Heart On My Wall

       Light. An amorphous phenomenon.
       We define visible light scientifically as electromagnetic radiation within a specific wavelength. As strangely poetic as that sounds, and despite that visible light largely defines our experience of life itself, that doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. Light is infinitely vaster and more mysterious.
       Some people seem to glow with a light that we don’t see as much as feel. Even when it’s completely dark, light is everywhere around us. Some people are enlightened, which means they have been able to shine light on parts of themselves that were once dark. They are then able to assist others in shining their own light into themselves.
       Light is the basis of color. And color gives life vibrance. Both literally and metaphorically. Color effects brain chemistry. I physically and mentally and emotionally get excited by bright, shiny, sparkly, colorful things. I feel it. I absolutely feel colors. Many of us do. That’s one reason I painted my house purple. And why I like to wear colorful clothing. I feel brighter and more alive when I’m wearing something colorful. Just a personal reality.
       In the fall, the landscape explodes with color as the leaves on the trees change into a firestorm. The sun shifts position in the sky, changing the lighting so that the world actually looks and feels different. In the winter, I mean in a good winter, the landscape once again changes, as snow makes the world look and feel different. In the spring and summer, reality shifts yet again, dominated by the green of trees, the blue of the ocean, and the colorful addition of flowering plants. It’s endless.
       The world, indeed our very visible reality, is the infinite canvas upon which light paints the pictures of our life. Constantly shifting, changing, moving. Even if we are standing still.
       And sometimes, light sends a specific message.
       The other day, light coming through my window, reflecting and bending, through and around who knows what, created a heart on my wall. I was talking to my sister at the time, whom I love very much. In our conversation, we were talking about people we love. Light took notice. And painted it’s picture. Or perhaps, my sister and I co-created, the heart of light with the light from our hearts. Probably both.
       The heart reminded me that light and love are the way. No matter what.

©2013 Clint Piatelli, MuscleHeart, and Red F Publishing. All Rights Reserved.    

It's Raining Women's Clothes

Over the past few days, I've come across totally intact articles of women's clothing lying around my neighborhood. There's absolutely no evidence of foul play, as the clothing is in perfect condition.

I would love to know the stories behind these pieces of clothing. I guess I could make stories up and post them as fiction. That's a whole 'nother blog though. Which I very well may undertake, in addition to this one. Food for thought. Actually, clothing for thought.

I don't know what this women's clothing strewn around my 'hood is about, but I'm all for it.

From Tragedy To Romantic Comedy

      

