex… haven’t had it yet, but like i know about it.
he says i only wanted to tell you this one thing: don’t ever let anybody fuck you. if you want to fuck them, that’s fine. but don’t EVER let anybody fuck you.
holy shit. what did he just say?
and then we both started laughing.
my father gave me one hell of a gift: the knowledge and confidence to own myself. to own my decisions. to be my own person.
yeah, you own yourself and you give yourself… don’t ever let anybody take anything you are unwilling to give.
but when you let go, let giving yourself be a completing act. because it’s love we all want, so make it about loving somebody.
then sex is a playground, an archeological dig. it’s absurd, a comedy, a vacation of hours… it’s making poetry in grunts and groans. it’s about that slow reveal… the getting there…
maybe, when we stop letting others define us
maybe, when we stop letting life define us
maybe, when we start defining ourselves
we’ll stop creating worlds in which we hate to live
love.sex.love.sex.love.death
what the hell am i talking about anyway? but i do know.
we’re all a force of nature. we ooze energy, both light and dark. and my nature is telling me that things are fucked up. and it’s wrapped around love, sex, and death.
it’s just a few people really, so powered by the idea of death, who embark on this master of the universe trip. and all the power and resources they control are proof that they can control death; certainly they can command it. they tie us all to this quest of escaping death. overcoming it. overpowering it. by killing and controlling the rest of us. they think they can acquire enough power to live forever.
it’s my death theory. i’ve been thinking about it for some time. how does it work. but i know it’s so. death has created this hellish reality we now face. george bush, the old man, crying at some event for his son jeb. i knew when i saw it. that he knew. he could not outrun death. and what he was really crying for? if there’s really god, he’s damned. and maybe i saw a little regret for the way the world turned out and his part in it. because when you realize it’s not all about you and others have to live with what you’ve done, then maybe that’s when it hits you. how insignficant all the power mongering was. how insignficant all the pissing contests.
suddenly, what’s real is the polluted seas, lost species, and millions dead. and all for fucking what?
for fur coats, limo-driven bentleys, big houses, expensive cigars and cognac in three hundred dollar snifters… all for fucking what?
for babies to born diseased and so their mothers can watch them die? to hack off the dorsal fin of shark for fucking soup? and drop the animal back into the sea to die.
all for what? power? money? enough power to stop death?
death.sex.death.sex.death.love
love huh? how do you talk or write about that, really. talk about moonlight, stars, birds singing, sun shining… ta daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
no. it isn’t like that. love. can i use my current situation? it’s like a hot flash. slow, dry, spreading warmth. and sometimes, it’s hot, wet, spreading heat.
there’s nothing rational about it. nothing logical about it. it’s all feeling and emotion. like seeing my nephews or my dutchman or my dog and really, from where ever the center of my being is…that’s where the feelings emanate from and i feel it right to the top of the skin. it feels like eating a really good meal. but not overeating. yeah. it feels like being satisfied. it feels comfortable.
how much can you really write about love? not much for me. because i can’t put on this page the music of it or the pain of it or the joy of it… or the mostly everyday of it.
no. love is your own story.
HEY… whatever you do, write something. share something. leave something here. talk about things. it isn’t about what i wrote. well, maybe a little bit. but please… leave something.
120 comments
Skip to comment form
Author
“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
Your dad sounds cool. Mine is still drinking himself into Ironweed oblivion.
“Fuck you.”
its your nature…to see things & share them, encourage others to explore…your ideas…themselves…the world
you had such a gift from your father…i am just now getting to that place-to be my own person…so much of who i thought i was, was wrapped up in others…daughter of Mr&Mrs…wife to MrD…A&B’s mom…Y’s gramma…but through it all- i’m me…& my thoughts-or how i see the world, effects other people… how i treat other ppl effects more ppl…i see it being passed on in little ways, tiny things that others would likely not notice…the fact that B teaches his boy to say please & thank you…that A gives heifer,intl for christmas presents…that they both give presents for their birthdays-stuff they have & pass on to friends…that it is normal at my house to have 6 extra ppl for thanksgiving or christmas…all ppl who ‘had nowhere to go, mom, so i brought’m home’…
so, yes, i know i’ll die & prolly sooner rather than later…& i might not have another life after this….but i’ll be here…when my grandson smiles at his grandson because he said ‘thank you, granpa’ i’ll be there
Your father sounds like a pretty cool guy.
