Pizza and poetry, 2

Of course, another reason I haven't posted much lately is that I've written things and just not gotten around to putting them on the damned blog.  A case in point: Back in February I wrote Debbie a sonnet where I talked about the Buddhist teaching on craving (illustrated by talking about pizza) as applied to love.  In one respect this was a successful poem ... in that it helped me court Debbie.  :-)  But at a philosophical level I wasn't actually happy with the resolution.  It seemed too tidy, too pat, ... too much something thrown together because it rhymed.  All of which was true.  But for a long time I didn't know where to go from there.

In July the two of us attended a "Mindful Couples" retreat, which discussed some of these issues.  But it wasn't easy for me to put the discussions into iambic pentameter.  Finally, very slowly, I started to squeeze out some verses.  And so by October I had completed a reply -- a riposte -- to the original poem.  I even made a mental note to myself to post it here right away.  But did I?  Ummm ... no, I just checked and I didn't.

So here, a couple months late, is the expanded version of that discussion of pizza and love that you might remember from the spring:

“Just think of pizza,” Roshi said one day,

“You smell it, need it, crave it, don’t you see?

“Your mind’s a-blur, there’s nothing you won’t pay,

“And that first bite is sheerest ecstasy.”

“The second bite is not quite so divine:

“For with the first, the Craving drops its hold.

“Then it comes back, now maybe it wants wine,

“And finds the pizza greasy, stale, and cold.”

Is it like that with love? I stare in fright.

Do all the waiting, longing, and desire

Prepare us for one single, magic night,

And then, with dawn, cold ashes but no fire?

It must not be (although for some it is).

Without the Want, love still has work to do.

It builds its fire anew, each day, from bliss.

And makes our souls a home, a shelter true.

They’re not the same. Love has a different goal.

For pizza feeds my gut. Love builds my soul.

Riposte

"The goal? That matters not a bit," he said.

"There's always something Craving drives us to.

"The object counts for nothing. Once it's fed,

"Our Hunger's right back, craving something new."

“For just as drippping water cuts through stone,

“So discontented Craving wears down Peace.

“If you’d speak up for Love you must make known

“In what way Love bids this erosion cease.

It’s true that Craving goads us ever on.

But Love is more than Craving: that’s the key.

Our lusts run helter-skelter, here and yon,

And yet I love you ever, constantly.

Your love plants seeds of kindness in my soul.

Your mercy waters them and keeps them warm.

You gently raise a bower, green and cool.

There’s safety there, and refuge from the storm.

Thus Peace of Mind is nourished by Desire.

For Love’s a Dharma too, shot through with fire.

'Tis the season ....

Today is a virtual Christmas.

What this means is that the custody schedule gives me the boys through the afternoon of the 24, at which time I deliver them to Wife.  So they and I are visiting my parents this weekend and holding Christmas early.  Brother and his girlfriend will be coming over, we will all open presents, and everybody will eat and drink too much.  Tomorrow (Monday) Debbie will stop by to visit for an hour or so … not actually on the day of (virtual) Christmas itself, but nearby.  Then Tuesday we’ll pack up the car and I’ll drive the boys the three and a half hours to where Wife is living now.  After that, I’ve been invited to join Debbie’s family for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (meaning the 24 and 25, this time) … so I’ll log a lot more driving.  But I expect it to be fun.

I haven’t been posting a lot lately, and last night I tried to figure out why.  I think it’s because this blog has outlived its original purpose and I haven’t really found another for it.  The very first reason I created this blog, at the most basic level, was that I had to have somewhere that I could say – “out loud” as it were – that my wife had spent years sleeping with other men.  The secrecy had become such a burden that I had to tell somebody.  And there were a lot of other things I didn’t understand about my marriage, that I didn’t feel I could discuss with anyone because a gentleman does not tell that kind of story about his wife … no matter how much of a tramp she might prove to be.  So I opened a blog and began writing about her: her affairs, her tantrums, her crazy mixed messages; writing in anger, in frustration, in wonderment.

Then I started my affair with D, and the picture got even more complicated.  Now I had a clandestine affair of my own to manage, and so there was a lot to talk about on that front too … things I couldn’t tell anybody except D, and stories that I wanted to record so I wouldn’t forget them.  And so I posted quite a lot.  Gradually I began to see that D was way too much like Wife for my liking in the long term, and that I seemed to have a pattern (which was not serving me well) of falling for “high-maintenance women”.  So I began to ramp that down.  When the boys were both safely in boarding school I told Wife I wanted out, and we began the process of separation.  For a while, this too generated enough drama to write about.  And I enjoyed writing about my courtship of Debbie.

But things are stabler now.  I deal with Wife mostly through e-mail, and our interactions involve less emotional turmoil and more business.  I still have to work out what fatherhood is going to look like for me in this new world, but I’m seeing a therapist to help with that.  Debbie and I still have to work out how our relationship is going to work when we live a hundred miles apart, but there’s not a lot of drama in that figuring-out process: Debbie is willing to sit with problems until they become clearer, rather than railing at them, and the change is a good one.  We can talk without knowing the answers, and feel our way forward instead of shouting.

So what exactly do I need a blog for?  I’m not sure any more.  I’ve posted a little bit lately, but mostly because I wanted to keep my hand in.  I like being Hosea, and I don’t want to give it up.  I’m just not sure if I have anything more to say, really ….

Maybe I should do like Debbie and just sit with the question, rather than having to have an answer right now.  So I won’t do anything precipitate like closing up shop, or at least not right away.  But I have been pondering the question ….

Time to go be Christmas-like with the family.  More later … I hope.  And to all of you, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Hair, part 2: The world is crazy

I just found this article: http://www.independent.com/news/2013/dec/04/men-are-going-bare-down-there/.  And all I can say is that the world is crazy.  Deranged.  Abso-fucking-lutely insane.  A bloody madhouse.

The last time I wrote about this subject was two years ago, and you’d think that I’d have said everything I had to say at that time.  But apparently not.  Never underestimate the world’s ability to outdo any level of craziness you think you can imagine.

Bloody madhouse.

Khayyam's advice

Old Khayyam, say you, is a debauchee

If only you were half so good as he

He sins no sins but gentle drunkenness

Great-hearted mirth and kind adultery

But yours the cold heart, and the murderous tongue

The wintry soul that hates to hear a song

The close-shut fist, the mean and measuring eye

And all the little poisoned ways of wrong

translated by Richard Le Galliene, from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam