Loving an astronaut

“...love and let the world know, hate in silence.

If you love, love the moon; if you steal, steal a camel,”

- An African from Egypt.

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins” - Someone in the bible.

“...are we allowed to cuss? Are we? Only thing that can heal the sick and the healthy is love. With genuine contagious love in the air, all masks off and our true and vulnerable selves revealed, the world would be strong, full, kind, without wars, without hunger...

Our hearts would be so big, it’d float into space. Real ‘fvcking’ LOVE.” - Me.

The Younger lady

If the earth should be in a lineup of the of the most beautiful maidens to be wed a god, You’d be wed a god,

And you’d cease to be called maiden.

Mother

And goddess

And if you birth kings, a queen.

A maker of kings.

All these glorious words and the one you hold most dear is THE YOUNGER LADY For when you stood in line to ascend to glory... all the other women called you so And envied in admiration

Least did you know time runs through galaxies like a shiver down a spine

For once you were maiden, the younger lady

And since you are a QUEEN

A mother

A goddess.

You grasp on to your glory days

Least you forget there is also glory in these days

An astronaut who forgot time and duty

- Ken mills

CHAPTER 1

- The Younger lady

The idea about being young is in two-fold. One, to be young in flesh, in blood and bones and two, to be young in spirit and soul. I know someone who once loved an astronaut. An astronaut named ‘the younger lady’ whom he married over four decades ago and did out of beauty and appeal.

Now this man was more or less a priest, an apostle of sorts and this woman was a free spirit, unbound to religion and her only belief is in her beauty and GOD whatever dialect he is called in.

The 70’s man was rather verbose as he described the array of the Gatsby-like event with a particular interest in the ‘Lola’ soundtrack in the background of his memory as he stood terribly sharp across a room and dug himself a hole and called out the lady’s name and fell for her. I later googled “Lola” and found out it was a pretty good song by ‘the kinks’ in the 1970’s.

He spent his hay days awed by Lola, in reference to the younger lady, and spent most parts of that decade bending her free spirit to religiousness and long lists of dos and don’ts so Lola became his perfect wife with the pretty face and the temperament of a catholic nun. After all, that was the plan. To have it all.

The thing is, no one really did have it all, I said to myself. And so, I asked, “how is Lola doing? You have kids now?” I was hoping for a much more cliché reply like “oh we’re doing great by God’s grace” or a little more like “we are good” short, precise and followed by that awkward silence. His face looked pale in that sudden moment and replied. “Yes, we have kids, three, two big boys and a little girl” to cushion the blow and continued “But Lola, she took my small girl and left. Six years ago. It all started with her small arguments with the house help, all of them, because we kept replacing them as she drove them out. When I commented on

what was going on, all her rage was directed towards me as if they were mine to begin with in the first place. They were. She complained about everything. She complained I didn’t buy her better clothes to church, about how long my church meetings take, and why we must go to church three times week. She stopped praying with me and coming to church gradually. She now went out with ‘friends’ most days every week. She paid less attention to our kids and started coming home drunk. I often asked the kids to bed early so they don’t see the mess their mother was in, but you know, you can never really hide anything from children these days. Lola fought me every night before bed and sometimes I lost my cool and hit her. When I did, I was in women’s court and really had no excuse for hitting a woman. She sent our kids to live with her sister and prevented me from seeing them. She packed most of her stuff out to God knows where and only came home for new shoes and money for the kids which increased by the week. Last week’s was never enough. This continued for years and a few times I found my self on my knees putting on a pathetic show in front of her family and sometimes the public begging her to come home to me, to bring our kids and start again. I prayed every night for years. Cried in my sleep. Lost tremendous weight and slept less each passing day. I missed my kids. I hadn’t seen them in a really, really long time. I wondered how they’ve grown. Were they eating well? Were they happy? Who couldn’t do their homework and who joined the soccer team, you know, the little things. I clenched on to spirituality and more than once visited very weird prophets. Spent most of my free time going to these places, some very far from home. They started filling my head with ‘prophecies’ about my mother-in-law being the reason behind it. I spilled this to some friends and deep down I needed someone to blame so I was confident she was. The old lady heard the rumor; a witch African mother in law was no news in these streets. She didn’t take it lightly and rained thunder and lightning on me. Unfortunately, she turned up the heat and to many of our families and friends I was the disrespectful woman beater. You’d think I’d stop with these prophets but no, I needed something, someone to hold responsible for all my devastation. I kept going and going to them and they gave me a target. They proclaimed my wife a witch and her family an entire coven of witches. Her dad her brothers, everyone and they sure did hear. I couldn’t shut up about my grievances. I told my entire

neighborhood. I got sympathy but were they real? I paid a lot of money for a lot of rites to help my situation. I was financially broke, and the news out there was I could not take care of my own kids so my ‘witch’ in law was doing my job.

