Echo

Secretly what I was really doing in Europe was walking around, smiling at people, spreading happiness. It’s like tapping people with a happy wand. They do a double-take and then they smile back in a way that opens up their energy. These are smiles that spread into their chests, radiating out of them, so you get a little something more than what you started with. It’s like suddenly being in on an inside joke. Sometimes I would literally be skipping down the street, I had such a surplus of happy. It got to be infectious and people would stop to have conversations with me.

Then I got back to the US today, and I helped this woman with her heavy suitcases, even grabbing her young child who was about to get hit by a suitcase he was pulling on, lifting him away from danger. She had plenty of opportunities but she never said thank you, walking away without ever acknowledging me.

I think some people take kindness for granted because it’s never saved their life.

I think sometimes, all anyone ever asks for is just someone who believes in them.

It’s a beautiful thing.

Home.

Was surprised that I only had one message (from an asshole trying to sell me something). I guess people have sensed I wanted to be alone with only my closest connections.

The airport was infuriating. The packed shuttles made me think of the concentration camp, how this wasn’t even bad. It could be so much worse. But the terminal was a zoo and they lost my bag. I was most upset because I was trying to let Brian know which terminal I was in but my phone wasn’t working, and then they told us they would confiscate phones if they saw us using them.

Had flashes of the things I’d felt in Germany, the scenes they try so hard to hide. I put those thoughts away.

I didn’t panic about them losing my bag. Maybe I had accounted for this unconsciously by accidentally leaving my most important things at home, or keeping them on me. I actually expected that side of the universe would pull some shit like that. If the other side of the universe wants to hold my bag hostage, so be it. I’ve got an extra toothbrush. And everything else. Remember, I like having two of everything.

Brian was really happy to see me. He said the place had felt so lonely without me. That felt good. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in our own worlds, we forget there are people around us. I insisted on buying him dinner and we ate it hanging out in the living room.

It was actually less stress to not have my suitcase, so I didn’t have it sitting on my floor begging to be unpacked. While he went out to meet some coworkers at a bar, I took a candlelit hot shower. There is nothing better than coming home and taking a hot shower in your own bathroom, then getting into your own bed with the sheets cooling your hot skin. Secretly, I wonder if I travel just to heighten the pleasure of coming home.

I started getting lots of messages and emails the last few days. It seemed that behind all the communication, there was a question of–was I coming home. I think people were afraid that I would stay, or that the I that they knew wasn’t coming back. It made me think about how there’s something about me that makes people sometimes have an underlying feeling that I’m someone who can suddenly disappear one day.

I was asked that this week. If I’ve ever had a relationship with someone and then just walked out without looking back. At first I thought, what a strange question. Then I thought, hmmm…he must know. I thought, yes. Once. And then I realized, it’s not just once. It’s every time. I guess I never wanted to admit that people can tell.

I think it’s important to commit to the decisions you make, because if you can’t stand by them, your weakness ends up hurting people more. But when I don’t want to be in a situation anymore I leave, and I don’t tend to look back.

But it’s a complex question. I do look back. I wouldn’t have left if I was sure, and I would come back, if I was sure. But I won’t vacillate out in the open where the other person can see it or feel it, because that’s how things get muddled and you make mistakes that hurt people more in the long run. But people…I think about people every day. I have dreams where we run into each other and catch up. So in a way, while I don’t look back, in a private part of me, in a sentimental way, I never let go of anyone. It doesn’t make it better, it just is what it is.

So back to the disappearing. Maybe I need to change that part of my energy. If a guy meets me and likes me but thinks at any moment, I’ll walk away and he’ll never get to explore this intriguing “What if,” he’s going to come on really really strong, convinced that this is fate and destiny. Because they need to have a strong enough faith and will to fight to get me to stay so they can see what this is. Of course, not everything is fate and destiny. You really only have one life partner, though many, many soulmates and a lot of soulmate work you can do efficiently without hopping into bed. Or maybe it just scares me because when people start talking this way without having gotten to know me, I just don’t believe them or trust them. You come on too strong and fall too hard too fast, and I seriously start digging for character references. Because it makes me think something’s wrong. Either you’re crazy, or I’m being manipulated but either way, it could take you a lifetime to prove to me that something is real.

If I could change my energy to become more balanced and less with one foot out the door, these guys (at least the sane, stable ones) wouldn’t have to come out so strong with their first step in a way that they can’t back down. If they could come out in a restrained, friendly manner that’s not like they’re trying to devour me whole with their passion, with a little coaxing, I would meet them halfway. And it would give me more space to want to show them my world and who I am, instead of being terrified that someone unscrupulous (or worse…boring) is going to catch me and limit my autonomy.

