Old Flames

[plthijinx]

maybe dar, but age and maturity can walk hand in hand. perhaps she is sincere and just wants to catch up. wouldn't be the first time something like that happened.

[Elspode]

Having been a polyamorous couple a couple of different times now (but not at present), Mrs. Elspode and I share info on a pretty free basis when it comes to our interactions with the opposite sex, so no worries there.

Liz has outright said, in response to a direct question, that she "doesn't remember being particularly traumatized" by either the end of our relationship or the abortion that preceded it. I have to take her at her word.

So far, we're just swapping interesting stories of our lives back and forth. Believe me, hers is by far the more interesting. She had quite a stellar career in her chosen field (stage lighting design in LA), and she's got some stories to tell about it. Takes some coaxing, though, as she's as sanguine about people she's met and places she's been as you or I would be about our 9-5 grind.

Originally Posted by darclauz

No woman does something that thinking without an agenda. With regards to relationships, both old and new, women have a depth that men just don't have. Now, I know people (especially juju) think i'm sexist..and that's true. But there's a reason.. either...
she wants you, els, or there are unresolved abortion issues (i HATE that word) or something i'm not smart enough to get.

At the risk of stating the obvious, we women are individuals first, members of the feminine persuasion, second.

I had a similar experience with a boyfriend in my misbegotten youth. Had to have an abortion, we broke up, blah, blah. I looked him up on the internet a couple years back just out of curiosity. I thought about contacting him, but then thought "What for?"

But that's just me. I don't go to high school reunions either. Obviously, other people do, otherwise there wouldn't be any.

And men are just as capable of looking up old flames with an ulterior motive. I had an ex boyfriend contact me after I hadn't heard from him in several years. I wasn't kept in doubt very long of his reason. He had just broken up with his most recent partner and was at lose ends, casting around to see what might come up. Not interested. If it didn't work back when, it wasn't going to work a few years down the road, either.

People of BOTH sexes are going to have their reasons for contacting an old flame. Sounds like Patrick is being cool about it, not hiding anything from the Mrs., and she's cool about it, so no big deal.

If she suddenly starts whining about how awful her marriage is or something, then there might be a good reason to question her motives. But until and unless...

[darclauz]

well, crap. individuals first?

what the hell was *I* thinking?
oh yeah... we women, i was thinking, are sneaky bitches with ulterior motives, who can generally see things that men wouldn't see unless the things in question were stapled to a pair of silicone beauties or some free beer.

but like i said...i'm NOT sexist. i know some women like silicone beauties too...

=)


and yes, i know it's generalizing. it's not specific. please don't flame me or put me into a catsuit next to a microwave oven.

[Elspode]

Originally Posted by darclauz

what the hell was *I* thinking?
oh yeah... we women, i was thinking, are sneaky bitches with ulterior motives, who can generally see things that men wouldn't see unless the things in question were stapled to a pair of silicone beauties or some free beer.

This may have to become my next tagline, assuming that darclauz lets me attribute it properly.

BigV, I have another Hall of Fame nominee for you, here.

[BigV]

Please be my guest.

I think I've adequately demonstrated the form. I always intended for others to share in the population of the thread.

[limey]

Originally Posted by BigV

Dear Elspode:

I have read your histories, both those written in the first person and those written in the third person, and I must say that tawdry is not how they come across to this reader. They are all uniformly eloquent and articulate. They are highly readable, emotionally engaging and filled with intelligent humor. This current serial essay is no different.

I do not find your situation, your history or your writing tawdry. I find it courageous. Not only for your confidence to bare yourself to the wide world, but also for your ability to face your own story so truthfully. I would dare to suggest that the sensation you are reading as tawdriness is actually your bare humanity showing through. It is based on an awareness, a sensitivity to the impact of your actions, your successes and your mistakes, your victories and your failures. Not just how things turned out, but more importantly, how they affected other people. And that is fundamentally a good thing. And you are fundamentally a good person.

Please don't give any more attention to those negative thoughts than you positively have to. The balance holds, but it is delicate. Do not contribute to the negative side when it is so clearly unwarranted.

Hear hear!

[Elspode]

Aw, shucks, you guys...

But how do you know I'm not just a cunning fiction writing sociopath seeking external approval from faceless names, a vile bastard stalking the Internet in order to bolster a fantasy existence to supplant his isolated, dreary reality?

I'm not...but how do you know?

[Pie]

Originally Posted by Elspode

I'm not...but how do you know?

Doesn't matter. It's still more interesting than work.

[Elspode]

If I've brought a little time wasting into your workaday world, I can die fulfilled...

[plthijinx]

don't die yet! there's still tomorrow!!

[limey]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Aw, shucks, you guys...

But how do you know I'm not just a cunning fiction writing sociopath seeking external approval from faceless names, a vile bastard stalking the Internet in order to bolster a fantasy existence to supplant his isolated, dreary reality?

I'm not...but how do you know?

Who cares? It's still a damn good read!


(This is a propos of nothing at all except I saw him on the smilie page and had to let him out!)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by limey

Who cares? It's still a damn good read!

Bullseye.

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by Elspode

Aw, shucks, you guys...

But how do you know I'm not just a cunning fiction writing sociopath seeking external approval from faceless names, a vile bastard stalking the Internet in order to bolster a fantasy existence to supplant his isolated, dreary reality?