        Cape Cod is basically a giant sand bar, created a mere fifteen to twenty thousand years ago, by of all things, a glacier. When we think of the cape, we picture beautiful beaches stretching into a seemingly endless ocean. Rarely do we think of its trees, or the word “foliage”.
        I certainly never did. I spent virtually every summer of my life here until I graduated college. Not until I moved here did I realized that Cape Cod is a beautiful place to witness the annual color explosion of a New England autumn.
    Once I moved here full time, one of the first thing I noticed is that, contrary to popular belief, the Cape’s flora does not consist primarily of scrub pines and dune grass. This giant sand bar is in fact rife with leafy trees. Leafy trees that change color.
       The cape’s milder climate means that it peaks later in the season, usually early November. So it gets bypassed by foliage lovers. Not only because most foliage fans think there is nothing to see here, but also because most people have already done their leaf peeping, drawn north to the mountains earlier in the fall.
       But those of us who live here, if we’re paying attention, know better. We’re aware that Cape Cod in autumn is a very different place than Cape Cod in summer. Our roads, our neighborhoods, our trees, are alive with orange and yellow and red. Colors that the tourists never see. And because our experience is exclusive to us natives, and because there are so many less people here in fall, we feel that this cape is ours. It’s our little secret. A colorful world that you only know about if you live here.
       For most of my youth, fall was the absolute worst time of year. I would bet the farm that that was the case for the vast majority of kids. Fall sucked. It meant going back to school. It meant regiment. It ignited, in all it’s phantasmal glory, my internal emotional neon sign that read: “The Party’s Over”. How the fuck could I like fall then? How the fuck could any normal, sane, irresponsible kid?
       When I got older, in one of the truly remarkable and subtle transformations in life, I, like many people, came to love autumn. Instead of dread, I came to embrace that time of year that had traditionally triggered what I would call “formative situational seasonal depression”. When fall no longer meant being sentenced to what I over-dramatically referred to as “Awshwitz For Kids”, I grew to appreciate this unique time of year. Suddenly, fall meant something different. It meant beauty, and jaw dropping color, and a change in the lighting scheme of life. It meant curling up with a girl in front of a blazing fire. It meant a shift in my experience of life, like a benign and non-addictive drug.
       Autumn assaulted the senses. Not only visually, but audibly. Who can’t recall the unique sound that leaves on the ground make when we shuffle through them? Even our olfactory senses get involved, for autumn has a certain scent to it; fallen leaves; blossoming flora; the change in prevailing winds and air temperature that deliver a palpable change in the very air we breath. As though I was able to change the genre of a movie, autumn literally went from being a tragedy to being a romantic comedy. 
       I called Falmouth home for almost ten years. Of all my countless experiences here as a full time resident, my personal discovery and enjoyment of the Cape’s “Hidden Fall” ranks towards the top. Because of its lasting impact. Because my very experience of reality changed.
       After living in the city of Boston for fifteen years, as much as I loved it, autumn inevitably passed me by. Surrounded by buildings instead of trees, immersing myself in the perpetual spirit of color that defines autumn proved elusive. And as I’ve said, fall to me as a kid was akin to death. But being on Cape Cod in autumn for this many years has forever changed my perspective. My eyes opened. My mind expanded. And my experience of the entire season transmutated; altered, like poles on a battery, from negative to positive. Very cool Falmouth. Unexpected, but very cool. Thank you...


© 2010 Clint Piatelli. Astoundingly Colorful Amount of Rights Reserved.

Pictures of Lilly

I've been writing every day this week, as usual, but nothing is "there" yet. That means next week should see a blog post just about every day, where this week, it was slim pickins. But I'm happy with the photographs I've posted, so here's another one, inspired by The Who and Andy Warhol.

