Alysse Aallyn

Tag: #Mysteries

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    20 Aug 76 – 11 AM

                       I start The Mass at St Secaire for the thousandth

     time with one good idea:  Manage transitions by IGNORING them. 

    Just start abruptly somewhere else and worry about it later!  Outside 

    R sits in a lawn chair playing the guitar. When he falls silent he’s writing 

    down notes. He says I have a good effect on him, getting him writing again.

                       In the meantime, I made a list of literary essays I want to 

    write and to my surprise there were more than 20. When I get back I 

    will make a folder for each one and start collecting notes and ideas, 

    beginning when I feel I have enough. How to finish a book of poems, 

    finish and send out a novel, write 20 literary essays while working a 

    45 hr week? My heart quavers. I’m afraid I won’t be able to get a job 

    that isn’t straight typing – then having to type when I come home. 

                    Balzac could have done it. Trollope could have done it – I don’t 

    think I can do it. But I certainly don’t want to lose R – he is a rare 

    being. I need a deus ex machina of some kind. Maybe my gothic 

    will sell.

                       So glad this is our last day at Summer Camp. Couldn’t say that to R – 

    he would think I hadn’t enjoyed myself. Last night he stretched 

    me out naked on his lap and played me like a guitar – most 

    delicious thing. Waves of ecstasy bulging, rolling and crashing 

    inside me. He says I’m so fun to please. Talks about how he 

    would like to adopt deaf children. This means I would have to

     learn sign. Sounds good but I feel lazy and stubborn. Feel like 

    a fledgling – flight pattern undetermined.

                     R. wrote a song called Blue Lake Blues.  Bad. I wrote a 

    poem called Diaries. Don’t know what I think of it.

    Diaries

    I don’t remember anything –

    I’m an amnesiac so

    I write everything down

    Stuffed in my closet

    Beneath discarded ball gowns

    utterly useless but

    too beautiful to throw away.

    Recollect & treasure 

    Acts of writing

    An up and over downtime scrawl;

    Recall a surgeon

    Cutting flesh

     Tugging, swearing, splitting ,sweating

     peeling waste from want.

    Fierce liftoff –

    Airborne I’m granted

    Hawk’s-eye vision

    Backwards , forwards

    Past & future.

    Too much dig is spoilage-

    Freedom mined 

    Invaluable.

      Club Shalimar, Mon 23 Aug 76

                       Should be glad to be back but I’m so depressed. 

    Everything so mixed up. Promised R I’d get another job so 

    now I have to look for one, which won’t be pleasant. God 

    knows what I’ll have to say I was doing.  Once when I was 

    married I tried to get a loan and of course they wouldn’t give me 

    one without “collateral” – something of which I’d never heard. 

    Dad said tell them I had a basement filled with gold bullion.

     I guess I could just tell employers the bullion ran out.

                       Then I walk up to the club and whose car should be 

    there – but R’s. He had told me he wouldn’t come in as long as 

    I was working there. He said he just needed to talk to Rick because 

    Rick is helping him feel better. 

                       I think what will happen is that I won’t work there any

     more but R will drop in when he feels like it. I want to “ban” him 

    but I even more don’t want to be having these conversations.

    He says I just do it for the money and because it’s easy and of 

    course that’s perfectly true. If I got $500 a week from writing I 

    probably wouldn’t dance.  

                       The fact that something feels natural and pleasurable 

    and doesn’t leave you feeling depleted at the end of each day

     isn’t a point against it to my way of thinking.  He’s just an old 

    fashioned sexist pig.  On the other hand he is a special person 

    and I definitely don’t want to dance forever. 

                       Sometimes I think the whole problem is that he’s 

    getting a divorce and he’s so unready for a relationship he’s 

    giving me hoops to jump through.  But even if we got married 

    I’d have to be at financially independent – he’s just too different 

    from me for me to trust that he will agree with me about what’s 

    right for me. My theory is it doesn’t hurt to look for a job.   Maybe

     I’ll find something special or interesting.

                     11:20 PM – Avril called – R staggered in dead drunk, 

    said “Call Alysse and tell her I’m here and set the alarm for 5:30” 

    and then passed out on the sofa.  I told them to hide his car keys 

    in case he wakes up and tries to go someplace. I’m glad he’s safe, 

    on the other hand I’m annoyed that he’s been touring the bars. 

    He plainly didn’t go to his apartment, drink and then go to my 

    house. My guess is total strangers up and down Wisconsin 

    Avenue have been hearing his heartrending saga of the misery of 

    dating an exotic dancer.

                       11:00 AM – Tues 24 Aug 76

                       Lying in the same bed where R and I made love five 

    hours ago – just finished Tyler’s Clockwinder. Puzzled by the 

    lack of passion in her strange, sad, minor novels.  Tonight R is 

    picking me up and taking me “someplace” – I have my eye on 

    a little restaurant – where we can talk it out. I hope he’s paying 

    because I have exactly $177 to live on till Sept 7 and $125 of 

    that is rent. I’m trying to look at the future calmly – I love him, 

    he loves me – who knows what may happen?

                       2:40 PM Was feeling so much better I was going 

    to work on sending out poems until I looked around at this place. 

    A and I desperately need Maeve to live here to help out with 

    expenses and she is not the tidiest person.  A says she never 

    cleaned her other place after the party and it smells like a 

    dead body.  I cleaned and now I feel better but not in the mood 

    for literature – more in the mood to take my dishpan hands to 

    the mall. However I won’t because it would just result in 

    expenditures.

                       3:40 PM  Obviously R doesn’t really respect me. 

    Otherwise he wouldn’t manipulate me like this. I don’t think 

    he cares about me being a writer at all.  He would actually 

    like it better if he could introduce me to people as “my girlfriend 

    the insurance agent.” That makes sense in his little world. I 

    could break up with him but I’d have to find another place to

     work anyway – he’s ruined Shalimar for me.  One can understand 

    and deplore and get mad, but the alternative is loneliness. All I want 

    is to go out and have fun, have someone to play and smooch with. 

    Finding and then cultivating such a person is incredibly exhausting – 

    and aren’t 99% of them only going to have the same (or worse) 

    reactions he’s having anyway?

                       10:40 AM Thurs 26 Aug –76 – Club Shalimar

                       Yesterday morning Maeve and I lingering over coffee 

    and chat – no one wanting to return to their life – and the phone 

    rang. It was editor Ruby Jenkins at Pyramid wanting to make an 

    offer on my book. She says it has a lot of wit and depth and is 

    really extraordinary and if they don’t take it someone else will.  

