Men??

I want a man to be a man. I know they exist, these men, this man I look for. I just have to see past whatever they’ve gathered around themselves, hiding who and what they are. For all know, my perfect man could be five feet tall and ninety-eight pounds. I’m sort of hoping he’ll at least be somewhere around my height (5'5") if not taller, but who knows what lies in a human heart, under mystifying package? So I talk to them all, the short and tall, the big and small, the wide and thin, the wiry and slim. Wondering. Is this him? Is this you? And why does it matter so much that I find you? To say I want to dive into your ocean seems trite. And dangerous if I dive in only to find you’re two inches deep. Break my damn neck.

So I am left with this inexplicable urge to be skin close in a relationship with a man and yet run like the Hounds of the Baskervilles are on my heels, like a squirrel darting up a tree to escape from danger. But the danger is not really from someone else, it’s from me. What if I can’t handle more than what I’ve already handled and fear locks me in, locks me down, won’t let anyone in. The question becomes, “will I choose what is best for me?” The question becomes, “will I be alone for eternity?” I’m not settling this time. Settling set me miles backward last time. I was careless with my life, I was careless in my choices, like one more cigarette to be burned and thrown away.

Just some things running through my head lately. Just wish they weren’t sprinting.

100 Things I Want in a Man

I was speaking to a friend today and somehow we got onto the topic of what we would like in a man. She told me that about a year ago, a friend of hers had written a list of 100 things she would look for in a mate/man. And then out of nowhere, she meets a man and lo-and-behold, he matches almost everything on the list she had written a year previous. She hadn't looked at that list since writing it, but remembered it and decided to take a look at it.

So maybe the act of writing down what she wanted in another person helped her to subconsciously look for the person who would suit her best. Sort of like a subliminal suggestion. Sort of like the book "The Secret" but for relationships.

So I thought, why not? The only stipulation of the exercise was that you had to write things you wanted, not things that you didn't want. A positive list instead of a negative list which concentrates on the bad instead of the good. I think if you keep saying that you don't want certain things, then for some reason, you are so focused on not wanting these things that you actually get what you didn't want. Did that make any sense whatsoever??

So I wrote my list. Surprisingly enough it didn't take that long. At first I thought there's no way I can come up with 100 things I look for in a man. But after the first 15 items or so, the character traits that I look for just came spinning out of my fingers and into a Word document. Amazing. I had been so concentrated on what I didn't want instead of what I did want.

The other surprising thing? Not one item on my list had anything to do with how the man looked. I don't know if most women would put in tall, dark and handsome but it never really occurred to me to put in what to look for in terms of looks. Sometimes I think I am odd for a woman. Looks are so subjective for me. If I think a person is a nice and good person, then they are attractive to me. If I think a person is not a nice person, then they are unattractive to me. I refuse to watch Brad Pitt movies anymore because all I can think is that he cheated on his wife, therefore he has become repugnant to me. Maybe I take things too much to heart, I've been told that this attitude of mine is a little hard-core. And maybe they're right, but I feel as I do regardless.

So, what, you are asking, could I possibly be looking for in a man? Well, I'm not going to post the whole list but the words compassionate, loving, intelligent, honest, honorable, reasonable, playful, loyal, helpful, passionate, kind, flexible, hard-working, emotionally available and reliable were some of the traits I look for in a man. I think most men would agree that they would look for these things in a woman, as well. Men and women, I think, are not all that different. Yes, there are differences but down deep we all want the same thing. Love and acceptance.

So now, I am going to put my list away and not look at it for a year or so. And then I'll see what has happened after a year. Maybe nothing, but maybe something really wonderful.

Live the Music, Write the Music

Music has been a part of my life since I was seven years old and my parents bought a secondhand practice piano from a convent for, I think, $200. I can’t say I appreciated the thought behind it at first. Being forced to sit there every day for fifteen minutes with the timer on the oven set. As soon as the buzzer went off, I took off. And sometimes I got away with not practicing. However, we did have a cat for a short time who seemed to love prancing down the keys at midnight.

I think I was thirteen when I stormed out of my last piano lesson and stated to my mother than I was never going back to lessons ever again and I would never touch the piano again. My two sisters had already given up playing piano before that, so I couldn’t understand why I was being tormented with lessons. I was a crap player, didn’t like the music I was playing and didn’t see the point. What can I say, I was thirteen.

Two years later, at the age of fifteen, I heard the beckoning call of the poor instrument abandoned in the basement. It was a beautiful piano, oak I think, but with one small chip on the edge of the key of middle C. The sounds it produced were rich and vibrant, like a wonderfully aged port. Time had imparted a particular deep resonance to the notes when played. None of this tinny sounding honky-tonk stuff – a comforting, inexplicable, full sound emanated from the strings as the soft hammers struck them.

And I was hooked. With additional maturity, I found I was able to play and enjoy more complex pieces. I loved that piano. It was the place where I found solace from the pains of adolescence and anxiety of life. I would lose myself in the music because playing it pushed everything but the music out of my mind. I played that piano whenever I could throughout the rest of grade school and to the end of university.

After university, I traveled for a year and a half and didn’t have the opportunity to play. When I arrived back home, I couldn’t afford to take the instrument with me when I moved to Toronto so it was sold. I wanted to cry.

For eleven years after that, I didn’t have a piano. And then one day I was ‘given’ a piano as a ‘present’ from my then-significant other. It was also a beautiful instrument with a wonderful sound. And it was like I had never been without a piano. Again, I could play more complex pieces and truly appreciate the art behind the music, appreciate the composer, appreciate the mind-clearing reality of music and just be.

It was with playing piano and listening to other music that I was able to write my first novel. Music inspired me, it led me to different conclusions, different methods, a different…me. If I wanted to write something upbeat I would listen to upbeat music. If I needed to write a sad scene, I’d write to sad music. All the moods in the world captured in time and in writing with music.

When my relationship ended with my ex, he took my piano away, took back his present to me, even though he did not play the piano. And so now, I do not have a piano again. I seem to keep losing them in one way or another. I will buy another one someday.

I like to live my life with background music of my own choosing and playing, sort of like that spoof soap opera back in the 1970s named ‘Soap’ with Katherine Helmond. The matriarch of the wealthy family, played by Katherine Helmond, wanted to live her life to a soundtrack. At the time it was just a joke to describe her wacky, oblivious character.

Geez, maybe I’ve turned into a wacky, oblivious character. Although owning an iPod helps me to have a soundtrack for my life. You can never tell where life will lead you I guess. But I will own a piano again and this time it will be all mine. That is a promise.