Out of Synch

This is the time of year to be very careful.  Some say it coincides with the moon in Scorpio.  I'm not so sure about that, but I do know that the last couple of weeks in November are prime time for the strange and dangerous.

Looking back, I first began to trace this delicate time to the Kennedy assassination.  If ever there was an example of something knocking the universe for a loop, that was it.  World views changed.  Many people, myself included, were never quite the same.  Loss of innocence I suppose, but something more.  At least it wasn't hope.

Shakespeare talked of the music of the spheres.  When the music of the heavens in in synch, it's a lovely concord.  The dis chord is what results when things fall apart.  Think of someone learning to play an instrument...such sour sounds are only to be endured.  Hardly the stuff to sooth any savage beast.  

If you think about it, many eerie and horrendous things take place this time of year.  I remember that week back in November of 1978 when the tragedy of People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana occured.  Within days, in San Francisco the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk happened.   I think there may be other assassinations and attempts within those dates too. 

Yesterday I saw a stunning image of incongruity.  I was walking to the ATM at my local bank and chanced to see an empty wine bottle standing near the curb right next to a covered bus stop.  This vessel would hardly be out of place in this part of town.  It's a couple of blocks from The Goodwill, just down from a large supermarket chain, and on a street loaded with all manner of cheap restaurants and struggling businesses.  Looking carefully, however, I recognized the wine label.  It was a bottle that once contained Stag's Leap Cabernet Sauvignon.  Great stuff, and I know it sells for about $50.00 a bottle.   People who drink anything Stag's Leap produces hardly leave their empties at bus stops.  The backstory possibilities here are very tasty.  For a moment, I thought of a bottle of Stag's Leap Pinot Noir I once received as a gift.  The pricey wine was given to me by a beautiful woman with whom I once had a brief but very intense affair.  To me, it was a relationship.  Oh, I knew the boundaries and limitations from the start but chose to proceed.  Just like all the rest, I was guilty of thinking she might come around and decide to spend her life with me, at least for a while longer.  When the very predictable end came, I was bombarded with gifts, including two crystal wine glasses and the Stag's Leap.  I wish I had taken the hint and made my own leap...away.  Instead, we met one more time about 3 years down the road.  That little encounter had about as much romanticism as a root canal.  Insert a verse of "Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair" here.  When I finally decided to drink that bottle of Stag's Leap, a couple of years later, it had turned.  Reason enough to abandon a bottle by a bus stop.   Hope the owner of the bottle I saw has a kinder tale to tell. In any event, all's well that ends well.  How wonderfully mysterious.  It's that time of year.