One day I drove to her home, my in-law, so furious and fed up I charged into the house told my kids to pack up a few clothes and leave with me as I waited in the car and cried. At the time crying in my car was a thing. Fortunately, nobody was home but their granddad who was practically a vegetable. Brought my children home and found myself trying to please them like guests. I spent most of my days painting a picture of the evil spirit their mother was and buy their favor. In the course of our conversations I was told they’ve not seen their mother for years and grandma was the only one taking care of them. So where was my money going to? Where was my wife?

I remember we only ate fast-food for months and my kids almost threw up at the sight of it. I couldn’t cook. Convinced my sister to make meals in packs so we refrigerate them and microwaved when we were hungry. Eventually my children somehow learnt to make decent dishes for us. I never told them how proud I was of them. For being strong through it all. The thing is I started taking them to these places and anytime any of them did something deviant I concluded by influence, spiritual manipulation from their mother. I was getting them on my side. The things I did. I confess that I have hitherto lived a very respectable life, an extoled Christian man with a pretty wife and genetically impossible children. Now everything I thought I created has been desecrated and frankly, when I point a finger, at least three of them point back at me.

One day, she came back. Where has she been? Nobody knows. Charged her way to my house with divorce and custody papers. It took two years son, two before we agreed on something and then she felt less of a wife and more of a stranger. Took my baby girl with her and they boys stayed with me. They’re all grown now and who they think was at fault I would never know and frankly, I don’t either, not anymore.”

Whew!

I’ve thought about his story a lot of times. I come across people like these often. I like been told stories and by far this is one of the few that has stood out. A black sheep in a cotton field.

What do I think?

The 70s man married an astronaut. An astronaut who forgot time and duty.

The younger lady was all he saw. And never looked beyond that. Truth be told, she didn’t either.

The astronaut was far away from the man’s world. She was in her own space. Floating and gripping on to the idea of being the younger lady forever. She should have known that whether in space or not, time flies. And nothing stays the same forever. She floated too long and like oxygen she run out of time and pulled the 70s man off his grounds along. He was going against his own beliefs because at the moment she realized she was tied in a marriage to a man who isn’t free spirited like her, a man who wasn’t an astronaut as she is, she had run out of time and at her age, almost out of oxygen. She wanted to explore more. More of the galaxy. She started pulling along her husband and children who have never been beyond the clouds. They were never ready. None of them were.

There is a saying, if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. Most often we try to fix people to suit our desires and more often than not we end up wrecking them. People need change sometimes, but you can’t change someone if they haven’t admitted they have a fault. Change is internal first. In fact, change is inevitable but is must be willing not imposed. It takes most young people to realize they can’t change their astro partners and bring them to their earth if these people are in another world. Love should be enough, but compatibility should come before you have such dreamy thoughts otherwise, you’d find yourself become a Neil or Nielli Armstrong in space without a suit and a fishbowl over your head.

That is exactly what our 70s man did. He was moved by a younger lady and dug himself a hole to fall for her but started floating upwards like a balloon and before

he exit earth he burst and let go his beliefs for depression, pain, anger, paranoia and probably strung his kids along. Who knows what they think? They might be astronauts too far past their mom and love and compatibility may never be enough. It is a compound effect, these things. Creating lots and lots of astronauts and what do we call them? Weird, antisocial, groupie, players, not the settling type? Nobody ever walks to space, someone or some people must have built them a shuttle and set the thrusters ablaze and the rest on earth see UFO’s, love these astronauts and never know how to live with them - LOVING AN ASTRONAUT.

I’ve heard and met a couple of these extra-terrestrials, ET. And I am going to try to break a couple of them down if you’d take the time to keep reading.

What did we learn?

➢ Don’t let time catch up with your spirit and soul. It can age the body but the young are forever in spirit.

➢ Love is not the only thing that comes into play when building a family or relationship. A lot of other gems play sidekick to love. Find them.

➢ Don’t allow people to cloud your religiousness and judgement because you want to believe something to be right just because its comfortable that way.

➢ Nothing is ever too late when you do them at the right time.

➢ You can’t change anybody if they don’t want you to.

➢ Life is beautiful even is space.