    That’s two editors on my side. Asked all about me – so I told what I was 

    doing, schools, what I’d had published – that Harcourt just turned down Find Courtney.  

                      She’d called my parents in Maine because she couldn’t 

    get in touch with my agent but left a message.  I just put the 

    phone down and screamed for 20 solid minutes. Then went to 

    Shalimar and quit – gave them a week’s notice. 

                       Didn’t  tell them about book – Carmen guessed about 

    Ryder – narrowed her eyes into slits and tried to tell me a 

    lot of terrible stuff about him, about how he always pursued 

    dancers – although she admits, after me, not any more. She 

    said if I ever need the job again, they’d give it to me.  That 

    was nice. Randy the bouncer had tears in his eyes because 

    he says I’m so amusing and no one else can make him laugh. 

                       R’s “celebration” was to take me to Garfinckel’s at 

    the Montgomery Mall to buy me underwear. He takes it 

    strangely personally that I don’t wear a bra or underpants 

    half the time.  This could have been a fun, even erotic experience

    but he was so weird I almost had a nervous breakdown – so 

    bizarrely controlling like he doesn’t know what presents are.  

    The missionary purchasing fig leaves for the natives!  Felt 

    offensively “managed”.

                       If he had bought me lingerie and given it to me 

    that would have been one thing.  I could take them back if I 

    didn’t like them.  This was if he were my parent or something – 

    I really can’t explain why it was so insulting. I finally allowed him buy me 

    a pink silk robe, which I refused to try on – of course it will fit. 

    Duh. 

                       We should have been celebrating.  Not only can I 

    quit dancing but they’ve put him on the eleven pm news and 

    now we could have mornings together. But at the Japanese 

    steakhouse he really acted wooden headed. I think it’s some 

    sort of a gender problem – men understand that their self-respect 

    is tied up with autonomy but they seem to think the opposite 

    must be true about women. I’m trying too hard not to despise 

    him. Anything I could say sounds hurtful. 

                       At the very same time he’s trying to “tether” me he’s

     trying to free himself. He said, what if I want to take another girl 

    out? And I said, well you can but you have to tell me about it

     before hand. He said, I know how I’d feel if you said that to me. 

                      I told him he probably doesn’t have to worry – I can’t imagine 

    wanting another man. Now he’s “scared” I’m going to become 

    a famous writer!   So we went back to my place and made love

     for three hours and it was very satisfying. He was all over me 

    and it felt like the last time in some critical way.  

                       To me he seems less like a man getting out of a 

    marriage than some kind of shipwreck victim who has never 

    seen or imagined our society and is becoming increasingly 

    excited about the sexually liberated possibilities.   How can 

    we avoid breaking up over this?  Can’t I just get a fat check

     from  my book and be a young writer about town? I sincerely 

    hope that’s the way it will go. Reading Rose, my years in 

    Service about Lady Astor’s maid.

                       Sat 28 Aug 76 Shalimar

                       Ryder tried to pressure me not to go to work by 

    saying “we shouldn’t be seeing each other if you’re dancing”.  I remind him 

    we have a dinner party coming up and a vacation in Maine!  

    Why the hysteria? Reading Henri Peyre’s The Failures of 

    Criticism. Last set. 

                       3PM Mon 30 Aug 76

                       Wakened by air-conditioner going on – Ryder 

    climbing in bed with me fully clothed so there would be “no sex”

     – of course that didn’t work. He is very upset about my sense 

    of physical freedom – said wouldn’t “let” me be painted in the 

    nude by Andrew Wyeth!  I pointed out that his wife was his 

    ideal woman – totally restrained and untrained and ignorant 

    and unavailable in every way he wanted – and he hated it.  

    Can’t understand why he has to be such a jackass when all 

    his dreams are coming true.

                       3 Sept 76

                       Just back from the worst vacation of my life. Both 

    Avril and I took completely unacceptable men to our parents’ island – 

    alas, my man was the most unacceptable –   doing nothing but 

    fighting and sulking. He finally said such unforgiveable things I had

     to drive him to the ferry and push him off into space. His last 

    words were “I love you.”  Day late and a dollar short. The worst

     things he said were that I dress like a slut, anyone looking at 

    me would instantly assume I was a prostitute. This was said to me

     while I was wearing my gorgeous emerald scarf tied around my 

    breasts and my long denim skirt and Nefertiti necklace and looking

     like a goddess for parents’ dinner party. 

                       He said if I don’t start wearing a bra my breasts will 

    be “ruined” and he doesn’t want to wake up age 35 married to 

    only a “mind”. (The mind is in fact quite unimportant in his world.)

     His wife, he assured me, always dressed most tastefully – 

    nobody desiring her ever.  Didn’t cross his mind that the fact 

    that she was dead-on-arrival in the sack and her inability to 

    enjoy and celebrate her own body could be in any way connected. 

                   He told me my poems are awful and self-indulgent and I 

    live entirely in my own head.  I was finally forced to tell him

     that what with his long hair, leisure suits, stacked heels and 

    man-purse most people just assume he’s gay. 

                       But who cares what “most people” think – and 

    would we even ever know?  He really got on my bad side seemingly 

    justifying rape – women “ask for it” with their clothing, male 

    self control not an issue. I said if a crazy girl escaped from an 

    institution and ran down the street naked would men be “ justified” 

    raping her? He said yes so obviously it was over between 

    us from that moment. The truth, of course, is that he was 

    overwhelmingly jealous from the second he arrived on the island

     – possibly earlier – by the fact that I am a separate human being,  

    who has ever existed out of his sight.

                       17 Sept 76

                       It really is over with R.  My fault for going so fast. 

    R leaving messages on my answering machine every day, 

    trying to make me jealous with “don’t call back tonight I won’t

     be in”.  Finally decided I owe it to him to tell him where I’m

     working – I know he thinks I returned to dancing – the 

    scum. Sent him a card saying we should meet for dinner

     in a couple of months. Appt. with Georgetown Employment 

    Agency 10;30 AM tomorrow.

