Echo

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I really don’t even know where to begin.

Though I do feel that I would be more terrified being at a beach that collects right feet than one that collects lefts.

my left brain would like to share metacognition with you.

he’s been feeling left out.

i believe not every human being is a sapient being.

but i also believe it can be learned.

when the sun and the moon come together in an eclipse, the planet doesn’t disintegrate.

it’s silly to believe it would, isn’t it?

well, the same goes for the two realms of a person’s inner universe.

the first is the acknowledgment of both realms and the understanding that both are powerful forces.

the second is to understand that these powerful forces belong to you and only you. you have full ownership but ownership only comes fully realized when an understanding of responsibility is developed through wisdom.

the third is that the way to unleash this power, is to unite them.

david im’d me to say good morning today, at the exact time i woke up and got out of bed, going straight to the computer because i had a feeling he was around.

it still amazes me but i’m not as surprised anymore.

it’s really all about circles and completion.

i took some time to myself to meditate today, and i feel that there are friends out there who could really use a good hug.

so i’m sending one to those of you, to let you know i’m thinking about you and sending you support.

i just remembered something.

a couple of weeks ago, i had a really bad shoulder injury (nothing close to today’s but worrisome, nevertheless), but i totally dismissed it. i even refused to ice it, just daring it to hurt. so it didn’t. and i played well the next day, was actually kind of a beast, and no one knew i was injured. it was my secret that day, what was fueling me.

the next day, i was im-ing with david and he was telling me something about happiness and parks and his usual hyper-cheerful stuff, and i guess i wasn’t really paying attention. then he says that he meant to ask me…is there something wrong with your shoulder?

what’s amazing is i had forgotten about my shoulder. so i said, no, i don’t think so.

he asks me if i’m sure. because his right shoulder had been really aching the last couple of days and he had wondered if my shoulder was hurting.

i’m still thinking, nooo…i have no idea…when i remember oh yeah, i had a shoulder injury that i am adamantly denying the existence of. so i say, actually it is hurt, and i tell him about it. he says i should really get it checked out and we continue on to other topics, never acknowledging if it might be unusual for someone to psychically pick up someone’s ailment from a continent away.

well, today i fucked it pretty badly and still, i honestly feel this injury was a warning. i knew i should tell him about it.

so he’s at work and we’re im-ing, and i’m telling him about it and he’s slowly freaking out. he’s telling me me how i have to be careful and i should take the injury more seriously. i’m telling him that i am, and i truly believe i am serious, because otherwise i wouldn’t have told him about it. he’s getting worked up but he’s so polite about it, and he’s at work juggling customers and wanting talk about this and i think he might have snapped at someone for browsing for too long because he was trying to get back on. finally he just calls. he’s kind of laughing and himself when he calls but he’s serious. he says he’d thought about it before if there’s anything i could possibly do that could make him mad and he’d decided he couldn’t think of anything, but that i’d managed to find something that makes him mad, by not taking better care of myself. he’s laughing but serious and i’m laughing but serious, and it was this thing where we’d finally broken through another barrier for a small but vital victory, my fear that he might demand that i be perfect replaced with an insight that this man is happy when he’s taking care of me.

i’m taking you seriously, i told him. everything you’re saying, i’m taking it seriously.

well well well…

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i was playing basketball today and i could already feel it was going to be a weird day.

the little hispanic guy was at me again, insisting on giving me a hug. even while we played, i think he grabbed me too hard at one point, trying to hug me from behind and i had to buck him off. because I have a massive bruise on my right wrist where he was pinning my arms. i ended up saying i didn’t want him to guard me after we beat his team. he asked me why and i said, because you’re a pervert. i think i was also worried about how physical he was. we went up for a rebound at the same time and i got bumped, and it was one of those things where I got flipped so I was parallel to the ground, and the moment it happened, I knew my legs were spun out from under me and I was going to land on my back. I was able to twist just enough so my left arm took the brunt of the fall, but it was scary. it knocked the wind out of me. of course, i got up right away because i really believe you can’t give a negative reality too much time or opportunity to set in.

i guarded the fast asian kid who wears goggles instead, and i sagged off because i knew the guy making the inbound pass would see him and make the lazy pass in, giving me an easy steal. i saw him see the guy standing in the key and i knew he wasn’t even going to look to see where i was so i jumped as the ball left his hands, a clean, easy steal.

