Echo

awesome.

i was barefoot on a dark beach, the moon a bloody sliver sinking into the ocean.

it looks like mars, i said to the handsome french man, who couldn’t stop staring at me.

we’d met up for tea and to take a walk.

he’d told me he wanted to talk to me because of my smile. he’d seen me smile from inside my car the day before.

the fact is, i was in my car happily singing along to careless whisper by…who else, the fabulous mr. george michael. back in the day when he was just another straight man in tight pants. i mean, i was very happily jamming, figured no one could see me. black car. dark street. i’m in shadow mode. george michael and i are good.

this guy walks by, shaved head, glasses, the ghost of someone beautiful, so of course i smiled. beamed. and somehow, he saw me.

i saw him double back later, walking past my car, and i was still jamming to careless whisper. i thought, okay, first i have to turn off the song because it’s probably not the proudest moment. secondly, i have to get out of the car because i think this guy wants to talk to me.

so i get out and he’s a couple of yards away on his cellphone (i actually thought he was pretending), so i go to cross the street (yours to lose, buddy)…and he comes running up.

introduced himself. said i looked familiar. he had an accent. i asked him what it was. french, he said. oh, i said.

this is intriguing what is happening here.

i’m probably looking at him so warmly because he reminds me of someone else, and the funniness of it is making me smile so expansively that it’s coming out of my chest. and he’s drawn in. i’m talking to him like we’re long lost friends.

he asks if we can get together, and i tell him i’m moving to seattle in two weeks. he says, then we better spend time together soon. he asks why and i tell him that i’m trying to establish a secondary writing location.

he has to run, he’s late for a birthday party. he texts me on and off for the rest of the night.

tonight, we were standing side by side, watching the moon over the ocean. i could see stars, but i don’t trust the stars in los angeles. so many are planes in disguise. we’ve only spent 30 minutes together. i can tell there’s no romantic connection, outside of the fact he’s a really nice, peaceful person and so am i. i could tell from his eyes he wanted to touch me. probably sexually but not necessarily. just something about skin and body. he put his arm around me and asked if i would like to get closer or if i’m okay, and i said i was okay. he stroked my shoulders and neck, exploring. i like cool fingers…my skin always runs warm. he commented that my body was giving off a lot of heat, even though we’re standing out in the cold. he’s gentle but not testing my boundaries, so i’m not concerned. as long as he gets something out of it, and doesn’t cross any lines, i enjoy it. but i tell him that i’m not looking for anything because i’m gone in two weeks.

he said that it was okay. but then he pauses. “do you mean you’re not looking for a relationship?”

“i’m not looking to get involved in anything that makes me lose focus of getting to seattle. i’m cool getting to know people, but i’m not looking to get involved in anything that makes me not want to leave.”

his palm gently maps the curves that make the small of my back.

i know that if i stand my ground and don’t believe in it, nothing will happen. as fun as it would be to get physically involved with someone, i don’t need any distractions right now. any acknowledgment of chemistry and all i’ve built comes crumbling down, i’ve worked too hard to lose focus now just because of my hedonism and love of human touch. soon. but not right now.

i focus on the moon, and keep finding topics to delve into. he’s a spiritual man himself, so we have lots to talk about.

when the moon drops into the ocean, we walk around main street for another hour. he’s a nice person, but there’s not really a deeper connection there. he walks me to my car. he remembers it.

i say to him, “i still don’t know how you saw me. i’m in a black car in the dark and you saw me smile when i saw you. how were you able to see me?”

“i don’t know,” he said. “i just did. i looked over and you had this amazing smile, and it made me feel i had to talk to you.”

that must have been one hell of a smile, i thought.

this is the word.

my send-off will be at the hollywood bowl, aug 30th. ask your mama. the roots. incidentally motherfuckers, a 22 day. i completely didn’t realize that one until now.

i will be in a powerful, spiritual place surrounded by nature, listening to music, sharing an experience with those who love me within a sea of thousands, the moon watching from her seat above.

if you understand how happy i will be, then you’ll understand there’s a likelihood of magic.

it will be a very good day. you will want to get involved.

i will be doing what i do best.

i already bought tickets but i think i’ll sell them and reserve a row instead for whoever wants to sit near me.

i’m thinking, light. lots and lots of light.

people always think it’s the herb, but it’s being around me that makes them feel comfortable.

