3 Jul 2009
Shut It!
Each quarter THE HOSPITAL CLUB Magazine focuses on a differing theme and The Swarmite was invited to write a piece on the current issue’s subject of SILENCE.
Issue 19 – July, August, September – here it is:
Remember when kippers became ties and birds knew how to keep their legs crossed in a Ford Granada, when ’70′s feminism was red rag to The Sweeney? Men were still in control and any squeak from a freak was told SHUT IT! Men were sexy then and you knew where you stood, none of this current metrosexual malarkey, all feelings and understanding. If it wasn’t the bellowing of Thaw’s Regan that weakened a girls knicker elastic it was the silent stalking of a man hanging from a helicopter delivering a box of Milk Tray. From hard to soft in a commercial break.
The voyeuristic crime of unrequited love entails the silence of the suffering as the longing for recognition fuels the pumping heart. Somehow the lost heart is more powerful than one thrown at you with ease, as our egos think that love is only worth something if you earn it, fight for it and brave out the longtime silence of waiting to hear " I love you " back. Sweeney types snatch and grab with a double scotch inside for courage while the SAS man with a box in his hand waits for the moment.
You couldn’t imagine D.I. Jack Regan waiting for anything.
"Waiting, watching and hoping" that eyes may suddenly meet, a true homage to Dusty is the regime of the unrequited lover. " Wishing and hoping and thinking and praying, planning and dreaming each night of his charms that won’t get you into his arms ". If truth be told dyke Dusty was conning us and herself – so secretive in her own silence for preferring women to men in her arms. Unavailable love, with lust concealed, burns a hole in the soul, reeking of the ignored, passed over and overlooked. No wonder it’s the core of romantic bestsellers, the pain of loss more striking than the joy of connection. Yet this spiritual expression of surrender, waiting and watching, can be turned to advantage it just depends how you manage it. Living in a quick fix overload society, it is at our peril to ignore the power of patiently waiting, those moments of solice and solution. You have to hand it to stalkers. The dedication, the obsession, the planning, the waiting – is this not unrequited love? The stalker awaits with threat but solice waits to be found.
The problem is that we seldom search for solice with the passion of a stalker.
Before email, text and facebook the plight of the voyeur took time, now we can scan our partners behavior in an instant on a mobile while the shower is running. You don’t mean too, but then you must. Messages, kisses, flirts and coded phrases to a love rival ignite the inner stalker waiting for a slip-up. Then the occasion arises – SHUT IT! – this is no time for explanations – you shout. First you want to know, then you don’t want to know, wafting double messages as the pain of rejection hammers home to a greedy heart that wants it all. That had it all, as rivaled love can strike at any time. Once it was depicted as noble to accept suffering but these days daughters of those 70′s feminists won’t stand for such nonsense, moving on with a new look and lipstick once betrayed. No more suffering in silence like mum, for surviving a home of lackless love breeds mistrust in adult relationships for children hearing, seeing, watching. They remember the silent anger of getting on with it, the stoic selflessness and the scowls of regret rarely expressed.
Mum’s face is remembered.
Modern relationship technologies encourage the breaking of silence, of saying what you feel instead of hoarding it. Codependent relationships are awash with the unspoken, the hidden desires that await from distance. Low self worth is the most powerful of drugs, as controlling as a street dealer or a romantic vision of love sweating with the stalkers presence from afar. The fear of rejection is the core of unrequited love with it’s crack like highs of power, command and loss. A kindly mentor told me many years ago to be careful how you reject people, for you don’t know who is watching. Your next lover may be viewing from a distance so watch those public behaviors. The fear of not being in control means death by invasion by our subconscious mind. The fear of discovery is the fear of shame. Fear, rejection and shame are all controlled by silence and silence kills the soul.
So it makes sense to regularly review who you are – a bullying Sweeney, a silent action man, a sufferer of silence, a stalker or a person willing to change tactics to get your voice heard. Tell the truth faster, come out of the closet and SPEAK UP! show your hand, show your face . . . show courage. Courage breaks silence.
I love the energy in your writing.
Hugh
July 5th, 2009 at 2:39 ampermalink
Thanx Hugh – it’s a pity that the localisms of UK life may be lost on you being American and all that. The Sweeney and Cadbury’s Milk Tray may be lost in translation.
theswarmite
July 5th, 2009 at 3:17 ampermalink