today’s thoughts of the legend

 

I find a newer translation of the Decameron at the bookstore which opens the mind to fresh spins of meanings

dearest e.d…..

I hesitate. Because I am worried about matters of the world; places everywhere lately in the world all reaching a dangerous point…. And most troubling and ominous— the resurgence of the Corona virus that mutates newer strains that test the vaccine’s potency…. new cases everywhere being experienced in many places in the world—besides the ignorant protesters of vaccines in this country ….as it brews and stews more toil and trouble as it rampantly rages its venom 

yet my resolution in my cause is only more passionately felt only I truly worry we are at our eleventh hour….. what then, electra?

 ….the witching hours of humankind like some hibernating nocturnal animal 

and …. in my own life I have felt, recently, the way I have imagined Katherine de Roet felt pledging herself to her knighted first husband trading freedom in order to be under protection from predators 

I purge through my purpose and meditate asking for signs my project should matter still —if we face the real possibility of more mass deaths —how is it possible to move forward with actual faith and hope and purpose ?

even though I’ve neatly reworked how the closing scene goes for Vol 1 ….I pause to reflect and watch the world; to wonder over all recent impactful events I find most disturbing to see, reflect ….and search within myself how to visualize some Greek moral; to make sense of life…. and search too for how to drive home what I can imagine can logistically be done; to stay clear on the relevance of purpose of this project and just as important— to make it viably attainable to achieve 

from Beatrice to Heathcliff (edjmmuse)

a hidden door to doorways

It was this queer chill tap upon the shoulder. I mean that day…. I think, at first, it was his walk…. of all things…. he had a strangely strong familiar aura about him …. it was as if I was drawn to stare; as if a magnetic field drew me to keenly focus upon him. I knew that walk before…. how often and how many times have I seen such an image emblazoned on my inner retina …. he moved easily within the faded dreams outline of ….. the pirate on the boat…. his every manner filled in the gaps of memory the dreams had not shown but now made the memory image stronger and more clear ….

And then it was his eyes; that haunting, wild beauty balanced between noble and savage 

that lifelong question

electra, darling —where oh where are those intensely intellectual, sensitive men? 

a marker

 

how cruelly he does tread across my emotions in his hobnail boots…. the wings begin to feel like anchors, dear electra 

immortal pirate; the man with the vampire eyes(e.d.jmmuse)

 

there are other times I recall about the pirate from my dreams; the man with the vampire eyes

…. and I still see the strange and vast landscapes 

I seem always in search of to find again those long forgotten plains and barren hills

—they reach out from my subconscious and from the depths of sleep in dreams —and remain imprinted in my thoughts all the next day…. traveling journeys often on foot and with the vampire shadow that falls over my view; the gold flax of his hair shimmering on the wind and following behind him

….sometimes when I’m walking; it is something about the motion of the swing in my hips and the weight I carry….

this is when, on the oasis of my thoughts, upon that horizon ….

I can see him from the line of shore…. and the boat waiting

loaded for the journey

noir modest proposal/e.d.vol.1jmmuse

As Jörn and I head towards the back courtyard, it escapes my awareness, somehow, until much later —how at ease he walks through the back and towards the house as if he….? uh, well, like I said, it did escape my notice….

and we walk through the back way, where the hedges are shaped like trophies and then past the Grecian statues with ….my thoughts on what he wants to talk to me about —and ….as I recognize dully looking over, at first just two or three, then I realize there are others there….

“could you do the coffee?” Jörn suddenly turns to me. He seems to be guarding my vision to keep me from seeing who else may be among the group

“Jörn—“ I hesitate, while trying to see behind him, “you want —me— to do the coffee —and then what? Tiptoe and leave it twenty yards away?”

He gives me a blank stare, as if he’s lost the plot —and then laughs, but too cool, of course, I see right through it,

“no, I meant I’ll meet you in the kitchen and then I can take it in.”

I head off and find my way to the kitchen, and only about now do I start to wonder about those other things ….

