Orange Juice Day 4 - The Good Sport Dream

Just past midnight I awoke from a dream wherein I was with a friend and to be amenable I was frying meat for us and drinking alcohol with Coca Cola! My face was swollen, my eyes flat and I could hardly recognise myself. I wasn't partaking for my own pleasure but for companionship. 

In the dark I lay awake and thought to myself: "impossible that I would do this, at the stage I'm at now". 

But today I almost fell into my old trap, amenability. To go with the flow and accompany someone in their treat because for them a pleasure shared would be pleasure doubled. I was about to give in so as not to disappoint and crash their excitement when suddenly last night's dream came and wrapped around me in a cloud of images. I saw my lifeless face, no substance behind my eyes, not enjoying the alcohol but drinking it, feeling revolted by the frying pan but trying to make it as nice as possible for my friend. 

I deftly side stepped the 'treat' at the very last moment, and have stayed true to Orange juice all day. Or should I rather say - that I stayed true to myself, all day.

It was just yesterday I chanced upon a poem from Ella Wheeler Wilcox' collection of Poems of Power. Below are the final verses, the poem in its entirety is here. 

 

A GOOD SPORT by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

...
I was a young man, and the gay world called me to come.
Gay women and gay men called to me, crying: "Be a sport; be a good sport!
Fill our glasses and let us fill yours.
We are young but once; let us dance and sing,
And drive the dull hours of night until they stand at bay
Against the shining bayonets of day."
So I filled my glass, and I filled their glasses over and over again,
And I sang and danced and drank, and drank and danced and sang,
And I heard them cry, "He is a sport, a good sport!"
As they held their glasses out to be filled again. 

And I was very glad. 
 
Oh, the madness of youth and song and dance and wine,
Of woman's eyes and lips, when the night dies in the arms of dawn!
And now I wish I had not gone that way. 

Now I wish I had not heard them say,
"He is a sport, a good sport!"
For I am old who should be young.
The splendid vigor of my youth I flung
Under the feet of a mad, unthinking throng.
My strength went out with wine and dance and song;
Unto the winds of earth I tossed like chaff,
With idle jest and laugh,

47 kg today

The pride of splendid manhood, all its wealth
Of unused power and health;
Its dream of looking in some pure girl's eyes
And finding there its earthly paradise;
Its hope of virile children free from blight;
Its thoughts of climbing to some noble height
Of great achievement--all these gifts divine
I cast away for song and dance and wine.
Oh, I have been a sport, a good sport;

But I am very sad.