but then something kind of terrible happened. my shoulder, which has been annoyingly popping out and back in the last few months when i raise my arm too fast or when i catch a high pass one-handed, popped out. and for the first time in my life, it didn’t pop back in. it felt like my deltoid had gotten twisted so my shoulder couldn’t get back into the socket. i was holding my arm and trying to figure out which way i would have to jerk it to push it back in, but i couldn’t and i was calmly freaking out because any injury on the basketball court means they call in the “doctor,” and i didn’t want to see the dark dc. this encounter needed to be avoided at all costs. yet the pain was so intense and i was honestly more worried about preventing this encounter.

fuck it hurt. i couldn’t bend my arm or lift it, but somehow, i pushed it back in with a pop. then i shook it out and kept playing. i couldn’t really lift my arm for a while and had no strength, but after a few minutes, my arm did come back to life and make the game-winning shot. a driving bank shot from the right which was an unusual shot for me in and of itself. but i’m glad it ended the game, though i must not have taken it very seriously because i stayed and played another and then went and did some light weights to try to strengthen the areas around my shoulder. but in hindsight, i realize i basically dislocated my shoulder and it got locked out of socket, then i had to pop it back in manually, which is kind of serious, though a little lethal weapon, but without the mel-gibson feather-mullet. i saw a shoulder dislocation happen to a guy on the court once and he was on the floor crying so they had to call the paramedics. i didn’t really think about how serious it was until i was in such pain tonight, i managed to sit through an entire movie and have no recollection of a good hour of it because it was so distracting. i don’t know why i didn’t realize how much pain i was really in.

i have to rest it. it’s a little scary, what happened. it made me realize again how my will is stronger than my body, and i have to be careful because i have an incredible capacity to ignore physical pain, which can be detrimental to my health. i think this is something i really have to start seriously considering.

on a different note, why’s everyone staring at me and commenting that i got tan? i think i look different and people can tell there’s something different about me, but they seem to relate it to the tone of my skin. even when that guy ben, whom i’ve never met, commented on me being tan as though he was surprised that i’d gotten so tan…there’s something they’re seeing that they don’t seem to quite know what they’re seeing, and i can’t figure out what it is.

something is happening today. the energy is everywhere.

the problem is not that hillary is a woman. the problem is that she’s a scorpio.

i met an artist in london who didn’t understand the power of her own paintings.

some believe in the power of 2.

some believe in the power of 3.

i believe in the power of 9.

so where does that leave us?

some people create their realities. some people scare themselves into creating disappointing realities. some people don’t believe that reality exists. some people can find things but have not learned how to hold on to them. some people can sit in one place and make the mountains move to them. some people should work harder studying the other team before the fourth quarter. some people need to decide if they’re playing to not lose or playing to win.

i am not some people. i am me. but does it really matter who i am, as much as what i am?

last week we were looking at a canary. the gemini said, i just hate it when i see birds in cages.

no one responded. he said again, more quietly to himself, like in pet stores, i hate seeing birds caged up.

i think he figured no one was listening but i was and i understood what he meant. we geminis are birds in cages, always wondering what it would mean to spring free. he looked up and was surprised to meet my eyes and see me smiling. i quickly looked away. i’m careful about not getting involved.

maybe all this is just one big distraction keeping me from having the conversation i really should be having.

everything. is everything

we took an early flight to london, then a four hour drive to mersea, the island town where he’s from. i like that he’s an island boy. we stayed with his mother and her husband. they were a really cute couple, very comfortable life companions. i met his younger brother ian, and had a nice english roast dinner that was pretty fantastic. i was a little shy but families tend to like me so it was okay and i was comfortable. i was ridiculously excited inside when his mom brought out photo albums while we were cleaning up. my god, he was a beautiful child.

we retired to the den where we watched bbc and talked of politics and extreme sports. seriously. his mother insisted i try some ginger ale with my whiskey, but it was warm so…you can imagine. i offered some to david and he feigned enthusiasm and said, mmmmm…that’s lovely. later that night, he asked me if i really enjoyed ginger ale with whiskey and i said, no, his mother had been so excited about it that i wanted to be polite. he said he was glad i told him because it saved me from 30 years of him putting ginger ale in my whiskey.

we left the next day after a huge breakfast of bread, ham, cheeses, and meat pies, the experience probably giving me a lifelong love for milk tea. we headed to the home of one of his best childhood friends and his wife in the town of colchester.

the place felt deep in the country, and we pulled up next to a chicken pen. i kind of really enjoyed that. ben greeted us and noticed we were tan. and you’re really tan!, was the first thing he said me, which i thought funny and bizarre because he said it in a way that sounded like he knew me and was surprised i’d gotten so tan since the last time he saw me. he was the artistic type, the guy who belonged on a beach, whose strength radiates out in a resoundingly masculine way. i could tell he was also a gemini. his wife, kaz, was bright and airy like a butterfly caught in a windstorm, gently infusing her environment with electricity. their house was from the 16th century, held together with rich, fossilizing beams and new discoveries of hung knick knacks scattered around every room. it was like some magical treehouse antique store, where discovered objects allow you to travel to your past. b
ut then at night, they told us the room where we’d be sleeping used to be where they stored the bodies from the bubonic plague. i was kind of amused by that turn of events.

we went out where we introduced everyone to sake bombs. i efficiently got a room full of strangers drunk. and then i watched them and i tried to understand them.

ben is a vegetarian but he eats seafood. david thought kaz was a vegetarian but she had mentioned to me that she eats meat. i’m not sure what all this means. ian is somewhat hardheaded, but he’s soft at heart. i would be surprised if he wasn’t a good person. he brought up his exgirlfriend and everyone kind of groaned. he still holds a candle for her, and it made me really hope she’s a good person so she will be kind to him.

there was more beer at the restaurant, and then on to a drum & bass club that was overrun by teenagers. my favorite was the fat one in glasses with the bouncing tits. he looked like that kid in stand by me, but i was kind of proud of him, for getting on that dance floor and having the courage to follow his friends and try to grind a girl.

then something happened at the club, something small but resounding. i can’t figure out the energy of this town, so i didn’t get involved. there was something else there, the overlap of another reality, and then i saw something that i probably shouldn’t have seen. but i didn’t want to get involved so i detached myself from it. i couldn’t believe when david became sad later. i was determined to hide my hurt, even though a person always knows when there’s a room inside someone else into which they may never enter, often for their own good.

i was kind of relieved to go the next day. not because i didn’t have an amazing time and enjoy the company, but because i didn’t want to think about things anymore.

we drove the hour and a half to london without really speaking. i think i was probably the creator of that, since i was deep in debate with myself and wanted to sort out my head alone.

the next few days were more stable. i met his newlywed older brother and his wife and headed to their adorable home for a bbq. again, efficiently got a room full of strangers blitzed with sake bombs. they were amazing people, very funny and easy-going. i learned that when you toast someone, you look them directly in the eye and do not waver.

everything was going well, when i enountered david’s saturn-conjunct-moon (there are only two people i’ve met who have this and generously, they’ve both taught me a lot about this). i confronted it visualizing the mood-slaying of the princess of swords, the image of myself i decided to go into this trip with. (these were the symbols that helped me visualize what energies were at play, not like i treat my life like dungeons and dragons or some shit). what this means is basically, some men are so afraid of or conflicted by their emotional vulnerability, that they can be very emotionally reactive to defend it. often this comes from a hard, demanding male authoritative figure in childhood who caused a person to repress his emotions, so that the handling of emotions is inconsistent and can often come in an outburst of strong emotional sometimes inappropriate reactions. sometimes if the mother had the dominant role in the household, it would signify the mother as the source. regardless, emotions can be repressed until something triggers a past trauma that causes the person to roar like someone snuck up on their behind with a hot cattle prod.

in this case, i think he was feeling sad about me leaving and about potentially having to miss my birthday because of work, but he got sulky andwhen i tried to open up the subject and he didn’t want to talk about it, i just ended up purposely ignored it. which caused a quiet, restrained argument in our favorite place, the subway. i told him to relax, that i promise we’ll talk but we should do it where we’re free to talk. i laughed and told him everything was okay and he looked relieved because i wouldn’t lie. back at the hotel, i explained to him, just because i’m not highly emotive, doesn’t mean i don’t care. you can’t try to provoke me to check if i get emotional as proof that i care, because it’s just going to make me mad. i told him that it would be easy for me to get emotional and we could go head to head, but the reason i try to stay calm and stay focused that we’re on the same team, is so i don’t get mad and say or do anything that can’t be taken back.

i told him that if he relaxes, we can work things out, but he can’t get emotionally reactive to the point where he’s completely wrapped up in being upset, because his being upset doesn’t change the fact that i’m upset. you can’t bully a person out of being upset, i told him. but we can talk about it and figure out what happened together so that we can get back on the same page.

i think he was embarrassed and i really didn’t want him to be because everything was okay. i know sometimes with emotions, we just freak out.

i ask him, remember at the beginning of the trip, i told you we were going to have a big argument two days before i leave? yes, he says. it’s true. i wasn’t really serious when i said it, just a throwaway comment, but somewhere i had a feeling that two days before would be when the sadness over the separation would hit. and here we were, two days before i was to leave, having the necessary conflict to achieve more understanding.

i think a woman can help heal some aspects of this type of trauma by allowing a man to back his emotions down safely, once he realizes that he feels exposed, so that when he calms down he can hopefully understand what happened happened in a safe, protected place and that no one has judged him. i really think if men had a safe place to feel more comfortable expressing their vulnerability, insecurities and their perceived weaknesses, they would feel so much better about themselves, giving them more inner integrity to become much better leaders.

the rest of the trip was good, even when we said goodbye. but then i could already feel my memory loss creep in once we were separated in the airport, and it only deepened once i was nestled inside the safe confines of my home base. what is anything in this life, but part cold, stone reality and part projected illusion? if you focus hard enough, can you interchange the two?

when i’m alone, the question i really face myself with is…am i 100% willing to commit to a belief that magic exists?

i’ve lost an hour to distraction, staring at a picture of a gay man’s perfect abs and chest on facebook while contemplating brain hemispheres and the perception of time.

is that strange?

I’m back!

A steady diet of processed meat, chips, beer, milk tea and pastries, and I’ve lost weight. Go figure. 3 lbs closer to a 4 pack…

People have been asking if I’ve secretly gotten married.

Wouldn’t that be funny.

Over the years, I’ve come to an understanding that the things that matter most to me, I keep the most private. I’ll even be seemingly dismissive or deflective about something that I care a lot about, because things and people that are special to me are cherished with an almost transcendental quality, and I don’t want other people coming in and destroying the innocence of that, whether intentional or unintentional. If something means a lot to me, I protect it from the prying minds and hands of others. I didn’t understand it until I read about Venus in the 12th house, which really helped me come to peace with it and recognize what things matter to me. Venus in the 12th means secret relationships. I used to be freaked out because I read a lot about this placement that talked about it meaning affairs and a life of tortured unhappiness in romance because of idealism and its ensuing disillusionment. I’ve never cheated and am morally uncomfortable with the idea of carrying on with someone attached, but I think the way I output this energy is I keep my romantic relationships and feelings a heavily protected secret. If I’m idealistic in romance, then let the two worlds be seperate so the light of reality may never shatter it, when dreams can coexist just as well as reality on different planes. I tend to hide my true feelings with how deeply I hide in direct proportion to how strongly I feel. But if someone can find me and give me a safe space to show what secrets I hold, I’ll let them into a private world full of rich, passionate feelings that’s not tainted by anything from the outside.

Last week I wrote that the problem with a person who is deceptively outgoing or aloof as a way to protect their internal shyness is that they won’t be able to draw in other people who are shy like themselves. It really did make me sad because someone who has the ability to see and understand the real, private you will have a hard time realizing you’re there through your smokescreen. But sometimes, a person will just naturally slip through or disable your defenses just because of who they are. It’s my sword in the stone theory. Arthur pulled the sword from the stone because he was the right person. A person will pull the thorn from your heart when he is the right person.

I can wait.

I’m in Amsterdam again and whereas the last time I was here, I was getting hailed on and wearing almost all of the clothes I brought at the same time in layers, the weather here is like LA–my first day it was in the 90’s. It’s been beautiful all week.

I really made the right choice coming. It came down to the 11th hour, but everything fell into place and the right door opened, which was the door I was hoping for, though I don’t think I ever let myself really imagine how good it would be.

I believe there are four ways people can connect — mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically. If you find someone you connect seamlessly with on all four, you may have found your other half.