Water, Water everywhere.

I turned 31 last week. Got a new hole punched in my nipple (oooh! Shiney boobie!), ate a steak and resisted the rabbit food alltogether, and laughed probably more then is healthy.

Generally I forget my birthday and often my age. It is one of the few traits i share with my father. Generally, we are reminded when someone else calls to wish us a good day. Once I am reminded, I generally spend the day dissecting, contemplating, analysing.

I weigh my actions, my thoughts, my current situation on some great chimerical scale that exsists only in my head. Calculating and assesing my own self worth as though i were Themis herself.

This year I found a pleasent unfamiliarity to the proceedings. There still exsists the familiar second guessing; "You probably could have handeled that better", "You should be finanically established, with clear cut immediate goals" "At your age, you should have this and this andthis..."

But in addition to the background noise of "what-if's", there was something new. A sense of accomplishment. Self satisfaction. Wish I knew why...but I guess it really does not matter. I certainly did not achieve anything with a tangible, material outcome. There is no measure of proof that will corraborate my sense of conquest.

But for the first time in mnay years, i feel as though i have grown as a person.

That last is actually a very heavy sentence.

I was also, last week, reminded of the growth of others.

The boi treated me to a slice of his life. Many small slices, really. Each precious little glimpse snapping into place like pieces in a jigsaw.

It was a simple thing, really. On the surface anyhow. He drove me about the city, pointing out the various houses he lives in as a small child. Buildings. Just buildings, of course...for me, faceless fronts of wood and stone with no more personality then any other on the street.

It was the in between moments that moved me. I remained silent for most of the tour (fuck you, i can too be quiet). But he did not. Lost in though for a while, he'd turn down the stereo volume periodicaly to inteject a story. Each one a small memory, many of which, i suspect he had not dredged to the surface in quite some time. All of which touched me.

I'm an open book. I ramble on and on, and rarely old hings in reserves. I lack the art of secrecy. But he is, for al his warmth and cuddlyness, a reserved person. It took me many mont of frustration to accept the fact that there was nothing i could do to force him to up; that he would reveal only what he wanted as time goes on.

But I think the walls were down that night. Dismantled, or forgotten. It matters not which. The end result is i was fed tiny litle glimpses, like broken segments on a reel of film...each a little gift of it's own.

And here's the bestest bit. Ocean. Beach and a horizon of water that made me cry wih the sheer beauty. And not only did he not laugh at me tears, but he knew to just hold me till the perfection of it all settle in my head, and then? He broght be back again the next day. And again a few days later. AND he fed me chocolae and coffee. Bliss.

He gets extra credit for having a good sense of humour about my utter inability to deal with ocean waves. They look innoculous from the beach. Disarmingly conquorable, wat with all the kids splashing abut happily.

I swallowed enough water in the first 5 minutes that my hair folicles felt like they were bleeding seawater. Unable to stand upright, i kept getting dragged over by the undertow and knocked completely off my feet by each wave. And this was apparently a fairly calm day. I laughed so much my sides were hurting, and strangers were looking at us withsome concern. I'm sure the boi was occasionally getting looks of admiration and sympathy, for having the strenth and courage to take such a SpEcIaEl friend to the beach for the day. People kept looking for my crash helmet.

The constant giggling meant my mouth was always open when the waves would hit, forcing massess of seawater down my throat and robbing me of breath so that i was sputtering and gasping in between waves...when really i should have been concentrating on the backtow and judging the arrival of the next wave so i could draw a breath and prepare for it. No such luck. Every single one dissolved me into a ball of estatic laughter. It was incredibly absurd fun.

Eventually, he took sympahy and stood between me and the waves, grabbing my wrist each time i was bowled over so I would not wash up meters downstream. Course, by that time my good ear was so full of water that I had absolutely no sense of balance anyhow, making it doubly difficult to get my bearings between waves.

I don't know how kids manage it. I kept falling over, and there were 5 year olds walking around me, cheerfully weathering each assult like it was nothing.

Unspeakable fun.

And innocence shall make...

There are many doors through which we may leave the Garden. Once we’ve left, there is no door through which we can ever return.
(From the Film La Vallée, 1972.)

Shakespeare wrote alot about innocence.Seeing how often his works are filled with violence and tragedy, I suppose it should not be a great surprise he was obsessed with the notion of purity of spirit.

Just when I think I can't be thrown off by a simple comment, can't be startled by how I am seen by others, fate steps in a gives me a big ol' slap round the head for being as egotistical as to think myself above surprise.

The boi apparently is of the opinion that I am an innocent. Not that I occasionally display a moment of innocence, but that i am on some deeper-set level, so profoundly innocent as to be unable to see or accept for myself how integrained this innocence is to who I am.

I don't understand how this can be. How can someone so close to me, someone who knows me so intensely, someone who is aware of all my backgorund, proclaim me an innocent? I long ago stepped through that door, nailing it shut behind me, freeing from the garden. And it from me.

Worrysome that this non existant innocence is a large part of why he loves me. Someday the fool will figure out that what he sees just is not there.

Chaste; Free of sin. . I have a hard time acepting that these things apply to me as a person. I've endured things so beyond the scope of most sane people that it somehow got bottled and remains in my memory, but pushed aside, partitioned off...there, but as though i observed it rather then experienced it. And I'm not without guilt. I've made mistakes. Some fairly major mistakes in the very recent past still have me coming to terms with an immense sense of blame.

"Innocence can be redefined and called stupidity. Honesty can be called gullibility. Candor becomes lack of common sense. Interest in your work can be called cowardice. Generosity can be called soft-headedness, and observe : the former is disturbing,"
(Abraham Maslow, philosopher and psychologist, 1908-1970.)

On another level, I find it amusing that I can't get my head around it all. Cause I am certain if he were to see how I think of him, he would be similarly floored. And innocence would once more work it's way into the conversation.

Perhaps it is an inescapable aspect of love; we are all driven to see loved ones as having a childlike quality of pureness, of vulnerability. Maybe we are all arrogant enough as to cast ourselvs in the role of protector, believing ourselvs capable not only of nurturing our own essence, but self aggrandize and imagine others as being so without ability that they need us to step in and cultivate their personal growth as well.

Occasional moments of naivete, I am certainly victim to such lapses in judgement. Time and time again I repeat mistakes of my past, certin that this time I have a better solution, the magical key that will alter the outcome; the ability to fix everything.

But i don't think that makes me innocent. Just stubborn.

Give me credit give me trust, give me love in small amounts.
Give me guilt and give me shame, give me life and don't explain.
Give me sex, responsibility and trade my hope for doubt.
Give me more, make me your whore,
and give me, give me, give me pain.

Tell me why you put me through this,
Tell me what's a girl to do,
Tell me where the action is.
Wet my taste and let me down.
Tell me what the future holds,
Tell me what's left of this soul,
Hold me down and fuck me over,
Stain this precious wedding gown

Innocence Lost
(From Innocence Lost, By Lust on the album Jezabel Thirteen Three)