6/23/2012

My Best Old Ex-Friend Ray*

Mourning Woman, Egon Schiele, 1912
Leopold Collection Vienna, on loan to MOMA

It was all about the sex, of course. Isn’t it always all about the sex?

Oh, sure, I’d like to believe he loved me for my mind. Or my scintillating conversation. Or even my outrageous sense of humor. In fact, I’d like to believe he loved me at all. 

I’d even be happy just to go on believing he was my best friend.

Oh, well.

Along with a discerning eye and a never-ending battle with gravity, age brings wisdom. I’ve cast off the ill-advised beliefs of youth and now embrace a new reality-based religion.

Think me a cynic, do you? Yeah, well, I suppose I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.

And now you’ll have to excuse me. It’s time to put on my hat – you know, the one with the black veil so no one can see the laughter lurking beneath the tears – and go say bye-bye to my best old ex-friend Ray, deceased.


*  "My Best Old Ex-Friend Ray" is a line from the song Operator by Jim Croce.

***

Written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory

9 comments:

  1. ron looks a bit like michael jackson in that picture...smiles...eh, not my fav thing you have ever written..enjoy the freedom found in your new religeon...smiles.

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  2. There is a strong sense of facing reality in this which I think all of us face as we get older. A very striking image that fits the prose well. Poor old Ray....

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  3. Ha! I do hope age brings wisdom. Sometimes I wonder...

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  4. I used to hope age brought wisdom; but it seems to be very patchy in its distribution!

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  5. I really hoped you might have gone out with a bang given the very straightforward muse and that this is probably our last hurragh...alright but a token effort. Brian who's Ron?

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  6. love Jimmy C. When will these crazy rock stars learn to stay out of airplanes?

    interesting take on the muse, and cryptic too

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  7. Know the song and I think you've captured well its message about our endless capacity to fool ourselves.

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  8. Yes, we must bury those ole relationships and move on.

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