Ten blue-eyed Bambi(s)

I met Bambi whilst watching waterfalls on the Coasts of Amalfi.

A spunky teenage tour guide who reminded me a lot of myself.

He wondered about my adult fascination with crashing waters,

So I told him how they remind me of my emotions,

Wild and often times without control.

Bambi found us a vantage spot under a thousand meters of cascading waters.

His only reply to my rant was a short hum of that old TLC song - Waterfalls.

The one admonishing fools who waste precious lives chasing reckless passions.

I understood the pun but proceeded to enlighten his naivety.

I told him how life had endowed some of us with excessive portions of human emotions.

Love and Lust, Joys and Laughter, Passion and Infatuation.

We would love to heights of Kilimanjaro,

then spiral to the depths of meaningless depression in the same single breathe.

Riding every wave of emotional high like a fool - none the wiser even after every let down.

Bambi misunderstood all of the symbolism in my tirade, 

Diverting instead to tell about how he'd once fallen in love with a local girl.

A wild beauty who caused his heart to flutter every time she walked by.

He said he'd found his feelings to be like a reckless woman.

The ones who whisper wretched desires but only delivered fleeting nothingness.

Heartbroken and defiant, Bambi claimed he now mastered the fine art of  emotional control being able to entirely divert his emotions at will.

I found a beautiful contradiction in Amalfi as we watched in silence.

I wondered about taming what ought to be natural and unconstrained

Just like majestic waterfalls.

I imagined about finding a miracle tap-screw somewhere within the jagged crevices of my mind.

One that could turn off my feelings -

To control its chaos whenever it proved a nuisance to my own wellbeing.

Some days I loathe the often chaotic mess of my emotional state of mind,

So I asked Bambi to share his mind games.

He had a boyish twinkle in his eyes,

As he told me to simply –

Never indulge any sort of emotional response until I had first counted:

Ten blue-eyed Bambi(s).

It is really that simple, he promised.

And if all else fails,

Just hum along to that old TLC song.

This is a T.Note