Ode to a Woman Named Catherine

This is my observation of a woman named Catherine. She has a last name too but that's none of your business. Need to know information you don't have clearance for. So for those of you reading this its Catherine nothing more. Catherine is more than enough. I think most people call her by a nick name but I personally like the name Catherine so that is what I call her. In case you are wondering who the man is reporting his observations....stating his conclusions telling these stories. Well I am a man no different than most except for my eyes. I see the world in a different way than most. My mind works different than a lot of people and I see meaning underneath the surface of every moment. I get lost inside things. I get lost inside people. I have a constant urge to explore the souls of certain people and to this you must start with the mind. The moments of their life caught on film, their interests, who their friends are and above all else it is most important to be able to look into this persons eyes. In person is best but a photo will do. A photo is a copy of the beauty held in a moment past.

I as the observer have only done so though the internet. I have never met the woman I am writing about but I think that the dominoes have already begun to fall toward that moment. I don't meet many people. I am hermit. I don't like the place I live. I don't like the people in it. I don't like the traffic. I think it's ugly and it smells bad. People are all in bad moods and pissed at the world. No one ever smiles here. People are full of hate there is murder here every day several times a day. Even more rape. Everyone is losing their house to the banks. Poverty is spreading. There are no jobs. Nobody helps the homeless they just ignore them. Drive past and look straight ahead so they don't have to look them in the eye and see a human being. In a few years the guy driving in the car will be standing right next to him. Methamphetamine use is rampant and theft is way up. Somebody killed a baby three houses down the cadaver dog hit by the crib. I bet anything it was the mom. She looks guilty. I get a bad feeling from her. A darkness I don't like. The city is segregated and though we pretend we aren't the majority of people at least the ones I know around here are racist . There are parts of town where I would not be welcome and would be in danger just for being there. Especially at night. No Kansas City is an ugly s**t hole and one day I'll put it in my rear view and never return.

 

For now I spend my time alone and a lot of it screwing around on the interwebs. I was going down the list of people you may know list. It was a list of people I either hated, didn't know or didn't want to and then a painting. By a woman named Catherine so I looked at her page. She was friends with dear friends of mine from my years in Maryville. How could I not know her. perhaps she came around after I left or we just never crossed paths that seems unlikely though. Perhaps we were not to meet until now. I looked her page all over and found her to be fascinating and her art spoke to me so I added her. I have talked to her on numerous occasions on the net and she is more impressive than I expected it. A wise soul. A beautiful woman. Relaxed and smiling. The kind of smile that isn't forced it isn't a pose its the real thing and if you look at it right you can feel lit like the rays of the sun. She has a boyfriend or husband who does not show any signs of being a douchebag in any way shape or form. I don't think a woman as Smart as Catherine would be with a man that wasn't worthy of her so my guess is he is a good man. So obviously this observer's interest in this woman is not romantic. Observers are not home wreckers.

 

It has been a long time since someone just grabbed me like Catherine. From the first time we spoke we were never strangers. We spoke as if we always had. We rarely indulge in light conversation usually speak of rather serious subjects and ideas. I like that. I hate small talk. It's like an intellectual lap dance it gets you ready to go but then it just stops. This never happens with Catherine. Even when I think I have nothing to say. When She comes around I run off at the mouth sharing all my wild thoughts and ideas with her because she is the only person I know that I really feel understands them the way they were meant to be taken. Catherine sees things much the way I do. Catherine might even understand me as a person or at least a part. Time will tell. To be understood is a rare thing in this world.

 

Long long ago when I was in grade school I had a dream that I have never forgot. There used to be a somewhat overgrown baseball fields near my grade school. It had that tall metal fence thing that they put behind a baseball home plate to stop the ball. I was sitting tailor style with this beautiful little girl with medium length blonde hair and we were laughing about something and I remember looking into her eyes as she sat across from me and I never forgot those eyes. Catherine has those same eyes. Catherine looks like that little girl grown up. I saw it the first time I saw a picture of her. The dream came rushing back just as powerful and vivid like its always been. I have spent my life searching for that little girl and I believe that Catherine is that girl. Our minds intersecting in the world of dream years before reality.

Catherine. The more I learn the more I am impressed. This woman exists. There are still people out there like this.

