How Old Is Old?

So, I just turned 62 recently. In my past, I've been ill and broken at times. Fortunately, the body and mind is an amazing thing. The worst I have been hurt, or sick was with Hepatitis 40 some years ago. I've suffered a broken leg, and my back has been drilled, cut, jacked up, and treated to an artificial disk. My nerves have been cut... oh, there are too many procedures back-wise that I have been through. I've been fried, frozen, and been in an operating room, on the table, when there was a hammer present. Yes, Virginia, I have been hammered.

OH MY! You are old!

Depression has always been the worst of my ailments. And so what? It is a disease, and I am being treated for it. You know, it feels often like a problem with me rather than anything that has happened to me. But yet, it is a problem I can't kick by myself. Too bad. I'll make it.

Buddha said suffering is a part of life. Man and woman will suffer. But imagine...62 years. Humans did not used to live so long. A woman giving birth in her 30th year used to be an anomaly. Women died in childbirth. Men, women, and children used to die from countless diseases, and from the effects of war, hunger, even environmental effects. (The pipes that brought water into Rome were made of lead, for instance.)

My friends have their own problems. They have their own aches and pains, their own mental issues, even their children might have illnesses or problems. Certainly no family goes unscathed in this world. My wife lost her brother when she was in her 20's. Her father too was gone in her 20's. Her mother lived to be 92, but my wife was only about 50 at the time. She has seen death. And her cousin lost two children to death, one at 16 or 17, and the other before the age of 25.

I admit to you, despite a rough go my first 25 years perhaps, I have been pretty lucky. A lot of my luck stems from the woman who raised me for the second part of my "childhood," and for the 42 years since I met her--my wife. (Yes, I am still a child in some many ways.) I have been ungrateful at times for such gifts. Shame on me, but she has truly made me realize that life is so much better if one accepts the responsibility for being polite and ethical. I don't claim saintliness yet. Certainly, I am a work in progress. 

But we still suffer. Man and woman suffer. I realize each and everyone who reads this will be afflicted somehow. But imagine--62 years is six decades of wear and tear and sun and pain and cracks to my head and fat lips and thinning hair and graying. 

We suffer, and yet we are still beautiful. I know men and women from Facebook who graduated either the same year, or about the same year as I did, and they look handsome and beautiful. I never noticed this when I was a teen--that older women were gorgeous, but maybe I was blind to that. (The first beautiful woman over 70 who came to my attention--no, not saying my graduating class is that old yet--was a writer, ex-spy, and Countess I met in Santa Barbara. I was in my late 30s and found her elegant, beautiful and charming.) 

So now, I am in love with a woman in her 60s--my wife. I find women in their 50s and 60s and into their 70s often head-turners. Younger people are certainly handsome or beautiful, but if, after 60 years of broken stuff, illnesses, childbirth if applicable, head bumping, Tabasco Sauce overdoses, and hammered fingernails; if you pull off attractive and charming, it is not likely to disappear so quickly.

It is man's lot to suffer. It is part of us. So we do. Hey, we have some claim to it--to the aches and pains and bad feelings. But, in spite of it all, I get messages from people I would expect to be in a crisis of self-pity for all their problems. More likely they are LOL, Ha Ha, or cracking a joke. Well done people! You are my heroes.

Please my friends. Live as comfortably and as happily as you can, Expect a bit of trouble to enter your lives, but you made it! Fill in an age and think about it. YOU MADE IT! And you will make it through most of these turmoils, without ending up squished in the middle of the road. But, let's face it...there will come a time when you won't make it. Oh, well, that's part of how it works. 

God bless you all. Wishing you great happiness, health, and wealth.

Keep your suffering to the minimum.

Relapses, Ophelia, and Elizabeth Siddal--The First Super Model

The painting is by Millais, a pre-Raphaelite painter. The model, who may be the subject of my next book, is Elizabeth Siddal. Siddal was a poet, artist, and very popular model for a lot of Pre-Raphaelite art.
Elizabeth spent weeks in a bathtub posing as Ophelia from Hamlet. Ophelia legend has it that she walked out into a stream and floated on her back, singing and awaiting death as she moved with the current down the river. She succeeded at the suicide.

