Echo

I can do bad in the light all by myself.

Or I can do good in the dark with you.

Announcements!

First of all, we’ve broken a record. At 160 posts, the most posts in a month, this nearly laps the previous high number of 87, from March, 2008–the month I left my job and went to Europe for no particular reason, outside of the fact I could. The next closest was the 80 of November, 2004, the most poetic time of my life, the month of dramatic rainstorms and a raging pool of inner poetry. I locked myself in my room after work every night, playing guitar by candlelight as the wind whipped the rain through the open patio door. That was also the year a woman fell in love with me.

This tells me August was quite an inspired month. That tells me Fall will be quite a season.

Team. We are on the brink of something exciting. Those with your eyes open have found plenty of evidence of something more going on behind the scenes. Management was automated for a while, but now there is more conscious leadership. Now is a time of celebration, but soon will be a time of great concentration and effort, but hard-earned rewards. Have faith. Everything will be something gained. Look for it. Find the positive benefit in every moment, situation, interaction or purpose, focus on it and move forward. We are building something right now, and you are all very important.

I have 2 days to pack up all my stuff. !!!!

courage to believe the unknown is better than an unfulfilling known, because you will make it so. courage to understand the respect of one’s dreams is essential in the journey towards the respect of self. courage to have conviction that there is more beyond that which is seen and felt. finally, wisdom to see the connections.

the wings that will bring you to great heights.

someday, two feet ahead, you will round the corner and there you are.

sometimes, you just want to see some humanity.

gemini

bright eyed mercurial child
a million stars of atlantis sky
bursting from the bottom of the ocean
can suddenly.
be still.
wave pools ripple silver animation
a naked kind of innocence
one look and she’s inside of you

will you come for the ride?

incorrigible sleepwalker
pretty little mindfucker
with mouth and hands that haunt
such an awkward, fragile creature
this one will never be caught.

she’s poetry in motion
compares to storms and ocean
heart like a giant
but all around…flatline.
magnetic polarity
minor cult infamy
an ephemeral symphony (when the mood strikes)
a smile that hits your tickle zone like a silk-gloved bitch slap.
the truth is in the eyes.

she is
passionate storms on black, endless nights
she is
forest earth rich with rainwater
she is
midnight to dawn in another place and time
she is
never the same person.

and then sometimes…

in the shadows of 3am…

just two bright eyes peering out from darkness
and the silence of the moon, breathing in time with the ocean.

peter

This is how I met Peter.

I was sitting at a local pub around the corner from where I’m going to be living in Seattle, trying it out as spot for me to write, a home away from home. I was engrossed in my free-write with my earphones in, and he came up to the counter wearing a blue service shirt and a blue cap. I couldn’t tell if he was hip or if he was delivering something. He was friends with the bartenders so he would talk to them, then leave, then come back again. I never caught him looking at me, but I just had a feeling I was on his radar.

When I was packing up my things to leave, he came up and asked the bartender if he heard about what happened to Tom, the Bears fan. The bartender said he heard he went to the Seahawks game and got pickpocketed. He told him Tom was wearing sweatpants and it just fell out of his pocket. But someone did spend his money.

I had taken out one of my earphones to listen to the story as I packed, because it sounded interesting. But I felt I needed to address one detail of the story. “Who wears sweatpants to a public event?”

He turns and looks at me, sizing up where I’m coming from. “Like if you’re coming from the gym,” he said.

C’mon, man. Sweatpants are never okay at public events.

He starts telling this story that starts with, “I lost my wallet once when I was living in Minneapolis…,” but he’s kind of looking at the guy next to him, not me as he’s talking, so I go back to packing my stuff, tuning him out. He gets to the end of his story and says, “Did you even hear any of my story at all?”

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were talking to me,” I said.

He says he lost his wallet in Minneapolis, but that day, two Peter Jaeger’s had lost their wallets, so someone mailed the other Peter’s to him. He said it still had money in it. He mailed it to the other Peter.

“Did you ever find yours?,” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Don’t you think it’s unusual that two people with the same name living in the same city lost their wallet on the same day?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“That’s gotta be magic.”

“That’s definitely something going on.”

Then he turns, leaves.

*****

I went into the bar this morning to do some writing. Peter’s working behind the bar. He asks me if I’m gonna get some work done. He’s seen me in here every day on my computer. “Yes,” I tell him. “Last day!”

“What do you mean last day?”

“I’m flying home today, and then I’ll be moving up here in 2 weeks.”

