Why Nevvy Matters

She's What The Fighting's All About

For every man, there is a face he cannot look upon and live. 

She may not be the one he marries. But she will be the one he remembers.

And does unnatural things to see just one more time. 

Ruins lives and careers for, maybe even his own.

He may live with her. He may live without her.

But it will not matter because he will not live.

Life will stand still.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child. Eternity in the heart of a man.

Thus saith the Bible.

So does it come as any surprise that the two can be one in the same guy?

And cleave together, like man and wife?

What The Fighting's All About

I have seen an amazing thing under the sun this past week, an example that greatly impressed me.

A man, who scaled the heights of fame and fortune, about to receive a lifetime award for his achievements, got in a fistfight with a lesser man on national television.

Over a woman who--though clearly not his equal in this age of equality--is the one whose face he cannot look upon and live. 

Many say he would be better off without her, that he should have ditched her long ago. 

I’m not so sure.

Despite her issues—addictions, baggage, liabilities— she’s kept him out of prison and on course for glory.

Eternity and folly, bound up in the heart of a man, and he none the worse for it.

We all have issues. It comes down to what use we put them to.

She’s What The Fighting’s All About

You may be with her happily ever after. 

You may be with her and waiting for the end of time.  

You may be without her and waiting for the end of time.

You may have never had her.

None of that matters.

Not as long as you see her for what she really is-- the glimpse you have been given into eternity, and your unique place in it.

Our problem as men is that we keep confusing eternity with the face of God. 

Or at least of a goddess.

It comes down to location, location, location. We get the eternity part all right-- she's an angel, timeless, silvery, and sacred above the hot grimy fistfights of life.

But we confuse place with proximity, and go to extraordinary lengths to close that gap to be with her.

I'm not trying to tell you it's not paradise between those legs. But you can stare into eternity all night long and never see how far it stretches. The thousands of years and millions of miles that light has crossed just to reach you.

You will never see it, staring all night long into nostra effigie, trying to understand the question too deep for words she answers within you.

That, my friend, is what you find out after you die.

Like the name of God, it is beyond understanding.

With
Without
And who'll deny
It's what the fighting's all about? 
---Pink Floyd

I Didn't Count The Days

And so it's almost better that she is always something to be grasped but never held. Like the little key she hands you for unlocking her deepest secrets. Like that verification code texted to your phone. It cannot be shared, and expires in the morning, even though she swore to you that night would last forever.

I learned that too late in life, on a redeye from San Jose, watching a movie whose lines I'd memorized but never learned—

That it was my song Sam was playing, sitting at that dark piano. That it was my role Bogey was playing, sitting at that empty bar. Wondering how he never saw it coming, despite all the signs she was giving him as the Germans marched into Paris, and the wonder on his face as he stepped onto that train, and the star-crossed lovers were forever parted, but for a brief reunion before she boarded a plane in Casablanca:

Rick: How long was it we had, honey?

Ilsa: I didn't count the days.

Rick: Well, I did. Every one of them.

Casablanca, 1942

How could I have never seen that coming? The one question I never asked, and Semoira could never answer.

Because, like Ilsa, she didn't count the days.  

I paused the video, whipped out the calendar app on my phone, and plugged in the dates.

That couldn't be right. 

So counted again, paging through the months, one by one.

Same result. 

I totaled it up on the back of a napkin and, since the passengers around me were all sleeping, silently buzzed for a flight attendant to come and check my work. 

Yup.

From the evening she boarded the boat to the morning she stepped onto the plane, it had been exactly 555 days. 

555

How a number like that had managed to hide in plain sight all this time was beyond understanding.

I pulled out my laptop, and began spreadsheeting. First backward by 555 day-decrements from the accident. Through milestones and mile-markers, until I arrived at her date of birth.  Then mine. 

OMG

Then forward by 555-day increments from the hijacking. Through milestones and mile markers, her wedding day, then mine, until I arrived at today's date.

WTF

This was not normal.

I sat there very still, my screen the only light in the silent roar at 38,000 feet, and wondered what the universe was trying to tell me. 

I didn't count the days.

Eternity Has A Frequency

Frequencies are detected by things --coils, crystals, microchips-- and by events-- births, meetings, couplings, crashes, hijackings, deaths-- that resonate.

