December 4, 2011

Come to my window... please!

A little lighter topic in this post compared to the last one. Well, sort of. It all depends on how you look at it.

From the first time I heard this song ("Come to my Window" by Melissa Etheridge) years ago it made me think of Michael. I just love the sense of longing in it, and the lyrics are just right on... oh, how most of us have felt this at one time or another! But now I have an extra cheesy twist on it. A couple of years ago hubby and I decided to actually read J.M. Barrie's 'Peter Pan' as sort of our own private bedtime story. When one day this song popped up on my mp3 player after reading the night before, and all I could think of was Peter Pan, lol! Think about it... "Come to my window, crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon." Who comes to your window under the light of the moon, chasing his shadow, maybe with Tinkerbell in tow? That's what I'm saying. So now, not only are these lyrics 'to Michael' from me, in an ever deeper way than years ago, but it's got a whole additional cute factor as well ;)

I can't find the studio version of the song online, but here's a live performance from 'Dancing With the Stars' (wait, ... like "second star to the right and straight on 'til morning"? ;) and below that is a full live version that includes the second verse (lyrics here).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfjT5tVGx6o


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nj2zOObtnA

I don't know who made the 'MJ as Peter Pan' digital painting above. I've seen it all over the internet in various forms. If you know, please leave a comment so I can credit and link to the wonderful artist :)

December 1, 2011

Pictures, Postcards & Love Letters (how life is like October)

Ok, I know I'm 'supposed' to stay more focused on spirit, but sometimes there's such a question to it all and everything collapses back into the Vortex of Doubt. And at those times I find myself crying so deeply, almost begging: "Please still exist. Please still exist. Please tell me I'm not crazy." For I know at those moments that this (your continued existence) is the most important thing in the universe to me. Yeah, I know a psychologist would have a field day with it all. Unbeknownst to them, though, I've thought of my situation, of loving you THIS much, way more then they could imagine, for a great many years. This is well covered territory in my mind... the WHY, the HOW, the explanations that I'd get, that we fill in with fantasy what we missed in our childhoods, that we need myths, legends and substitute religious figures, blah, blah, blah. But trust me, they're still missing the mark. As an educated (errr, um) almost 40-year-old, I feel I can say that pretty definitively.

Loving you is like having had the essence of your soul injected into the minutest particle of every atom that makes up the core of my DNA, and deeper still. "Closer than breath, you are the air..." It's why June 25th destroyed everything inside, broke it into a billion pieces and scattered it to the wind, leaving me with a river of tears from which to mix the mortar that, in theory, holds together the few salvaged molecules. Ok, tears and LOVE. Both in their truly cosmic form.

But what I'm really thinking of is time. How time passes where I am. How slowly and painfully the clock can tick. You (if I'm not crazy ;) can now see the longer arc of existence, the temporary state of physical being. You can, right? But to me it's sometimes torture. Remember how that is? In the sad moments, to think of being here without you for many years still to come feels so ... tragic. You are not walking the earth with me. How can that be??? I just read an article about you and, especially nowadays when they talk about the estate and money and future ventures, it feels so cold. It's Michael Jackson the business, the figure of the past, a name, an icon, a piece of our cultural legacy, each moment sinking further in the past... but it's not you. In my heart you're my mother/father/brother/lover/teacher/best friend. I know all that icon stuff is true as well, but I LOVE YOU. I always have.

You told me something recently that I want to share with anyone who's actually read my whining and rambling this far. You said to think of this life as so temporary that it's as if it just lasts a month. Just one measly little month long. There's a whole year within a decade within a century within millenia within eternity still out there. And this life is like the month of October. (Why October was the example, I don't know, lol). And you were here for at least half of the month, half of my October. Surely I can wait a measly two more weeks to rush into your arms again, can't I? It all goes so quickly, when seen from a higher perspective. (Not to mention that we're never actually apart. It can sure feel like it sometimes, though, can't it.) But in any case, it's just half a month of perceptual separation. We'll be together in full awareness the rest of the year, just as we've always been.

And I said that was a pretty good analogy, but I never got to know you at ALL in the month of October! Why is that? How could it be that I loved you so, so, so very much, like family, like breath, like the bounding lifeforce of a heartbeat and the silent anticipation until the next, and yet never met you. All these years YOU were my wish. And yet I never even met you. Never even brushed my fingertips across yours in as much as a handshake. If life is only as long as October, why must I spend this entire month without you?

And you laughed softly and hugged me (for real? in my imagination? sometimes I'm not so sure) and said, "It's just a month. ;) And you've had LOTS of me! I was off traveling the world and sending you so many pictures, postcards and love letters! All the time! It's like having a loved one away on vacation.You were always receiving stories and videos of the places I visited and experiences I had. You heard interviews and speeches. And I sent you lots of gifts too. I sent you songs I wrote, and my poems and dreams... even entire movies I worked so hard on, hoping you'd like them! I couldn't be with you in person, but you still got a lot of me, right? "

Oh Michael, I just love you. Thank you so much for all of that! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! And yes, you're right (as usual ;).

"And you still have all of that. You still have it all! You can spend hours watching me, hearing my voice, looking at photos, feeling my soul within it all as I feel it all with you as you experience it. You know I'm always there. You haven't been left alone, even in the physical sense, as temporary as that is. You have a whole world of audio/visual scrapbooks. And there are still physical things in the mail that haven't reached you yet ... things I sent a while back ... things you'll love!"

Ooooo, thank you! But I'll never love anything as much as I love you. I don't wish the month to be over. Not if God wants me to stay. But if I'm really not crazy, please be there, be here, so I'll know that October was totally worth it all. "Please still exist, please still exist", I whine as I do what I can to fight off the Vortex of Doubt that has been engulfing me lately.... *sigh*

And so I continue on the quest within, to understand the 'why' and the 'how' and the stillness that connects me to you, that tells me we are one in an instant of bliss that is forever now. I was recently reading about the Hindu deity Hanuman. He has such love and devotion for Rama that he could merge with him into eternal union whenever he wishes, but he instead chooses to remain here, in the illusion of separation. This is to serve God, but also seemingly to continue loving him in this way. For a Beloved to be, there must also be a lover. For us, the gravity holds us as a planet at distance from the sun, locked in the dance that is the agony and ecstasy of loving the Beloved from a "distance". But for whatever reason, if we're feeling this now, it tells us we CHOSE it. For our own soul growth we must've chosen to feel this pull toward union that comes from the perception of separation. Perhaps it is to continue loving the 'man in the mirror', choosing to gaze into those eyes just long enough to realize that we truly are ONE. And then we are truly free, in whatever life we choose next month...

[Note, this convo was a couple of weeks ago and I just now thought of the song "Gone 'Til November" by Wyclef Jean. It kind of fits with the October thing, doesn't it?]