i would like to give that feeling of comfort to people and make a living from it. i want to be a shaman, bringing people’s shadows to the surface. i want people to feel positive, empowered, so they will remember what that feels like when they look for it in other areas of their lives.

do you want to know what peace is?

make me comfortable and i will make you comfortable.

within that circle is your understanding.

trust the moment.

i’m in the process of selling all the concert tickets i was so happy about. oh well. going to seattle is better. that’s the thing with me…whenever i buy concert tickets in advance, something always comes up. i need to just stick with buying them last minute.

at least i’ll be here for next week’s hollywood bowl sunday sunset show. a great way to close it out. the bowl is always a magical, religious experience.

when i was young, my greatgrandmother gave me a stuffed leopard. my greatgrandmother was an amazing woman, a very influential force who raised my mother, a woman who took care of me in my first few years. she died when my brother was in womb, and my mom wasn’t able to go to taiwan for the funeral because she couldn’t travel in her last trimester, and that has been a great source of guilt and hurt inside her.

i loved this leopard like you wouldn’t believe, sleeping with it, chewing its ear. his tail fell off and they had to sew it back on for me. it sat on a shelf in my room as i grew up, even through college.

my parents moved out of their house in may for a year while the house gets renovated. i remember looking for my leopard, which had always been on the shelf, but my brother had taken over my room the last few years. no one could find it. i worry that they threw him out or donated him with all the other old toys to goodwill.

that would be sad, because goodwill would have thrown him away. he was too raggedy to sell or give away. he would have never meant anything to someone as much as he meant to me.

i still miss him. the way he felt in my arms, against my cheek. the way he smelled. he is symbolic of a time, of an innocence, of an unconditional love from a very kind person.

i still hold out hope that maybe he’ll show up one day when i least expect it.

check this out.

some people may or may not know, that during the spring, i was living in florida with my friends, sarah and jef, writing and recuperating from 2008. while my mom and brother were traveling in china, my dad went through dizzy spells. i urged him to see a doctor who took an x-ray of his brain. the technician said there was a spot, but would need the doctor to take a look to diagnose. but the doctor was on vacation for a week. i talked to eric and he said it could be either ear or brain related, giving me a test to distinguish. it appeared brain related. we were all terrified it was a stroke.

my father had to go to florida for a court case that would determine the fate of what had been years of terror and stress. i would talk to him daily to make sure he was calm about things. sarah asked me if i should go home to be with him. i don’t know. he’s a proud man, and i could see him saying no because he didn’t want to seem needy. i called him the day he was supposed to fly home, and asked him if he wanted me to fly home so he wouldn’t be alone. he said, only if it’s convenient for me.

i realized, he was scared.

i booked a flight leaving within a few hours, and sarah rushed me to the airport. i waited in san jose airport for 2 hours, surprising my dad when he walked by after getting off his flight.

my dad and i have a very cautious relationship. there are entire universes left unsaid, because we are both so unable to express love towards each other. but that week, we bonded.

he trusted me because i had been there for him even though he hadn’t asked for it. in a time in which he was actually very scared, i made him feel loved and not alone. this may seem kind of obvious, but my dad is not an emotionally trusting man. deep down, i think he’s had feelings that those he loves will abandon him when he needs them most, which is why he is so self-sufficient and expects very little from others.

his doctor was out of town so he wasn’t able to get the results of the xray, but bad news was still in the back of our minds.

we ate a lot of strawberries. it started when i bought some from the sunday farmer’s market, but then just kept buying more and more. it turned into an insane amount of strawberries. i’m talking about $30 pallets of like eighty strawberries we would eat between us in one night. every night. i don’t know why we ate strawberries, but we did. it became our thing.

the dizziness went away. by the time the doctor came back, my dad said he felt better, was even starting to play basketball again, and the doctor said the x-ray was fine if the symptoms weren’t persistent.

so, i was just sitting here, eating strawberries. i realized these are the first i’ve bought since that week alone with my dad in fremont in the spring. i reminisced about the bonding between my dad and i that week, and realized what an insane amount of strawberries we ate. and how it was very out of the ordinary.

then i wondered…

i googled “strawberries” and “stroke.” Got a few links that link the potassium in strawberries to being good for preventing stroke.

source
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maybe…it was an instinct.

beau is like a gazelle.
a beautiful, shiny, helpless gazelle.
by my honor, i will never eat him.

