About Love...

Now for a long time I've never believed in this foolish, frivolous, idiotic and senseless term called love. The deep, cruel infatuating pleasure that causes victims to willingly lay themselves down on an altar of desire, seduction, passion and pain, waiting in anticipation to be sacrificed to a cause unknown to them and all those who worship this mighty and unseen god...A GOD called by many names...Venus, Cupid, Aphrodite and Eros, to name but a few, but none so powerful as the intoxicating, venomous, enticing Gorgon herself, slithering about, hissing her name - Amore - yes...LOVE!

Now knowing all this, and having girdled myself to withstand any type of attack from the mighty force, I learned how to resist any alluring trap that may have tried to coerce or manipulate me into any form of vulnerability that could render me helpless and susceptible to suggestion...And yet...here I stand, stubborn as ever, tired of resisting, cracking beneath the weight of my deep and unmatched denial - I stand here, a victim of Love...

Not turned to stone by a slithering Gorgon, or hurt by a heartless harpy, jinxed by a wicked witch or broken by the might of a hammer swung by a colossal god - NO! I stand here blissfully, ignorantly, naively, honestly, gently, sweetly touched by an angel, moved by a force I could not possibly comprehend would shake me up in ways I never thought possible.

Now there's nothing that anyone can teach you about an unseen god, or an unwavering force, or an invisible aura, or the feelings that come with it. There's no lecture, no canticle, no prayer, no incantation, no book, no scroll, no manuscript, no song, no bible, no painting or glyph of light - Nothing. All I can say, is that when everything, and everyone in your life, for a brief and unimagined moment, makes sense to you, then you know that you know, that without a shadow of a doubt, you are suffering from the same condition as I...

I'm in Love...

En Route To A Dream

Now interestingly enough, all journeys begin with a dream. Whether they were just a vision, an epiphany, or some inclination that one was meant to be somewhere...a dream is still the first step taken along a journey to Life. And here's the thing about a journey...like all roads they have a map. A map that's meant to guide us along the safest pathway to our destination, the clearest route to reach our calling, or sometimes...the hardest road to find our fate.

Like many maps, sometimes things become complicated, the lines on the pages fade, the distance between the source and the destination become warped, and everything simply becomes hazy. You see, we all have dreams, and we all know what we want in life at some or other point in our life...it's complications that make us wonder...and I mean this in both ways. Complications cause us to stray along forgotten pathways, cause us to forget the route we're travelling, and eventually you lose the breadcrumbs you left behind to guide you back in the event of you getting lost; complications also cause doubt, skepticism and soon renders us susceptible to suggestion, allowing any other waypoint arrow or voice to misdirect us onto roads that we were never meant to travel at all, to destinations we were never meant to meet.

The moment you hit a snag you see...is the moment you need to find courage and confidence, both in the map that you've drawn up for yourself, as well as confidence in your abilities and within your character. Because walking off even slightly along a different path, will cause you to hit another detour, and from there another and another. Pretty soon you'll find yourself in a place you don't want to be, surrounded by people you don't really know, people who don't really know or care about you, doing the things you never thought you would, in a time you can barely even remember...Soon you lose yourself, you lose your focus...you lose your dream.

Because here's the difference between two paths. A subtle difference you rarely will see. A path long ago constructed, and journey long ago begun...The one will guide you to a dream...the other will simply become your fate...so which path have you chosen? Or should we be asking, where have we found ourselves today?

Letter to a Lover

I found this letter on a chat site no less. I found it to be so profound, so moving, so poignant and so sweet. I knew I had to post it into my blog. The writer wished to remain anonymous, but agreed to let me post it. The note is made out to a lover he never found, the lover he has pictured, but has simply never seen, a lover he often listens to, but has strangely never heard, a lover only found in dreams and in this letter's words:

You want to get to know me...

Because you like to put your feet on my coffee table.
Because I love Cape Town in the winter... and you don't mind.
Because I understand your needs.
Because I trust your instincts.
Because of coffee and chocolate and ice-cream.
Because you borrow my shirts.
Because you know when to bite your tongue.
Because you enjoy our meaningless conversations late at night in bed.
Because you can't wait to hear what I think.
Because your family comes first.
Because you know my favourite song.
Because we both cheer for the underdog.
Because you taught me how.
Because I like hands that are bigger than mine.
Because Paris is just ours.
Because you choose me.
Because you never walk away from a problem.
Because you wrote the softest things on my back when I was falling asleep.
Because I had never been before you...

- I read it late one night, and simply felt inspired. I hope the words can move you too...