“Where’s home?”

“Los Angeles.”

He tells me about his experience going to Los Angeles. He asks me why Seattle and I tell him that I’ve always wanted to live here, and there’s no better time for me to do it than now. He asks where I’m living and I tell him, down the street. He said he lived in this area as well when he first moved out, and it’ll be a great experience. He’s a midwest guy, Big 10, Iowa vs my Michigan. He’s the one who tells me I’m going to be very happy because this is the exact bar in Seattle where the Michigan Alumni gather every Saturday. He tells me I chose the right place.

He apologizes and says he never got my name.

“Julia,” I say, shaking his hand. “And you’re Peter Jaeger, who lost his wallet in Minneapolis.”

Yes, I am, he said. And we fall back into a conversation about that story, which I love. I tell him he never knows…he might still find his wallet yet.

As I’m leaving, I mention how I’m really excited about this city, how it’s a completely new beginning. I don’t even know a single person here.

He pretends to be offended. You know one person now, he said.

That made me happy. Slowly, laying down roots.

I went to the Les Nubians show on Friday and they seated me next to a handsome, lightskinned guy who was also by himself. He introduced himself is David. This is the 3rd David I’ve met this week in Seattle. Are we doing that again? I would prefer not to. He tells me Les Nubians, like him, are from Camaroon. The show is good but he talks to me through most of it, telling me about Seattle, and how the dating scene is tough because people are kind of standoffish–they don’t really talk. He says that’s why I should give him my number at the end of the show, so we can keep in touch.

As I told Brian last night when I got home, this is a new era for me. He’d once had a talk with me about not giving out my number because what ends up happening is I regret it 89% of the time. Sometimes I regret it as I’m giving someone my number because I don’t really want to give it to them, but I feel put on the spot. But in Seattle, I haven’t given out my number a single time, which is great. It has felt important to me that I don’t.

During the show, I realize that it’s kind of important to me that people don’t know how to find me. That I’m here to explore incidence and accident, coincidence. How the paths of strangers cross and recross. I’m here for everything to funnel into my creativity, and I don’t want to invite people in unless I’m sure I want to invite people in. I like that I’m starting out socially so clean. I like that overall, people in Seattle are friendly but mind their own business.

This guy is nice, but he’s a little aggressive. So during the last song, I slip out to go to the bathroom, then leave, sitting in the upstairs lounge where there’s an ambience band free-styling deep, sultry jazz.

I don’t usually walk out on someone without saying goodbye, but while I enjoyed our conversation, I just didn’t want to open a door into my life. My life is not about being polite anymore. It’s about doing whatever I want and building my life experience the way I want and need it. And right now, I have a clean, open canvas. I plan to be very selective about what I choose to fill it with.

I’m back in LA now. I’ll pack up and drive up to my hometown on Wed, then head to a wedding in Michigan on Sat, returning Mon, then start driving to Portland on Tues, arriving in Seattle on Wed.

Two weeks to make this idea of living in Seattle a reality. But as I realized, I have no job, no relationship, no dependents right now. I’ll never be as free as I am now to pursue this, so in a way, I have to.

One thing I really liked about Seattle, spending time there this week, is how much music there is. On the streets, in the restaurants, all the music venues…between the mountains and the sea and the expanse of sky, plenty of nature and musical inspiration.

I also found out that the trains are active, so there’s a chance I’ll hear them at night. And the pub around the corner from me that I’ve chosen as my home away from home is lowkey and has free wifi (and the address adds up to 9 and they’ve got lions outside!), so I’ve been spending every day in there, writing. I went in there this morning, and found out that this place is also where the local Michigan alumni meet to watch the games on Sat mornings, so I’ll meet my fellow Wolverine Seattleites! This is incredible. Of all the places in the city, I’ve definitely found the spot I’m supposed to be in. I’m very excited to start this chapter of my life.

hahaha!

So this is the story. I’d spent the day getting to know the public transit system which people have been telling me is great. I spent the morning hanging out by the University of Washington, then talking to Rie about the book. Took the bus back to my area of town, had a very pleasant conversation with the female driver. The bus was empty except for me and her.

I got off, telling her it was wonderful to meet her. Felt really happy and content with my life. I’m walking towards my new home to officially sign my lease today. I’m about 2 blocks away when I round the corner and see this:

WTF!!!! I almost fell on my face.

So I head towards it, past my street to the dock, and it turns out, around the corner from where I’ll be living is where the cruise ships dock. This one is the Celebrity Infinity. So I will definitely be listening to boat horns from my place after all!

I couldn’t stop laughing. It’s like I’m surrounded by symbols that remind me of positive things. That X reminds me of inspiration and magic.

I headed back to my building and asked the leasing agent about it. I’d walked around the waterfront before, but usually further down towards the fish market; I’ve never seen any cruise ships. She told me the cruise ships leave out of the pier just behind us, usually on weekends, so if I ever want to take a cruise to Alaska, I can just walk across the street and hop on a boat.

“I just took a cruise to Alaska,” I told her. I couldn’t stop laughing and shaking my head.

Seattle. You…trickster. You better not be setting me up for a joke. It did give me a good laugh though. Definitely not what I expected to see when I rounded that corner.

Taking Seattle

Had a very inspirational, creative day yesterday. It was a beautiful day, almost LA weather, and yet, it felt like I was constantly being struck by lightning.

Went out to Macrina, this bakery that’s supposed to be good, had a sandwich and tea, sat outside reading. The food here is not as good as LA. Given that I will be living in a place where I won’t have the accoutrements to really cook the way I like to cook, I’m going to have to keep it simple. Which is good. I funnel a lot of my creativity into cooking. Now I’m being asked to funnel my creativity through words.

I checked into a new hotel, one closer to where I’ll be living so I can get a better feel for the neighborhood. Asked the guy at the front desk about the local jazz clubs. I don’t know much about jazz, but I’m trying to expand my experience of music, trying to feel more through music. He gave some recommendations, and I headed out to the Jazz Alley for a band called the Stanley Jordan Trio.

On the way there, I was crossing the street when I saw paramedics wheel a dead body wrapped in a red blanket out of an apartment building on a stretcher. It was unsettling.

I was seated right up next to the stage. I mean, my table touched the stage. It was kind of close for my tastes, but I still enjoyed it. The band took the stage. What is it about people, that they can seem both young and old to me? This guy looked like a 23 year old man in a 40 year-old man’s life.

His technique is called touch-tap guitar, and he would play with both hands close to each other on the fret in the most fluid, intellectual expression of every nuance of emotion. It was unbelievable. He was accompanied by a drummer and bassist, though I would have preferred if the drummer just stuck with high hat/bass drum complements instead of breaking out into incongruously jarring drum solos, and if the bassist didn’t spend the first song tuning his bass as he played. He was stressing me out.

The music made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me feel and taste colors and textures. At one point, Stanley Jordan got on the grand piano, playing guitar with one hand and piano with the other. Then he switched hands. The music was so electric and powerful–he turned emotional intensity into sounds the way I turn emotional energy into words. Everything was charged. Everything had meaning. It was communication beyond communication. It made me feel mute. I’ve always wanted to be musical…took piano lessons for 6 years as a kid (forgot it all), then taught myself to play guitar in 2003-2004, but it was always hard for me to use music to get out the emotional tones I felt, even though I desperately wanted to. I wish I could translate those powerful feelings through my hands into language, but the best language I have with my hands is on the keyboard into words. We were all blessed in different ways. But this is why I appreciate music. True music, expressing true emotions. Revealing true inner universes through language beyond language.

There was a table of Japanese businessmen and I watched them for a while. It’s hard to tell the inner emotional world of Japanese men. They’re very stoic outside. I wonder if because they don’t acknowledge that world, if that means that world does not exist. I was watching the man in the front who watched the musicians with his arms crossed, slightly nodding, like a proud statue, when I noticed behind him this head of frizzy wild hair lean into the frame of my vision, tilting, tilting, tilting until the guy almost fell out of his chair. It was one of the guys at his table trying to get a look at me. He kept watching me for the rest of the night. Careful, I thought. Japanese businessmen in their 50’s can be perverts!

After the show, I waited for a while for the waitress to come pick up my bill. The host came by and asked if I wanted to stay for the second set which would be free of charge. I told him I wanted to check out more of Seattle. He recommended 2nd street where there would be a lot of live music. I asked him which place in particular would be his first choice, and he told me which venue is his favorite, but ended by saying, “You should walk around and choose the one that feels right.”

I like that. I like the interactions I’ve been having here.

I finally took my bill and headed to the bar to see if the bartender could close out my bill. There was a dark-haired man I’d seen working on the set up eating at the bar, next to a guy in his 40’s who looked part Asian with a smooth round face and dark eyes. They were in conversation when I walked up. The guy eating stopped talking when he saw me, then asked me if I needed help. I asked him how I could go about closing my bill because I couldn’t find my waitress. He said he would get her. When that guy left, the Asian guy started laughing.

