All original songs, writing and real-time performances

BY ANGELO M. BRUSCAS III
Copyright 2009, Real News Network and AMBIII Publishing

JUST YOU AND ME
I’m going to play this song, all the days of my life
I’m going to find my words, and leave fate to time
I’m going to build my days, never to stop climbing
I’m going to change my ways, until she finds me

We are still, we are free
We are; we will always be
Just you and me

I’m going to sing this song, all the days I am standing
I’m going to write my words, until time’s silent ending
I’m going to shout her name, as the gates are closing.
I’m going to wait at the gates, until doors begin opening.

We are still, we are free,
We are; we will always be
Just you and me

I’m still singing this song, for my love of Cecilia
I’m going to live by these words, so she will believe them
I’m going to plan my days, for a greater realization
I’m going to live my life, so she can find freedom.
We are still, we are free

We are, we will always be
Just you and just me.     
Song of Cecilia is a literary journey of love and a lyrical joyride
into the triumphs and depths of marriage and divorce through
these ever-shifting sands of economic, moral and social turmoil
– a novel about the mythic and mystical music two lovers create
when they begin to believe and then shatter the myths they adopt
for their lives.

The contemporary mystery-romance storyline of 112,000 words
unwinds as a modern twist on “The Divine Comedy” with
obvious similarities to “The Great Gatsby” -- told through the
eyes of a writer in the maze of a major life transformation; the
spiraling economy has put an end to his newspaper, sparking a
renewed search for personal redemption and reconnection with
the lost love and the lost music of his life. His lost love has taken
on the myth of St. Cecilia, martyred for the love of God, sacrificed
for the music of angels.

The central theme is the universality of love, the endurance of the
love of friends and family, even the love of God, through the love
of writing or rediscovering the love songs within us all: That joyful
noise of life.

The story is highlighted by the “language of love” crafted by the
central characters, Mario and Cecilia, in letters, songs, poetry,
factual experience and fictional expression, assuming and then
consuming their namesakes in the myth of an angel and the
myth of the patron saint of music .
Song of Cecilia
              Chapter Thirteen

You see I can read a map. I can drive a truck. I can make do. And I can stand the loneliness as you can. There
it is. It’s an antidote for a poison that gets into very many men of my age and makes them emotional and
spiritual cripples. But we’re not going to have that, are we? I’m still a man, damn it. This may seem silly, but
to me it isn’t. I’ve seen the creeping ‘sickifying’ creep up on too many. But you married a man and I’m damn
well going to keep him that way.

-- John Steinbeck, to Elaine Steinbeck on the road with Charley, from “A Life in Letters.”

                    

                                    SONG OF CECILIA: Travels with Mario

             
Dear Cecilia, my soul traveler in a map-less life of the past:   
          
Continuing to run and to write to you in real time, today we travel a different route, avoiding the beach and the dunes,
with winds and rain howling in waves and no protection no matter which direction I head with Babe if we go toward the
coast. After dropping off the “Summer of Love” letter at the Post Office, we duck under the wind south along the west
side of Duck Lake, protected by a ring of pines and firs and alders in the middle of the peninsula. The road is flat and
quiet and only two cars pass me by as we plow through the crosswind to a bridge over an inlet channel and turn back to
the east to head across to the Grays Harbor side of Ocean Shores. Along the harbor, the wind is at my back and the
tree line completely shelters me from the storm, allowing me to clean and wipe my glasses so I can begin to see my
surroundings and get my bearings. I notice how the hard asphalt road is covered in broken shells and then watch ahead
as a seagull drops a clam from the air and swoops down to eat the meat from the cracked shell on the pavement. No
wonder all the roads along the back side of Ocean Shores have this white, mosaic crust to them in summer.

The funniest thing of all: I notice a leaf being blown on the ground, rolling along in the wind faster than I can run, even with
the wind at my back!

Aside from the new beaches I have found out here, some of my favorite shorelines in the region are the ones you and I
first explored on Galiano Island on all our journeys through British Columbia. There are many similarities to living here
as we found on Galiano; the same diversity of environments made possible by the finger-like body of land surrounded
by two distinctly different marine systems, the calm, soothing isolation of nature as well as its mighty, majestic strength
and fury. I never fully appreciated any of it then like I do know.