                       12;25 PM

                        Ryder came by to pick up his jackets. He said, 

    “You’re the most valuable person in the world to me.” Trying not

     to goad him into pyrotechnics, so, showed nothing. He was calm, 

    played with the dog, kissed me on the cheek and said, “I love you” 

    and left.  He is worthy of a hefty Freudian tome all to himself. I want to send him a copy of The Intimate Enemy but he wouldn’t 

    (couldn’t) read it. He’s totally about not wanting what he has, 

    having what he doesn’t want, wanting something else and 

    hating himself into the bargain. I pity anyone involved with him – 

    mainly I pity me – still fixated on his worthlessness apparently. 

                     Washing the dishes in floods of tears. I bragged to him that I didn’t want to change him – that isn’t true.  I don’t feel I have the right to change people while he wants to specify every detail about me.  

    The worst is I know how he would exult in his power over me. 

    Still wearing his black coral diver’s cross as a charm. When R 

    says dismissively “Be free” he means “Be alone”.

                       Sun. 12 Sept 76 – 12:05 PM 

                       Yesterday turned down job at art gallery that would 

    have been wonderful but paid dirt.  They say I “might” get 

    commissions on sales. Have a feeling Mom and Dad would 

    push for it – it was very upscale – just didn’t feel right to me.

                       FINALLY letter from agent; Pyramid offering $2500 

    advance, 6% to 150,000 copies, 8% thereafter, a few minor revisions. 

    Always less than you think but not as bad as the gallery – I say 

    hells yes. Still have to find job; something that lets me write.

                       I called Ryder with info, left message. Have to go 

    to NY to sign contract so job hunt suspended for now.

                       Mon 13 Sept 76

                       Avril and Mike met me and Ryder at The Royal 

    Warrant for drinks to celebrate my book. I wore long sexy 

    purple lace-up dress – nothing he’d object to however. 

    (Royal Warrant because their drinks are huge.) Wore 

    sandals with kitten heels and I was still  taller than him.  

    I wonder if that’s what this is about. I invited him home after 

    and he accepted.  He concentrated on making me come. Said

     he can’t consider dating a girl who doesn’t wear a bra. I said I 

    might wear one in my first pregnancy. Gave him my copy of 

    Intimate Enemy  when he left. Reading Brownmiller’s excellent 

    Against our Will.

                       11:45 AM 14 Sept 76 – Tues. Boiling hot.

                       I need a full-time psychiatric nurse, vicious guard dog 

    and a secretary. Phone ringing off the hook. Agent called 

    reversing charges.  Ryder wants to celebrate his salary bump. 

    How can two people who despise each other as much as we do 

    want to have sex all the time?  Beats me. Ryder’s latest charge is 

    that I wrote a novel for money.  Get it?  I’m a prostitute!  Then he 

    marches off to his yessir, nosir job whistling. You can’t win with him. 

    Cheered myself up reading old diaries about my marriage.  At least it’s not as bad as that.  I used to lock myself in the bathroom to howl.  

    Reading Simenon’s Venice Train.  He is too mannered.

                       Ryder forced me to look at his island pictures – I am the 

    ugliest beautiful woman in the world.  He tries to use this against me 

    but of course we were fighting the whole time.  No one can be lovely under such conditions. Does “love” entail not just “sacrifice” but loss of identity?  Went out and bought a pair of six inch heels. When I am with Ryder, I love him but when I’m away, the cloud lifts.  

    Attempting to seduce Devon by sending him a copy of the poem Cedarwood Chest.

    Cedarwood Chest

    Grandpa died young that’s why

    Grandma never opened

    The Cedarwood chest

    Till my twelve years unlocked

    The scent of dreams preserved

    Like mullet in red wine.

    Never used the wilting nightgowns

    Featherstitched sheets

    Between whose coffee-colored creases

    Bay leaves crumbled

    (Like my reserve when you laid hands

    Upon it) how it

    Comes back that mossy sad 

    Perfume! I want to lay

    You away in darkness and tissue but

    I can’t

    I must use you and risk

    Your wearing out

                       God knows what he’ll think but I know he’ll give a better 

    reaction than R.  Lunch in NY 12:30 Tues – have to take the 7 AM 

    train to make it work!

                       7:45 AM Mon 20 Sept 76

                       R’s latest accusation is that I fell in love first!!  So weird. 

    Reminiscent of Bruce.  Some version of gaslighting? It’s a definite 

    power grab. He said he was “embarrassed” by my emotional intensity! 

    I have a feeling he’s trying to cobble together a story he can tell other 

    people. As for me, I’m trying to figure out what really happened. Used 

    to think R’s lack of experience wouldn’t affect us but I can see it really 

    has. Got my hair cut; of course I think it’s too short. Dreading what 

    Genevieve will say.

                       10:40 AM Wed 22 Sept. 76

                       Woke up after horrible nightmare in which Jacqueline 

    Susann showed me her cancer to have R drive me to the station.  

    We’re in a financial nightmare – A’s rent check bounced twice so

     expenses going up. R says I have to start an exercise plan – 

    since I can’t dance.   He’s hilarious!

                       Lunch with Ruby and my agent.  Agent (Ruth) was euphoric.   

    Starting to feel the book was written by a stranger. I tried so hard to

     make it English and Victorian – I NEVER want to do that again. 

    Can’t say THAT, obviously, especially after Ruby remarked I was 

    “so good looking we should make it a series.”  Devlyn’s best gothic 

    they’ve ever read! They both drank heavily while disagreeing with 

    virtually everything I had to say about poetry and literature. Their 

    recommendation: write a love story. Pity we don’t know what love is, 

    isn’t it?  I MIGHT be able to manage a sex story. Oh well. Genevieve 

    full of secret divorce-and-getting-together-with-hush-hush-sweetie 

    plans.  Don’t tell her husband Kent anything. He asks me what’s going on – 

    I play dumb but not too well.  He must know something’s up.  

    Awkward! Walk to library and back thinking about St. Secaire. 

    How make that a love story?  Everyone’s a predator or an idiot.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    6. ENTREGARME – SURRENDER


    EVAN
    I am utterly becalmed.
    What I dread most is silence,
    The latest form of impotence.
    I need stringing up and tautening.
    This is the
    Revenge of love. Its revenge on me.

    EVA
    I am suffused with love because I am free.
    My work becomes our child,
    Our extension. Immortal. Still,
    Something vanishes when you’re not there.

    EVAN
    Elayna broke her hip.
    How irreplaceable she is to me.
    Our brand of married happiness is entirely unsung.
    I shrink to leave her even for a day.

    EVA
    I’m sorry it wasn’t fatal.
    Am I so dispensable to you?
    You love no one. If you turn against me
    I’ll die in a week because
    I have no one looking after me.