“I thought you were the bassist,” he said.

“You mistook me for a man!” I said.

“Well, we were just talking about the bassist and Fausto’s the sound guy, and when he stopped talking, I thought it was because the bassist had walked up behind me!”

The story is, they had been sitting at the bar, commenting about how the bassist had been off. About how he didn’t sound good, when all of a sudden, Fausto’s eyes go wide and he stops talking, so the Asian guy thought that the bassist had walked up behind them.

“So basically, you were talking some shit about this guy and thought he’d caught you guys,” I said.

“Exactly!” he laughed. “I’m so glad you weren’t him!”

I confessed that I was seated right under the guy, and he kept tuning his bass and it was stressing me out. I asked, “Shouldn’t he have done that before they began their set?”

He said they were in the club for 4 hours before the show. It should have been done.

The guy who’d been eating, Fausto, comes back with the waitress who takes my card. He introduces himself and when I hear his name, I ask, “Isn’t that like the devil? Faustus. He made a deal with the devil.”

“Yes,” he said, surprised. “Most people don’t know that.”

“Most people don’t read enough,” I said. But then I’m wondering, why would someone name their kid after a tragic literary figure who made a deal with the devil?

He asked me what my name is and I told him.

“Oh, like Julia Childs,” he said.

I pretend to be vexed.

“I had one goal in life, only one goal, and that’s to never be compared to an elderly English woman, and tonight, you have proven to me that I have failed at life.”

They all laughed.

“So, how long have you lived in Seattle?” he asked.

I calculate. “Two days,” I said.

“Oh! So you’re visiting.”

“I’m about to move here.”

“Are you moving here for a job?”

“I have to find one.”

“So you’re moving here, yet you don’t have a job yet!” He sounded incredulous.

“I’m not worried,” I said. “I’m highly employable.”

He started laughing, this high-pitched surprised laugh. “Highly employable…I’ve never heard anyone put it like that but I like it! I like your confidence.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“So what do you think of Seattle so far?”

“It’s been interesting. I’m ready for Seattle to impress me,” I said.

“I’ll get right on that,” I heard a dry, female voice say from behind me.

I turn and it’s the female bartender, late 30’s, tough life, flipping through a battered library book showing rows and rows of pictures of flowers. She hasn’t even looked up.

I start laughing. “Right after I finish my book,” I said, pretending to be her. She looks up and laughs.

The waitress brings me my bill and I’m signing it as I get a text. I’m checking my phone while calculating tip, when I hear Fausto say something.

“I’m sorry, can you say that again? I’m trying to pay my bill, write a text and have a conversation.” Then I start laughing. “See!! I’m multi-tasking! I told you, I’m highly employable!”

“Beautiful women get all the breaks.” He has a slight South-American accent so I need him to repeat that line a few times because I couldn’t understand the word “breaks.”

When I get it, I say, “Break?!?”

The bartender says, “That ain’t a break. That’s a skill.” Exactly my thought.

So I turn to her in a sarcastic sidebar and say, “What is it with these guys, they act like everything we have they gave to us when we earned everything we have?”

“Exactly!” she said, “They have no idea how strong we are.” She says it like we’re talking about children, and right away, I know I’ve got a new ally.

“You guys…,” I say as I turn to look at them. “You’re lucky we let you get away with giving us what you give us.” But I’m laughing as I say it, so they know it’s not mean-spirited. Just truthful.

The Asian guy starts laughing. He knows the girls are calling it like it is.

“My goodness,” Fausto says. “This one’s tough.”

I say that I’ve gotta run. I ask the bartender what her name is. “Amee,” she says, pronouncing it like “Ah-mee.”

“Amee, it’s nice to meet you,” I say as I shake her hand. “Good luck…,” I wave my finger in mock exasperation at the boys, “–dealing with this…”

I smile and wave goodbye at them. It’s all in good fun.

“Come back and visit us again,” I hear her say as I’m heading out the door.

I walk down to 2nd street and check out some places. Nothing strikes my fancy. I head up the street. This pasty white guy in a button-down green shirt follows me. “I’m going to follow you,” he said. “You look like you know where you’re going. Where are people tonight? It’s a ghost town.”

“They’ve gotta be somewhere,” I said.

“I hear the place to be is Pepo’s. Do you know where that is?”

