Love on the Rocks ... A Fool's Journey?

Cape Byron and the lighthouse on
Australia's most easterly point of land

I don't like airing my dirty laundry on this blog, but I feel there might be a lesson here for any other Fools out there thinking of starting out on the journey of marriage, or partner(ship).

My wedding ring with the date of the
wedding day inscribed inside - 19/11/88

I've been married for over 25 years, with two children to come out of that marriage, but while technically still legally married the marriage has died completely in the last year or so. 

I wore that ring almost constantly for 25 years, rarely taking it off, but the last month or so, it has been just sitting idle in a drawer. 
My wife doesn't wear her rings either I noticed, which was one of the main reasons I put my ring in the drawer.

The "Prosperity Ring" that I now wear
 on the middle finger

I used to wear the "Prosperity Ring" I bought from Israel (bought over the internet) a few years ago on my right middle finger, but decided to retire it to the same drawer I was keeping my wedding ring in.
But when I took my wedding ring off after all these years, I felt naked, so I took the "Prosperity Ring" out of the drawer and placed it on the middle finger of my left hand, and it felt right, pardon the pun.
 “BEN PORAT YOSEF, BEN PORAT ALEY AIN, BANOT, ZAADA ALEY SHOR”.
That ring is inscribed in Hebrew and translates roughly to this -
“BEN PORAT” means - a son of a fruitful tree, which is a symbol of abundance and fertility. “ALEY AIN” the tree is depicted as standing near a spring or a fountain - again a symbol of longevity and abundance. 
 ”BANOT ZAADA ALEY SHOR” the tree’s branches are curved or becoming entangled on a wall - a symbol of strength and protection. 
The BEN PORAT blessing is also considered a powerful protection against Evil Eye since Joseph was protected and blessed against the people’s envy.
Genesis 49:22  
“Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine by a fountain; 
its branches run over the wall."
 (The term Ben Porat Yosef is taken from Jacob’s blessing on his death bed to his son Joseph. Before Jacob passed away he bestowed his blessing upon Joseph - 
it’s an ancient blessing for abundance, fertility, protection and strength).

My wife at Cape Byron the day after
our wedding. 1st day of Honeymoon

The Fool, on first day of the journey
stepping off the cliff at Byron Bay;-)

I think the first time I ever fell in love with Byron Bay was the day after my marriage, when we called into Cape Byron on our way to our hotel in Ballina, which is further down the highway.
I could always see myself one day living in Byron Bay, but my wife hated the thought of ever living more than a suburb away from her family ... mainly her mother.
I should have seen the writing on the wall then, but love is blind, as they say.
I've been to Byron Bay well over 100 times in the last 25 years and I would say my wife has been down there about 3 times, at most.
Most of my visits were day trips, mainly to Festivals, or just day trips with my brother, or workmates when we would go hiking in the hills around Byron Bay.
I've grown to love the area so much over the years that I would like to live there and now that my marriage is all but over, it is where I have set my sights on living out my days.

The problem was now what do I do with the ring, that now means nothing to me?
I thought this ring was a symbol of unbreakable love, but since my wife no longer seems to care for the marriage and wants to sell the house and split the money  
(after the bank gets the lion's share of it),
so she can go back home, while I have to find a place I can afford to live in by myself, I can see this ring as nothing but a joke.
I could understand her view if I was sleeping around behind her back, or beating her up or something along those lines, but to just say that she isn't happy anymore doesn't make a lot of sense, unless she was having an affair behind my back, which she claims she isn't...
but who knows? 

Cape Byron as it looked over 25 years ago.

Anyway, I had the idea come into my head after hearing the Neil Diamond song, Love on the Rocks come into my head, to throw my ring into the ocean from Cape Byron.

So, I decided I needed a witness to this occasion, and maybe a meal and a drink to "celebrate" afterwards.

The date on the lighthouse 1901 was close
to the numbers 19/11 of my wedding date

So, I rang my brother and asked him if he wanted to go down to Byron Bay to see if we could spot some whales and maybe go to the Brewery for a drink and a meal afterwards.
I also told him I was going to throw my wedding ring into the ocean from Cape Byron, which I'm sure he thought I was joking.

My launch pad for throwing the ring into the Pacific.

So, last Saturday my brother and I drove down to spend the day at Byron Bay and Bangalow.
We first had breakfast at The Italian Diner in Bangalow.
The Blueberry Danish (at an Italian Diner?!) and Coffee there is to die for.
Then we walked around Bangalow taking in the Saturday markets behind the pub and checking out antique shops.

$165  for a tin?!

Maybe Mike Perry would buy this?-)

Kitch'n'sync?!

Hmm, I know how this guy feels.
Maybe I should have bought it?

A blue peddle car for sale in a Bangalow antique shop?

Weird that I should find this car for sale on Saturday.

Life is a journey, not a destination?

Blue Cars Too?

The Italian Diner

After breakfast in The Italian Diner and our walk around Bangalow we headed down to Cape Byron.

A crowd growing to see the ring toss event?-)

I paid the $7 to park for one hour and walked down to the first viewing platform.
The seas were quite choppy and I was a bit worried the wind might make hitting the water with the ring a bit more difficult than I thought, but once the people left the platform and I could get a bit of a run up, the throw into the ocean was almost perfect.

No whales today. Well, we didn't spot any.

I won't point out exactly where it landed,
but it is in this section of water.

I lost sight of the ring when it left my hand and for a while thought I would have no idea if it made it to the water, but then I saw the splash and knew exactly where it landed.
The ocean was really churning the sand around, so I think it would have sunk into the sand and got covered over...
well that's what I like to think anyway.