    EVAN
    Turn against you! Agonizing!
    In spite of the hangover of humiliation
    I broke down all reserves so we could be together.
    A very happy day and I was sorry to leave you.

    EVA
    Wed & sad.
    Past distress muffled by age & habit.
    Today we meet formally as if at a garden party.
    A promise unfulfilled.
    Miracles happen but
    The gift of love is guilt & pain.

    EVAN
    You looked so ill
    I was nagged by fear I bored you.
    I long for the happiness of old age,
    Guilt free, pain free, fear free.

    EVA
    I invited Elayna to lunch.

    EVAN
    I am not best pleased.
    Your ghost will haunt me till I die.
    The day you come to like each other
    It will be poison to our love.

    Elayna rarely admits depression.
    I have had not just love but loyalty.
    You force ruthlessness.
    It is a good thing your throat is sore
    Or you would never stop talking.

    EVA
    Are you sending me your signet ring?
    I want something solid to remember you by.
    A last communion.
    Dodging death, I fight off this
    Paralyzing loneliness.

    (EVA fades away. EVAN is alone.)

    EVAN
    Is the flaw in love a flaw in me?
    I never should have married.
    My heart jumps with pain like a hooked fish.
    I am rudderless. Upon your death
    My ring comes back,
    All your contrivances revealed.

    Now that you are gone, I find you everywhere.
    It’s hard to take in the fact that
    We will never see each other again;
    Never, never, never.
    You are gone from me forever.

    I walk the streets and weep.
    Is this delayed shock? Boredom or despair?
    I will never cease to feel this pain till
    I cease feeling anything.
    For the last three nights, I dreamed of you.

    Did I anger you, neglect you?
    It’s too late to pray –
    I await your final book with horror.
    I need to know I was your life.
    Please come back one last time
    For just an hour.
    If you ever thought you loved more than I
    You are now
    Revenged.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    VOLCADA – CAPSIZED

    EVA
    Allen’s buried.
    Without husband, I re-experience my youth.
    Oh, the bafflement of the young!
    I broke off my first
    Engagement because I loved too much
    And cast about for a spouse I could
    Control. I believe you did that, too.

    EVAN
    I experienced our parting as unbearable.
    I had to run away –
    Your rush of talk was like someone bursting into tears.
    I felt like an executioner robbing you of sleep.
    Without you
    My nose began to bleed and
    It’s been bleeding ever since.
    We must love each other less to become more tranquil.

    EVA
    I am a witch and you should fear me.
    I glow with contempt and boredom and fury.
    I don’t understand why
    I can’t experience life by your side.
    We share the same senses,
    The same vein of joy.
    Our life together is timeless, continuous.

    EVAN
    Your letter fraught with dynamite.
    I can never be alone, it is me and the gin bottle.
    I am home nowhere now – except with you.

    EVA
    Please don’t get yourself into a state –
    But Edgar has proposed, forcing me to face the fact
    That I literally cannot live without you.

    EVAN
    I dread you will succumb to Edgar.
    You called him “sweet” and “cozy” and “brilliantly entertaining”
    And I am none of those things. Did you bewitch him?
    I ask in my persecuted voice.
    It would be your ultimate justice, sending me to hell.
    We lose each other by inches.
    Aren’t we doing that already?

    EVA
    I can’t show Edgar the brutal candor
    Behind my loving kindness.
    He mistakes the hostess for a person.
    I arrange my flowers in symbols of you
    And everyone’s too stupid to notice.
    To bed alone again tonight.
    I wish Elayna would die.
    Then we should be equals.

    EVAN
    I must refuse your guilt.
    I feel a shift in the angle of vision
    Further from you than ever.
    A foreboding so final it seemed the end.
    Your pleading for our life dissolves my will.

    EVA
    I am gnawed by an aching hopeless wish.
    Loneliness leads to breakdown,
    Becomes dementia. I batter
    Around the rooms of this castle,
    Brightly-plumaged,
    Knocking into furniture,
    A tragic bird who’s trapped indoors.
    Even dizzy with drink I maintain the frigidity
    Of an Edwardian hostess
    Intolerant of scenes at meals.
    Without you life’s a half-lit room.

    EVAN
    I’ve become a character in your melodrama
    An absurd scalawag of romantic vice.
    Let’s reject this
    Hopeless dilemma.

    EVA
    What could be more beautiful than our ten days in New York,
    Among perverted architecture.
    No loss of illusion there, rather an increase.
    I’m in the midst of a dreary financial crisis,
    Having breakdown on my feet.
    I hope I don’t sound too shocked and sad.
    You are life to me as nothing is.
    My fingers still tremble,
    Touching you after 17 years.

    EVAN
    This is the Eva I first met, first knew, first loved.
    We waited it out and didn’t lose each other.
    I was sane or mad to doubt you & myself.
    We are like two people sweating blood
    I dread losing you
    But Elayna’s power still holds me.
    One of you may do me harm.

    EVA
    Thanks for the cash,
    I hope it doesn’t embarrass you too much.
    You are a reviver and a balm.
    We shall be in Paris together before we die.

    EVAN
    If you want me to be unselfish, let me be unselfish.
    You are my greatest friend. I’m
    Trying to keep off the drink while you’re here,
    Otherwise I know I’ll wreck everything.
    Three manhattans makes me crazy.
    Your feverish cheer does not seem solid.
    Is this the wreckage of our love?
    Once frightened of your clinical eye
    Now I’m more frightened of my own.
    I’ve matriculated in
    Your fearful university.

    EVA
    We sheer away in horror
    Scenting fumes of evil
    As we lose control.
    Defeat and exhaustion, alarm and despondency.
    Demoralized and sad.
    Slam down the lid on pain and resentment:
    I have taken against your family.
    Let’s dance. To sit
    In silence denigrates our love.

    EVAN
    My heart aches for you.
    We talked for the first time in weeks
    About hurt and resentment.
    I could manage my life if it weren’t for you
    And you could manage yours if it weren’t for me.
    You infect me with your despair and I flee to my wife
    To release the pressure.
    Her quickening influence works my imagination.

    EVA
    I hate that you travel the world without me.
    You pervade that place as God pervades our hearts.
    I obsess that you’re in places where I’m not.
    I could not live without seeing you. Yet
    Our visit may turn sour.

    EVAN
    Everything except your beautiful self rusts
    Or dies or goes away.
    My love only seems dead;
    it’s alive underneath. If you die
    I shall never forgive you.