“I’ve never even heard of it.”

I think he takes that as a blow-off, because he stops walking and behind me, I hear him mumble something to his friend. I see a sign with a female ninja. I remember I’ve been there before…that’s where I met some nice people on my last trip to Seattle, so I head in there.

While at the bar getting a drink, I see a big brutha in dreads. He’s got purple streaks in his hair. I’m standing next to him, and I realize that sometimes bartenders will get a girl’s drink order first, so I say to him, “Don’t worry, I know you were here first.” He ends up buying me a drink (I don’t usually let guys buy me drinks…don’t like obligations or complications), but he insists, so we talk. He’s kind of a funny guy…can’t tell if he’s gay or not.

I don’t remember how it came up, but while we were waiting for our drinks, I said, “I usually try to make the most out of life.”

He said, “I’m usually happy if I just get half of what I want.”

So when we get our drinks, I toast saying, “To the man who prefers his 2nd choice.”

He clinks then stops, “Wait, what do you mean, 2nd choice?”

“A lot of people will choose between two things. They’ll think, ‘I would really love that,’ but instead, go with the other thing, but then decide they’re happier with the 2nd choice than they would have been with the first thing they thought they would have really loved. But there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you’re happy.”

“I usually find a way to be happy with whatever life decides to give me,” he said.

“Well, if you can be happy getting half of what you want that life decides to give you, why not be happy getting all of what you decide to give yourself?”

He thinks, takes a sip of his beer.

“I don’t really like this beer.”

I laugh. “Well well well,” I say.

He looks me in the eye for a long time, sizing me up. Takes a sip.

“I’ve decided I love this beer.”

“Now you’re just trying to prove a point.”

“Yeah? How’s your drink? With your two olives and one lime?”

“Great,” I say.

He wants to know where I’m from and I won’t tell him, and he says, “What are you…like an alien from Alien World?” I nearly spit my drink out because I’ve recently decided to write about my life as an adult’s children book about how I’m an alien born to human parents. But luckily I was born to an Asian family. In Texas. So no one could tell the difference.

I start laughing and say, “Alien World. You make it sound like Mega Mart. Where you can buy your aliens in bulk!”

“Get your alien toilet paper, on sale, 36-ply!” he said.

I laugh. I like people who can improv silliness.

“No seriously, where are you from?” he asked.

“Everywhere. And nowhere.”

He tries to guess my ethnicity, but can’t. All he knows is that I’m not from Seattle. I think it’s funny how people can’t guess my ethnicity. Or my mother’s. We’re both like that. We are both so unique and good at finding common ground with so many people, that we seem familiar to people, yet so hard to categorize. Most people think I’m mixed. Mixed of what? They can never say. But I’m full-blooded Chinese.

He says that he doesn’t even know my name. He says, “You’re like a ghost. You come in, you obviously have substance.” He pokes me in the shoulder. “You’re obviously real. But when you leave, you’ll disappear and I’ll have no idea what the hell I was even talking to. Do you like living like that? Like a ghost? Don’t you find it so empty?”

“Trust me,” I said. “I’m very real for a lot of people.”

“Hmmm,” he said. “I don’t believe that.”

I don’t say anything.

“Would you say you have wisdom?”

I laugh. “We’ve been talking for the last half hour. Does that really need to be asked?”

“What! Most people will think about it, then say, ‘Not really.'”

“What do you think?” I ask him.

“Yeah, you probably do. You’re just being mysterious.”

“Okay,” I say. “Ask me one question. I’m one of the most honest people you’ll ever meet. I have to run, but ask me any question and I’ll answer as truthfully as I can.”

He thinks, and thinks, and thinks. He thinks and thinks and thinks. Meanwhile, I’m watching two well-dressed guys, one of them slender and darkly handsome, really artistic looking in a lavender tie, the other a blonde guy hitting on a girl who is not so deep. Yet I notice, the two guys are matching…the artistic guy’s lavender tie matches the other guy’s shirt. I start laughing.

“You act like you’re being tickled,” Dreads says. “What’s so funny?” I point out the two guys and ask, “Do you think those two stepped out of the door today intending to match?” It is a little gay. He laughs, too.
Finally, he says he’s got his question. I’m listening. What could it be? The meaning of life? What is his purpose? What is God? I’m thinking, this guy has one question to ask someone who sweeps in like a ghost claiming wisdom, and he’s been thinking about it for the better part of the last few minutes, so it will be a good one. He asks: