Forgotten?

Never.  But not forgiven, either.

I said it better here.

Anniversary

Thinking of you, my dear.  It's five years today since you died.   Dligo tson.

Friend

Mates -- Alex Cunha, Nils Butler and Marlon Teixeira

This word has so many meanings.  Like "love".

We don't have enough words to convey and describe the subtle gradations between someone you barely know on Facebook, who is your "friend", and someone whom you would trust your life with.

For me, a friend is someone I love, and who loves me.  I'm not talking about sex or desire -- too often "intimate" is a euphemism for fucking.  Intimacy is something you have with real friends.  A friend is someone I trust in important things.  But most of all, a friend is someone I can be myself with, someone I don't have to pretend with.  They love me in spite of me.  With them,  I don't have to drag out my Mr Jolly persona.  If I am taciturn, well, I don't have to bother to chat mindlessly.   And so on.

Most people don't see friends in this way.   "How to choose friends for success".  "How to get better friends"  As if they were accessories.  You know, a good handbag or elegant shoes or a super haircut.  Using each other.

We are programmed both to love and to want sex, and sometimes these needs conflict.  But as I get older, it becomes more and more clear to me that love is what matters.  Without it we shrivel.  We can, if we have to, provide ourselves with all the sex we need, if we are truly talking just about sex and not about the bond that sex often builds between people, a bond which justifies the word "love".  But we can't manufacture or buy love.

Meh.  It's late (for me), I'm dead tired and worn, and I'm not thinking too well.  I'm off to bed.

Lost friends

It hurts.  Always.  Whatever the cause.

A la recherche du temps perdu

Majorca Flats -- 249

“G'day, mate. Thank you for ...”

“... no worries, mate.”

Obviously a real man, thought Luigi. No wasted chatter.

“What's your address, mate?” he asked, matching tone and diction. “I'll come and pick Cody up.”

The other man gave his address while Luigi looked around Keith's sitting-room for paper and a pencil. “Hang on a tick! Just looking for a pencil … Right, what was it again? And what's your name mate? Michael? Good, Michael. I'm Luigi. Mate, thanks again for helping Cody.”

At the other end of the line, Michael clearly had several questions he wanted to ask but couldn't work out how.

“We'll talk when I get there, Michael. See you in 45 minutes.”

When Michael asked whether he wanted to talk to Cody again, Luigi shook his head, forgetting that Michael couldn't see that. So Michael asked again.

“Yes,” said Luigi.

“Lou?” Cody was tentative. Luigi could hear the strain in his voice, and he felt his heart wrench. Once he'd loved this man more than anyone he'd ever loved, in all his life. And that someone'd proved to be … flawed. Did he still love him? Yes, blast his eyes, he did.

“Coad … I'll see you in three quarters of an hour. Take care …” and then, hesitating, instead of “love”, he ended with “mate”.

“Yeah,” Cody replied, his voice full of doubt and hurt.

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Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Majorca Flats -- 242

Cody didn't stop running till he'd almost collapsed with exhaustion. Sobbing with terror, he slowed to a walk, trying to do so as quietly as possible. Through the trees he could see the lights of Woodend and other hamlets far below, twinkling in the dark of the Ozzie bush. His hands were tied with a nylon cord. All the stories he'd read as a boy had the hero cutting his bonds with a convenient sharp edge. Now that he was tied himself, it didn't seem so plausible. There was no sharp edge. He slowed a bit more. His feet hurt. He wasn't used to going barefoot. Eucalyptus twigs stuck into his soft feet. Pebbles and stones hurt them. Still he walked through the forest. Unable to see properly under the canopy of the massive mountain ash trees, he stumbled into a bramble patch. The vines scraped and cut him, across his thighs and his groin. Bitterly he contemplated how it was his cock which had brought him to this. For a moment, he wished he were a eunuch. His head was clearing all the time. His terror was lessening, but now he was starting to wonder how he was going to explain this to Phillippa. There was nothing he could say. Every lie he'd ever told her came back to haunt him. He wanted to sit down and weep. But he ploughed on through the forest, heading down the side of the mountain towards the little hamlet of Mt Macedon, where he hoped there was a public phone.

