The Witch Returns

Where are my socks?

An infatuation … sometimes called … calf love … puppy love or crush … is a most interesting phenomenon. The dictionary uses the term … extravagant … to describe the sensation … in a total condemnation of the experience. Sadly that merely limits the event … to love. I'm looking at it … with the view of an epiphany … that is really a greater scope of the impulse … that brings together … the qualities of … union of opposites … the radiance … self knowing … and the opening of the heart to a sense of belonging.

 

 In fact … it may be so true … to say … that a man can say something new … about the experience of infatuation … every day. He may refer to how we get intoxicated with the seasons of the earth … delight with the rising sun at the dawn of the day … thrill to the sound of rain as it falls in sheets … find something new to spend money on … purchase a new product … get a new music cd … a new blog about life on a remote place in the world … the list is endless.

 

Its that girl … whom I associate with the smile on my lips … whose eyes twinkle … but she stays snug about my sense of humor. The way she looks away … when I joke about something … and brings her eyes to say … ' I thought it was always about the prick for every man.' And then her eyes gets into an innocent hue … and she smiles in beautification … realizing that there is life after sex. And when somebody asks … she tips over with laughter … at the thought that I flatter myself.

 

It is the sunset of our years … not the beginning of a life of expectation. It makes her laugh at the bee … that's buzzing around the flower … and reaches in for some nectar. The pair of mynahs … who are a constant companion to each other … wherever you run into yellow mynahs. The orchid … with no special fragrance … that sprouts bright and colorful … and figures it'll take its chances. And the old man with the cane … whose hands rub constantly on the cane handle … like its throbbing with pleasure.

 

She thinks about young girls growing up … who worry about not being able to get a date … and again … she laughs. Or when they get into a miff with their boyfriends … and they write these mournful poems … of heartbreak and despair … as they go deeper into the tempest of love. Certainly … an infatuation is more … more … than about simply love. Its also simply the freedom of the outdoors … the mind that has seen life … and its whims about love … that it kept hidden from others.

 

We encounter the radiance of infatuation … that throws a loop on the world around us … and captures in its snare … the surfer on his board … the sun-tanning man on the sand … the persistent waves on the beach … their sounds like a sigh … after the roar of the rush onto the beach. The drone of the sound … reminds her of how … she used to rush … on legs that glided like dance … on the stone steps of the pavements … and drew the whistles of wolves … down the street.

 

The memory of the fights return … when she wanted him to go away and leave her ... and the sight of his lone figure with the suitcase … walking down the path to the main road … returns. Care … being caring … and the care giver … to the spouse … children … society … emerges like the quizzical gaze of the baby … sitting and staring at the world … with no comment. What Cleopatra said about her life … ' My honor was not yielded but conquered merely.'

 

Curiously the experience … implies a self knowing … but what is it? What Cicero said about the ambition of a woman … and the way men respond to the impulse … defining … in their strength of portrayal of their personality. The way the light catches his face … brings out the look in the eyes … the raw chin … the crease on the sides … and always … the brows that stand out like straight lines … of innocence. She wonders about … what she thought she might do with that … turn it into an achievement … and fill her desires with fulfillment.

 

And then it hits her. She had wanted to belong to that … like a home … a sense of identity … here at last … the summum bonum of labor … that found its end. Someone once said … all knowledge has an end … and that is the realization of who or what we are … in a universe that … defines the term infinite. And she comes to the awareness … that everything around her … wants to know that about themselves.

 

What we did in our youth … was to pursue with the torch of infatuation … the object of love's ambition. We can do that again … to find that we are always in some ways infatuated with life. And we find the river of bile standing in the way of the lovers … like as if … in liking the image in the mirror … we are prone to bully him … criticize … ridicule … and laugh ourselves … at the vanity of infatuation. But why when we return into accord with ourselves … do we push it away?

 

The kid who couldn't do without his mom … comes to be his father … and its the same denial of the self again. Had he loved his father as himself? Had he brought the greatest longing to match … the greatest achievement … only to find that … one cannot exist without the other? And so we lose ourselves always … simply to find ourselves again. Its the great pastime … and the way of life in the world. Its ticks on the dog and tits in man … and the witch that trades a new broom for the old.