    We need ideas that are less about ourselves.

    EVA
    My rage is based on my assumption
    Of togetherness and my
    Secret fear you’re being got at when
    We could be so snug together.

    EVAN
    I hurt Elayna tonight
    But there’s no help for it.
    She cares for me and I only care for a life apart.
    A clean break, an amputation
    Makes me frantic and guilty.
    She says we have a happy marriage only because
    She willed it. This smell of death and decay
    Makes me long for sex.
    Could you help me find a girl – any girl you choose –
    Or will you call me a sex mad degenerate?
    Panic makes my hands shake.
    I thought of Elayna and I wept.

    EVA
    I received your sad, wild letter.
    I accept that you can’t free yourself.
    Do you accept it?
    I feel so very near you.
    I accept that you make sex
    Desperately with strangers –
    Do you accept it?
    Can anyone love such a cold-blooded person?

    EVAN
    How silly I am, I thought
    I reconciled to our ending,
    Expecting a collapse of tension & illusion.
    But it’s a prospect I just can’t face.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    4. CALESITA –THE MERRY GO ROUND

    EVA
    Did I leave my diary behind?
    Don’t read it, not that you would.
    It’s anaphrodisiac. I am filled with envious admiration
    For the way you spend your time.
    It’s an incentive to work, being alone.
    Diplomats are never lonely.

    EVAN
    My bed gets so icy in the small hours of the morning –
    I am losing interest in sex.
    Perhaps I am already part of the spirit world.
    I am in limbo and will never escape this place.

    The teenager remains alive in me, I have a
    Panic fear of conformity
    So I cast myself as the elderly rake.
    I fear I’m the bore –
    Marriage gets me down.

    EVA
    When you go on and on about yourself
    You’re a man I don’t recognize.
    I prefer your adolescent self.
    The man of the house should be a free agent.
    A respected prowler
    Never lonely, housebound,
    Eating baked beans and drinking stewed tea.

    EVAN
    In other countries women
    Are less bossy and more decorative.
    You are jealous of my life –
    I am jealous of yours.

    EVA
    Ah the pain of your reproach!
    Not seeing you would kill me.
    I live for the memory of our every moment.
    I wouldn’t give a damn if I died tomorrow.

    EVAN
    This is the letter I would write you if I dared,
    if I weren’t frightened by the cancer
    Of your wife-hatred.
    I am overworked, wrung out.
    Possessed by you.

    You make me live at the pitch of anguish.
    Our love has roots in good and evil,
    It lives in the darkest places of our natures
    Shall we end by destroying each other?
    You have the deadlier weapons.

    EVA
    I do have a bad effect on people.
    Guilt, conspiracy, love,
    I cannot breathe without them.

    EVAN
    Boredom, dissipation, remorse,
    And apprehension– I can’t escape this obsessive cycle.
    Beneath the controlled surface of my mind
    Opportunities to be frenzied are endless.
    I’m afraid of saying something ruthless which many stick.

    EVA
    This place is full of you.
    I can no longer look at hyacinths
    Gratitude for our happiness chokes me.
    The restlessness of pleasure going to waste.
    Missing you is like an illness.

    EVAN
    If there’s a worm in this bud
    Who is the corruptor?
    Your insights are so powerful they alter mine.

    EVA
    I believe we should exchange rings.
    Is this a faux pas? Would your wife object?
    I need something in case you die of your itch or
    I fall out of an airplane.

    I wonder why Elayna’s throat won’t heal?
    I believe she is ice-bound.
    Sealing you away from life.

    EVAN
    You witch, you have
    Frozen poor Elayna’s throat.
    I begged you not to. You make all
    Suffering physical.

    EVA
    Elayna’s frozen her own throat –
    I wish you’d see it.
    Depression is hallucinatory.
    Guilt and sorrow undermine my confidence,
    I refuse to give them credence.

    EVAN
    I’m grateful when we talk calmly,
    Our fearful scenes seem so long ago.
    I’m sure the panic of youth has played its part.
    I used to hope you would love me less over time
    But now I think we love each other equally.

    EVA
You are so near me I feel we are one person.
    I feel you now beside me.
    I will make you real.

    EVAN
    I feel your longing
    As I fear your signaling.
    I owe you happiness
    But I can’t express it.
    We must believe life is as beautiful as music
    Says it is.

    EVA
    The illusions we cultivate are
    A form of courage.
    Forget my deficiencies
    Find amusement in the worldly game.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    3. LATIGAZO – WHIPPING

    EVAN
    Do you really love me?
    Why should you?
    I don’t any longer
    Believe In friendship.

    EVA
    It is a horror, an outrage
    That we should not be together. I struggle against
    The wound of not knowing where you are each minute.
    Everything you do is more important to me than my own life.
    The whole of me is with you.
    I see and feel you so distinctly,
    Your beloved cold hand in mine
    Your touch on the nape of my neck.

    Joy and agony
    – my insides torn by pincers.
    A double goodbye would have been awful
    – two bites on the bullet of pain.

    This love is like something we have given birth to.
    We must never blunt our imagination or tenderness.
    Don’t get a cold in your soul.

    EVAN
    Are these abortive suicide attempts?
    I disappoint everyone.
    Cut the cable. Set me free.

    I deliberately left one of your letters for Elayna to find.

    With me love is linked with
    A need to betray. I invite possessiveness.
    She made me promise our love would never be physical.
    I lied fluidly.

    EVA
    Even the thought of
    Such a loss of pleasure tears at my heart
    Like some medieval torture.

    You harrow me unbearably.
    My defenses are down.
    I’m filled me with a sense of ghastly injury.
    How I wish I were more beautiful –
    It’s my mouth that ages me.
    It reveals my greedy secrets.

    I want you seeing all of me –
    Even if it hurts. My work
    Is my legacy –
    You are your own child.
    You preserve your youth with the harm
    That you cause.

    I feel I am dead and already
    Interred – in you.
    You are my eternity.

    EVAN
    Repressed boredom causes blocks
    You can’t have everything.
    I am kept aloft by the conflict of
    Unbearables.
    It makes me happy.

    EVA
    If our dancing life is over –
    Should I enter a convent?
    There’s no point in being alive
    if we’re not together.
    I show my deepest self to you alone.

    EVAN
    Please – no more shaming conversations
    Over Irish whisky. Let’s cut our losses
    And get some fun from life.
    Your miraculous capacities awaken
    My belief in myself.