Lord May I Come?
By Elizabeth Siddal

Life and night are falling from me,
Death and day are opening on me,
Wherever my footsteps come and go,
Life is a stony way of woe.
Lord, have I long to go?

Hallow hearts are ever near me,
Soulless eyes have ceased to cheer me:
Lord may I come to thee?

Life and youth and summer weather
To my heart no joy can gather.
Lord, lift me from life’s stony way!
Loved eyes long closed in death watch for me:
Holy death is waiting for me

Lord, may I come to-day?

My outward life feels sad and stillLike lilies in a frozen rill;

I am gazing upwards to the sun,
Lord, Lord, remembering my lost one.
O Lord, remember me!

How is it in the unknown land?
Do the dead wander hand in hand?
God, give me trust in thee.

Do we clasp dead hands and quiver
With an endless joy for ever?
Do tall white angels gaze and wend
Along the banks where lilies bend?
Lord, we know not how this may be:
Good Lord we put our faith in thee

O God, remember me.

Elizabeth Siddal died of an overdose of laudanum, a solution of opiates mixed with alcohol that was a popular, over-the-counter drug during the 1800s. 

Anyone who has gotten better after depression fears a relapse of the bad times. A any moment a sufferer may fall prey to the disease, at least this is the perception of the victims of depression. It is a scary concept, I admit. Thank God for anti-depressive medications. They help a lot. But sometimes, they stop working as well.

The lovely young lady who posed for the picture above, Elizabeth Siddal, took her own life in 1862.  I suppose she just decided to "fall asleep." This beautiful and talented woman died at 32 years of age. The pre-Raphaelite writers and artists were drawn to melancholy. They were a lot like the Goths are today I suppose. The 1850 and 1860s, were still tough times throughout the world. The population battled incurable diseases, hunger, and wars still fought by staging huge battles and sending the soldiers, row upon row, into the fray. Many battled mental depression before Freudian psychotherapy. Laudanum may have been prescribed for the condition I expect.

Even today, depression is no walk in the park. It still can lead to self-harm or death. Sufferers can still relapse. But we, the people with the disease must count our blessings even in the midst of a severe episode. There is help out there, unlike the time when poor Lizzie took her life. So, if you suffer depression, call a mental health care professional. Americans can get appointments they can afford, or there are free services online for depression, even suicide hotlines.

Don't just give up.

Think you have nothing to offer to anyone? That is why I started this blog. Who knows more about depression than someone who has suffered its consequences. Please folks, even if you are suffering your own tough times, you can talk with other folks who suffer. Be proactive and help.

Atheists/God/Undecided/gob spelled backwards is bog!

So I have a friend who says she is an atheist. Now I was nominally raised as a Catholic, and have described myself as being that, or agnostic, or once or twice as a comic book Rosicrucian. I admit to fit none of these categories presently. But, I do believe there is something bigger out there--something beyond our ken which orders our existence.

I have no actual argument against one being any religion or non-religion. If you say you are an atheist, I might argue that the beautiful things in this world must have some orderly way of coming together that is unexplained. If you argue for atheism, I ask you to stand up for the "godliness" of humans. Think out your point. Explain it. To dismiss God/god without explaining how the world comes to such beauty is a cop out. If you give me as your deity mother nature, Zoroaster, pagan gods, or witchcraft, please give it some thought.

This is my beef with atheists who say God/god does not exist. It is entirely too easy. I can no more prove to you that God does exist than you can prove that he does not. So, I believe in some force. Call me a superstitious idiot if you choose. It doesn't bother me, especially if you have a poor response to why I am so dumb.

I have heard good reasons people don't believe. That is all I ask. Then we are friends. Ah, heck, we will be friends anyway, but I want to be persuaded that you aren't just angry because the God that so many people seem to worship has let you down. 

