THAT MAN IN THE LONG BLACK COAT FELLOW
There's a song by Bob Dylan that's about a woman who runs away with a guy who's at the dance hall. she asks him to dance and he dances with her. then he asks her to leave with him out to the parking lot and she does. some people see her get into a car with him and drive away. she never comes back to her little town.
I relate with that woman. quite a bit. I am ready to run away at times. with the man in the long black coat...
which is really crazy. because I have a lot of reasons to stay here. lots of LOVE and family and friends. good work. times of much fun and beauty. pretty good health for a change. nothing really seriously, that I know about, wrong...blue skies often. flowers blooming.
I do love life. I do love 'love'. I truly am happy to be alive. truly....
well, except the times I am getting a divorce. that part is so bad. or when people I care about die. I really wish it all would go away, then - but it will not. it could be worse though. thank god we all really own so little that there is precious little argument about who gets what of the bits of stuff left over when people leave or die around me...that part's OK -
and the kids are all grown. they do their own business with Living now, so not much to say about that. We are together for life. I pray for less Loss there...but sometimes Kids/Family goes away... Lots of People can be lost in life and family and old friends, too. that's a loss to feel, each and every time...and,when someone dies a lot of the world you had with them goes too. that's reality as well...
I even have a wonderful boyfriend, one of the very best possible. we love each other mighty deeply. very dearly. so I have hopes there. no evidence that things will ever change dramatically, as yet. but, lots of promises on both sides. we'll see. but we have what we have now...so that is good.
I've been around the block several times now. nothing is proved until it is proved. that's for sure.
but I'm keeping my heart and mind and love and body and even my soul completely open for him. so, that's all I can do about that....
I love my work too - most of it - most of the days...fifty-five years of work now - forty-six of them full-time... my work on this earth has always been good. my daily bread has been hard earned and generous to me as well...
and the good times have been very, very many...the bad times few, and well forgotten - especially the many years I've had of illnesses and pain -the painful times did not destroy me. I grew stronger...
but, I am restless. these hills and even the sea and the rivers are pressing upon me. they are calling to me about escape. about some fine and encircling adventure that will lift me into a different place...
one where waiting is not always there. one where pain, the constant pains of my life, do not encircle me at all.
where anticipation flies to a magic present... that flies away exactly when I step onto each plane that takes me away from life as I desire life. love as I desire love. back to a virtual world where reality is shadow...all gray. where I am a writer is for certain in this Gray...
Where I am a singer and a loving person: there is all the good. all the service and compassion. all worth living about....
In the meantime, my mind is wandering all over this globe...and away from this earth. at times...very far away from this earth....
I am afraid to go to dances. I believe, in some crazy gypsy way, that the man in the long black coat will be there. I will ask him to dance. or he'll ask me. it won't matter which. when we touch, I'll not be in control of anything any more. he won't even have a name. all the past will be known to him. all the present. all the future. he will say new words to me. I have never heard before these things he will say. he will offer me a bite of an apple. the opposite of Eve. but the devil will be there anyway. he'll ask me to take a ride with him. with the top down. I'll be too hot and sultry to resist. I'll glide out on the heat of him. his hands will be ice cold though. even with the long black coat on...very cold. eyes like blue ice.
I will call him Death. he'll laugh at me. touch my hands with the ice of him. tell me I've always belonged to him. that I have never had any where else to go but away from this planet. that no safe place is here for me. that my love can not stop him. my wolf pack of a family cannot stop him. my true love cannot stop him. we're going into the oblivion I have always known was there. that I ran from before. many times. that I feel the urge to run away with now. to not resist any longer....
I have never once thought to take my own life. never once. I have always known my life will be taken away for me. from me. without my doing anything. without my protest mattering at all. not at all. my wistful protest. too silent to whisper.
my hold on life has always been too light. I have allowed Death to be too close, too long. even as a child, he was there. trying to get me into the car. the stranger I had been warned about. the stranger I felt drawn to. the one I smiled at. who was so human to me. I never fought him hard enough. now, I do not fight at all...
When he kisses me I'll leave without a cry. without a note of goodbye. without a song. no wisp of tenderness.
I will sigh once.
I will turn to the North...where all the animals and plants will gather and come to meet me.
I will turn to the East...where all the peoples of the earth will gather and come to meet me.
I will turn to the South...where all the cities and mountains and countryside and rivers and lakes will come to meet me.
I will turn to the West...where the sun going down will blind my eyes over the eternal ocean
where, out of the waves and sky, a voice will call out to me...
"Light. and the Possibilities of Light"....
Then I will fall onto the earth.
soon, too soon... I will rise into the sky...
I will leave this life behind me. on the path by the good ocean....
there will be a dance hall there...I will know this place...
I will see the man in the long black coat...
I will ask him to dance....
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