    EVA


    The gash in our love might close
    But I’ll never forget it’s there.
    Life with you is a remote happiness to which I cling

    EVAN
    And all this time you write such
    Fantastic books. If you were as unhappy as you say,
    You couldn’t write so well.
    I’m proud to be
    The whetstone on which you sharpen –
    I should be thanked for all your works.

    Writing to you
    Makes me itch with a beastly itch –
    Exhilarated, punch drunk
    Feeling your enthrallment
    Despite the day’s malaise.

    I can’t put my heart back in the hollow
    Where it used to be.
    You force me to see
    Myself.

    At the peak of my ambition,
    Beauty and power curdle within me.
    People are so easily fooled, so
    Satisfied with little
    identify my performance with my Soul.

    You’ve spoiled me for everything.
    Stop warning me you’ll take a lover –
    I don’t own your life and never aspired to.
    There is heartbreak here, but is the ghost in the house
    Or in me? We argue about who has the worst friends,
    But our friends are all the same. Please
    Send another psychic telegram, “You’re the One.”

    EVA
    Your last screed was a masterpiece.
    I believe writing it
    Creates that eczema from which
    You say you suffer.
    My friends at Tosca said it’s bad manners
    To make a depressing fuss
    And get other people down.

    EVAN
    Is the strength I draw from you a fairy tale?
    I am appalled by the joint misery we feel.
    Why should we not rebel?

    EVA
    You shed your light around me.
    If only we could stand each other.
    You’ll keep the blood
    Running in my veins
    Threatening to spill.

    EVAN
    Someone said I look ten years younger
    From drinking your life, I’m sure.
    I need my own room because I sleep badly and
    I like to roam at night.

    Tosca is too emotional to be good taste
    But I’m happy you enjoyed it.
    I feel far from you right now but
    Underneath
    I’m outrageously glad.

    EVA
    Your diplomacy fascinates me.
    Your mettle is the stuff of history.
    When young I resisted education
    Like a fool – But
    It makes everything comprehensible.
    What kills me is having to deal with people.

    I tie myself up writing
    Imaginary conversations with you –
    It’s possible you’re a creature of
    My invention. Our pattern seems set –
    Or is it?
    If treachery can’t break it,
    There is no death.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    2 – Cadena – Enchainment

      EVAN
      A happy guilty day full of betrayals
      Kept me in an extraordinary state
      Of fascination. I’ve lied to everyone for
      So long, I feel certain that truth
      Is beyond me.

      EVA
      I’d rather see you dead at my feet
      Than dead ON your feet.
      That would be a mercy killing –
      The last unbearable agony –
      Wondering if you existed at all.

      I have small talent for this.
      I have disgraced my idealism,
      Pretending boredom can be fruitful.
      Waiting, waiting for you everywhere. I
      Wake one day to find I’ve lost my looks, my hair,
      fascination, brain – everything.

      EVAN
      You’re only waking up
      In an empty hotel.
      The light is always different
      The morning after.
      This is what middle-aged people do.
      I love the brutality of your world.
      You never fade. You are my word made flesh.

      EVA
      You are my religion.
      Until In fell in love with you I was 25 inside.
      I lived in a world of dreams and theories.
      Your experiences seem realer to me than mine.

      EVAN
      Social instinct is my religion.
      You have the bravery and intelligence
      Men are supposed to have
      But never do.
      To have touched the same places
      Is a bond between us.
      I never think of my deficiencies –
      Or how could I forgive myself?

      EVA
      Middle-aged people go to weddings
      Out of perverse fascination for the bride.
      I was that bride –
      My day was all champagne.
      Anaesthetized
      It doesn’t hurt so much.
      Such a sense of enormity came over me
      I almost fainted. I gave Allen the dirtiest look: “You caused this.”


      Without a wedding dress
      I was a restless, dowdy snob.
      People were falling in love left and right –
      Even in decaying marriages.
      I wanted that –
      He read my subtext.
      And I was caught.

      EVAN
      These dreary parties have a decaying effect.
      My loneliness for you is like a whiplash.
      Your absence is a bitter injury
      But nothing can injure our love –
      We’re too strong for them.
      I’m silenced till I hear from you.


      If I let myself go I would feel desperate.
      I can’t bear you’re going to France without me –
      But –
      isn’t love our country?

      EVA
      I won’t say “I’ll die if you don’t come”
      Because I know you would come if you possibly could.
      What a skeleton in the cupboard a wife is.

      EVAN
      Don’t be jealous of Elayna. You are the only goal
      Toward which my life is tending.
      You are the meaning of my life.
      I could never live for work alone.

      EVA
      You enlarge my soul.
      In your mind is my existence.
      You’re more real to me than me.
      I’m in a peculiar psychic state.
      It’s an atmosphere of illusion.
      I envy Elayna all the time.
      It drips like an irritant over my nerves.

      EVAN
      What of Allen? You
      Have your worse half too.
      I don’t waste my time
      Being jealous of him.

      EVA
      Oh, Allen spends time lost in woods,
      Falling in love with trees. He’s
      No threat to anyone.

      EVAN
      To understand one’s destiny
      One needs a framework for this mass of experience.
      How can I live separated from you?
      If I stopped caring for you
      I couldn’t care for anything.

      I need my wife, her whip-cracking organization.
      I loathe living in the squalor I get to on my own.
      Having breakfast OUT of bed is the last horror.
      Miasmic feelings of impossibility and terror. Help me.

      EVA
      We help each other
      By existing. Except for God I have no help but you.
      Our love is growing more formidable as our unshakeable belief
      Grows stronger. Like grace, it renews itself.
      All yesterday I glowed. My inability to accept your wife
      Is my deformity – help me with it.
      The light of our love is the only light for me.

    1. The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

      THE DEMON LOVER

      I. ABRAZO – THE EMBRACE

      EVAN

      I like women willful, late
      For appointments,
      fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy,
      yet of course all of that is tiresome.

      Love mingles with irritation.
      But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality.
      Women who turn on me saying,
      “You don’t love me.”

      What good is it to have been so happy
      when it ends so painfully?
      I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”,
      “Murderer.” She makes me feel a monster.

      Below the surface of the will
      I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives
      Hidden away somewhere; perhaps
      That is why I had to marry
      My present wife.

      EVA
      If you start “trying to be good”
      that will really come between us.
      It’s too unattractive. What are you up to?