Look, I am actually starting to believe that there are something like ghostly spirits. My proof? I admit, it is largely anecdotal. Also, ghosts are talked about throughout the world and throughout the religions.

You don't have to believe in ghosts. I really dislike the shows when people go into some creepy place and turn on a bunch of infrared lights and claim they "feel" a presence. I'm not buying it. You tell me I that you have seen a ghost, let's talk. But please, if you strike me as crazy as an UFO investigator claiming you have been abducted, I don't believe it. Sorry. I know, nearly infinite worlds and stars--then why did they take you and not Einstein. Sorry, perhaps that is mean.

Order and reason is perhaps why I believe in some higher power. Yes, I see many things I can attribute to a cruel deity. I see school children dying, mass suffering, and evil. I'm not blind. I can't give my god or supreme force a name or even a face, I can give you examples of art so beautiful it makes some people cry; of music that thrills, heals, or changes lives; I have read books that take the imagination to other worlds with words that touch the soul (if I have one.) And maybe, just maybe, our God or gods have a mean streak. Maybe it is too much to keep track of all this goodness and evil. People die--in horrible manners. How can one conclude that God could not exist in such a world of such suffering, if to die is to end the suffering? If there is nothing beyond, then expect no quarter in our duel with random events.

No, I haven't an answer to satisfy believers or non-believers. I can't quote Jesus, Allah, or anyone else to give comfort. I offer only belief in whatever seems persuasive at the time. Yes, call me wishy-washy on a matter of such importance. I agree. I may just be one monkey typing on one computer in an infinite universe full of computers and monkeys. If so, I wish I had come up with the Bible, the Koran, or Shakespeare's collected works.

Peace and happy new year.

My Life Came Without Instructions--Does Anyone Know How to Put It Together?

I know, I am still fighting it. This funk. This chemical imbalance. Fighting the war, against inner demons--a battle I have been waging, like many others, for years!

I wish I could spill it all to you guys about what I have done to fight depression. Let's just say I have been around the block with this thing.

Right now, it is music and writing and a group at Kaiser that keeps me going. The music? Peter Gabriel's Don't Give Up and Sam Cooke's It's Been a Long Time Coming. Writing? I wrote a prayer a few weeks ago. Then there is my book and writing at work.

There is art that I love and find on Google Images. Oh, I read. I am reading some Dicken's now, ghost stories for Christmas, an old English tradition; a history of the Middle Ages; and I just picked up Paradise Lost today.

I get it. I'm depressed. This is kind of funny too. Because I know how wonderful this world is. I get it that people are amazing. I know they create wonderful things, like art, music, books, and even a tool to suck the air out of wine bottles. And I don't generally add to my problems by overdrinking (I seldom drink anymore,) overspending, drugs or betting on sports.

I just hurt. Okay? I don't want to blame it on relatives, relationships, or wearing my underwear too tight. I'm so tired of walking along the edge of a canyon with the possibility that I can slip and spend months in bed listless with no rhyme of reason.

I tell you, I am fighting a battle, a lot of the time. I fight it by surrendering that I feel down. I fight it by talking about it with people who get it. Sometimes FB people are my allies, or my wife, or my kids, or Chris or Leah, or just the sight of my grandkids. I know. There is a lot to live for, so I live. Happy about it? Not always.

As Christmas rolls up on us, a lot of people will be fighting same as I am.

I beg you folks. "Don't give up, you still have friends." Also, it maybe a "long time coming, but a change is gonna come."

The holidays getting you down? Talk to someone. Listen to some music. Read. Or talk to me if you want.You can reach me here, on FB, and once you contact me, I will give you another way to reach me if you want. I promise, I will not try to convince you to do a tandem jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Really.

So, it is not the end of the road that you see, but the beginning from the other side. I know it ain't easy folks. Get some help, call some friends, find a song or a mantra. Believe it will get better... or just believe in yourself to weather the storm.

God bless you all. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year if I do not update this before then. And finally thanks for helping out those in need--me included.