To Face or Fear

A thought of fear
Is like a wind
Deep in the dessert
That begins bellowing
Raising dust
And raising sand
It turns to a storm
Against a man
For no man can stand
The dessert storm
The swirling winds
That shade the dawn
Can tear the flesh
Clean from your bones
Pull down strongholds
Made of stone
Dry up the lakes
Uproot the trees
Spread fowl pestilence
And disease
Smiting all
Within its wake
Move the earth
Just like a quake
Till all that’s left
Is the howling wind
The deadly Siren
And the song she sings
But like the rock
Upon which she stands
I will stay grounded
Deep in the sand
Let wave and song
Crash against my might
Still I remain
Within her sight
And when the storm
And song are done
Here I remain
The only one
So let fear come
And let it pass
I will remain
To face the task
I will remain
Beyond the fear
I will remain
I will remain

By Jody Kolbee (Me)

Little Boxes - Part 2

Now it turns out I'm not the only one without a little box. The journey of boxes is a pilgrimage undertaken by millions and billions of people each and every day. One would think that by now a common journey like this, traveled by so many people, would have carved deep trenches into the earth due to all the traffic going back and forth, back and forth, along the same paths over and over. Similar to grassy plains, where the lush green grass of the earth simply gives way to the many footprints that tread upon it, day after day, up and down, with all of its heavy burdens, trying to find an end to its journey. But the truth is, the paths are never the same. In fact many times the paths may cross each other, overlapping, one on top of the other, layer over layer, in many directions, but simply...never...the same.

And if you're wondering of it is even remotely possible to simply stop at an intersection of paths and layers, and to decide to merely walk along the path of another, then the answer, regrettably, is yes. But walking along the path of someone else's journey is never an easy road. If anything, it only makes your journey even longer, and sometimes even worse than the road you've already been travelling. Think about it...you know how long you've traveled, and you know how many bumps and snags you've hit along your road. So...would you really advise someone else to take it? Then what makes you think that anybody else would have a road much smoother than yours? A saying once went like this..."Every man thinks his burden is the heaviest."...And if this is so, then does that not imply that every man has a burden. Yes, in some way or another, the implication is true. Then that leaves only one thought in mind...are you willing to abandon your path, in the hopes that another, though very rigid and bumpy, will simply be less bumpy than yours?

And so I have learned the unmistakable truth. That I am not the only one without a box. If I was, there wouldn't be so many roads and footprints left on abandoned journeys all over the world. There would simply be one path, in one direction and one set of footprints left in the sand. But for now...my journey continues, along my own path, at my own pace, in my own direction, signed by my own footprints, not for anyone else...just for me.

Little Boxes - Part 1

It's funny isn't it? When someone asks you a simple question, and for the life of you you cannot understand why it is that you find it so difficult to give a simple answer, especially when the question is about a really easy topic...you. I encountered a very unusual question the other night, completely unexpected, completely simple, completely complicated...yet simply incomplete.

The conversation started easy enough: "You look good. You look different. How have you been?" You know...the usual type of questions from someone close to you who you haven't seen in a while. But then the conversation took a horrible turn down an unending road, filled with discomfort, confusion and worse of all...it ended in a question. The question: "So let's be honest, it's just you and me. Who are you...really?"

Yes...the worst type of question anyone could have asked me. Especially when one considers the fact that I myself did not know the answer to the question. So for a while I sat and thought about it...all night in fact. And I found myself asking myself another really bad question: "Who am I supposed to be?". So I thought to myself. You know those little boxes, the ones you can't really see, and yet the ones that are the most visible when you find yourself looking for one. They're the boxes nobody talks about, and the ones that everyone wants. They're the boxes we're supposed to fit into in order to have a greater understanding about who we are, and how we relate to other people.

So now I'm sitting with the biggest dilemma ever...Out of all the pretty boxes. Millions and billions of them. For some reason I can't find a single one that I am meant to fit into. It would be easier if they were labeled a bit better, and if the shapes and sizes weren't so specific. But no...not a single little box that's just right for me. Am I the only person without a little box?

The Wheel That Turns

Who ever invented the term "the wheel keeps turning", and why do we say it every time something goes wrong, or someone does something wrong to someone who didn't deserve it, especially us!? What the hell has the 'wheel' got to do with anything!? Has anyone ever thought of simply stopping the wheel and doing something about the problem right there and then? Why wait for the same snag in a wheel to serve justice, when we can bring down the gavel ourselves? After all, should we not be the ones running our own lives?

Now all of this may be true, however, sometimes the system just doesn't work that way does it...No it doesn't. When something bad happens in your life, or someone wrongs you, sometimes you simply just have to walk on by. While confrontation may solve the problem, too often it simply makes matters worse. Like justice...the point of justice is that it gets served one way or the other, otherwise taking the ideals of justice and applying it with our own hands is not called justice at all - it should then be called punishment. And the point of punishment is that it can be dished out to anyone, even the innocent, and generally has a limit set upon it. Either the sustainability of the punishment is not very lasting, or the mortality of the punisher soon becomes apparent. No, true justice is everlasting, and deals itself unto it's own guilty. And therefore can only be dealt by Justice herself, and so judged by a jury of the Fates and ones own conscience. But eventually, it does, one way or the other, get served.

However, there are times where we must place ourselves into the position of being vessels of Justice, and must act as its righteous hand. Because sometimes, yes sometimes, some people do not deserve to walk the slow road of Time and Fate, and must be dealt with sooner rather than later. It was recently that I learned - that every now and then, the 'wheel' must be forced to turn, and that those who are truly guilty and undeserving of the grace of Justice, must be shoved right under that wheel and be served a different type of justice - yes, sometimes people must be punished...

After all, even if we are wrong, the wheel as I am told, will simply...keep...turning.