You, of the Sixth Part

This blog is like most things in my life, neglected and in want of a retouch. It is a sad thing to realize that not writing becomes a habit almost as quickly as writing. The "I will do it tomorrow" approach rarely ends with "it" (whatever it is) being done tomorrow or the next day. Suddenly you find yourself on a streak of non-activity (whatever the activity may be), and you are in a rut of laziness that deepens with each passing day. There exists no real, definable reason for my lack of writing, I still have the occasional (for me) brilliant idea. I still compose lines, and blog posts in my head before sleep, and sometimes remember enough of them the next day to recreate them, I still can't type for shit, and my grammar is going to get me stood up against a wall, and shot by some local, thuggish grammar Nazi (of which I am honoured to know several). However, I have decided to take that first dramatic step, and attempt a new blog post for the two people (if I am lucky) that still read me, and hopefully still think I have something beautiful to say. Without further ado, and for your reading pleasure (I hope), I give you the latest dross that stuck around in my head long enough from last night's adventure in thinking.


You weave in and out of my life like some sailor made drunk by the combination of hard drink and dry land, staggering down the forlorn alleyways of my memories intent on the destruction of my sense of self. Granted, you aren't singing any bawdy songs, I've never heard you sing, but I doubt you have any particularly bawdy songs in your personal play list.  No, your songs are more melancholy, songs that are designed to make lusty men of every nation forget their happiness, and look out to sea, remembering all that it has taken from them. You seem to be content with your occasional berth upon the ship of my soul. Taking your rare turns at the helm, and seemingly attempting (with varying degrees of success) to steer it into the shoals of a personal disaster from which I would be unable to recover. You do this with both the ease of Picasso painting a picture, and the glee of a child turned loose in a candy store with a freshly minted pile of money that is dying to be spent.  You don't seem to mind the rain that your presence inevitably brings, soaking the sails, and making the decks slippery as a ski slope in December (at least in this hemisphere). It seems to invigorate you, driving you on to take even greater risks/liberties. Where the sailors before you would at the very least reef in the topsail, you call for more canvas, and steer into the wind causing as much havoc as you possibly can.

If there were torpedoes (and who's to say there aren't)  you would damn them like Admiral Farragut, and sail full ahead into whatever disaster that lurks just over the horizon. Disasters do love to lurk, hiding in the shadows waiting for people to make a wrong turning, and come into their wheelhouse. But not this ship, not with you at the helm. No, this ship under your malicious (it has to be malice doesn't it?) steers directly for those disasters, daring them to "come out and play" almost pleading with them to combine and do their worst. Perfect for you, after all, you won't be around when the actual worst hits. You chart the course, you ignore the warning signs, and you steer, purposefully into as many disasters as you can humanly find, and then "poof" you are gone. Like some incompetent magician performing a trick that he's never been able to get quite right, YOU disappear, not the lovely assistant that you picked out of the audience, but YOU. There isn't even the customary puff of distracting smoke. You just calmly, gleefully desert the wheel, leaving it spinning like a child's top and the ship lurching drunkenly towards whatever doom you've selected in your own mind.

You do this with the knowledge, and I would suspect the faint hope that, in spite of whatever disaster you have found for me, I will recover steerage, and sail far enough away from the storm you've found and/or created. You are convinced I won't be scuppered by the event, just slightly swamped, with just enough water below decks to slow, but not swamp me.  Certainly you expect that I will try to sail away unscathed, but that isn't a part of your plan. Just as certain is the fact that you won't be around to repair the damage. No you aren't a healer, you prefer to wound and then watch your victim bleed, content in the knowledge that the wounds you've inflicted aren't fatal, and positive that it will provide a learning experience for your victim. Victim is an almost fatally charged word, and I don't use it lightly. You would say, it you could be bothered to comment at all on such a triviality, that I am a willing victim. You might even say (with some small degree of justification) that I am more of a co-conspirator, a willing actor in whatever disaster we find. After all, you would argue, again with some degree of justification, that I allowed you to sail into waters too deep, and did it too soon. Knowing that neither I, nor my ship was ready for the deep ocean voyage to the lovely climes where the sky is just a bit bluer than it should be. You will claim that I am not a victim at all, but someone who should be standing in the dock beside you to answer the charge of willful destruction of his own soul.

Often as not your weapons are words, and you use them with almost surgical precision. Cutting away just enough flesh to make it hurt like hell, but leaving enough for the scar to form and not be too terribly noticeable. I think this is based upon the theory that, on the off chance, I find another pilot to attempt to steer away from you, they won't notice the damage until it is too late. Realizing that when they do, I will sail limply back into your port, sails slack and in tatters, asking for another trip to parts dangerous but at least semi-known with you.  Not surprisingly this has happened before, and since I am as predictable as a summer squall, you take out your sextant and beginning plotting me a course for those dangerous parts with the grim determination that would make Captain Ahab proud.

I remain convinced that eventually I will mutiny like Fletcher Christian, and put you, my own personal Captain Bligh into a long boat with just enough supplies to provide you with a slow death, and retake this ship that you sail around like a plaything, and sail it off into the glorious sunset without you. Without a glance back to check on your progress, or hopefully lack thereof. It is probably a bridge too far, and I realize that if you were to be piped aboard, I would allow you to order the anchor raised, and stand almost idly by, as you begin to chart my course into another purposeful disaster.