Jane

        When I was eighteen, there was a lifeguard at our association beach named Jane. I had just graduated high school, and I think she was in her second or third year of college. Although just a couple of years older than me, she was much more worldly. More mature. She was a woman, while I was, in many ways, still a boy. I hadn’t had sex yet, and I’m sure she had. That alone put her in a different league.
        Despite this gap between us, we liked each other. We even flirted. She would tell me that she dug my “long, curly rock ‘n’ roll hair”, my “beautiful green eyes”, and my “nice physique”. I in turn spent plenty of time ogling her lengthy blonde mane, her pretty face, and her smokin’, athletic, bikini-clad body. She was a singer in a band, and I was a drummer, so we would occasionally talk music. She was a lifeguard at our beach for two summers. And then I never saw her again.
        At eighteen, I was just coming into my own. My senior year of high school had seen me explode out of my shell and onto the world in a blaze of adolescent glory. I hadn’t even kissed a girl, I mean really kissed a girl, until I was seventeen, just a year before. But between then and my eighteenth summer, I had been on lots of dates, kissed my share of girls, been to three proms, and even made it to third base quite a few times. Sex still eluded me, but frankly, I was in no hurry. Because I was still scared of it.
        At that point in my life, sex didn’t seem like just the next step after putting my hands down a girl’s pants; it seemed like a quantum leap into the unknown. The progression from kissing to heavy petting didn’t intimidate me. Maybe because it all felt so natural. Kissing, fondling, groping, and using my hands and mouth to explore the wonderfulness of a woman was always fun for me. I was eager to do it as often as I could. After all, I had been using my mouth and my hands my whole life, and I was pretty good at it. I could do lots of neat things with my hands and mouth; speak, eat, whistle, drum, punch, make things. Using them to love a woman seemed like just another artful skill that I could master.
        But using my dick? I had never used that on anything. Or anybody. Sure, I had learned how to pleasure myself when I was six, and, like most red blooded boys, had been practicing that art ever since. I knew exactly what I liked. But having to use my member on a woman to make her feel good (and achieve my own lift off) was a whole different story.
        So here I was, having exploded out of my shell not too long before, and I’m flirting with this older, worldly, totally hot blonde lifeguard. Even though I was still pretty naive, I could tell she liked me. But there were two things that stood in my way of ever getting it on with her; the fact that I had a girlfriend who lived next door to me, in the same association as where the lifeguard was; and, more importantly, the fact that I didn’t have a clue how to make a move on this woman who intimidated me.
        Even though I had come out of my shell, I certainly didn’t yet have a lot of confidence with women. This was all still pretty new to me. I blossomed rather late. I had wanted to hug and kiss and fondle and squeeze girls since I was probably twelve or so, but I had been denied that pleasure until I was seventeen. And even then, until about the time I turned eighteen that February, it had only been with one girl.
        In the spring of my senior year of high school, though, I was hooking up all the time. And here’s where years of frustration, years of wanting but not having, helped me. Because I had yearned but been denied female company for so long, when I got it, I had a different attitude than most boys my age. While most dudes were rushing to get the girl’s pants off, I was very happy just to kiss, touch, rub, grind, explore, and generally take whatever was being offered. I wasn’t overly aggressive, and girls liked that. So our encounters were generally wonderful and rarely awkward. They were fun, erotic, tender, steamy, passionate, relatively innocent; not simply a race to get inside of her.
        I’ve carried that attitude of acceptance and genuine appreciation for female companionship with me ever since, and its served me well. Even today, I’m never in a rush to have sex. I love foreplay. All those years of not having sex and instead spending my time exploring the female form have made me a better lover. When I finally got with someone, I paid attention. I was present. In the moment. Fully engaged in what I was doing. Like working for something for a long time, delaying the gratification for years, when it finally starts happening, your attitude is different than if it came easy and right away.
        This is a great example of how pain and frustration and a certain amount of suffering can shape one’s character for the better. It certainly did for me. I honestly love just being next to a woman I like. Rubbing against her. Feeling her soft skin against mine. Hearing her breathe heavier and heavier. Inhaling her unique scent with every breath I take. Exploring the delicious lines of her body and face. Trying different things and seeing what and how she responds. Whispering in her ear. Listening to what her voice sounds like when she slightly gasps or lightly moans. Letting her get to know me and what I like, and vise-versa. It’s all good. It’s all beautiful. And I could do it for hours at a time or weeks on end without worrying about when we’re going to “do it”. That’s what not getting it for years did for me.
        I wouldn’t change any of that. But I can still say, man, it would have been a gas to be with Jane. I could tell she was wild. There were all sorts of rumors around the beach about what a party girl she was. Lots of the older women who hung out at the beach all day didn’t like her. Back then, I couldn’t figure out why. She was nice to everybody. Years later, I knew it was just jealousy. I would have loved to have been part of a scandal back then.
        This is one of those scenarios that would definitely qualify as a “Do Over” if science ever allows us to reconstruct reality to our whims and relive an experience through virtual reality or some other mind boggling technology with no consequences to the present. There’s still a piece of me that would love to go back and have the experience of having sweet Jane lead me to manhood by schooling me in the ways of sex like a teacher does a prized pupil. She could have showed me the ropes. Literally. Actually, if I grew up quick enough and truly expressed what I liked, maybe I would have showed the ropes to her first. Literally.
        Of course, that’s the fantasy. She could just as easily have used me and broken my heart into a million pieces. Or maybe she was really kinky, and....wait, I can’t think of anything bad about that. Anyway, the point is who knows? As a “What If” game to play in my own head, it’s fun to do. Anything further than that, and I’m spinning into places I don’t want to go.
        Around this same time, the tune “Jane” by Jefferson Starship was very popular. It was, and remains, one of my favorite songs. Whenever I heard it, I would think of her. Even today, almost thirty years later, that song brings up images of the blonde lifeguard on my beach who almost became “my first”. There’s something sweet and innocent about that, and it will never leave me. So the song will always have a special place inside. And so will she.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a naughty bikini wearing blonde full of Wrongs) Reserved.