I’m a chick magnet with amnesia

Thank God for the internet. To be more precise, thank God for email.  I say this because were it not for email I wouldn’t have found out how many women miss me. Not only do they miss me, they love me.  And wait, it gets better. Not only do the love me, they want to have sex with me, the sooner the better. So many women have reached out to me lately I don’t even know what to say. Well, let me be honest with you, there is a serious problem and the problem is mine. My memory is failing. In fact, when it comes to these women, I think it’s gone. I can’t remember any of them!

Last week I got an email from Svetlana, a Russian woman who has a real hankering to spend time with me because she misses me. Hi Peterkahrmann, remember me? I remember you, how beeutiful you are. We were together remember? I rite you beefor. I am your 23 old beautey. Please write soon we can hook up…  Wow! Okay, clearly she’s not a linguist but oh boy she sounds salacious. I didn’t write back because I don’t remember who the hell she is. 

Then there’s Adelita. I get an email from her every week (if not more). She is persistent and misses me and tells me we know each other in our souls and she is Hot and smexy for me. I am your Mexican mamacita! Te deseo! Te deseo! Te deseo! I can’t remember her either!

Let me tell you, this amnesia business is losing me a lot of intimate moments. I’ve got a call into my doctor to see if there’s anything that can be done about my failing memory.  I am somewhat baffled about the fact they’re all in their twenties. I’m 60 and I’ve got to tell you, I can’t remember being in a relationship in which I was 35 to 40 years older than the woman. But I’m willing to make an effort and try to remember.

Last month, for some reason, women who know me and miss me and love me wrote me emails because they know how  kind and generous I am. These poor women have all fallen on hard times – at the same time!  For some reason beyond my understanding all their emails begin with, Hello dear… Their memories are clearly better than mine: it seems I am wealthy. I completely forgot. So completely, I still can’t remember my wealth, all my money.  I can’t even remember where I put it! I’m depressed.

Bad memory aside, I must say I was truly moved by one email last month. Hello dear, (Always with the hello dear) I send you blessings dear man of kindness. In too weks (Another linguist.) I will inheirt many dollars from my dear uncle. can you dear one send me money now? I send you account for receibing. Bless you dear one, God loves you I love you. Blessings always dear one.  Not long after reading her email I was overcome with a wave of sadness. I realized she didn’t sign her name because her memory is worse than mine. Poor thing can’t remember her name.

Oh well. I suppose as long as I can remember my name I’m on the upside of things. I still feel pretty bad that I can’t remember all these women. Being forgotten can’t be any fun.

 

Because you’re gone

I’m sorry I could not save you

I swear I would have if I could have

I’ve heard no sound so bruising as silence

Because you’re gone

*

I’m sorry you could not save you

I wonder if you would have if you could have

The sunrise seems smaller these days

Because you’re gone

*

I’m sorry you couldn’t trust anyone

Would you’ve trusted you if you could have

I don’t think you stood a chance

Because you’re gone

*

I’m sorry these words can’t reach you

They would have if they could have

You could hear but you couldn’t listen

Because you’re gone.

*

I’m sorry I could not save you

I swear I would have if I could have

There’s less light in my heart now

Because you’re gone

*

Getting physical: it’s all dance to me

Movement comes from the inside out, not from the outside in. At least that’s my truth. Someone asked me once how I decided to dance to a particular piece of music. “It’s not up to me,” I said. “It’s up to the music.”  Let the music in and out the movement comes. You’ve got to keep self out of the way. In other words, don’t interrupt.

Movement: a form of dance like jazz, ballet, modern, a form of what society calls exercise or sport: running, swimming, climbing mountains, hiking, biking, walking, kissing, love making… hell, it’s  all dance to me. I’ve seen definitions of dance I like such as, to perform or take part in as a dancer, and, to bring into a specified condition by dancing. These help me understand why, when live wounds or rewards deeply, getting physical is inherently part of my response. When my mother committed suicide in 1992 I ran two marathons in two weeks in 1993. When my daughter was born, I could’ve danced forever.

Of late, swimming is my “dance floor” and  get-physical refuge, though I’m eyeing some challenges on my bike (summiting Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts’ tallest peak at a modest 3,491 feet) and a few others  I’m keeping off the page (for now).  I’m quietly joyous about my relationship with swimming. I can swim a mile freestyle now. For me this is a big deal. It was fall 2012 when I (finally!) decided to face my fear of water, deep over-my-head water.  Now when life wounds or rewards I’m in the water early morning, churning through, moving, dancing all the way. That movement experience when body, spirit, mind, heart and soul are one.

No better place to be fully alive than in the moment, the only place you have to be, in the moment.

We’re not dark yet

Listening to John Hiatt singing Feels like Rain thinking so of many battered and bruised by life’s travails, sheltered behind barricades that blind, or lead or to miss or lose the love that’s right in front of us. Were trying again, letting love happen, taking that risk, an act of weakness, then why’s it so hard to do?

Listening to what may be the most beautiful version of Hallelujah I’ve ever heard, remembering dreams lost, lives gone, chances lost, thinking God give me strength to accept the possibilities life offers me, and please don’t let my fears lead me astray. Yes, I know it’s hard when some have had other try to end them,  but do we really want to allow those others to pilot our lives from here on out? Not me, not me.

Listen to Springsteen’s Tougher Than the Rest … Toughness (strength),  the capacity to allow life’s experience unabridged by history’s wounds, plans gone wrong, the missteps of ourselves, and others. Finding the strength to love sometimes means going through the fear until the fear can’t hold on; it means going through the rain to reach the sunshine. 

Listening to Marc Cohn’s One Safe Place  I find myself still believing love  can be one safe place. If this makes me a fool, well then, fuck it. So be it.  I say dream on, keep the faith. Don’t give up. We’re not dark yet.

McKenzie’s last breath

There were no words thought, only moments felt. My head nestled against hers resting on a blanket, the soft puffs of her breathing in my ear. She was sedated, my old German Shepherd McKenzie, who loved and guarded my life with her own every second of our many years together. And now, as the vet injected her with the drug that would end her peacefully, I held her close, tears streaming, no words, though I heard someone saying Thank you, thank you, thank you, and realized it was me whispering in McKenzie’s ear.

And then her last breath came and went. Silence. Moments later the gentle-voiced vet saying, “She is gone,” and still I held her close. The vet and vet tech hugging me, take all the time you need, they said, and quietly left the room. Now words tumbled out, professing love for this amazing animal, my friend, she was my friend. Then laughing through tears telling her I used to say dogs are people too until I realized I was insulting the dogs . I apologized to her still form and thanked her for all she’d done for me, not the least of which occurred a few weeks earlier when a bout with pain had me on the floor pouring sweat. Age and weakness did not stop McKenzie from getting to me and licking the sweat from my face and staying close, watching over me.

McKenzie was 14 when she died. They say that’s a good run for a German Shepherd and I suppose that’s true. Were it up to me she’d have lived forever and gone on to add love and safety to another’s life after I’m gone.

There are people whose passing would bother me less than McKenzie’s. This may surprise some, maybe even offend a few. Can’t help it. Dogs don’t lie, don’t betray, don’t care about skin color, politics, sexual orientation, economic status, whether you do or don’t live with a disability. They love you because you are you. You can’t say that about too many people. You can say that about every dog, save for those who’ve been abused by….wait for it….people.

 

Last pictures

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