Trading Post, Mt Macedon

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Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

The South Country

A lost thing could I never find,
Nor a broken thing mend:
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end.
Who will there be to comfort me
Or who will be my friend?


From the poem The South Country, by Hilaire Belloc (1870- 1952)

This painting I found in this intriguing blog post.  Although the painter is familiar, yet his name escapes me.  Quam senex sum.

Majorca Flats 223

Jace,

I won't say anything to mum. I think dad genuinely misses you, but you know he's putty in her hands. So I won't tell him. And it's max wonderful that gran is coming to see you. Can I come too, one of these days? Though that would give the game away, wouldn't it? Both me and gran flying off to Australia when we've never done it before!

I know you blame yourself for what happened with Brent. And I'm not going to argue with you about blaming yourself. But, Jacie-Dacie, none of us is perfect. I remember once gran dragging us off to morning service at the church at home. Canon Green (I do like him --when I play chess with him, I let him win, you know how dithery he is) did a sermon about forgiveness and said that forgiveness is not the same as just ignoring wrong that's been done to us. That wouldn't be forgiveness. Real forgiveness, he said, was when you accepted that you had been done a great wrong but that you chose to not hold a grudge about it despite that. That you accepted the fallibility and weakness of humans. Because we're all human so we're all likely to hurt another person even if we don't mean to. He's such a nice man, and you know he really lives like he preaches. But the way I see it, you have to forgive yourself.

I know you won't listen. :-)

But I love you anyway. And I know Brent would too.

Gups

[Image from this site]


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Episodes 1 to 220 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Majorca Flats -- 185

“You know, Mrs … uh, Eleanor, I think you'd like my grandmother. She's amazing. I wish you could meet her.”

“Would she come and visit, do you think?”

“I'm sure she would. She's been threatening to do just that.”

“Well, she could stay here with us, if you'd like that. There's a spare room, but it's on the first floor. Could she cope with the stairs?”

“Oh yes. Her house is double-storeyed. She's pretty fit for someone her age.”

“You mean someone my age?”

He grinned at her. “She's one of my favourite people. She's funny and kind and nice without being soppy. She and my sister were the only members of my family who really accepted Brent.”

“She's very welcome to stay for a while here. Why don't you write to her and ask her to stay?”

Jason reflected that Mrs Cumberledge had no idea that he had fled here and that he would rather remain incognito, and then wondered perversely whether she didn't after all have some suspicions.

“I will,” he said. He stretched his legs out into the patch of sun on the veranda floorboards. His grief for Brent remained a black hole in him, but he knew now that he could live with it. Sometimes the black hole would seem vast and very threatening, but he knew he could survive that too. For he had friends: Luigi and Keith and Esmé, Graeme, and Eleanor Cumberledge. And maybe he could see his grandmother and his sister too. The past was the past, but now was good.

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Episodes 1 to 480 (without pictures, 10 episodes per chapter)

Beach, sunshine, sea and ....

I had some happy times at the beach.  I was in love with a surfie, I was a surfer myself, and the world seemed to be full of promise and hope.  I miss those times.

This image is perfect.  A beaut guy in his speedo, a pristine beach, nearby forested hills, sand, and sea.  I used to go surfing at a beach just like this.

Sometimes I am filled with regret and nostalgia.   Yeah, I know.  They are absolutely pointless emotions.

Majorca Flats -- 123

“Well, I was even more stupid than that. I tried to introduce him to my friends. They were so snotty. They patronised him and were icily polite and made comments about him which they thought went over his head, but he knew what they were doing. He knew. He was much cleverer than any of them.” Jason stared at the bar, far away on the other side of the room, for many many heartbeats. “We were fine together. We were so happy in bed; going out to eat; going to the pub with his friends; being together. But I think he … I … oh, fuck, I was so stupid. All right. Confession time. I have a lot of money. I had a lot of money. My family is rich. And Brent wasn't.” Again Jason looked away. He sighed.