I find I wish I had spoken to Gerald …. and I wish …. there had been a moment alone with Jörn 

before having to face the firing squad to …. say things

….because there are these moments I find I am overwhelmed with such a sense…. I feel him within myself ….as I’ve always have ….long before I saw him that day for the first time ….

but I wish he would say…. I want to know what he thinks ….he never says …. he never confirms anything at all ….and then I have felt as if I am out of my mind…. it surly then just must have all been in my own head and so then I must be crazy ….to believe ….there is this —that memory; that life and ….bond there between us…. because so many times it has felt I can feel him when he is not there ….reaching for me ….I feel him in my mind speaking to me just like I know what is behind the awkward silences that sometimes happens because I hear him somehow…. I just wish he would say it out loud and to my face —but he confirms nothing, he says nothing 

his silence devastates me 

Do I believe him to be the cool spy even when he is off of work? Do I believe him to be the composer/artist and actor of many talents even off the cameras behind his own scenes? Does he ever face himself in the mirror and ask —“did I know her once before? Did I recognize it? Or even —do I feel in a place even deeper than the heart?” But mostly…. does he feel? and ever admit to himself that ….I matter to him? And do I really think he is capable ….of deep emotion? anyway

I stand staring at the French press confused….

….And have to remind myself —why? am I —making coffee…. 

I fill the giant kettle that weighs a ton and put it to boil, then go in search of coffee…. 

and then with my back to the room I hear someone open the door as I start to scoop coffee into the glass coffee pot

She says, 

“What are you doing?” and I see Stina is walking right to the 19th century antique silver coffee pot and setting it under the space odyssey coffee maker

I want to say the same back to her but then she seems to know what she’s doing, as I see by how she drops in a few pods and presses a button.

So I walk back to the stove and shut it off.

“Walk with me,” she says now 

The shock of her statement of demand sets me off balance 

She gestures with her head toward the kitchen door that faces the beach

“But the coffee….” I say

“He can get it. You’re not his slave,” she half glares at me in the way to obey her as she glances, imploring, like: out the door and now!

We go the opposite direction of the back courtyard. Instead she leads me to another part of the beach, past the lifeguard post where she spots a bench and motions me there

We sit down

“I don’t want to waste time. So I will be blunt with you,” Stina says in her usual ‘friendly’ way, as I take note with amusement that, today she has pulled her hair back into a severe sweep and is wearing unexpected brightly colored high heels, “what are your plans?” she now asks

“My plans?” I look at her searching for a clue what she means by that

“Yes, for your future. What are they?” and she looks at me frankly

“Why is it your business?” I ask and laugh, “this is not your jurisdiction!”

“No but Jörn is,” she says. 

Her eyes go cold

Something shifts somehow. I feel another conversation. So I wait and watch her face

“And by default you are my business,” she says this like a battle strike

“I’m sorry, I’m not quite following you,” I tell her

“I need him back in our country and it seems we have an obstacle in our way. So I want to know what you want, what your plans are —you understand?”

“No—it is still —actually, even more hazy….unless you are talking about a different Jörn, because—in case you haven’t noticed —he does what he does. I’m not your obstacle, he is.”

“Then you are fooling yourself but that is not my business and now let’s try to change the dialogue, I think, yes? I know you are some self claimed starving artist on some hippie mission—what is it? You want to save the earth? We have Greta Thunberg,” and there is a weird pause 

and then smiles or maybe it’s indigestion

“Ok. La-di-da,” I say

“What if you had a sudden mystery backer who would fund your project?” she says now 

“Is this a joke? You forget Jörn is not short of cash so if it’s a question of me looking for money, don’t you think I could just try asking him if I really wanted to do —what—what do you know about my project anyway? It’s a bit too dry for you as it’s to do with humanity and I don’t get the feeling you have explored the subject—so exactly what are you suggesting?”

“You have too much pride —I don’t think you would ask Jörn. That is why I think you would consider doing this because you would be doing something to earn the cash,” she says

“So you don’t think I have business ethics or personal ethics? Are you asking me to spy on my boyfriend for you to pay me to fund my project?”

“Not spy. Babysit.”

I have to laugh,

“have you met Jörn? Babysit him?”

“Did you know Jörn is now on a mission to go after Retnuh Nivek? Which is putting at risk another operation we now have in place that takes precedents,” she watches my face before she then says, “we could sweeten the deal —as I am aware he has been working on an opera. There is an orchestra I know he wants to play his music because I have heard him mention it. I could arrange their involvement.”