On the run, I found something else a little more elusive, but worth dreaming about all the same -- a perfect but small
(Class C size) RV/camper that would be the exact sort of vehicle I’ve been looking for to make my “Travels With
Charley Revisited” book idea into a reality. It has 32,000 miles, a Ford Econoline 460 engine, can sleep six, and
includes a bathroom, shower, kitchen and an awning that you can set up for a covered porch. They want $7,500 for it
and I still have about $20,000 still left in savings if I wanted to buy it and make the trip while I truly now have the chance
in life, the time and the money to go with no strings attached.

Running again I kept thinking how wonderful it would be to buy the RV and convince you somehow, some way that the
best thing you could ever do in your life would be to leave everything, too, and join me on the sort of amazing road trip
we could never, ever experience otherwise. We could take off on Labor Day like Steinbeck did, making our way
through Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, though Indiana and Iowa, into Chicago and the upper Great Lake
states, all the way up to Maine and down the Atlantic seaboard through the brilliant fall colors. We could visit Florida,
New Orleans and the southeast as it goes through early November, and then cross the southwest and into California to
make our way home by Christmas.

God it feels good to dream such a dream, a dream that is not only possible it is probable should you ever truly consider
where you are in life and what you want from life to come. I know you want to travel like this before your time is over. I
know you want to see more than what you have yet seen to this day. I know you have a desire in your heart to be with a
man you can travel with in peace and wonder, adventure and happiness, joy and laughter. I know you would be the most
wonderful travel partner I could ever imagine, and I think you know that about me, too. All delusions aside, I think we
have pretty good experience and track records here. If this might seem a little out of character or something your new
love would object to, I could always make it a contract sort of agreement, where I would hire you and pay you and
provide benefits for you to be my traveling editor and co-writer, giving you a full percentage of the publishing rights and
rights of first refusal on anything I ever write about you or me or any of us.

Think of this like that ridiculous list of conditions I brought to our marriage counseling session once upon a time when
both you and the counselor about laughed me out of the building for being so foolish as to ever propose something so
silly. It never hurts to be a foolish dreamer, only to wake up to find your dreams have already passed you by.
Maybe it’s the kind of trip better left alone, but I would like to think it could be the kind of event that only you and I could
experience in all its fullness, its completeness, its beauty and its splendor if we took it together to consummate our
summer of love and our entire life together.

Remember how difficult it was to get you to come along on my marathon trip to Big Sur to start this decade? But you
did reluctantly travel with me, and it was a wondrous trip, indeed. That day we spent on the beach and then at the Henry
Miller Library, where I played that beautiful acoustic guitar as you wandered about the books and the art, the sculpture
garden with its naked busts and phallic symbols. Where I bought Kerouac’s “Big Sur” and another Miller anthology to
enrich our collection. Where we feasted atop Ventana ridge on portabella mushroom sandwiches, dark beer and pure
sunshine. Where we retreated to Pacific Grove amid the woodpeckers and the butterfly trees. Where we found the soul
of Jack London and his love Charmian, and the home of John Steinbeck and the spirit of my enduring family roots
throughout the sparkling golden coast of California.

Okay, here I am wandering about without a map again, but in the present tense I realize that what I truly want more than
anything I have ever wanted is a destination far simpler and easier to reach or achieve for both of us.

Grant me one final wish Cecilia, even if it is not to join me on such a great adventure in life: please agree to talk with me
on the phone so that I might end this writing to you forever. Until that happens, I know it will go on and on and on and on.
Now, I don’t really mind it all myself since there is much I find here that I could never find otherwise. But I sense you want
it to end at all costs, and this is a solution that has no real cost to either of us and something that takes very little effort
on either of our parts. I can give up writing to you and about you forever if you can give up your silence forever, too. All
we have to do is open up a way to talk to each other, one simple step at a time.

Looking back over some of the letters of the past several months, I see that I have taken the letter-writing form to new
horizons in terms that define what I am able to express and what I reveal to myself through the writing. Often, I have no
idea where I am going, but it all seems to come full circle by the time I’m done, much like my daily routine of running.

Even better, my writing in real time is as strong and as fast and as direct and lean as it has ever been, allowing me to
stretch out the words and the wisdom through themes that touch on the very issues I have always wanted to explore in
my words -- love, joy, nature, God, time, space, place, home, family, endurance, perseverance, faith, happiness. The
essential ingredients to the meaning of life. The essential truths to the existence of love.

What did you want me to write about when you were in love with me most? I think it must have been these same
themes. Now – finally -- I am able as well as capable and free. Finally, I think I have something worth saying from
experience and not through fiction or from dreams and visions. The only thing that is missing from the ending is your
love.

Is it impossible for you to love another man and me, too, or even the reverse of that equation, knowing that you at least
love your first husband like you love one of your sons? Knowing that you made that a stated condition of what you
dreamed up as our love, or your love, however you see it? Knowing that I fully accept the love you have for other men or
the undeniable facts that you have another husband or love husbands of the past into the present? You can love God
and me and still be faithful to yourself and to your vows and promises to others, can‘t you? In my perspective, not to love
you is not to love myself, since I am as much of you as you are of me, that much I no longer question, especially in this
week when I have taken on a Virgo frame of mind.

In that mindset, I realize the questions don’t even need to be asked or answered, and that the best thing I can do right
now is stop for the day, see things as they are, like noticing the shells dropped on the roadway, and give us all some
space to breathe and think and mediate on the love we already have shared together.

The peace comes quickly now, thinking of the second-floor bed that seemed to wander all about as we frolicked in
unrestrained love openly in the trees with all of the Inland Passage stretched out on the horizon. Bodega, indeed!!! I don’
t think we left the cabin for the rest of the night and into the next morning.

By the time you get this letter, it will be near the anniversary of such a memory, our second trip to Galiano Island. It is
never too late to start a few new memories right now. This is the time you can finally live free forever without regret or
fear to ever hold you back or weigh you down. What on earth are we waiting for, Cecilia? What in God’s universe is
preventing us from taking the steps that will free us forever?

Remember, before I even knew you, when you were naked on the cliff in Hawaii above the clear water below you? Take
the leap just like you did then. You know as well as I that it would be a step, a fall, a leap of faith worth remembering for
the rest of your life. You know that turning back and climbing down is not what you climbed so high for, especially with
your vertigo as age creeps up upon us. You know how happy that made you feel to this day.

I hope I have demonstrated in my writing that I can make it to the top and I can bring you with me as we plunge back into
the pool of clear and bottomless love. But it’s something and someplace neither of us can truly go if we don’t realize
that we need to go together, climb together and fall together -- not fall apart.

How could I have realized this too late? I pray that you haven’t done the same thing.

Of course, all of this leads me on my run back home, covering the lake and the harbor in about four miles from my
doorstep, flat and easy but hard enough to work up a steady sweat for over an hour. I laugh at a random thought as I
enter the house: that my “Travels With Charley” re-creation idea really should be called Travels With Cecilia, since I
could spend a lifetime writing about all the great destinations and wonderful trips we experienced together and all the
places I now take you to in my wandering mind.

This seems to be variable and unpredictable. Who has not known a journey to be over and dead before the traveler
returns? The reverse is also true: many a trip continues long after movement in time and space have ceased.

-- John Steinbeck, from the final chapter of “Travels with Charley”

Looking finally at the map before me, I have at least 15 years of material to cover from our journey together, and I don’t
even need to drive or spend money on an RV to get there. And without you right now to guide me with a better
roadmap, there’s always Babe along for the run from ground level. Maybe the trip is better this way: one step at a time,
but one step forward and two steps back.

May your travels one day put us on the same path at the same time and the same place, in the good graces of God’s
love. God knows how I would love to dance with you again, traveling one step up and taking two steps back just to
marvel at what a magnificent woman you are and always will be.

With love for all of our travels together,

Mario



Last night I dreamed I held you in my arms; the music was never ending
We danced as the evening sky faded to black
One step up and two steps back

-- Bruce Springsteen, “One Step Up”

Dear Cecilia,

I write to you again after another amazing run that was like a foreign movie, say The Red Balloon, and I realize now it is
exactly the kind of point I always wanted to make when you asked me so long ago, “What is the point?”

As I hit the beach and started out the trails that lead through the dunes, I found my legs had become entangled by a kite
string that was across the pathway to the ocean. Unwinding it from my shoes, I began to reel in the line and suddenly a
kite magically just popped right up, 40 feet into the air from a dune on the other side of small lagoon.

With the kite now sailing as sure and steady as it can be imagined, I began jogging again and reeled in the rest of the
line to find it even had a handle at the other end of the nylon string -- a kite that must have gotten away at some point
from a small child, I figured. I secured the line and then clipped the handle onto the dog’s leash, which rose up like an
invisible person was guiding her along. We ran like that for about three miles, and back through the dunes, with the kite
just adjusting to our pace and our direction in the easy, but steady wind at our side. Only when I had to cross the four
lanes of Ocean Shores Boulevard and cut through the hotels did I have to take the kite down, finally getting to see what I
had stumbled upon. It was a Spiderman kite with a 10-foot streaming tail that spread like a web.

Perfect experience, I thought: I have created a new beach sport: dog kite-gliding.

In the same spirit, the sun opens up on my hands as the writing soars this morning, sliding in rays through the fog and
the half-drawn shades. I smile just thinking of your wonderful, warming, knowing, peaceful, beautiful smile when you look
into my eyes and we catch each other thinking the same thoughts, the same feelings, the same destiny of happy,
hopeful harmony, the miraculous marvel of memory.

I remember so clearly the day we found the ancient native rock carvings out near Sooke on Vancouver Island,
clambering over the big rocks, you getting dizzy, and then we just sort of sat down and realized the rock carvings were
right there before us! The sun was out over the straits and the rocks were warm and you and I were giddy in love and
excited by our find. Amid all the complexities of our lives, we had a karma together that is undeniable, a love that was
magnified by our understanding, our explorations, our experiences.

Those experiences are part of my soul, my spirit, my everyday existence on this earth, as they are part of your soul and
spirit, too. I still have the ashes of our old faithful dog Layla here beside me as I write, truly the living Buddha of our love
-- she was with us, too, that day we found the ancient art of love. I see her and you as the embodiment of my love now,
having no other lovers and not caring to ever have another again. I still have the love for you that I always did, maybe
even more so as time goes on and I realize day by day that it is a love that will never change, will never be tempted, will
never be weakened, will never be given to another or taken from me, much like my love of music or of writing or of my
mother and father and my family as a whole. It is the love I will always have of you and of Ryan, too, part of the circle of
love that has enriched us and made us better people in this world, more worthy of the time we have been granted by the
Gods to leave our legacy of life on this earth.

With that, I really don’t have much else to say today. It just feels good to write to you in the sun. I hope over the course of
these millions of words and songs and letters that I have grown somewhat as a writer, even if the subject matter, the
plot, the characters and such haven’t changed all that much in the larger unknown scheme of things to come and the
very real things that have passed.

In the beginning of our love, it was your writing and your depth of character, your intellect, your poetry, your insight, your
hopes and dreams and inspirations that captivated me and inspired me to the passion that became our love. It all grew
and blossomed, just like the beauty in your home, in your yard, in our hearts.

The Buddha was within us and it began with words, and it became something we could communicate with just a glance,
just a smile.

Smiling, I am so happy to be able to write you in such an amazing spirit of freedom and peace. I may not now or ever be
able to experience the joy of knowing your love in the flesh again, but I can still smile and know you feel the warmth of
my love in just thinking of the way we smiled and looked at each other always with such knowing peace. We always
knew we were destined to be together when we were, and I am happy we truly recognized it when we did.

That’s all, but I miss you and the inner child you have in you, too. Just like Neil Young, I keep singing songs for you:

“I am a child, I’ll last a while. You can’t conceive all the pleasure in my smile.”

Mario



“I drove down Highway 101, winding into the setting sun. Shining like gold, I was brilliant, and free.”

Dear Cecilia,                                                                                       (On the Road with Tom and Babe)

I don’t know how many times this past week, winding up and down the Oregon and Northern California coastline with
Tom B., that I uttered the phrase: “Cecilia and I checked out” this great beach or “me and Cecilia discovered this
amazing restaurant or this perfect campsite.” It was like I had you along as our copilot on a wonderful journey back to
Bandon, Gold Beach, Brookings and up the Smith River, down to Crescent City.

We had great campsites at Cape Blanco and then down at Harris Beach, and the Babe was just wonderful throughout.
Tom B. actually drove his new Jeep Cherokee and I think he had as much fun playing with all its gadgets – onboard
computer and satellite radio, hookup to his laptop, iPod – as I had just basking in the brilliant sun and landscape of a
place on earth that just feels like home to me. We kept listening to Little Steven’s Underground Garage all along the
edge of the continent from the other side of the globe.

On the way back up the coast, we stopped at Yachats, the town no one can pronounce where you and I made love on
our return trip once upon a time in the room overlooking the bay, eating at that wonderful Landmark restaurant that looks
out on the river delta where we had brunch on our way back home from camping, and then stopped again at Depot Bay,
where we found that bear shop you were so fond of. Then there was Cape Kiwanda, and our noisy hotel room for our
anniversary that one year, and then the campground where we were hounded by mosquitoes, the amazing view from
Cape Mears. Down south, we went by the Marine Mammal Center at Crescent City, visited the Trees of Mystery and
sassed with Paul Bunyan and the bigger Babe, stood awestruck amid the Redwoods, and I got to go swimming in this
amazing river pool up the Smith River near where we once spent such a glorious time together, just you and me.

Of course, I found places I wanted to live in every little town we visited and picked up newspapers all along the route,
secretly planning my next move down the road of writing life. Life just feels right down the coast the farther south you get,
that’s for sure, and the few days we spent there just seemed so full and so complete and so perfectly balanced and real
and true.

The first two nights we camped next to the hiker-biker-walk-in campground, and an old codger, Henry, bald and slight
and walking with a cane and hitch of a limp, was there in a lean-two with everything he owned virtually packed on his
back. An old hippy from the 60s, he had grown up in Santa Barbara, spent the 70s in Monterey, and then pretty much
the rest of his time up around Arcadia and Eureka, getting a degree in literature and just living free. He was taking
public buses up and down the coast and just hanging out in campgrounds for the hot showers and the company, rolling
his own smokes, eating out of cans and anything he can cook on a one-burner stove.

I met him the night after we set up camp and I started playing guitar around the fire, and he was effusive in his praise for
my playing and singing, telling me he thought I must be a professional musician. He really loved my song “Still Running”
and wanted me to write down the lyrics for him. He knew guitars and used to own a custom-made acoustic bass that he
sold, and his comments and his acknowledgement of my music meant more to me than just about any audience I have
ever had. Truly, it was like meeting Henry Miller or Jack Kerouac on the road again.

Now I love traveling with Tom B., but it is nowhere near as fun as traveling and exploring with you. Tom’s idea of
sightseeing is to drive to as many places where you can get out of the car and snap pictures and be off down the road.
We cover a lot of ground but rarely get to see it all close up and off the beaten track – unless, of course, you can four-
wheel drive there. We barely made time to go on two longer beach hikes over the five days we were on the coast.
It was nice to get all the well-used camping equipment in working order, and I am happy to report that all of the great
gear we had collected throughout our explorations is still in fine shape, just like me! The tent we bought with discounted
dollars in Victoria still holds up, and I even have a nice fold-up cot that fits in nicely and is as comfortable to sleep on as
any air mattress we have ever owned. The cute little silverware-wine and picnic package we got in Port Townsend
works fine for all the essential utensils, and the fluorescent lantern and the cool hanging flashlight provide great light
without any hassles. The propane stove and the travel barbecue do all the cooking still, and all the pots and pans we
collected are holding up so well, as is the green folding chair you gave me and that great folding blanket. Tom was
impressed with the wicker paper-plate holders and the coffee pot that still has the perking top and makes mornings just
perfectly perky around the campsite. Even the little dustpan and brush set comes in handy to this day, all things you
thought of and helped compile for our camping adventures of the past.

I don’t know if you ever go camping any longer, but you are free to use any of the stuff any time you want, or come along
on my next trip with Babe. I am thinking, now that everything is organized, about going out to the Olympic Peninsula,
maybe that Salt Creek Campground we found west of Port Angeles for Wednesday through Saturday, in hopes of
getting one of those great sites out on the bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It would be a nice way to start a
new month and a new chapter of life.

I hope you appreciate the little souvenirs of words from the Redwoods and the sentiments that are rooted in such a
small gift from the love we lived.

Traveling onward in the spirit of pure love,

Mario

“I guess that part of his trip is my own doing. I was deliberately dishonest to make my life more comfortable.
Part of it was to quell any false hope on his part that things might change.”

-- Cecilia in a letter to Mario about her third husband, whom she would leave to begin a 15-year life and love
journey with Mario.


DREAM OF ICARUS
I flew too close to the edge of the sunrise
Off through the clouds, my spirit set free.
The Gods of gravity smiled at me knowing,
Icarus once dared this dream.

Angelique’s Moon has the face of an angel
With lips of gold and a smile of fire to draw you near.
Fly away like a moth into the headlights,
She let me down and melted A-way. She let me down and melted A-way

There once was a man high atop the mountains
Who waited for the voices of the prophecy.
He heard the echo rumble down the canyon
And laid witness to something never seen.

Angelique’s moon has the smile of a goddess,
With teeth of pearls and eyes that pull you in.
Listen as she sings seductively with the sirens.
She led me down and drifted A-way. She led me down and drifted A-way

She came out of a heavenly hailstorm
When through the pass, all roads were closed.
Said she could fly and sing with the angels.
Skin so tender as the petals of a newborn rose.

Angelique’s moon has the light of a halo
With stars on a face that shines though the dark.
Take me higher with her mythical magic,
She lifted me up and we flew A-way. She lifted me up and we flew away




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