i laugh inside at the guys who can’t stop looking at me even though they’re with their girlfriends. i figure how deep down they must feel like such assholes, that they didn’t believe in something better, even if they hadn’t found it yet, and tied themselves to something “good enough,” and are now missing an opportunity. remember those boys who tend to go with their second choices?…careful.

me, i always believed i would have what i felt i deserved. i was just kind enough to myself to wait until i was conscious to make an empowered decision in regards to what i saw myself deserving without tying myself down with the best of what was available even if it wasn’t right. now i know what i want, as far as an absolute trust in myself that i’ll know it when i see it. that’s all you need. that’s all that matters.

but what i’m most proud of myself for, is that i never settled and never let myself get permanently obligated to anything that didn’t absolutely feel right.

did you see the sliver of moon tonight?

exquisite, like a sliver of ice on your tongue.

a sensation turned memory.

i dedicate that to you.

from birth, you have never left my heart.

well. what a strange day.

started out fairly normal but lucked out in landing a place to stay in seattle for next week, when i called to inquire about an apt for rent. i have a feeling i’m really going to like where i live.

went to the other room.

ran into missed connections guy.

but not before being asked out by a guy with a shaved head who saw me from inside my car and doubled back to stop me as i was crossing the street. i only smiled at him because he looked like someone i knew. except he was french. why do brilliant smiles + glasses get my attention?

later, there was the one i told to fuck off. i gave him a gift and he called it shit. he was immediately ejected from my perspective.

oh, these men. it has gotten to ridiculous levels. i just want to make it to seattle. this is very important to me.

but i appreciate everyone for whatever stage of their journey they’re on. there’s just someone specific i’m supposed to meet.

9’s and 7’s. like moths to flame.

one is the prophet. the other, the monk.

a lot of people tend to notice my shoulders. an intriguing few remember my hands.

perhaps the fact that the sound of distant train whistles always sends me to another dimension, one heavy with safety, innocence and peace, is what should tell me that i’m already tamed.

whenever i hear distant train whistles, or the low drone from an 18-wheeler’s wheels on asphalt as he motors cross country, i feel the sounds cutting through fog, somewhere, where it’s 3am.

Little Known Fact:

In college, I submitted a very serious and well-supported proposal to the Honors College for a self-declared degree blending courses from the Philosophy, Psychology, History, English Lit and Film Studies programs in a study of human dynamics. A deep study into duality and imbalance within the psyche, and tracking and comparing cruelty and submission dynamics within societies, and how the dynamics can be interpreted through analysis of a culture’s art & religion. The title? “Sado-Masochism.” I could have been the University of Michigan’s first graduate in S&M, Honors.

I will never forget the look on my counselor’s face.

“Oh Christ, the dildo’s back.”

What Happened In Albuquerque from The Goods

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Spain. I see Spain.

I just realized I worked on the same floor as the Italian American Chamber of Commerce West for 4 years, shared the elevator with them, passed them in the halls and saw them in the bathroom, and I’ve never said more than “Hi” to any of them.

How does that happen? That you can pass the same people every day, and never connect? Never want to connect?

I spent a good deal of my life too angry and numb to care about anything. And it was all because I’m so sensitive, I care about almost everything.

And now I’m in a different place.

Very aware. Very detached.

Balanced and at peace.

Today was a powerful day. And I tried to make the best decisions in every one of my choices and interactions. I would say I was…not necessarily nice (I did laugh at a woman who was too impatient to wait in line)…but…big.

What I do with people happens on a very small but very fast level. But the effects are very rich and all-encompassing. It happens when I pay attention. I intuitively know what things to focus on, what things should be brought to the surface. But I’m not aware of it, until I review experiences in hindsight. If people ever noticed that I spent the first 25 years of my life never really looking people in the eye, it was because I didn’t know what to do with it yet…what happens when eyes connect. I didn’t know how to balance the things I perceived with physical reality. But now, to an extent, I do.

I have learned to be careful. I know when someone looks me in the eyes and is dishonest. It is actually very uncomfortable for me. I don’t always know what the dishonesty is or why it’s there–it could be massive, it could be insignificant. It could have everything to do with them and nothing to do with me. But it’s there. A flicker in their image that makes me question what they’re hiding. But I put in tremendous effort towards disciplining my instinctual desire to chase the roots of what’s being hidden. That is how people trap me, since I have quite the taste for human mystery, what is at their deepest darkest core. But it’s unproductive. I have shit to do. So lately, I’ve chosen people who can look me openly in the eye, and be honest to the best of their ability, while being respectful of me and the connection.

Outside of one 14 year-old queen bee hipster chick trying to seem cool (what was she thinking!!), and AD (yeah, I totally just put him in the same group as a teenage girl), no one has tried to start shit for the sake of starting shit. I’ve called truce on fighting with people for the sake of fighting. What I have been projecting energetically to the insecure shitstarter types, is a sleeping lion. I will be kind and courteous, but do not forget what I am. That has kept the majority of that kind of life drama out of the way.

I am very, very, very, very, very, very, very happy about being single when I get to Seattle. Very, very very. Very. Don’t know why. Just am.

Saw the preview to new Aniston movie, set in…Seattle. I was damn near orgasming every time they showed an aerial shot of the Space Needle or the city. Oh my God, Oh my God, I kept saying as I rocked in my chair. I’m so happy, I said to Brian. We know, he said. He’s happy for me.

There were so many good lines in 500 Days of Summer. The one that comes to mind first is:

Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
Fuck you, whore.

the gray skies finally broke yesterday, so i headed out to the other room to watch the sunset and read the little prince. the sky was an ethereal palette, and at the table next to me was a group of happy italians. it was a wonderful way to spend dusk.

this morning, i got up as brian was taking his car to the dealership. i remembered that mine is due for a scheduled maintenance as well, and i want to get it done before i drive up to seattle, which will be as early as the week after next.

so i called, got an appointment and headed over. the rep they gave me was paul, this thai guy i worked with 2 years ago, the last time i took it in.

i told him the engine still does that weird thing where as i’m accelerating, it feels like it drops for a few seconds into neutral as the rpm spikes, then sudden kicks hard like getting kicked in the butt by a horse. he offered to do a test drive with me.

while we were driving, we started talking and the conversation turned to life potential when i mentioned the reason i haven’t brought my car back in the last year even though i’m still having the same issue, is because i was living in europe. he asked me about it, and mentioned that he feels he’s been living in la for too long and wonders if it’s time for a change.

man, these are the types of people i always connect with–deeper, passionate people with such high potential…at a crossroad.

so we talked and it was a good connection. i told him about the list i made in 2007, and how 2 years later, i’ve somehow done everything except for one thing, but i have faith it will happen when the time is right. it didn’t matter what the actual item point was, just that once it happens, my list will be completed, proof that if you believe in things enough and have enough faith in yourself, life can be exactly what you try to make of it. he asked what the last item was, and i told him, to meet a basketball player i have great respect for. i told him i was close…lately, a lot of people that i’ve been meeting are friends of his, and we almost met a couple of weeks ago, but the timing didn’t feel right so i was glad when it didn’t happen.

he tells me that he’s from thailand, and whenever he goes back, he doesn’t want to leave. that he thinks he could be very happy, making less money but enough to have a comfortable life there, but he also has a wife who doesn’t want to go, and a son to think about. i told him that there’s always a balance, there’s always compromise. that sometimes, we have to make realistic considerations, but that should never stop our hearts and minds from looking at things for their highest potential. somewhere in between will be a balanced situation that will be “enough.” whatever is right for us, we’ll be happy with, because it’s enough. but first we must discover what that place is, and what it looks and feels like.

he dropped me off at urth cafe and said he’d call me when my car was ready. i did my free write, and finished the little prince.

first of all….

wow.

another example of books and magic. reading this was exactly what i needed to read at the exactly right time, and scarily resonant of the things i’ve been writing for a long time, down to some of the symbols that are motifs in my world.

here’s something interesting.

so the bahamas cruise was shallow and in a way difficult. like superficial forces in the world were challenging the reality of my rich, inner world, and challenging my beliefs. i felt so lonely being around these people, that there were so many points i would do anything just to be alone.

the 2nd night, i cut out early and went back to the room. i’d had a nasty encounter with this man at the blackjack table and was done being around people. hong had wanted to play blackjack so i sat down, playing 3rd base which is where i like to be. i feel that i’m a trustworthy 3rd baseman, willing to do what’s necessary for the table. so there was this older man between hong and i. he had terrible energy, very negative, and kept talking to me, wanting to know where i was from, etc. i was keeping my answers polite but short. when he found out i’m from la, he said he was too. he said, i’m a lawyer, and a usc guy, like i should be really impressed. i didn’t respond, pretending i was concentrating on my cards. instinctually, i was wary of this guy.

he repeated again, i’m a lawyer and usc guy, his eyes burning through me. okay, i said, not looking up.

you know what usc, is right? like the place that runs everything.

(i hate usc. i spent a summer there, and find the whole culture symbolizes arrogance and false entitlement)

so finally, i say, “yes, i know what usc is. i’m not a big fan, but i didn’t say anything because i was trying to be polite.”

he doesn’t respond, but still keeps trying to get in with me. he wants to know how old i am but i ignore the question, so he announces to the table how old he is. 51. he says he’s venezuelan, but i don’t respond. i can feel his eyes on me. then suddenly he says, “what are you, like a poker player or somethin’???”

the waitress comes around to take drink orders and he says to me, “you want somethin’, honey?” the moniker made me clench my teeth. no thank you, i say, politely.

when i lost a couple of hands in a row, he looked over at my pile and said, don’t worry, you can use my money if you want.

i pretended not to hear him. i have money, asshole. and even if i didn’t, i wouldn’t want yours.

i was also kind of irritated with this middle-aged indian guy at 1st base who couldn’t play. engineers pride themselves in being so logical, but sometimes they’re very arbitrary; they just don’t recognize when emotion is coloring their decisions. he kept hitting on a 15 or 16 against the dealer showing 6. it was driving me crazy.

the last straw was when this big white dude with a handlebar moustache asked if he could sit to my left, thus becoming 3rd base. i moved over so he could sit, then old man venezuela asks him if he’s with me. it was kind of absurd. the guy looks confused, then says, no. and here’s the kicker.

that question was just an excuse to do this:

venezuela introduces himself, sticking out his hand to shake the guy with the handlebar’s hand. but he does it behind me, so he can run the back of his hand and forearm across my bare back, shake the guys hand, then slowly rub against my skin again as he pulls his hand back.

this was clearly a gross and inappropriate act of froderism.

the panther inside me let out a low snarl, baring teeth.

venezuela looks at me out of the corner of his eye. i refuse to show any acknowledgment or give him eye contact. he’s an idiot standing at the edge of a cliff, the line so much closer than he thinks.

i look at hong.

i’m ready to go when you are, he says, naive to what were probably his own instincts.

let’s go, i say, already out of my chair. don’t even look at that sad, pathetic person.

(*saw him a couple times afterwards, once with his family while waiting for the elevator. he lowered his head and shifted behind his son when he saw me, but i saw him)

*****
that incident really irritated me, and the rest of the group was just sitting around drinking, so i went back to my room to write. i wrote about this incident, and some other things. i mentioned,

Children, whether good or bad, always find their way home. The question is, is this a good or bad thing?

the last thing i wrote was something that had popped into my head while watching the sunset earlier, and that i’d been thinking about all night:

I will never allow myself to be dominated. But I would like to be tamed.

tamed? where did that come from? i had no idea what it meant. but i don’t always understand the meaning of things that come out
of my mind or mouth. only that in some way, i can feel they ring true, but i just don’t know in what way yet.

*****
so as i’m sitting at urth cafe today, i get to the part where the little prince meets the fox, and the fox explains what it means to be tamed. i was sitting outside on a clear, beautiful day with the sun shining down, my body reverberating with chills as soon as i read that word.

“‘But if you tame me, my life will be filled with sunshine. I’ll know the sound of footsteps that will be different from all the rest. Other footsteps send me back underground. Yours will call me out of my burrow like music. And then, look! You see the wheat fields over there? I don’t eat bread. For me wheat is of no use whatever. Wheat fields say nothing to me. Which is sad. But you have hair the color of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you’ve tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I’ll love the sound of the wind in the wheat…'”

holy shit. so this must have been what my soul meant when it had written that line about wanting to be tamed, as i walked through my loneliness despite being surrounded by a sea of people.

then when the fox tells the prince a secret — “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”… i suddenly understood a line i had written a couple of weeks ago in my free-write while on the cruise to alaska, the day after being mesmerized by christian but not knowing what to say:

What happened to my eyes that I can’t see, yet I can see so much? In an echoing world of blindness, you find yourself a god to hang on to and you fight your way towards him with all you’ve got.

i’ve really noticed that it’s become glaring, how i can’t tell people’s age anymore, their status, their superficial “types.” i’ve always been able to see deep into people, but since i came back from amsterdam, i can still see deep, and now these psychic intangible but very powerful impressions are what i put the majority of my faith and trust in, but i can’t seem to see shallow anymore. so the best i’ve been able to do to cope is to trust that these impressions, these feelings i get that i hold to be true but which other people can’t seem to see, are in fact real, even though i can’t seem to distinguish things that other people seem to hold to be most real.

relief. reading this made me feel relief. that i am not just okay, but i am better than okay.

then, i suddenly had a curiosity. i flipped to the back of the book to check antoine de saint-exupery’s bio, and calculated his birthday. i started laughing. a bittersweet laugh.

he’s a 9.

like me.

no wonder.

the soul expression and life path of 9 is a beautiful, expansive one, but a bittersweet one. often lonely. there is much time spent looking out into the sky, listening to echoes.

a man asked if he could share my table because the cafe had gotten crowded, and so he sat across from me, eating soup and working on a crossword puzzle. i got to the part where they’re looking for the well, and the narrator is carrying the little prince in his arms. he says, “‘What moves me so deeply about this sleeping little prince is his loyalty to a flower–the image of a rose shining within him like the flame within a lamp, even when he’s asleep…And I realized he was even more fragile than I had thought. Lamps must be protected: A gust of wind can blow them out.'”

my eyes teared up. i was exasperated with myself but i couldn’t stop. it was going to happen. tears spilled. oh, how embarrassing in public i can be.

like david gray wrote and which i always repeat, “the only things worth living for are innocence and magic.”

the man asked me if i was okay. yes, i said.

but even if i knew why i was crying, i wouldn’t have told him.

antoine, you beautiful fellow 9 traveler…

thank you.

*****
when i got back to the dealership, i sat with paul for a while, talking to him about his life path and goals. i told him to write everything down and put the list where he could see it every day. so many people don’t even really know what they want in life, so the first step is to know what you want. be specific. how can life give you what you want, if you are unclear yourself about what you are asking for?

there was suddenly a loud crunch.

he jumped up. oh no, he said. someone hit your car!

we went outside and it was this little old lady who had been trying to drive out of the service area but misjudged the space. my back bumper was dented.

she felt really bad and was shaken up, but i told her it was okay, and laughed about how these things happen. it’s just one of those things, and maybe this little accident prevented something bigger. that maybe if she had driven out, she might have been hit by some idiot texting someone and not paying attention. sometimes these little inconveniences are life’s way of protecting you from the big tragedies.

so i spent time talking to her so she wouldn’t fall into a negative affect cycle. i learned that she’s from calgary, retired, and was a former biology and chemistry teacher. that she had been living in la since 2003, but had originally moved to cupertino with her husband after they’d retired. that she has 2 sons who are writers as well, one on the simpsons, and one on bones. i tell her that a good friend of mine, jessie, is an assistant to one of the simpsons writers, and text her to find out who. jessie texts back the guy’s name, but says she knows the woman’s son and that he’s a really nice guy. the woman was happy to hear that, and i tell her that children who grow up to be nice people show that they were the product of good parenting. someone from the body shop comes out to give an estimate, and we exchange information. she thanks me again for being so nice and for not being angry and yelling at her, and i said, i’m very happy with my life, so it’s easy for me not to be stressed about little things. life unfolds the way it unfolds, so you can either resist it, or make the most out of every moment.

paul walks me to the front to get my paperwork done. he tentatively asks me how i feel about the accident, if i’m upset, and i laugh and say, “i’m too happy with my life right now to get upset about anything.” he says that these things sometimes are blessings, that maybe because this accident happened, it kept me from getting into a bigger one if i had left when i was going to leave.

i started laughing. that’s exactly what i told her!, i said.

i tell him that perhaps the next time i see him, his life will be in a completely different place. i told him that i feel he’s on his right path, and he’s going to be very happy. he thanks me for the talk and tells me, good luck in seattle. before he leaves, he asks, who’s the basketball player who’s the last one on your list?

i laugh. baron davis, i said. my family and i sat behind the warriors bench during that miracle run, and he and i used to exchange looks a lot. he’s on my list just for proof…so people can see that i did “magically” accomplish what i set out to do. proof of the effect of faith and belief in yourself, that life gives you exactly what you ask of it. plus, baron and i have got it in us to be good friends.

he laughs as he shakes my hand. that’s truly amazing, he said.