 

You know the damnedest thing of it all is we have not know each other terribly long but I think she cares about me and my well being more than a great deal of the people I have known for years. She expresses it to me too. She always discredits it saying it probably doesn't mean much but it does. It means the difference between loving another person and just knowing them. It is what keeps a person going in darkness. In loneliness. Affection is better than any drug. Knowing someone cares for you changes your life. It gives it substance gives it meaning. No one of these days maybe I can convince her not apologize for being a loving soul.

 

Catherine has picked me up out of the gutter on several hard times. I have never heard her voice only seen her words on a screen but they brought light in darkness. Catherine is a mystic. There is great power in the spirit of Catherine. Sadly I am not sure she has yet to find it. I have full confidence she will though. Her art is magic. My focus is always drawn to the eyes of her portraits. Sometimes I see people the way she paints them. Her art moves me like few artists I know. She told me most go unfinished and it kills me because I feel like the world needs more of Catherine. It needs to see her soul inside her painting. It needs to exist. Like all the drafts of half written pieces of writing I have stored away.Time is destroying the idea every day I don't write it but there it sits. I feel unfinished art is the only blasphemy that exists.

 

The world is a better place when Catherine produces anything. Even the unfinished pieces hold beauty, hold a beauty of this woman named Catherine. This woman I never met. This woman I care for. This woman that brings me hope. This woman who is my friend when they seem to be in short supply. Who keeps me company when I lie alone sick in a hospital bed. When there is no one else there is Catherine. I have seen pieces of the world she lives in. I often wish I could of have been there. They look like times that would be worth leaving the basement for. I have seen Catherine in many places doing many things. I have seen moments of her life that were captured forever and shared with those of us who choose to look. I have seen a place she went in South Missouri. It was beautiful. She was with the people I used to run around with. It would have been nice to join them and set aside my anti camping beliefs.

 

I have seen her camping, I have seen her at bonfires, I have seen her just hanging out, I've seen her making faces, I've seen her tearing up a house I have seen her hang from a tree. I have see her laughing, I have seen her thinking, I have seen her smile that smile like no other. That smile that spreads to you and you are smiling too just because she has. All these moments of Catherine's life right here for me to view. But they are just pictures and though they are beautiful because they are moments captured forever that anyone can see at any time. Like stealing a scrap of the past. They are still just pictures and pictures are silent. Silence is frustrating when you know a woman like Catherine. Eventually a chat session here and there is not enough. The friendship needs to evolve and its stuck. I can send her a message on facebook or a picture or song I liked but I want to sit down in a park with dark green grass and find a bench under a tree on a day with a nice temperature and talk. We'd talk about our lives and philosophy, life death and everything in between. We would connect just a foot away from each other in real life and I think that would be a moment of beauty and happiness in this observer's life. The internet is what I have so it will have to suffice.

 

One day I will meet this woman named Catherine. I hope at least. It is on the list of things to do in any case. One day I will look into the eyes of a dear friend for the first time since we were little kids in a dream. One day I will hear her voice. One day I will sit down next to her and have a conversation. One day I'll make her laugh with some strange warped or corny joke. One day I'll meet the man she is with.  One day I'll see the sun reflect off of her hair. One day she won't just be someone I know from the internet. One day we will evolve. we will become closer. One day I will continue to uncover the layers that make up this woman named Catherine. I may never make it to the core but I will offer mine up if she wants to see.

 

Ask me about Catherine I could go on and on. All good things. The art the smile the loving soul, the shiny blonde hair the friendship. The fact I'd like to get lost i n her mind for a day and see all the beauty and all the darkness that it holds so that I could TRULY understand the woman they call Catherine. If someone asked who is Catherine I would say a mysterious and majestic creature with layers of beauty and creativity, the deeper you go the more beautiful it becomes. I would say there is nothing anyone could say to me to change my opinion of her no matter who it was talking. I would tell them that Catherine and I did not choose the thug life. It chose us. We ride together we die together. Represent your people and Catherine....she's my people. I would say Catherine is a woman who my friendship with has only scratched the surface of what is to come.

 

If someone were to ask me who Catherine was ......I would say she is a kindred spirit.

If someone were to ask me who Catherine was.....I would say "She's the girl from the baseball field"

If someone were to ask me who Catherine was ......I would say "Catherine is my friend"

 

These are the observations and experiences I have to report on this woman known as Catherine at this time. No further investigation or reporting is required at this point. We feel this report accurately paints a picture of the subject and the observer so until further notice any other information regarding this situation is classified.........Thank You