So next time you visit Cape Byron you'll know that there probably is a gold wedding ring under the waves rolling in to the rocks buried in the sand.

The launch pad

Julian Rocks seen from Cape Byron

A lot of people I talked to when I told them of my plans to throw my ring into the water asked me why didn't I sell, or pawn the ring instead.
I told them because it was symbolic of my 25 year marriage and that I wanted a symbolic ending to it.
And it felt good, too.

We then headed to the Byron Bay Brewery for lunch and a few drinks.
When we got to the brewery I saw this mask hanging on a door to a health spar connected to the brewery, which I thought was funny, because I'm keeping the ring throwing thing to myself .... well my family know about it, but my wife doesn't know and I don't plan on telling her until we are not living under the same roof anymore...
which I hope is sooner than later.

The Brewery was selling two for one meals that day, so as long as you bought $10 worth of drinks (which was a drink each basically) you could buy two main meals for the price of the dearest.
This was something we didn't know about until we went to order our meals, so that was something else to celebrate.

While eating lunch my brother asked what we should do next and I suggested we see a movie at the Palace cinema, because I had my movie card in my wallet and could get us both in for $12 each, instead of the usual $18 each for non card holders.
He said alright, because he had never been to the cinemas in Byron Bay, so we drove around to the cinemas and saw that  
A Trip to Italy was playing.
Now this was weird, because I had won a free double pass a few years ago to the first Trip movie called The Trip and had taken my brother along to see it with me, and he had really liked it.
The funny thing also was we had turned up to the cinema not knowing what to see at about 1:40 pm and  A Trip to Italy was starting at 1:45 pm with no other session until about 6 pm.

Not only that, but this movie is about following the footsteps of the author Byron around Italy while eating at restaurants and doing food reviews for a paper.
Oddly enough, I wrote about seeing the first movie, The Trip in the same post I wrote about the blue cars -
Blue Cars Too
We both liked this movie too, but apart from all the personal synchronicites for me, I still think the first one was better, but this one is worth seeing, as well.
 After the movie we went for a walk on a very windy and cold beach  
(it's winter in Australia at the moment for all you northern hemisphere readers)  
and this is when I found the white feather that just wouldn't fly off in the wind, that I wrote about in this post -
A White Feather on a Byron Beach?

Looking at the sun setting over Brisbane I could see that there was a storm starting to build, which eventually we would drive into on the way back home, as we hit the Queensland border funnily enough.
Could that be sign of things to come?

Looking outside from our table
 at the Buddha Bar at night

We then decided to head back to the Buddha Bar at the 
Byron Bay Brewery and have dinner and we got the same two for one deal again that was available at lunchtime.

The Byron Bay Brewery has a cinema called The Pighouse Flicks attached to it and neither of us had ever seen a movie in there, so we decided we would go and see what was showing after dinner, and it was a musical filmed in Scotland of all The Proclaimers songs from their chart topping album Sunshine on Leith, which the film was named after as well.
I had a copy of this album and also bought the CD too, a few years back, and oddly enough I see it came out the same year I got married - 1988.

And here is the kicker. 
Sunshine on Leith is about a couple who are celebrating their

25th wedding anniversary,  only for the wife to find out on the night that her husband had an affair just after they were married and produced a daughter, who turns up to say her mother had just died.

So the movie takes a turn as the couple decide whether the marriage is worth saving after all these years.

Interesting just looking at the track listing on the album, too.
My youngest son Sean (who is named after my wife's brother) has just turned 20 and there is a song called "Sean".
My Old Friend the Blues was written by Steve Earle, who I saw play at the Byron Bay Blues Festival.
"It's Saturday Night", seems appropriate too, since it was Saturday night that we saw the movie.

And the song "I'm on My Way", was always my favourite track off the album, which now seems really appropriate under my current circumstances. 

Track listing

• All Songs Written By Craig & Charlie Reid, except where noted.

1. "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" – 3:33
2. "Cap in Hand" – 3:24
3. "Then I Met You" – 3:50
4. "My Old Friend the Blues" – 3:06 (Steve Earle)
5. "Sean" – 3:23
6. "Sunshine on Leith" – 5:16
7. "Come on Nature" – 3:34
8. "I'm on My Way" – 3:45
9. "What Do You Do?" – 3:38
10. "It's Saturday Night" – 3:24
11. "teardrops" – 2:32
12. "oh Jean" – 5:55
13. "King Of The Road" – 2:45 (bonus track on 2001 re-release)

 Well it turned out to be a very trippy day indeed for me, which most of my trips to that part of the world turn out to be for some reason.

The lesson here for other Fools setting off down the Isle is to be very careful on the journey you think will last forever, because partner(ships) have a very strong tendency these days to hit rough patches and sink, no matter how calm the sailing appears it's going to be.

Oddly enough also my wife's first two names are Tina Louise,

so these clips seem even more relevant in that light.

Our wedding waltz was to the Phil Collins song  
Groovy Kind of Love, but the record got stuck a while back and is scratched beyond repair.

Now I think something like the Rolling Stone's song 
You Can't Always Get Want You Want may have been more fitting.

Oh, well, such is life.

UPDATE: 8th July, 2014.
I came across an old post from 2011 of mine involving the lighthouse and Cape Byron and thought it quite fitting, as to the white feather I would find on the Byron Bay beach, that refused to be beaten by the wind (maybe a sign from above?-) .
Guiding Higher Light