Noir Denouement; tying up loose ends/with intro to Electra’s dictionary Vol.2: ‘the Will (& power of’)

 

Introduction (structural explanation) 

As I have drawn upon Dante Alighieri’s premise of the three levels of the Divine Comedy (my intended use with allegory of Paradiso as having the characters —and their story’s meaning— reach a higher awareness of something beyond the temporal life; the previous Inferno and Purgatory were first reflections on the past, then the focus turned to events and journeys taken to shape the destinies, respectfully) it makes sense it should follow that I now turn to, another favorite, and appropriately, a contemporary of Dante; Giovanni Boccaccio by referring, for my own interpretations, with his Decameron while an obvious choice, had always been my plan upon following the conclusion of E.D. Vol. 1 (was this perhaps portended?) even before our current day plague hit 

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Electra’s dictionary; JM muse chronicles Vol.1/Tying up loose ends Noir part 1

Leaving the pier we don’t speak and as we walk, both within our silences…. I do not feel tension from him, somehow, because I can feel his mind those times when he is not in his spy world. This part of him I know instinctively because, through all the times, of things that have happened between us, there has always felt to me, a sort of compass between us. I just don’t always pay attention to it ….too distracted by those ways he triggers my nerves sometimes 

Even though I know he is angry at me—I do feel that…. but there is something else that feels is even bigger than now, bigger than us

I think it is the waves as we walk. I think it is the sky and the seagulls; their cry overhead…. he does not say anything …. but I feel his mind 

I feel it the same way I have felt it listening to him at the piano; the notes he chooses when he plays ….I feel his thoughts

I feel the things he does not say. I know where his thoughts go. I always have…. and I think I am a guilty party here because, I think I have ignored what I heard his mind say…. and said so many times. And you can hear it in his music. I know he goes back to that hut, the same as I do. I cannot ignore how he always arranges the furniture …. just like that little hut; how can he know unless he too was there? I know why he chooses not to say…. but I realize what I have been guilty of. So very guilty. I heard it just now in his voice and—until then ….I did not realize ….I have been punishing him. I did not realize this. 

And in my silence as we walk, this I think about. 

And Gerald’s meaning in his texts

Because …. I did not have to be punishing him. I did not see that. But I think I couldn’t see this because I was so sure he would let me down 

…. I think it is my self-fulfilling prophesy —assume he would; or will him too? A defense mechanism I long ago developed to toughen against an inevitable blow

I realize only now that he has been punishing himself, he has felt that lifetime’s guilt for not reaching in time. The sun that wouldn’t set. The promise not broken…. to be back before the midnight sun. But it did not set. It happened anyway. But it was not his fault. She did not want him to go but he was forced to—that’s life, isn’t it? It isn’t fair, it is often tragic 

Why should two souls meet again? I wonder…. Why—when there are other life times and other loves? 

Sometimes the mind plays tricks, as thoughts are swayed by senses, like how the ocean breeze touches your face in that particular way, and the shoreline looks so like another…. like the time she ran into the waves when they spoke of her mother and he brought her from the water and then built a fire, when something changed forever between them, spoken through a language of their own

And as I see the outline of the red tile roof up ahead…. I think about what he just said to me on the pier; how I am not capable of trusting him and I look up at him now as we walk. Should I care about whatever it is he found in the secret compartment ….?

I stop walking and reach for his arm,

“Jörn….” gripping the sleeve of his shirt to stop him and when he stops he looks back at me and I search his face, search his eyes…. looking ….until I see —yes, it is there…. the same eyes, “I’m sorry,” I say to him ….like a message long from the past….because I want to free him ….and remove what burden he’s carried that was never his fault, it was just life 

At first I think he does not understand. That my meaning is lost on him. 

But then he shakes his head and looks towards the ocean,

“but you are right…. how do I expect you to know….?”

And he starts to say something else when someone calls out to us from the house and we both turn to see Michèle running,

“excuse me—we saw you arrive! You have people waiting now for you at the house, I was sent to get you.”

Jörn sighs and looks at me,

“more unfinished business, duva—I was expecting them tonight,” and with a note of apology in his tone he puts his hand on my arm and says, “let’s talk after they’ve gone.”

“They?”

“We have guests,” Jörn says with sarcasm, “Punch and Judy and—“ now looks at Michèle, “is Willem here as well?”

“He is. They are waiting in the back court,” Michèle says

“Tying up loose ends,” Jörn says to me by way of explanation, “no doubt I’ll be raked over the coals for not consulting them for my choice of action in regards to the safe— let’s go, duva and get this over with.”