“dance, dance, otherwise we are lost”--Pina Bausch

I used to like to dance. Pina Bausch had it right perhaps. Dance or we are lost. She had something to do with Rite of Spring ballet. Rite of Spring ends with the death of a dancer, a sacrifice of sorts. The ballet caused a near riot in Paris when it opened there 100 years ago.
So dance...
What do we sacrifice when we don't keep moving?
Physically, we lose our flexibility. Emotionally our life stagnates.
So what do we do?
Dance.

In Love With Marriage

I recently spoke to a long-time friend on Facebook. She mentioned that she was happier unmarried than married.
Another woman I know, was ambushed with a divorce from her husband. She never saw it coming, I met this woman when the news was fresh and the hurt apparent. Happily, she is experiencing a remarkable comeback, and loves the idea of not having to think of what her married self and husband will have to do everyday, together. She doesn't think in terms of "them" anymore.
My mother has been married five times. Each ended in divorce. My father was married three times.   I have been married once, for almost 35 years. My half-sister--same mother, different father, has been married once for about 25 years. I don't want to tell you divorce is a bad thing. Often divorce is the only option for couples in trouble. That's not where I'm going with this at all. I only am saying that my marriage experience is different from my mom's.
I know that long-term marriages take a lot of work. There will be difficult whole days, whole weeks, months, years, and even decades. I am so invested--no not so invested that I do everything right--but invested nonetheless, that the thought of losing my marriage is dangerous to me. I am overcoming this inability to deal with the really hairy arguments better. Really. I used to wonder if my flaws as a mate shouldn't lead to me to a Golden Gate Bridge plunge. I tell you this in all sincerity.
Now, my mother was in love with marriage. The idea I guess. She never once understood the give and take involved with successful marriage partnerships. Not once did she really even try to give an inch when it came to marital bliss. If a man treated her like crap, she wanted out. She never even got to the altar with someone who didn't treat her like crap. They weren't real men. Men who she could boss around never really lasted too long. Men who treated her well flunked the try out. Men who treated her lousy eventually got tossed. Nothing worked.
For my last year-and-a-half of high school, and my one year of college, she stayed unmarried and without any steady boyfriend, She was about 38 when I left home. While I wouldn't have minded a  few years without man-trouble, unluckily I didn't get a chance to miss it. She started treating me like the man who needed to be thrown out of the house whenever she got pissed.
We'd go through the old "get out" screaming thing, and when I closed the door to leave she would come after me and either rip at my clothing to get me back in, or throw my clothes out behind me. This started in my early teen years, but got really bad later.
What is the deal with some people like my mother? They marry like they are playing dice and that their luck will never change.
But these folks got rice marks on their faces. They love marriage, despite every sign that they'll never get the hang of it. Even though divorce is a sure thing, they sign up for the abuse again and again.
Let's face it. Marriage is tough. People who get married have to make concessions all the time. No one will ever marry successfully without sacrifice. Some of us are in love with marriage though. There is no chance in the world I could ever be single long. I need someone. Maybe I'm lucky to have a wife who has put up with me this long. It hasn't been easy for her. Sometimes I'm a mess. And yeah, she has her...moments.

Why Vampires? What Is Our Fascination? Happy Halloween

So, what is my fascination with vampires? No, it is not obsession, but I do find the idea of vampires rather interesting. I used to dream about them, and never did the idea of Dracula, or any sort of vampire seem frightening.

At one point, I decided the novel "Dracula" was about depression. After all, vampires slept all day--like the depressed. They sucked the life out of the people who loved them--like I think I used to do. The vampire was unclean, unholy, and full of lust--greed.

So, I have wanted to do a vampire book for awhile. I started one, and didn't like the way it started. I put nearly one-half another first draft in between, and I wrote myself into a corner. Write what you know, so I wrote vampire. Michael. He was born in Florence during the Renaissance. This gave me a chance to think about a city I love. I wrote later about Paris. And most of the book is set in San Francisco.

