No White Flag (the Rover and the Mermaid)

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

This song, White Flag - by Dido, I woke up with it in my head 3 days in a row. Each day I asked, why, what's that about?
Maybe I'm neurotic, but it became part of my dream journaling years ago - to note the song in my head as I awoke. I sometimes couldn't remember the actual dream, so instead I'd write down what I was feeling as I woke up. Not only does it tell me something about me, but it maintains the dialogue.
Then I started noticing that some mornings I'd wake up with a certain song in my head, and when I could recall my dream there was almost always a connection. When I couldn't I often found meaning in the song alone.
I was working on some stuff for my Dad's estate last week. It was daunting. I could have easily done a less thorough job, and let the lawyers tidy it up. The song inspired me - to not surrender, but to push through, and keep giving my best effort until the end. Which paid off.
Then another morning, and another. I think it's about everything in my life right now (yes, that too!).

I had a storage space to clean out. Between catching up with friends, visitng my Aunt in hospital, and the estate stuff, I left it till the last day. Part of me said, 'you can't finish it - why bother? Just leave it for next time." Dido said otherwise. I went, and did a lot, threw stuff out, gave stuff away, Arthur helped, and a new/old friend offered to take some too. It's not done, but I feel good about the progress I made. So, my last days in Halifax were spent learning a life lesson. One I feel like I used to know, but now maybe I can take it deeper. It is: whatever time you have - use it, if there is a hope - there should be action to realize that hope, it doesn't matter how slim the chances of success, or if it's the eleventh hour.
Clearly - it's about this escapade of mine as well. I certainly feel today, after a good night's sleep - undaunted. The thought of, "I will go down with this ship" doesn't mean - I'm going to steer this ship down (into the rocks), it means - I will steer between those rocks, past Scylla and Charybdis, no... charge between them. And if I fail, and the ship goes down, I'll go with it.
It's a comittment to 'going for it'.
The 'in love' part of the song - yes, I am. With myself, with life... more?? This whole trip has been about being in love with life, I have felt very much in love. And - two days ago, going through the storage space - I found an Irish wedding bracelet. It's woven silver, really beautiful. I had given it to my ex while in Galway with her in 1997, she gave it back after we split up. I thought, what the hell am I going to do with this? The Celts gave it instead of a wedding ring, back in the day. I didn't want to be married to anyone. Then I thought, 'well, this trip has also been about the conjunction of opposites - the 'marriage' of my masculine and feminine halves - I'll give it to myself!' It's nice to be loved. ;)
And I met a little mermaid in Halifax, a very sweet, wonderful woman. Well, really - we met years ago - but I was married. :( So how can this song which keeps coming back to me not be about that too?
It clearly is.
I'm reading The Rover right now, by Joseph Conrad. It's about a wandering seaman come to shore (so far) and has brought back all my mental imagery of the sea. In this case the ship I think of is The Spray - Joshua Slocum's sloop in which he sailed alone around the world in 1895-8. Funny, I just noticed his journey started in Sambro Nova Scotia, about 10 km south of where I grew up. I picture that intrepid little boat charging forth, into challenging and unknown seas, thrilled right down to her ironwood prow at the challenge and risk ahead.
I had what was for me a revolutionary thought as I walked up the steps to my Aunts place in Clayton park on New Years Eve day - that maybe in love it wasn't about finding the person I'm 'meant' to be with, but simply finding someone I'm compatible with, and choosing to build a good relationship. That's revolutionary for me because I see everything from the spiritual perspective- too much so at times. The reality is probably somewhere in between.
But then I did carry the thought to the rest of my life, a discussion I've had with myself before, and is most easily summed up in the quote from Terminator II - "no fate - no fate but what we make."
And I can see this is going to be a theme for me in 2011, to make the life I want: to make my destiny. I quoted Carlos Castaneda in a previous entry, but don't think I quite understood it.

"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length--and there I travel looking, looking breathlessly."

I got the breathlessly part, and the heart, but not the full length. That's also what this song is about for me - that it's not easy to travel one path's full length, but that, if you don't - it's a waste of time to step onto it at all.
I'm in Vancouver now, must find work, continue to grow, the journey goes on. After all this time of living life utterly on my own terms my batteries are pretty full, I feel like I have gotten over another hump of fear and self-doubt, and can see a huge vista before me ...a path paved with heart leading through it, in work, life, love - there will be no white flags.