I'm not...but how do you know?

yeah, well, we already have someone that provides that service. you'll have to find a different niche.

[Elspode]

Once upon a time, I would have tossed this out here under a subject like Creative Half-Assed Ravings. However, since it has relative relevance to a previous topic, I'll put it here. This is what will appear in my monthly President's Letter in the Heartland Spiritual Alliance's monthly newsletter for December of 2005. Please wrap all stones and squishy thrown objects in tissue for easy identification and disposal...

----------------------------------------
A couple of months ago, I found in my mailbox a completely unexpected and most pleasant surprise. It was a letter and some photos from a girl I had dated when I was a senior in high school, back in the dim recesses of 1974. Since receiving that letter, Liz had I have had an occasional correspondence via email, catching up on the 30-plus intervening years, sharing our family stories and talking about the directions our lives have taken. What I have found out about Liz has given me to pondering a bit. When she and I were dating, I was actively involved in our high school theater department as the light crew chief, doing all the stage lighting work for our various productions. Liz worked with me, and she stayed with it after I left high school (and our relationship) behind. I remember hearing later that she worked at Worlds of Fun for a couple of seasons doing lighting for their shows, and then moved back to California, but that was all I really knew.

In our infrequent emails, she told me that she had just retired from a 25-year career as a lighting designer in the Los Angeles theater scene. She was, in fact, one of the premier lighting designers in the country by the time she burned out on it, having travelled most of the United States and some of Europe in the process. Her resume would make most light tech's eyes bug out and cause legitimate theater tech wannabees to sob with envy. In the process, she had worked with several now well-known actors and actresses, and is in fact now the sister in law of a very well known pop culture icon by dint of her marriage to her husband Scott, whom she met in the business while on long road trips, paying their dues.

The newfound knowledge of Liz's admirable success started me thinking about how little we understand how our lives and our actions change the universe in which we live. 30 years ago, I taught a skinny youngster how to set up light rigs and run a monstrous old spotlight and rheostat-driven lighting board. She took that knowledge and turned it into an award-winning career in both college and the real world. In turn, her lighting realizations undoubtedly moved others to ponder their own lives and insights, perhaps bringing more season ticket purchases or donations to a struggling ballet company, which would in turn allow a young dancer to sustain themselves long enough to launch a career that would someday inspire a little girl to decide to make her career as a teacher of the Arts...and so on and so on.

*My* part in the above postulations is essentially nothing. I needed some help in 1974, and I recruited my then-girlfriend to help me. Heck, my original motivation was, likely as not, to find another way to spend time with her without being watched over by parents...nudge, nudge; wink, wink. Whatever the case, a sequence of events was set in motion that, 30 years later, has in all likelihood affected many lives and ways of thinking. Indeed, after 25 years of being a lighting designer, Liz was so burned out that she has now turned to nursing, and in another year she will begin to intimately touch the lives of thousands whom she will serve as an RN. It might even be said, then, that the sequence of events that was set in motion so many years ago which resulted in Liz's career burnout was impetus for her new career as well, and so those who will be affected by her nursing are secondary beneficiaries of her first career.

So why am I telling you this? Why am I waxing philosophical about some personal nostalgia that you could probably care less about? I do because my recent experience is but a small example of the enormous potential effect each and every one of us has on Existence. Sure, we probably understand that professional educators or athletic role models or other significant and prominent persons have such an effect on the lives of others, but do we stop to look at the things that we ourselves put into motion, even without intent? I know I sure as hell didn't. Because of that, I've spent the last couple of months second-guessing every communication I've ever had with people, every kind or harsh word, every shirked responsibility and every interaction with both friends and strangers. I've come to a realization from all of this. In short, it is simply this - we have absolutely no way of knowing whether or not some small, offhand thing we do or say today will, once cast out to find its way in the Universe, grow and multiply into something much, much bigger than its beginning form. That being the case, does it not behoove us to try and go more good and less harm in the first place?

If you understand the science of physics at all, then you understand that a stone thrown into water or a sound occurring in air results in the propagation of waves of force outward from the source. Given the right circumstances, small waves can be reinforced, amplified as they travel (think of tsunamis, which don't have to start out large to end up gigantic when they finally hit land). I suggest that this happens to us as well. We can't know exactly how our words and actions will end up when extrapolated through years and years of varying external influence, but perhaps we can assume one small, unscientific thing...that positive actions will tend to reinforce positively, resulting in larger beneficial outcomes down the road. A small good can perhaps become a great good simply because we gave it a good sendoff once upon a time.

So...next time you find yourself with an opportunity to speak or act, think for a moment about what comes Later as well as what you are about to do or say Now. You are a part of the Universe, as integral a part of it as any star or planet. The unseen energy world which lies beneath within the manifest and observable world is as reactive to your thoughts and actions as it is to the cataclysmic collapse of a dying star into a black hole or a radio wave beamed across the void. The difference is...a star can't help but collapse if it is above a certain size. A radio wave can't help but travel through the void once beamed there. But you and you alone have the power to control what you send forth into the Universe. Only you can put the original positive or negative spin on your words and deeds. Please make sure that, when you send that energy out there, that it is something that you'll be proud to see again 30 years in the future.