I can’t add anything to that, so I’ll just leave some leaves reflected in a stream. I shot this on Sunday and kind of liked it.
is that sometimes I’m embarrassed to be human
Big slabs of grunty farty meat
You different, me kill now, ugh, grunt grunt
Otoh, strawberry ice cream, Antonio Guadi, swimming in a warm ocean, The Declaration of Independence, puppies and…
To quote Depeche Mode….”I don’t want to start any blasphemous rumors, But I think God has a sick sense of humor.
And when I die, I expect to find him laughing.”
Such a wedgie I’m going to give that guy!!!
awe and wonder in the Redwoods as a young thang. Still haven’t forgotten that feeling; still find it in the smallest of things. It is the opposite of a death trip. It is about synthesis and creation, about unity and celebration.
Your essay was perfect for my current state of mind pf8, fried and frazzled, and you brought me to a place of, as you said, comfort. Thank you.
…A new perspective helps. Just ask my pootie. (I was down on the floor with her!)
Orwell clearly had yet-to-come “values-based” public morality enforcers in mind:
On sex:
On the political purpose of promoting sexual puritanism:
gave me good, gave me the keys to whats wrong. He was a mad scientist from the cold cold war. A designer of Napon a killer of Geeks or whatever they called the people of Viet Nam. Weapons was him he designed them, they feed me, my mother and sad draft dodger brother.
Sex was verbotin, talk to your mother, please. However the theory that the universe was nothing more then an atom in a giants toe we could discuss for hours. How did a man capable of such flights tie his vision to the Nixons, the military industrial complex that has morphed into our now? Don’t know don’t care. I’ll take the giants toe and say fuck you to the rest, as I did at 12. We have inherited the wind, our children will inherit the wind and the seeds that have blown through generations to now. My Dads rational when asked why do you make these weapons? It’s where the action is.
sex was verboten
I squinted really hard at the TV and I saw pinstripes on the Red Sox’ uniforms.
Author
hmpft!
and tonight is no exception.
Love is a bigger thing than I can understand. I know that I would go under a truck for the memsahib and our grown up now daughter – without a second thought.
Yet I remember past loves and some internal pincers grab my heart and twist. Then it aches like an Angel’s bite because I’ve read the word “Seattle” and I hear a distant siren call and I’m not allowed to hear that. So I put my fingers in my ears and I hear all the clearer – but it’s wrong, I know it’s wrong and all the while the clarity of a voice I know so well increases. I can control a process, I can programme a machine, but I’m powerless against love’s memory. I don’t understand love and I don’t think anybody else does either.
Death is a highwayman who is capable of kindly gestures.
I once heared sex described as “natures tacky galliard” or somesuch, but anybody who has seen a tango danced properly ( I can’t, but there is a film with Pacino as a suicidal General which has a scene which illustrates it perfectly), or a Dervish in full trance, knows that it is far, far more than a dance and far, far more holy.
Errrmmm….no ‘see’….
………..
What a fantastic picture!
🙂
Heh…do you always use that, or is this just some major coincidence that I just happened to look over here today to see what you were up to?
…………….
I wish I had some time to write tonight…I have to go to bed in a few minutes, though – I’m working early mornings again…
Hey! Here’s an idea – I’ll do some rambling over in this thread tomorrow, and that way nobody will even see the embarrassing parts!
I’ll think on my rant some while at work tomorrow, and be back at about 6PM or so, Pacific Time…
Maybe I’ll see you then!
Also, it was good to see (and read you…) again today, as well, p…..
🙂
Excellent essay pf8. I know I promised further thoughts on yesterday’s events here, but it doesn’t fit the theme of your fine work. I think I may give it a go in an essay.
In addition to your talk of death, sex and love, I find DESIRE to be one of the most powerful motivators on the planet. Both for good and bad.
This tune has been going through my head for weeks, linked to the power of desire. And, maybe just a little sex…
OK – on to that essay, perchance it will come together quickly.
I should be such a scholar. . . , pfiore8. Toast an Irish whiskey to your dad tonight, call him tomorrow, and thank him.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes of all time and one I return to frequently at times of lost equilibrium or other crises —
“To free us from the expectation of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.”
–Joan Didion
Wonderful diary. I printed it and will read it again a few birthdays from now when my little girl is an older littler girl. Not for her benefit, really, but for mine and to make sure I haven’t forgotten that her life is more about her own self-respect than the expectations of others.