Echo

writing is just mental masturbation

i think all writers are perverts.

i’ve got my lights dimmed. i’ve got my candles lit. i’ve got air’s late night tales playing in my right ear. i don’t know why it’s like that. why music always feels so good when it comes through the right. i can feel it more.

in these quiet moments when i’m alone, when i can spend time relaxing with myself, it’s such a state of ultimate peace. i can feel everything, every single waft of emotion that floats through me, the colors of them, the spectrums, the textures. i have an extensive emotional range and really enjoy that.

my friend michelle said something brilliant to me the other day. if you think of people’s emotional range as a box of crayons…some people have 3, some have 16, some have a huge boxful. even if you have a huge boxful of crayons, you have to understand that some people only have 3 crayons, and that’s all they have to color with.

so is it worthwhile to spend the time trying to teach someone with 3 crayons all the infinite colors there are in the emotional spectrum? it’s like teaching a blind person the meanings of sight. you have to keep searching for signifiers, common perceptions of ideas, so that you can have a relative point to explain a perception in a way that someone who has no understanding can begin to understand.

in secret, i have been teaching my autistic brother how he can express and feel love, to not be afraid. if you have seen him and how far he’s come in life, you can see him changing and growing. they think that people with autism can’t grasp abstract ideas. but my brother understands love. he tells me the pain of loss is when he is crying in his heart. “because men don’t cry on the outside.” my brother suffers so greatly from fear of loss that he is constantly looking for clues that he is loved. when you feel him being emotionally needy, you have to give him love. you have to tell him how handsome is, and how interesting he is but more than anything you can hug him and tell him you love him. all that matters is that it is truthful down to the very last bit of your soul, because he can smell any hint of insincerity or distraction, which he’ll feel as another betrayal. you have to feel an actual transference of energy. but the glow on his face when he feels these things and knows you’re sincere, it is utter gratitude so corporeal, it becomes an entity, a force. if you can truly see how an act of pure kindness can brighten a soul energy, you have to let yourself experience this. you will believe in god. that by nurturing something pure and giving it unadulterated love from the deepest reaches of your soul, when it’s accepted by another person, you’ll have such a feeling of immense peace, you’ll get a glimpse of what the Truth is, behind all this illusion that is our lives. you’ll see that’s all it is, what’s in the darkness behind the scenes, this stage of ours, this drama. it’s what connects us all, our ultimate connection to each other ,this utter acceptance of who we each are at the core. That peacefulness, that integrity, that wholeness, is what love is…when you let yourself embrace it and become it. it’s everything…the thing that is the truth of everyone and everything.

somewhere on the battlefield are the wounded, those who have been cut off from love or have forgotten what it is due to trauma, or have been putting all their energy into holding a black hole of all their anger, rage, sadness and hate so close to their heart, that they fear that opening themselves up to receive will release this negative force into existence. so they won’t be able to accept the very element that would heal them and let them move forward.

then if you ask me if i believe in evil, there absolutely is. they aren’t a part of us, the thing that connects us. they’re souls who have gone rogue and rejected anything that stands for what they can’t have and they are destructive, because they have embraced this embodiment. you really have to be careful out there because there are a lot of those types floating around, so you have to be careful of letting them see that you have higher knowledge of truth and love. they’ve dedicated their life purpose to destroying all that is pure.

i want to say one thing though. i gave it some thought. i think i spent two and a half years in a relationship being an asshole. i mean, the funny thing is that people never feel like i was an asshole. like growing up and in college, i felt like an asshole all the time. this dark, gloomy cloud. but then i have people come back into my life and tell me how much i meant to them, even the sister of one of my friends came up to me at her wedding and thanked me; she said that i got my friend through her freshman year and she would have dropped out of school if it hadn’t been for me, and i think…what? when did this happen? where was i? and i honestly can’t remember. because all i remember was just feeling bad all the time.

so i just got out of a two and a half year relationship, where i’m finding out now from friends that they could tell i wasn’t happy, yet my experience didn’t involve that awareness. i asked why they didn’t tell me and they said, it’s not really our place. i find it incredible that i can spend two and a half years not realizing i wasn’t happy. because i truly thought i was. and it’s not for lack of respect and love for the other person, because i do sincerely cherish him, it was just me…i could be so unhappy, yet not even realize it, which made me feel like i was an asshole all the time. does that make me a dangerous person to be in a relationship with? do i get stuck in situations out of feeling obligated rather than balance and true contentment? i recognize the quality and elements of a person who would be on my level and what i deserve. but i haven’t met people like that. i also know that i’m not ready yet to meet these kinds of people. i know that once my career is at a certain level, once i have shown myself and the universe that i can put in consistent effort to follow my path and work hard at my ambitions, then it will move me into contact with these types of people–those who are ambitious, charismatic, confident, compassionate, successful…lucky. those whose upward momentum carry them to great heights even though their goals are more to have a positive influence on a wider scale versus a thirst for power. i want to meet people who are leaders and percentage-wise, leaders are a terrible minority. someone who knows the responsibility and loneliness that come with being extraordinary.

i guess this is what it’s like, working through your issues. you tell stories, you talk to people, and everything is just a reflection, because you are trying to build a mirror so you can see yourself.

yes, my parents made me feel bad growing up because they were so stressed, that it was hard to take care of me. they just didn’t pay attention. yes, i would say the crisis of my life came when my brother fell out of that tall swivel chair in the kitchen and cracked his head, and i thought he was dying on that floor because he’d hit it on a sharp metal piece of the chair, and i’ll never forget that sound.

crack.

so matter of fact, so unavoidable, so fucked. there was so much blood…so much blood…and my mom was screaming and someone had to call the paramedics, and she didn’t know what to do so she went and grabbed our next door neighbor who was a police officer. the paramedics came and they took my brother to the hospital. i don’t remember what happened after that, i think he was okay. but here’s the thing. one day, he climbed up there and he fell AGAIN. and he cracked his head again. and i thought, oh my god, surely he’s dying this time. and another part of me was screaming, WHO THE FUCK IS IN CHARGE OF THIS CRAZY TRAIN?, as he bled out onto white tiled floors and my mom screamed in the background and i went numb numb numb numb numb numb numb

that’s my crisis. imagine having that scene imbedded into your heart.

(did you know he fell into the deep end of the pool once, and he managed to cling to the edge until my dad finally found him? that boy has a deep, tenacious will to survive)

i realized no one could really take care of us, that everyone else was as lost and helpless as we were. no one fucking pays attention. and now my brother is autistic and has developmental problems and sometimes i wonder if those falls had anything to do with damage to his head, but we’re not allowed to talk about that. and it makes me sad because my little brother is an amazing human being.

FUCK.

why. why do these things happen.

and so i’m searching. for someone who has answers. because these fucking people on this planet sure as shit don’t know how to take care of themselves. and i’m so tired of taking care of everyone and i just wanna know…who has some fucking answers around here. because i really need to know.

by the way, i’m a crazy magnet. crazy people talk to me. i mean, this is the general exchange:

Crazy person: Are you an artist?
Me: No.
Crazy person: A musician?
Me: No.
Crazy person: What do you do?
Me: I work in an office.
Crazy person: What kind of office?
Me: A little tech company doing something that doesn’t contribute anything to the betterment of society.
Crazy person: There’s something about you. You have this energy.
Me: Thank you.
Crazy person: Are you Japanese?
Me: Chinese.
Crazy person: There’s something about you.

And then the rest of the conversation involves them staring at me. maybe they’re not crazy, but they feel a little crazy to me. and a lot of them tend to be homeless. so to be honest, this happens a lot. homeless people, taxi drivers, people in 7-11, starbuck’s, etc…people stop and talk to me like they know me. i think it’s an energy i give off. truthfully, what i think it is, is acceptance. i think i truly appreciate life and people, and so i’m attentive even if i’m creeped out and that’s what they’re feeling. i always look people in the eye, and that connection makes them feel like someone is really seeing them without judgment. i think it’s just acceptance. if you truly appreciate life, you accept all energy.

anyway, so today, i was cornered by a homeless couple who sat at a table next to me at starbuck’s. they didn’t look homeless, just…liberal. the woman came up to me and asked me if i was a smoker. i said no. she turned to the guy and said, see, you made an assumption and you were right. i asked her, were you two just trying to psychically gauge if i’m a smoker? she said, he has a theory that people who don’t smoke have an aura about them, they’re more sensible and stable. she said, you have an energy about you. i said, thank you. they started talking to me about how we’re in a frightening time right now, that our administration is about to make some grave mistakes. he was more lucid, but she started ranting with a story that was about george w. bush’s father and seagramm’s and wine and nazi’s and cuba and communists in china and socialist health care and selling communists nuclear reactors and deals for oil and iran and nuclear warheads and not being cuban american but being american cuban and some great instructor at ucla who did research on soil and the tyranny that makes up china and how our mayor cheats on his wife and lies while he goes off with his girlfriend to mexico where they really take care of their exports while starbucks uses union delivery men and the problem with the three supermarkets–vons, ralphs, albertsons–is they got together and make people work part time so they don’t have to give them insurance and every month and a half they want a union so see these jeans, these jeans are too small for me but i wear them because they’re not made by slaves in africa or china, and i mean, wtf? and i sat there and listened to it all, maintaining eye contact, nodding in agreement, asking thoughtful questions–the same way i would listen to my grandmother when she is lecturing, and the whole time i’m thinking how much i wanna get out of there. and meanwhile, during this rant, her husband would roll his eyes and shout, “LENA! YOU
NEED TO SHUT UP! CAN’T YOU SEE THE POOR GIRL IS TRYING TO WORK?” “I SAID LENA, I’M CUTTING YOU OFF. NO, YOU’RE DONE. STOP TALKING.” “LENA! YOU’RE GETTING OUT OF CONTROL!” i contemplated if i just got up and walked away mid-sentence, if these people would kill me. but seriously, these are the types of experiences i have when i’m out and about.

i got up to leave and the man took my hand and said, i’ve lived a full life and i’ve traveled the world. i’ve seen a lot of things, a lot of things…but i can tell there’s something different about you so i wanna say one thing before you go. you said something interesting, that what you do for work does nothing for society. you’ve got awareness. whatever you end up doing with your life, just take care of your connection with the universe and do the right things to help everyone. too many people have no idea what’s going on and they don’t know what a dangerous time this is because they’re not paying attention, but people like you need to honor the universe and do its work by taking care of the rest of the people. and with that, he let go of my hand.

i have to be honest, i meet a lot of strangers and it’s never initiated by me because i’m very shy about initiation and i tend to be self-contained. both men and women like to come up to me and talk to me and sometimes that’s a little unnerving. most of them are nice, polite but they always look like they’re trying to figure me out or figure out where they know me from, or they’re searching for something in my eyes. a lot of them like to casually touch my arm, shoulder etc which weirds me out sometimes but i try not to think about it. sometimes i like the instant intimacy. sometimes i’m wary. it’s always a mystery, why people approach each other out of the blue. what brings a set of people together while the rest serve as background. i don’t understand why people come up to me, or why people get so intimate so quickly with me. there’s always a struggle for what to do when it happens because there’s half of me that’s so timid and half of me that loves danger and the promise of adventure and is open to whatever clue or message i may receive, but usually i try to be a good judge of who not to let get too close. it’s always been one of the reasons i think i like to travel…i’m approached by a lot of characters, and through these experiences i learn. sometimes i feel like it’s crazy, but then i think maybe that’s my own projected fear, that when i talk to people and interact with people at this level and seem to know so much about them, that they think i’m crazy, too.