June is bursting out

The image of June for us oldies is the “bursting out all over the meadows and the hills” with the corn in Kansas knee high, etc., vintage, “Oh, What a Beautiful morning.”  Of course, only tornadoes have been bursting out all over Kansas and Oklahoma of late, so the image recedes to the background this year.

Bursting out into the Shenyang skyline are fireworks, which means, either a store is opening or someone is getting married. It appears that June brides have become a successful marketing gimmick in the land of one-child families and the spectacle of eight (a happiness number) black limousines going around a few blocks for a couple of commercialized matrimonial bliss is not uncommon.

The Zhongguo ancient observation that women hold up half of the sky has moved out of metaphor into the doorsteps of many public, private, and civic institutions. Sino land has also awakened to the fact that its male preference has bloated its population ratio to an estimated 52 males for every 48 female, giving females the option to take their time in choosing a mate.  A despondent university student two weeks ago jumped off his dorm’s 5th floor a month before graduating because his girlfriend decided to break up their long running liaison.  He had wanted to formalize the relationship and the bride got cold feet.

We might say the same with Hugh Hefner’s runaway bride. The Playboy personified was left at the altar on what would have been his fourth trip. Former Supreme Court Justice William Orville Douglas is better known for his judicial opinions but reviled for his coldness in the matrimonial front, stern and demanding even to those who labored on his behalf.  He also did four marriages, with ladies considerably younger than he was. We won’t go far on this train since we are familiar with the May-to-October phenomenon and our derailment took in a few hard licks on the ego that is just getting overcomed.

Of course, the institution of marriage has been embattled since Marie was finally allowed to join the workforce while the men folks are too busy waging war, coupled with women’s suffrage coming to its own, at least, in the western hemisphere, and feminine presence a welcomed development in boardrooms and beyond the glass ceilings. 

Marriage evolved into a form of social contract in the West, and it is no longer uncommon to have prenuptial agreements inked before repeating the act in front of solemn assemblies. Unfortunately, whatever remnants remaining of the old eros has been cauterized and sanitized in the antiseptic surroundings of the urban and suburban home nests.   

We have forgotten that June’s bursting is fundamentally a proclivity of the loins before anything else.  Congress member Anthony Weiner of NYC’s undisciplined display of his wiener to cyber space playmates reminds us that the live affirmation of our physicality is stuck in the social Dark Ages of puritanical cloakrooms while it hangs upfront in the imaginal threshold of our media fueled sex obsessions. 

We swoon over a couple’s picture that earned them more than 15 minutes of fame. Canucks’ Alex Thomas and Oz Scott Jones were caught in an iconic love-embrace-kiss seen around the world while Alex was down on the ground in the melee following Vancouver’s loss to the Boston Bruins in the final home game of the Stanley Cup.

Of course, the new Florida trial of Casey Anthony accused of killing her daughter Caylee gets a new twist when revelation is made of FBI tests to determine Caylee’s paternity. It appears that Casey was molested by her own kin, which leads one to think further that perhaps, the Casey’s father may have doubted her paternity as not his own. As the World turns.

A 10-year old local girl trusted a man for six years and when she turned 16, he raped her and then dropped her like a used Garapan condom. Three years later, he runs into the man. Asking him why she was abandoned in her youthful disgrace, the man lamely professed that he was afraid she was going to report him to authorities. Duh! 

A Gringo married to an Asian girl is in the process of getting a divorce as wife who took American citizenship no longer wishes to return to her country of origin. He does. She gets half of his retirement benefits and the house. His term of her “gold digging” reveals more about his age (the act is now called Internet subscription where one hands over one’s credit card for automatic deductions) but liaisons, even when they start from shared passion, grow cold on its journey to the waterfront at compassion station. 

My Ch-English class sings to Vandelis’ Chariot of Fire: “Zhongguo in transition, the old falls apart; we have a new vision, create a new heart. A new world is crushing the one that we knew, our minds barely touching the change rushing through.”

James Dobson’s defense of the family and marriage notwithstanding, “love” is getting a makeover.  We sense, we feel, we think, and we do, are the parameters in linguistic consciousness, and the same hold true with life. The wiener is important and so is the lotus flower, but one needs to build a circle big enough to contain, sustain and maintain the paradoxes of relationships, emotionally, intellectually, and behaviorally, to stand firm in the vortex of the swirling contradictions and remain calm in the balance of the yin-yang (aka, Taiji) at the pivot point of human consciousness and existence. 

As Hefner at 85 bravely testifies: live and learn. Wonder what would happen if we abandoned the Penguin suits and lace gowns, champagne on the H2 limo promos, and took the Sa-ipan wind as the Pacific breeze of eros, invite the world to come “put a plumeria in your hair,” don a French Connection UK T-shirt and shorts, and get the island drums beating?  Better than a family outing to the casino! 

May June burst out all over our lives! Again!