With things there is a switch you can turn on to see if its working. With events there is no switch, only hindsight, which is not immediately 20-20.

You can't see or hear event resonance. But it is there. In the resonant pairings. Like in counting the days.

Because if you can connect just two dots, your chances of finding more exponentially improve.

Like the discovery of Semmy's six-hundred year pairing to Ginevra King, Chicago heiress and It Girl of the Roaring Twenties—

Ginevra King (1898-1980)

—who was revealed to be the real-life lost love of The Great Gatsby, when a box containing the love letters from a fling at sixteen with a poor Princeton student named F. Scott Fitzgerald was discovered in the back of a closet.

And donated to the Princeton University Library. The discovery led to the 2013 remake of The Great Gatsby, starring starring Leonardo di Caprio--all the while I was working on a DoD project at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab codenamed GATSBY-2. 

Or the resonant pairing to mutual namesake Ginevra de'Benci, Florentine heiress, poet, It Girl, and lost love of a poor young artist named Leonardo da Vinci, who captured her at sixteen in a stunning portrait for its time, all as nobles, diplomats, and mighty men far and near vied for her favor.  

Ginevra De'Benci (1457-1520?) 

Ginevra was sold to the highest bidder, a cloth merchant twice her age, who pawned the family fortune for her hand. But never got her heart. They were married on a cold winter morning-- January 15, 1474, the one sure date we have of Ginevra’s life history from the records-- and she proceeded to shut him out of the bedroom, giving him neither heir nor heiress, and finally escaping to an abbey.

Where she became an obsession for men in every century since, who still grasp at her with paintings, sculpture, drama, poetry, fiction and film…

But can never hold her for more than a night.

Because Nevvy is like a high priestess after the order of Melchizedek. Without beginning of days or end of life, she emerges from and disappears into the mists of time, revealing herself to whom she pleases, men she believes will see her for who she really is--their glimpse of eternity, of their unique places in it, and of what they must do lest her resonance fade, and her true children be forever lost. 

Shadow of a Smile

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell of Lorenzo the Magnificent, of Guido Reni or of Antonio Vivaldi, of Georg Friedrich Handel or of Percy Bysshe Shelley, of Samuel Rogers or of the Monuments Men, of Baz Luhrmann or of— last and by all means least— myself, as one untimely reborn on her wedding day and the twenty-fifth cycle of my own resonance-- 5 x 5 x 555-- the day of five fives.

Not normal but that's just me. I resonate by the numbers.  Every man is different. 

But here is what I can tell you--start the quest for your own resonance now. As a man it is one of the most worthwhile things you will do for yourself—not by cracking a book, listening to a guru, watching a video, winning an argument, or acting like you're somehow above it. But actually encountering your eternity face to face.

Seek her. Find her. Hold her. Feel her. Hear her voice. 

That is the first step to your #GreatUnfuck. 

Do not wait for her to find you, or it will be too late.

Cease your searching for unasked questions. Seek instead the connections between the answers you have been given. All you need is to connect one pair of dots, and the puzzle will begin to solve itself. The mystery will will begin to unfold. The mists will begin to part until you can look both ways out and back in time, see your place, your fellowship, your fraternity, your tribe, and—best of all—the amazing woman urging you westward with them.

Maybe Nevvy's not your girl. I get it. 

For every man there is a face he cannot look upon and not be changed.

So how did I know I was staring at an angel and not just la sua effigie, her image? 

The sense of humor.

Peer carefully into DaVinci's Ginevra. Cover her left eye with your right hand, holding your four fingers together, thumb running along the bottom of her lip. 

Behind that frowning countenance, she hides a fleeting smile. 

Even a wink. 

I have seen it—when my back was turned for a selfie-- but that's when I knew she really had the hots for me, and had crawled across five hundred years of barbed wire, broken glass and fallen kingdoms just to get with me.

And that is an answer too deep for words.

To be loved like that. By a woman like that. It changes you. 

You are not who you thought you were. 

Who cares what family, friends, workplace, Woke, and even the world think?

This angel believes I can fly!

---

Harvey Oxenhorn is a cybersecurity consultant, and author of the upcoming book, The Atrocity Algorithm: How the Media Became the Enemy of the People. Follow him on Gettr, Gab, and MeWe @HarveyOxenhorn