Moments In Time...The Agony and the Ecstasy...

Have you ever felt like you appeared on this Earth a few minutes after the movie about your Life began? 

That the phrase "late bloomer" applies to almost every aspect of your being? Or that you do things or meet people a wee bit too late for the happiness you think you deserve?

Well, my fellow Mansonites, this is definitely becoming the story of my life; yet, quite possibly, the opposite was true for the lives of The Manson Family victims....

Let's examine my life first, the spoiled brat that I am always likes to be first up even when I arrive late...

It has been brought to my attention, several times of late, that good, pure, fantastic people are right around the corner of my life but when I finally saunter over to that corner, those good, pure, fantastic people are otherwise engaged. 

And this scenario has played out too many times to be any longer amusing.

Yep, I used the word "saunter" because I think that's how I approach life - with a certain amount of arrogant egoism - as if I expect Life to come to me and I'll be damned if I'll lift a finger more than is necessary to go to it. Soooo, yes, I saunter over and in my Irish lazy-ass way I end up at these peoples' doorsteps an hour too late and a penny too short, if you know what I mean. And their inevitable response to me is , "You're the most fantastic creature I've ever met but sorry, Girly, you took too long to get here so another has taken your place."

Oh, woe is me...

And more often than I care to admit, these ships that pass me in my Life are passing me all too frequently and with such emotion that this one wee lass from Canada is sure that there were worlds offered to her out there but that she was too damn spoiled, lazy, arrogant, and snail-slow to experience.

I'm not entirely sure that I believe in reincarnation but if I did, I'm fairly sure that my soul in a previous Life was late finishing up my last Life; and therefore, has never been on time for this one.

And do you know where my soul has been in my last Life? Well, I do.

Do you remember that scene from the movie "Titanic", where the female lead, played by Kate Winslet, arrives dockside, and as she exits her chauffeur-driven vehicle, she, ever so slowly, raises her head, heavily laden with that wide-brimmed, royal purple Edwardian Tea Hat, skyward to reveal to us her beauty, her innocence and her amazement of that ship which would take her into oblivion?

Well, I know I was just such a lady, a First Class, well-healed Transatlantic traveller aboard the H.M.S. White Star Line Titanic but that I gave my lifeboat seat to a child - as I was unmarried and childless - and I went down with the ship. In this life, I've had an obsession with knowing how to swim well and survive in water and in my car I carry an awl - have done for years - to be able to break the windshield glass in case I and my car are ever submerged in water.

And in my past Life, the night that ship sunk, I was in a heavy, royal purple, velvet gown with that wide-brimmed purple Tea Hat, all underneath a deadly heavy tarpaulin-lined life jacket; and, when I hit the icy water after falling from the upturned stern, I and my opulent past Life sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic with such fury that I didn't have time to realize that that Life was over forever.

My soul hovered over the spot, where my ship and my past Life disappeared, for such a long time, that when I finally did realize that Life had ended, I returned to this Earth an old and overdue soul.

Hence, those late arrivals, those missed ships, those loves lost...

And then, unlike me and my tardy Life lived, a new-born and timely soul can arrive without delay for everything and for everyone...

Like Gary, Sharon, Jay, Gibby, Voytek, Steve, Leno, Rosemary and Shorty...

Why didn't Gary stay longer at the university campus on July 25th, debating the merits and foibles of the Nixon Administration with his Political History peers, ultimately arriving home too late to see that Bobby, Mary and Sadie had driven over for a chat?

In all the time it took her to pack all those newly bought baby clothes at Harrod's in London, why didn't Sharon miss her British Airways flight home to Los Angeles and, in her frustration, take the advice given to her by the Producer of her last film, "13 Chairs", and stay in Europe and have her baby at one of their upscale spas?

Couldn't Jay have worked late on the set of yet another Steve McQueen 60s movie blockbuster and in his exhaustion, just gave a pass to Cielo Drive that sultry summer night and retire to bed early at his Easton Drive home in the arms of another Sharon wanna-be?

How come Gibby couldn't have met up with her neighbour Mama Cass while running all those shopping errands down on Sunset, and just phoned up to Cielo to say she would be staying late at Elliot's place for yet another drug-fuelled party and to not to wait up for her?

How come Voytek couldn't have received a speeding ticket by a C.H.I.P.S. cop on Benedict Canyon, arrived late to meet Witold at his gallery, being forced to meet him right at Gibby's Woodstock Avenue home to retrieve their house key, and while there, seeing Gibby in Cass's driveway, he decides to join the gang for that party, having no real reason to return to Cielo that night?

Couldn't Steve have got stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 105 freeway, been late for his second job at that electronic store, and because of that, had to meet that fellow down on Sunset right after he closed shop for the night, leaving no time to drive up to Cielo for an after-hours chat with Will?

Leno and Rosemary were having such a good time at that lake with their son, that time just flew by without them noticing, and being so late with their plans to return, why didn't they just decide to stay the night and head out for Los Angeles after breakfast on the 10th?

And Shorty was Irish and married...doesn't that constitute a night of over drinking and love-making with his stripper wife, Madalene, in town, sleeping late in their rundown apartment and phoning in sick that fateful day for work as the ranch hand at Spahn's?

Is that what people really mean when they say, "Only the Good Die Young"; that only people on time for their fate die young?

And although I'm wallowing in my tumbler of Cubana rum and Coke, bemoaning all my missed romantic ships in the night, it would have been my inevitable tardiness at Cielo Drive that night, in yet another procrastinated past Life, that would have kept me alive, if not continually heartbroken.

Late but alive?

Punctual and dead?

I think I'll be late posting this blog. I need another rum and Coke...