“How can I have been so blind? Anyway, he felt the difference between us, between all my money and my family and all that stuff, which didn't the fuck matter. It didn't. And he tried to keep up. So he started stealing money from his work and from his cricket club. 'Borrowing' he called it. And they found out.”

Yet again, Jason stopped. He covered his eyes with his hands, letting go the other two men. Then in complete silence, he shook his head.

“Hey, Keith, could I have something to drink?” he said at last.

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Majorca Flats -- 99

“I'm not being very helpful, am I?” she said. “Well never mind, I believe we both need another cup of tea and I have some special biscuits which will cheer us up a little.”

She went into the kitchen and when she returned with the tea, she was carnying a worn hard-cover exercise book. “This was his diary,” she said.

The diary of Bart Cumberledge, 9B, TOP SECRET, was written in a faded ink on the inside cover. Jason started reading. At first, the diary was just an uninspired catalogue of things done, a schoolboy's idea of the sort of things you should write in a diary: went to swimming today, saw Batman and Dead Poets Society (lied about my age, but worth it), tore shorts (mum was cross); but when Jason flipped ahead, he saw that the texts had morphed into something else, an open and sincere record of Bart's emotional life, descriptions of guys he'd developed a crush on, things he wished, and the first stirring of the horrible school bullying which in the end killed him. When Jason read an entry, I WISH I WAS NOT GAY he snapped the diary closed and said to Eleanor, “May I keep this for a while? I'd like to read it properly.” Mrs Cumberledge merely nodded.

Jason took the diary up to his room and put it next to his bed. He would read it when he felt up to it. Not yet, not now. He had much to think about, and he spent the day oppressed and filled with sorrows.

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Majorca Flats Episodes 81 to 90

Majorca Flats -- 96

“But what I did was so wrong, Mrs Cumberledge.

“Do call me Eleanor, Jason. Yes, by your standards it was. But perhaps others might not have thought so?”

Jason thought of his parents and how they would have responded to the revelations about Brent's behaviour. “No, that's true, but ...”

“... You set yourself high standards. Not that I disapprove, and of course, if you do set high standards, well, you must keep them. Jason, I am an old woman now, and I have seen much of he world. I can't insist that what I think is right and wrong. For starters, I have learnt to think differently about things than I used to when I was young. The young are so judgemental, even of themselves”—and she looked at Jason as she said this—“but when you get older you realise just how fallible we all are. Of course, there are some people who never make that realisation. They remain idiots their whole lives.”

“If I’d been there for him, he'd be alive today.”

“I don't doubt it. But you're only human. As long as you learn from your mistakes ....”

“It's too late.” Jason stared away across the tiny garden and tried hard not to break down again.

“It was for me too,” replied Eleanor Cumberledge, quietly and very sadly.

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Chanson d'Automne

Chanson d'automne

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
  De l'automne
Blessent mon coeur
D'une langueur
  Monotone.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
  Sonne l'heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
  Et je pleure,

Et je m'en vais
Au vent mauvais
  Qui m'emporte
Deçà, delà
Pareil à la
  Feuille morte.

[Paul Verlaine]

The long sobs
of the violins of autumn
wound my heart
with a monotonous languor

Pale and suffocating.
When sounds the hour
I remember old days
and I weep

I depart on a vile wind
which sweeps me away
hither and yon
no more than a dead leaf

Paul Verlaine was bisexual.  His poetry is sublime.  I just wish I had the skill to translate it properly.  

Ah well.  We come into the world alone, and leave alone.  For some, along the way in between these two extremities, there is companionship, even love.  For others, seulement les regrets -- et la solitude.

Changes

Life changes. We welcome some and hate others. So I'm glad Oz's old PM Johnny was booted out. I feel proud to be Ozzie again. And I've finally gotten my website up and running, using NVU rather than HTML, though I did use some (hey, it's not so hard -- reminds me of PL1)

Those are good changes.

But others aren't so good. A very dear friend has a terminal illness, and I shall miss him more than I can say. I keep on hoping, but . . . .

You love someone and then good old god takes them away.