Last night here and I’m ready to go home. I didn’t do much today, just wandered around reflecting on the last two weeks.

In hindsight, the universe gave me what I’ve been asking for, even though it’ll be a long time before I’ve tested it enough to be convinced. At the very least, I learned that possibilities are always there, but you can’t force them. The things you need come when the time is right, when you’ve done the work to get yourself to that place where you can receive those things.

Byt had told me to be careful of the beer out here because it’s delicious, and I’m going to have to agree. I’ve never been much of a drinker, but there really is something amazing about it. I went to 3 of the beer halls and my favorite beer is Spaten. It’s definitely time to send me and my beer belly home.

I also can’t wait to get home and have vegetables. The food out there is meat and potatoes and it’s salty. I think all I’m gonna want for a while is salads and fresh vegetables to detox this alcohol, salt and badness out of my system. I also can’t wait to get back into the gym and start feeling good. I love living out of hotels, but it’s hard to be inactive athletically.

I think this trip was one of the most significant of my life thus far, as a means to understand myself and reflect on where I’ve been and by default, where I’m going. It opened up new possibilities and reminded me that I am capable of so many things, but it also made me aware that I will have to make a choice and a commitment. I’m terrified to go home and face my very real financial situation, but it’s one of those things…dealing with money or the lack thereof is a part of life, a part of learning how to survive in this reality. I just have to deal with it and that’s the bottom line.

I’m definitely looking forward to being in familiar surroundings again and planning out my next step. Thanks, Europe, for the hospitality and the reflection. Give me some time to reverse the damage you’ve done to my body.

I was listening to Morcheeba’s Dive Deep obsessively the days before I left. I just put it on while I took a nap. As I was falling asleep, I started thinking about soundtracks of our lives…how different songs represent who we are at a given time or where we’re going. And then I starting hearing the lyrics to Enjoy the Ride crowd into my consciousness and realized I’d never even paid enough attention to actually hear lyrics, yet obviously, it must have been a means of support and encouragement in my head when I set out on this journey because this album was the album I chose to see me off. And yesterday, I had a conversation with someone exactly about this, about how I need to stop chasing shadows and just enjoy how my life unfolds in unpredictable but exciting ways.

Shut the gates at sunset
After that you can’t get out
You can see the bigger picture
Find out what it’s all about
You’re open to the skyline
You won’t want to go back home
In a garden full of angels
You will never be alone

Stop chasing shadows
Just enjoy the ride

lies.

i’ve got a whole deck of cards of them.

oh my god.

it’s like every day out here.

every day is a wtf day.

all the channels in this hotel are in german, though i found two hardcore porn channels, twice more than in holland. i just saw five girls sucking off one guy in a pool.

sometimes i get so mad at other women when they do things that make mockeries of themselves.

Julia says (2:11 PM):
i took a picture of my shadow in the gas chamber and it really freaks me out

AZ says (2:11 PM):
let me see

Julia says (2:11 PM):
i don’t have my card reader. but i’ll send it when i get back

Julia says (2:12 PM):
it really scares me

AZ says (2:13 PM):
fucking germans

Julia says (2:13 PM):
i still can’t understand the scale of what they did

Julia says (2:13 PM):
like…you see the pictures and you just can’t comprehend that human beings did that

AZ says (2:15 PM):
just picture that experience of getting on a train with thousands of others getting dumped at a camp that separated families then told you had to go take a shower and got gassed to death. and all the strong men had to dig out mass graves

Julia says (2:16 PM):
that’s the unbelievable thing. they built the gas chambers to look like showers, with prop shower heads and tile and everything. they went to lengths to make the people believe they were really taking showers. like they didn’t just dump people into these rooms the way they would nonchalantly take them out behind the bunker and shoot them in the back of the neck…they felt it was important to TRICK these people to the extent of putting in fake showerheads. i don’t GET it

Julia says (2:16 PM):
it’s so sick

Julia says (2:17 PM):
like what kind of fucking idea did someone manage to infect people with?

Julia says (2:17 PM):
was it just hitler was so evil? or did he just sell himself to some evil force and speak for it? and if so, is that evil force out there, just waiting for someone powerful enough to let it back into our world?

AZ says (2:19 PM):
it was a supernatural force that i think still resides on earth and he tried to enter the bush administration but was unsuccessful

Julia says (2:19 PM):
oh fuck

the window of my hotel faces the windows of the hotel across the street.

as i was hanging out the window watching the people on the street below, i looked up to see that directly across from me, a very obese naked woman was facing the window, changing.

i think it broke something in my head.

I feel like I’ve reached a place where I don’t understand anything anymore.

I went to the Dachau concentration camp. It’s the first camp the SS set up to house political prisoners, and even though they didn’t use their gas chamber for mass killing, they still treated people atrociously. We had a guide who was really detached and didn’t seem to care, so it was hard to process everything on a human level. It’s hard to understand how a person survives in that kind of devastatingly sadistic and depraved environment, and how it was that a world allows this kind of existence to happen.

When we first got there, the tour guide asked our group why we wanted to see the camp. No one was willing to answer. Finally, this woman who was part of a mother/daughter combo from Pennsylvania pointed to her daughter and said, “She wanted to see it.”

“Anyone else?” the guide asked. We all remained silent. “So you’re all here for the same reason?”
Yeah, I thought. Because of that girl.

I wonder why it’s so hard to admit you want to see the site of the most gruesome trainwreck in history. It’s just important for people to understand and remember.

Most of the buildings are torn down and some of the things have been replaced by replicas. They’ve taken away enough things so that this place is a memorial, a symbol that will allow survivors to remember and mourn, but not exact and authentic enough to retain the most threatening of its evil power.

The only thing that had really bad feelings was the gas chamber. It has no windows so when you walk in, you’re stuck with it, all the energy in the room.

Even the room where they piled the corpses. Empty. You couldn’t imagine what they were doing here if you didn’t see the photo on the wall.

I couldn’t understand. I saw the pictures. And they were unbelievable. But the way the only things that remain are these mostly empty buildings filled with sunlight…they buried a lot of it. I couldn’t feel the energies to understand what had happened, how it was that 43,000 people could have died in the place where I was wandering, living a daily existence worse than anything they had ever imagined hell to be like. It was weird to stand in a place of great suffering but still not know how it was this happened, how evil could have exerted its will in such a far-reaching way.

There’s something about this country that makes you feel like your mind is in a fog, like it clouds your memory.

The sadistic potential in man is not something to underestimate. Ever.

You have to be careful talking about these things in Germany. They are sensitive about it.

A couple of nights ago I was on the subway late at night in Berlin, and these punks were drunk off their asses and violent. This one guy with piercings and a mohawk kept stalking up and down the aisles, intermittently beating on this guy while this strung out looking girl with short, spiky hair kept screaming, “Nein! Nein!” and trying to grab him as he kept kicking the guy in the face. The guy being beat was bigger but he just sat there with his eyes downcast, body hunched and took it.

Another one of their friends, a bony guy in an army vest with a dirty blond goatee, was walking from one end of the car to the other, thrusting this big, white rat into the faces of girls to make them scream and cower. As he came down the aisle, he did it to the girls sitting next to me, and they screamed, huddling together. I kept calmly small-talking to the guy next to me and projected a feeling of being emotionally bored with the scene. He skipped over us and kept going. If he had messed with me, I was prepared mentally for a fight to the death. But for whatever reason, he didn’t see me. Not having full access to my emotions makes interpersonal relationships difficult sometimes, but every once in a while, it helps me be a pretty calm and aware projector in dangerous situations.

So then guy who had been beating the other guy got up and started pacing the car. He was looking for trouble. The drunk Nein girl was screaming at people to stop him. No one made eye contact. He kicks this piece of glass next to the door with a shutteringly realistic violence. An old woman in the back somewhere gasps. He starts screaming at everyone in German, then he kicked the glass again, shattering it. Everyone in that section jumped up and crowded towards the back of the car. In my my head, I directed all my energy into the knowledge that I knew nothing was going to happen. That this was just another cliched moment in a play.

When we got to the next stop, everyone jumped up and got out of the car. The police must have been notified of the trouble because they were in front of our exact car, waiting to get on.

I dropped it out of my mind, just thinking that if I still remembered it when I next blogged, I would mention it.

It wasn’t until later that night, walking home from dinner, that it dawned on me that what happened had been a scary situation.

Last night a surprise snowstorm descended upon Munich. From my window, I saw the giant flakes swirl, at times making me feeling like I was inside a magical snowglobe, at others, like I was watching schools of fish swim in one direction then the other, so alive, playfully chasing each other with the vivacity of children released on holiday.

I woke to find the rooftops blanketed by fine white powder…pristine.

I feel this is a good sign.

sometimes you only believe in the size of the universe
once you’ve felt an emptiness inside you expand into its own and give birth to alien life.