      I dream of a small house in Burgundy but
      You must help me pay the rent.
      Having a home is a form of egotism.
      My beautiful one, you could make me so happy.

      Selfishly I want you here
      So I don’t have to hallucinate your nearness.
      What’s that wife of yours –
      What do you call her –
      Elayna –
      Thinking in her frozen chamber?

      I’m feeling sorrow at our growing separation.
      Can’t we pull out of the world’s battle and live in retreat?
      Grant me one last happiness
      Before the sufferings of
      Pain and old age.

      EVAN
      I can’t keep up with life’s ambiguous futility.
      Is happiness just “freedom from pain”?
      Life is unendurable without you.
      People here are flirtatious but not sexy.
      it’s so boring here
      I’m hardening my heart to give up my home.

      EVA
      I find your misery gratifying.
      This power of enjoyment comes from being an artist,
      It is the secret of my strength.
      When I was younger I used to
      Accommodate everyone –
      Now I’m recalcitrant.

      It hurts because the sword runs through both of us.
      You’re never out of my thoughts, but
      Sadness dulls one.
      Honestly, I always risk failing you,
      Failing you in outstandingness.

      You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary,
      we have been extraordinary together.
      Specimens under glass.

      The agonizing force of missing you
      Is sweeping over me.
      We have eternity connecting us,
      Backward & forward but I just
      Can’t get anyone to believe it.

      EVAN
      Would my death simplify things?
      My wife struggles with carrying the conversation
      While I stare glumly at the rain.
      We go to an expensive little restaurant
      And pretend we are on a date to really talk.
      My double life begins the moment
      I say “Are you in love with me”?
      And really mean “Am I in love with you?”

      EVA
      That woman’s killing you.
      Imagine if you were dead and your wife
      Wrote a book explaining you
      To everyone! That’s true suffering –
      Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.

      EVAN
      My wife won’t be writing any books
      About me or about anything. You’re the one
      To write the book. And
      I feel safe in your witch-like hands.

      EVA
      Except I’ve told you over and over
      You’ll outlive me. Because
      You’re a killer.
      Or your wife is.

      You look younger than I’ve ever seen you.
      Have you gone queer? I fear
      I’ll die of my addiction –
      We always do.
      We prefer it.
      Will you write about me?

    2. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      Miracles – Love

      If This Archetype Chooses You – You are surrounded by magical possibilities. Are you dreaming of eternal bliss? Floating in connectedness? In Love the boundaries of the other disappear, all is forgiveness. Merge fearlessly, knowing you will be able to get yourself back any time, soothed, improved, and healed.

      We Are Creatives for Love – Love is the spirit that animates the empty spaces between humans. Once charged, these spaces become a powerful force for growth and change – uncharged they are so much dead air. This is the space that creatives protect. Love is the longing to be truly alive and to share life with the Blissed, Blessed Others.

      Our Yearning Defines and Connects Us – As children we thought we knew about miracles but it seems we have forgotten. As creatives we fight for our ancestral memories of trust and closeness. How we long to be reminded of the ecstasy of selflessness, to re-experience the borderlessness between creatures that makes a dead universe come alive.

      Love Is Our Armor – It’s a spiral, our labyrinth, remember? We can’t go back, we can only go forward. We practice techniques and invent others as we design and redesign purposeful maps in a threatening and uncertain world. We have the collective confidence of all the brilliance of the creatives who came before us. Someone loved us once, eternalizing the golden moment, now we can re-create and perpetuate that magic by creating our own miracles.

      Creative Danger – Danger lies in narrowing, exclusionary definitions of what ‘can’t” happen, what “won’t” work. Creatives explode restrictions all the time. Love must ever open outwards. As soon as we turn Love into a zero-sum game with a shut-off valve focused on our own narrow gratification, Love dies.

      Creative Opportunity – Love Is always a Miracle – It can restore the dead to life. It can open minds, it can awaken hearts. The possibilities of a creative are endless because we have chosen, with our flexibility and our sympathetic understanding, to be endless. Close your eyes and assume yoga’s starfish pose. We are open to what the universe longs to teach and once we commit to pass it on, we form an unbreakable chain, free at last from the bonds and the limits of selfishness. Clasp the hand (or paw) that generously, trustingly takes hold of yours. Let’s venture forth together.

      Models & Mentors – ‘to love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides”
      – David Viscott

      “Miracles don’t happen to you, they happen through you.” – Mary Davis

      “Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get, only what you are expecting to give, which is everything” – Katherine Hepburn

      “Love gives you a piece of your soul you never knew was missing” – Torquato Tasso

      “You’ve got to see the miracle to be the miracle.” – Jandy Nelson

      “Love is the gift of oneself” – Jean Anouilh

      “I love you for who I am when I’m with you”
      – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

      #Haiku: Love Transfer

      The secret of breaking
      Any bad habit
      Is to love
      Something more

    3. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

      Peace – Serenity

        If This Archetype Chooses You – You need to learn to enjoy yourself. Enjoy your time off. Do you find your reveries organized around beaches, vacations, relaxation, memories of happy times when you had nothing to do but bliss out; feeling only the moment?

        Peace is Possible. Serenity is an Idea. Most of us are familiar with the “serenity prayer” written by theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

        “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right.“

        The Serenity Prayer works as an inoculation against pointless worry, which is seen as “borrowing trouble.”

        Creative Challenge – Like meditation, serenity is a mental state that takes practice. Make a list of your most pressing concerns. Can you do anything about any of them today? If so, appoint a time when you will take a step towards resolving this concern. If you can’t do anything about it, put it forcefully out of your mind. Imagine your worries as a bunch of balloons. Now let them go, one by one. Put each useless worry on a piece of paper and burn them slowly, one by one.

        Creative Mantra – Give yourself a “serenity mantra” a word or phrase you find comforting and centering, and repeat it out loud to yourself. St. Julian of Norwich recommended: ”All will be well”, Coué offered, “Every day, in every way I am getting better and better”, some yoga enthusiasts chant a simple “Om.” You can use a phrase from your own past said to you by a Beloved Person – “now you’ll be fine” “You’re safe” “You’re perfect” “Everything’s all right” or the tried and true: “I love you.” My favorite is from the Book of Revelation: “Every tear is wiped away.”

        Creative Danger – Don’t be tempted to become a mentor while you’re still learning. Creatives want to be helpful but this is a snare. Mentoring is an end-of-life honor, but you are still placing the oxygen mask on your own face so that you can stay on your plan. Show friends the basics but don’t walk them through it. You’re busy.