I have not read all the new books about vampires. Not the ones the teens read. I have seen but one new vampire tale in the last few years at the movies. I read the book, "Let Me In," and saw the movies "Let the Right One In," and the American version "Let Me In." This is a coming of age tale with a vampire (female, well sort of) protecting a young bullied boy, and the boy befriends the vampire. It is an amazing, touching, and bloody tale. The denouement is probably the most exciting of any book or movie I have read or seen. Here you root for the vampire.

I have read one of the Anne Rice books. I liked it. My favorite vampire tale is probably "Carmilla." She is the LeFanu character written before "Dracula." "Carmilla" is certainly the most sensuous of the early vampire tales. It was written in the 1870's. Carmilla is a lipstick lesbian I suppose. She is beautiful, in love, and completely without any sense of guilt. The language--the speeches about love in "Carmilla" are so amazingly passionate, that they rank up there with perhaps "Cyrano DeBergerac" or perhaps, with the passion expressed in "Wuthering Heights" by Heathcliffe and Cathy. Yes, "Wuthering Heights" was considered a Gothic novel. It is another must read. Or, both "Carmilla" and "Wuthering Heights" can be downloaded from Internet Archives in the spoken book section. Both are read quite well by the volunteers.

I do not regret that I did not read the new "sagas" of vampires since beginning the book. I didn't want to be influenced. The newest vampire tales I watched on television was "Buffy" mostly for the Hannigan girl. Ah, that's a lie. I had no problems watching young girls kicking ass. I loved "Hannah," (or was it "Hanna?") That movie is a couple years old, but she also kicked ass. But kicking vampire ass, ala, "Blade," etc. is not high on my list. The "Interview with a Vampire" movie and book was pretty cool for not destroying all the vampires. We can't have that.

In the past, vampires were often blamed for the deaths due to plague and disease. Dead peoples bodies can bloat, bleed from the mouth, their gums shrink making their teeth seem sharper, and the skin around their nails can also shrink and the nails seem to grow. Now, I don't know why people were busy digging up these poor souls already in their graves, but sometimes, if the individual had a bad reputation, they were "stuck" in their coffins with a stake through the heart. Bad people, suicides, and vampires were buried on the north side of the graveyards if I remember correctly.

I read about the "real" Dracula, Vlad the Impaler of Romania. He was an interesting and bloody sort. At one point, in the novel "Dracula," the vampire boasts about his family's history. It is a brilliant book. I have read it two or three times now, and listened to it on tape more than twice. The scene where poor Harker falls asleep in the wrong room, and the three women in white come to him is what makes that novel so chilling and alluring at the same time.

Let's face it. Vampires are about sex. All vampire tales. The greatest horror in "Dracula" occurs when he bares his breast to Mina Harker and makes her lick his blood. This might as well be sexual intercourse because I suppose it is even more shocking. The novel is about breaking the rules of Victorian polite society. Poor Lucy, who has become a vampire, must be killed in her coffin and her head removed. Mina Harker must be used as bait to find the monster.

This is the difference between the old vampire tales and the new. New vampires are sexy and handsome. Somehow LeFanu's "Carmilla" was way before its time. My vampire will be a new-style, not-quite monster, not-quite human. Yes, he will have a conscience--sometimes. Where the original vampire tales allude to sex, Michael trades on it. He is good at it, and gives to receive so to speak. In his world, sex begets time with his victims in which he takes their blood via syringe often. My vampire picks at near human carrion. Before he traded sex for blood, he worked the battlefields seeking the near dead, acting as an angel of death.

I know of one instance of a nearly true-to-life vampire. Some Eastern European countess once murdered and supposedly bathed in the blood of more than 100 women. Actually, that number might be much higher,

This is all interesting stuff. I want to believe vampires have some basis in fact. I can not. Vampires aren't real. They are a figment of a cosmology that believed the earth was flat, that the earth was the center of the universe, and that spontaneous generation explained why the stump that looked like a deer yesterday is a real deer today. God bless illogical thought.

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween.