Song of Cecilia -- The rock-novel begins

All original songs, writing and real-time performances

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

THE FLOATER
Ten years gone in a single note,
She had the kind of love that just . . . floats.
No matter how much I wanted her to stay
She is always just drifting away.

In time, she will marry and make another wedding toast.
In time, love will waft away like smoke.

Sixteen candles blown out on her cake,
To her father, she was always his biggest mistake.
Until death they departed and never spoke,
Cursed by a love that could never float.

In time all men will come to know her,
In time, swept away by . . . the floater.

Two sons too many to change her fate,
Always with that fade-away look on her face.
Five times she would marry as if it were rote,
Just repeat those vows and off she’d float.

In time, no man can hold her
In time, fading away like the floater

Ten years gone in a single note,
She had the kind of love that just floats . . .
No matter how much you want her to stay,
She’s always just drifting . . . away.

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 Ten

Detachment is not apathy or indifference. It is the prerequisite for effective involvement. Often, what we think
is best for others is distorted by our attachment to our opinions: we want others to be happy in the way we
think they should be happy. It is only when we want nothing for ourselves that we are able to see clearly into
others’ needs and understand how to serve them.

-- Mahatma Gandhi



                               SONG OF CECILIA: Good News about Gandhi

Dear Cecilia,

I read that Gandhi passage late last night before falling fast asleep on our old wedding bed in exactly the same position
I always slept when you were next to me, heart, body, and soul. I woke feeling like you were right there beside me only
to feel a wet tongue on my face from Babe, who had curled up into my body just the way you used to do. I swear, if
another woman ever wanted to sleep with me again (imagine that through the snoring!!!) my jealous dog just might take
issue with a full bed. I think Babe takes up more space than you ever did, for sure.

Reading Gandhi’s wisdom again on this rainy morning, the last day of spring, I realize your detachment from me the
past few years has been a necessary element in your need for more stable happiness in your life. I believe, too, that it
has been necessary for my happiness, as well. Truly, I never before I realized I could be so happy living and loving
alone, writing on my own, owning my own home, returning to the beach of my dreams, the words of purpose, a time of
infinite possibility and perpetual joy.

I don’t need you or anyone to make me happy in the least. I am happy with whom I am, with what I’ve got and with what I
know I can yet accomplish in my time left on earth. Confidence and strength of character come by living up to your
abilities and not from depending on someone else to determine right from wrong or success from failure, love from lust
or luck from design. My emotions do not depend on the emotions of others. They are mine to deal with alone and I can
either let them dictate my life or I can take control myself.

In some ways, relinquishing control altogether seems to be the key to releasing harmful emotions, allowing new room
for that detachment principle to grow, which I believe is what Gandhi was writing about. For example, I have no control
over what impact these words will have on you or anyone else who reads them, and I am certainly not writing them
because I feel you need them or even want them in your life. That being true, I also have detached myself from the
notion that my writing is being done for publication at all, that it may ever find an audience other than the one who is
writing these words at this very second. Maybe the fact that I continue to write them or send them seems “apathetic” or
“indifferent” to many people, maybe even you, but it brings me great joy and happiness to realize how much love is
within me, how much wisdom and inspiration you gave to me, and how much I have yet to discover when it comes to
learning how to transform that love we shared into a philosophy of life that can apply to living and loving in the world at
large.

Back again to Peter Russell and the concept that love might defy gravity, like a black hole where the laws of space and
time are suspended: At the height of our personal love for each other, is it any wonder we seemed to attract almost
super-natural wonders or stumble upon them anytime we explored nature together? Some things like the ancient rock
carvings we found, the circling eagles that followed us about, or just making love above a waterfall happened for a
purpose in our life, and it seems very much like we were floating in a timeless state when you begin to consider how
much such loving memories still produce a trance-like reality to this very day. Meditate on the memory and the love is
just as strong today, even stronger, more crystal clear, than it ever was in the time we experienced it.
It’s like you can kill the body, but you can’t kill the spirit or soul of love.

Back to the basic Christian concept that God is love. So much for my Gandhi lesson this morning, and I hope that
sharing it has been a blessing for you, as well.

I know I need to detach myself more from the world I have created and focus more on the world as it is. For example, I
am registering for summer classes in accounting and business at Grays Harbor College and need to drive into
Aberdeen today to stock up on fruits and vegetables, dog food and ink and paper. I need to buy a father’s day gift for
my dad and a card and then head up to Seattle and Tacoma for the weekend festivities.

My father, a man of few words and likely more of the type of man you are with now, wrote me a short letter out of the
blue two weeks ago after visiting my new home for the first time. The card was plain and simple and the words, written
carefully in all capital letters, everyone of them, mean everything to me:

“Dear Ang, It is almost Father’s Day and I just want to tell you how glad and proud I am to be your father. You have
done so well. And I am so pleased of who you are. I hope everything works out well for you in your new home. Love
you -- Happy Father’s Day. Love Dad.”

Two things occur to me in revealing this letter to you: that maybe I might have impressed you more with just a simple
note like what my father wrote me; and, more importantly, that you don’t have a father to love you like my father loves
me, or even like I love you or like I love my daughter.

Maybe you are so detached now that you don’t need such love or emotion in your life, or that you are happy in your own
happiness, or that someone else or something else now provides the same love that my father provided to me. But
these letters, in the same way, represent the exact spirit and soul of my father’s love extended to you, through me, from
him, a love that will last through eternity.

I am so proud of you, too, Cecilia, and not because you are mine or were mine or are of me and with me. Pride may be
a bad word here, but I am proud to have been your husband, to have tried with all my heart and soul to be a better man
in the spirit of your love, to have helped you raise your children, to have learned so much at your side. I love how you
make meatloaf and chili and Swiss steak; I love how you read; I love how you stir your coffee and microwave your eggs
in the morning; I love the pride you take in the hand-knitted crafts you make; I love how you engage with others and
smile and laugh and carry on conversations; I love how you endured the medical nightmares of the past; I love the
courage you show every waking day of your life; I love the way you float to music, the way you compose yourself and
look into the camera when being photographed; I love your appetite for knowledge; I love how you walk, how you scowl,
how you blush, how you make the bed, how you brush your teeth, how you soap your body in the shower, how you sleep
so peacefully curled up on your side. I love the perseverance you showed in raising your boys; I love your love of Teddy
bears, heck I even love that you still love some of your ex-husbands and lovers. I love your passion; I love your patience.
I love your smile. I love the way you shop, the meticulous way you do bills, your punctuality, your consideration for others,
the way you write thank-you notes to all those who have sent you gifts, the way you maintain the love with your mother
through the letters you have written over the years; I love the form of your eloquent handwriting, the graceful shape of the
individual letters of each word, the clarity in your thought, the complexity in your heart and soul. I love your love of music,
of dance of laughter and joy. I love how you party, how you sip your wine so tenderly, how you never lose control. I love
how you have set me free to truly love you like this.

Had we been together, would I have seen all these great and wonderful qualities within you so that I would be able to
express such pure love to you today? Likely not, I am terribly said to say, my love. I think it took such total detachment
for me to fully grasp all these words I never said to you -- true words of love I should have said years ago to your very
face in the time and place that I was fully experiencing such wonderful and loving memories.

Russell, also like Tolle, notes that you never experience the past in the past, you always experience it in the “now,” in the
present, so maybe it makes complete sense that pure love, free from the weight and gravity of daily life and the mis-
perceptions and miscommunication of the world at large, is something that truly reverberates and resonates forever
within anyone who has ever experienced such love.

Ah, so much love to give, so much life left to live.

On this Father’s Day, I want, as a father, to tell you how proud I am to have been loved by you and how proud I am that I
can tell the world at large even now that I still love you more than ever before. Your love allowed me to fulfill all my
responsibilities and obligations as a father, and I could never have raised my children so well had you not loved them as
well. Also as a father, I want you to know how much I loved Ryan and Alex and likewise take pride in the pride you must
feel when you are around your boys these days. We all should take pride in our love. It truly did sustain us and our
children, and we are better for it now and forevermore.

Two last thoughts for today that clearly occur to me as the sun breaks out and I can see a herd of deer wander into my
window: I never was denied the love I needed at any time in my life, but I did go through great periods of denial. You
always have been denied some of the love you needed, or the kind of love it takes for love to survive and thrive, in the
obvious non-love you received from your father and in all the times you adjusted those needs in love to provide the love
that others, mostly men, needed from you. Which brings me back to Gandhi’s thought -- I thought I was making you
happy, but I was just taking love from you to make me happy and only giving it back haphazardly when you needed
something far more lasting and real, healing and hopeful -- something more than mere words of fading vanity and
distorted delusions sent too late through the mail.

Even these words, now, are meaningless unless there is pure love that lives through them. I will live on in love, and I pray
these words bless us both.

Mario

Strive to the kind of person your dog thinks you are.

-- Proverb on Mario's refrigerator.

Dear Cecilia,

I want to continue this letter before I bask in my own Father’s Day glory today and before it all slips away forever.

Babe found a tennis ball at the Post Office yesterday, picked it up and carried it in her mouth all the way through the run
and back home. This was totally out of character for her since -- unlike Layla -- Babe won’t fetch and isn’t interested in
dog toys in the least. She doesn’t like to swim or to get wet at all, yet she romps through the surf to chase birds. She
barks at the slightest noise on the porch but doesn’t flinch at fireworks.

Comparing dogs must be a lot like comparing husbands, and I mean that in a light-hearted, kind and gentle way. Each
one must have some similar characteristics, but all must maintain unique peculiarities that endure and endear
themselves in your heart. For example, that dog won’t come when he’s called but he sure is affectionate when it’s time
to eat. Or, that dog won’t hunt but he sure can fetch.

I’m not using this as an illustration of animal love, but rather to explore the nature of whom we choose to love and why.
Until you detached your love from me, I never had to seek out love or partners in love, they always found me. I imagine
more than me, you had similar experiences in love -- your lovers pursued you rather than the other way around. Your
beauty certainly is so radiant that you will never have to seek out love, mostly because all men seek such beauty. My
talents and abilities are such, and my family so stable, that I likewise have an abundance of love or am attracting love
through my daily actions.

Where I went completely off course in life was the point I felt I had to seek out love in retribution for squandering your
love. This only became fractured love, superficial love, needy love, crippled love, bankrupt love, carnal love, and then no
love at all. In fact, I am quite certain I became so unattractive both physically and emotionally that I couldn’t even love
myself. So I blamed it all on you to avoid looking in the mirror at what I had turned into.

Now, I like what I see more than ever. I love me, and I love you. I love Babe and Layla, too. I am free and I am tan, and I’
m a fit and a fine man. I do have to admit, however, that I still seek love, only it is the love I already have and have had in
life. I don’t think it’s my love to possess, but it is love I know that I can revisit and use and find whenever and wherever I
look in life to come. My most important principle in life at this juncture is that you should never stop loving the people that
love you, even if you might hurt them or they hurt you, even if you have to leave them and live alone.
Hurting, unfortunately, is an essential part of healing in love, just as forgiveness is an essential part of the mistakes we
all make in the lessons we learn in life, either from others or on our own.

There is nothing in the world that you could ever do that could ever hurt me from this moment forward, I know that now,
Cecilia. There was nothing you did that was meant to hurt me before. You weren’t the one seeking out other love -- I
was. And the fact that other love found you is just a completely natural act in this thing called life.

I do have to ask you, in writing to you this way, am I actually hurting you further? How can I profess to no ulterior motive
when I would be happiest of all if you came to live with me again? Do I further endanger any chance we will ever talk
again by continuing to write to you and exploring my love for you this way?

What would a more detached observer say?

My mother just called to complete the Father’s Day plans and let me know what time the barbecue is scheduled and
what I am expected to bring. She noted that she hadn’t seen me write my normal online column on Examier.com for a
couple of weeks and asked what I was writing about these days. I told her about the effort to finish the letters I never felt I
fully finished writing to you, and how in doing so, I seem to have stumbled onto a theme that might unlock one of the
keys to the universe or prove the existence of God.

“Not again,” she laughed. “Like I said before, at least you don’t set your sights too low. And how does Cecilia feel
about all this?”

“God only knows, but I send the letters like I send prayers to heaven. Magically, I guess spiritually, what comes back to
me is a pure feeling of love and even more inspiration than I could ever have imagined on my own.”

“Sometimes, that’s the way God works,” my mother said so knowingly. “I’m just glad to hear you’re still writing and not
wasting your time all day goofing off at the beach.”

“Well, I’m doing a lot of that, too,” I admitted, “which in turn always seems to trigger another letter to Cecilia, like I’m
writing a novel to her 10 years too late and trying to catch up in time.”

“It sounds a little like that ‘Benjamin Button’ your father and I just watched where Brad Pitt starts out old and keeps
getting younger until he’s finally reunited with the girl he fell in love with at childhood in the start of the movie.”

“That’s exactly the point mother: that my love for Cecilia transcends time, even space, just like the love of God. In fact, I
don‘t think I feel this way about anyone else but maybe you, dad, Mike and Becky, or Grandma Copsey. Even after all
the hurt we brought on each other. Love that surpasses all other love. Do you understand what I‘m trying to illustrate?”
“Of course, I do. How else do you think I could have loved your father all these years along with all you kids with all the
trials and tribulations that brought me? It has to be the love of God because it surely took a miracle to hold it all
together.”

Admittedly, I have embellished the conversation a bit, but I’m sure you get the point like my mother did, too. Love is
what allows us to surmount the greatest obstacles in life; it is able to endure pain and suffering; it is able to help heal us
from our sickness; it is able to forgive us our failings; it provides a path toward peace.
It is simply everything and I find love these days in just about anything, even just the simple act of a dog picking up a
stray ball.

Bow wow, indeed! We men, all just dogs at heart and you know it, girl!!!

I write in the spirit of happiness now, even though the writing is very difficult and opening up old wounds and memories
to new light is not always a pleasant affair. In many, many ways I wish I didn’t have to write this but I know in my soul that
I must. You knew what you had to do and did it. I know what I have done and write it. Sending it is the hardest part of all,
as is reading it once I’m through.

Love of my love, love of my family, love of a father and the husband I was,

Mario

POSTSCRIPT: Unlike most other writing I have ever done, I have no sense at all whether I am any closer to the end, still
near the beginning, or somewhere in the middle of my story. I am pretty sure I know exactly how to bring it to a logical
conclusion, but then again I just can’t see that even happening in my lifetime under current circumstances. Maybe you’d
like to try being my editor now that I truly believe I have something worth writing about, since you were always so
perceptive in that regard when all I wrote was gibberish fiction and journalism. Maybe you could shorten the whole thing
up, help me bring the writing to a close, and we could move on to writing and reading better stories about loving life
ahead. Like in most newspaper stories I wrote, I think I am saving the beginning to rewrite at the end when I know my
story better and have all the material laid out for the reader. Maybe, I should let you try writing a new beginning for a real
change because I certainly am embarrassed about the one I started about four years or so ago. It just makes no sense
at all to me now.

What truly does makes sense is your feelings and emotions, even fears, going back 20 years when you first fell in love
with me and sensed all the doubts I had even then, before we were ever married – doubts in my mind that I know for
certain I have never been able to let go of until right now:

After a time, we re-established a certain level of loving intimacy and then you had to have a place stable and
secure enough to better your relationship with your children. And you withdrew, which caused me confusion
because we didn’t talk about the dynamics. When we did talk, you told me to stop feeling sorry for myself, to
stop my misinterpretation of your motives, how you didn’t feel comfortable in my space because it wasn’t
your own. You felt like I didn’t really want you there. You didn’t know if you ever wanted to marry again. The
last statement really shocked me because it was the antithesis of what you had put out before. It made me
feel quite misunderstood about what you considered my intentions and expectations.

-- Cecilia in a 1989 letter to a then-single and separated Mario, whom she would later marry, her fourth time at
the altar on the way to five marriages and counting . . .

ANGELIQUE’S VERTIGO
Angelique sounded so unique, but she was just faking it
A made-up name, with her father to blame, she was just taking me
For a ride . . . the ride of my life
Angelique liked to hide and seek, never admitting to the game
Piercing hearts right from the start, she was just playing me
For a fool . . . the fool of all time
I fell from balance when she let me down; I fell upon my knees
I fell from grace when I turned to catch her
She called it release, she called it freedom
Angelique swore by her beliefs, taking everything I ever had
Never looking down to see the grounded, she hailed another cad
For a ride . . . she loved to ride on high
Angelique never said please, and got whatever she wanted
Thought it a sin when her world would spin, accepted fate among the haunted
Like a ghost . . . the ghost of my soul
I fell from balance when she let me down; I fell upon my knees
I fell from grace when I turned to hold her
She let me fall, and called it release; She called it freedom
Angelique sounded so unique, but she was just faking it
A made-up name . . . with her father to blame.

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