        FOMO – We are all worried about “missing” something. Often that “centering person”, that reassuring person from our past is not just the one who gave us the relaxation code, but is also the same one who told us what to worry about: ie. ”Make sure all the locks are locked” “Have you done your homework?” There certainly are things to be concerned about (“Are you registered to vote?”) but there are plenty of worries we CAN’T address. Return to the serenity prayer and start weeding out – on paper – your Justifiable Concerns. One of the best things about Anxiety – and I mean this – is that it offers an opportunity to ask for help. Yes, I say “opportunity”! Because life is all about RELATIONSHIPS.

        Worries can be Chances to Forge Meaningful, Worthwhile Relationships. Get ready to experiment. As with any other relationship in your life, your requirements, tolerance, communication goals are unique. Many people yearn to speak to a “professional” – therapist or life coach – and plenty of professionals out there are auditioning for a little – or a lot – of your hard-earned cash. An excellent place to start is with Proven Gurus like Tolle Eckhart or Pema Chodron who can be accessed for free from any library. See what you think. Evaluate their assistance. Inquire further.

        Creatives Know What They Must Do – Others are envious that we have laid out a plan for our lives, that it is flexible, that it is life-enhancing and that it gives us permission to Enjoy. Be humble about this jealousy, but don’t get dragged into making others “feel better” about being stymied. They may be seeking fellowship in their tarpit.

        You’re Entitled – Others also could find peace if they began to take control of the drama that rages within them. Point them in a hopeful direction but don’t agree to sit idly with them in their misery. Don’t get sucked in.

        Meditation Looks Like Dreaming – The secret is, there is enormous pleasure in being a creative. You finally feel your strength, and when you know the value of your time, you feel your own value. This is what others yearn for. They can learn it, too. But in the mean time you are enjoying your hard-fought serenity.

        We Need So Little to Be Happy – This is the great realization. One bowl, one mat, one dawn. The comfort of another’s presence or the pleasure of your own thoughts. The joy of another morning, another night’s rest. The confidence of a clear head. Welcome to the Universe.

        Models & Mentors – “Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” – The Dalai Lama

        “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

        “Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action make up the sum of life”
        – Vita Sackville-West

        “Enjoy the peace of nature and declutter your inner world” – Amit Ray

        #Haiku: Peace – Serenity

        Melting heart;
        Compassion
        Purges
        Life’s shudders
        Restores
        Unruffled Depth

      1. Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

        Homing – Forgiveness

        If This Archetype Chooses You – Do you need to forgive… or be forgiven? Most of us require both! Ask your dreams. Do you dream of home? Sometimes we dream of a home that no longer exists, or never existed. “Home” represents the state of psychic absolution where all mistakes are forgiven and forgotten.

        Creatives Create the Future – We commit to the ultimate compassion that we are all in this together. Jesus suggests that understanding doesn’t arrive until we learn to be the “forgivers”. Obviously, this means we must learn – somehow – to forgive ourselves.

        Creatives Create Heaven – Such forgiveness helps us achieve the state of spiritual lightness that allows a creative to float through time, history, even the universe.

        Creatives Are at Home in the World – What’s your “dream home”? A creative’s training emphasizes understanding and managing the fragility of the human body and the objective world, and accepting our healing and unifying mandate. Once we have scoped out the terrain and the inhabitants, Creatives are at “home” anywhere.

        Creatives are About Justice – But not the kind that leaves more brokenness behind. Creatives achievements and physical selves display the triumph of thought, will and love.

        What Does It Mean to “Start Over”? – We don’t wish to be free of “consequences”. We want to learn and grow from our mistakes but not be humiliated and punished for them. Pretending they didn’t happen doesn’t free us. Seeing our mistakes as moves in a dance we are all contributing to frees us from painful rumination and helps escape and explain the prison of blame. “I did this because you …” Human interactions are a tar-pit in which we trap and tar ourselves. We realize we need to forgive every chain in the event pattern if we are ever to have any peace.

        It’s All About You – Robert Frost defines “home” as a place where, when you show up, they have to take you in. Defining “they” defines your group, your original home. Philosophy may provide an answer. Buddhists see history as a circle, Christians as a spiral. The question for Christians is, which direction is the spiral headed and do we have time to learn what we need to know before there’s a cataclysm? Can you define the mess we’re in and intuit your behavioral contribution? Is it possible to detach from the mess? In what group – or even in what “moment” can you detach from the mess?

        Creatives’ Danger – We can’t afford to get mixed up about right and wrong. “By their fruits shall you know them.” Think it through. One avenue leads to health, dignity and growth; the other leads in the opposite direction. Don’t make the mistake of “fundamental attribution error”. The threat is NOT coming from inside the house. Martin Luther King Jr. made the wise comment that our specific brand of capitalism tends toward is “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the rest of us.” It certainly suits corporations to lecture their employees on building a better world without incorporating any of those ideas into the bigger picture, where we have no control and they demand absolute freedom to do whatever whimsy directs.

        What Is the Bigger Picture? Health and safety for all living things to achieve their growth potential as part of a harmonious, non-exploitative whole. It is key that our resistance – which is necessary and life-giving – not embitter us.

        Forgiveness Is Our Armor – Forgiveness doesn’t require ignoring the past or accepting bad behavior. It’s part of an interaction where forgiveness is a request, not a demand. Usually there is a recognition of fault or an expression of remorse: “I’ll never do that again!” When the requesting party instead seeks permission for the suffering to continue, “I can’t change – that’s the way I am” — that’ a different request. “Home” is not re-created that way. Hell is. Your opportunity is to point this out – if necessary, (because of safety) only to yourself. “If I’m not willing to try giving up my participation in this suffering because I think I’m not able to, then this pattern will continually get worse.” Time to construct a better – more intelligent map.

        Models & Mentors – “It’s not an easy journey to get to a place where you forgive people. But it’s a powerful place, because it frees you” – Tyler Perry

        “The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world”
        – Marianne Williamson

        “The weak can’t forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong” – Mahatma Gandhi

        “To forgive one another, we must understand one another” – Emma Goldman

        “Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator. It liberates the victim. It’s a gift you give yourself” – T.D. Jakes

        #Haiku: Forgiveness

        Returning home with
        Newborn eyes
        Strong hands
        Fresh translations
        Future’s past