Echo

Something weird happened today. I’d been taking pictures all day, turning my camera on and off with nothing unusual. Then at one point, I turned on my camera to take a picture and there was a digital countdown that took up the entire screen, going from 15:00:00 to 14:59:59 and down. It only flashed on my screen for 2 seconds because I’d pressed another button before realizing something unusual had happened, and the countdown disappeared and my camera went to normal viewfinder mode.

that’s never happened before. what was that? a 15 hour countdown? what was it doing on my camera? i looked at my watch. it was a little after 3:40pm. what’s supposed to happen just before 7am tomorrow? or did i misread it and it was actually a 14 day countdown? that would mean oct 3rd. what’s going to happen on oct 3rd? i got kind of scared. i hope it’s not some donnie darko thing where a plane is going to fall on me.

which reminds me, this morning when i first got up, i was standing on the balcony looking at the cloud cover and i could hear a seaplane droning somewhere above, but i couldn’t see it. i briefly wondered what would happen if a plane crashed into my building. i hope these two things (the thought and the weird 15 hour countdown on my camera) aren’t any kind of alternate reality blips foretelling impending disaster. tomorrow is a 22 day, and 22 days are portals.

From Susan Miller. If it resonates for you, then this message is for you.

The questions that are presented to you first on September 15 and then again on September 17, 18, and 23 will reveal once and for all that you really can’t continue on the same path as you have so far. You may be hit by a personal crisis at this time, so if you’ve been hoping something would change by itself, without your intervention, you will finally see the truth that it won’t. The decisions you make at mid-month may be painful, but even so, you will benefit from what you decide, for from then on, you will be on a much better road.

You may feel that no one is on your side, or that few understand you. That’s Saturn speaking, but it is temporary. Saturn is trying to help you become stronger, and Uranus is showing information that will help you to protect yourself. This month will demand that you see things very clearly and unemotionally.

The new moon in Virgo, September 18, will be your chance to finally speak your mind. You will be getting ready to make changes and course corrections that are massive and sweeping in scope. Implement those in October. You may soon leave one debilitating condition or relationship forever. View this period as the start of a whole new chapter that you’ll begin to write now.

By September 18, you will be asked to announce the plans you’ve mulled over and analyzed for some time. Yet the situation will be confusing, so you need to take your time. With Mercury retrograde, you will not be able to make any plans stick, so don’t even try – announce plans in October.

Soon, others will be surprised at your new “take charge” attitude. Let the chips fall where they may – you no longer are beholden to anyone. You will be in quite a serious mood near this new moon September 18. You mean business and will be determined to succeed.

With Uranus opposed to this same new moon of September 18, you may tear away from a romantic relationship, or you may decide (or be forced) to make a change your career, or to move across country or make any other dramatic changes in the light of what you learn this month. This is the month you will need to stop keeping up appearances and simply let go of things that are not working anymore.

You may do this because you feel upset, hurt, or angered by what was done to you. Or, it may be that you have held on, hoping against hope that things would change. You seem to know it will soon be time to make a complete change. If so, peace exists on the other side of the bridge you will walk over. You will make it safely to the other side.

You may see changes to your domestic condition this month, too. You may hear things about a family member, a housing situation, or a roommate. Change is in the air.

I promise – October will be a big improvement.

Two dreams.

The night before last, I dreamed that I was driving and got pulled over by a plainclothes policeman driving a jeep. He was a guy about my age in an open surf shirt, white tank top and khaki shorts, like a beach dude. He said I was speeding, but he wanted to search my car for contraband. There was another man in his car, but he remained in the passenger seat. The cop searched my car but I wasn’t worried because I don’t have drugs in my car. All of a sudden, from the side pocket of the passenger seat, he pulled out a half-smoked joint.

“What do we have here,” he said, menacingly. I was shocked.

“That’s not mine. I don’t know where that came from, but I’ve never seen that in my life.”

He climbs over me to get out of the car, the joint held out incriminatingly, blackened at one end. As he climbs over, his pants brush my arm and I can feel his penis under the folds of fabric. This is all confusing and terrifying.

He shakes his head and gives me a look like I’m in deep shit, and it’s amusing him. He waves the guy in his car over, and I’m freaking out. I can’t believe I’m about to be arrested.

The guy comes over and asks me what my name is, where I’m from, etc. I’m really scared. But then I notice the first guy, the one who had found the joint, is casually leaning against the door as the other guy asks me questions, and he’s lit the joint and is smoking it.

I stare at him in disbelief.

“Are you really even a cop?”

He starts laughing. “Yes, but I was just messing with you.”

Then I think about it, and I remember that pot is legal for me to carry in California anyway, so I don’t know why I let him scare me so much.

*****
I had another 2 Clock Doppleganger dream.

These are when I “wake up” to find myself sitting up in bed, staring at the clock. Except there are 2 clocks, my actual alarm clock, and another identical one next to it, but they both look completely real.

This morning, the first one read 9:02. The one next to it read 5:06. I realized that’s 11 and 11 right next to each other.

Yesterday, I read in Twilight Watch (the third book in the Night Watch trilogy) that if for several days in a row, you look at the clock and it’s 11:11, it means that there is magic around and you should try to use that opening. I was surprised that the writer knew about the 11/11 22, and felt more confident that 22 is a universal symbol of magic.

This morning when I woke up, I realized I was looking at a 11/11 clock, but the way that always happens to me, where I come to consciousness sitting up in bed looking at the clocks and I fully think I’m awake. But then I’ll lay back down and then realize, wait…there should only be one clock. And I’ll sit back up and only see one clock, the way it should be, but the image of the 2 clocks sitting on the shelf side-by-side is still crisp in my mind. I have these 2 clock doppleganger dreams every once in a while, but they’re very realistic because i’m physically sitting up in bed with my eyes open.

Today the clouds, water and mountains remind me of the Inside Passage, except I get to experience it from land. And there are lots of boats instead of whales. It’s so beautiful today.

first, it is a beautiful, rainy day today. it is a pleasure to be able to sit here and enjoy the smells, the sounds and the colors.

i am turning into water. am i the watery part of fire? or the fiery part of water?

last night, i made a note as i was drifting off to tell you about serendipity.

Serendipity

Flashback to the dinner with my family for my grandmother. My cousin Ching Wen mentions that our grandmother told her that she got her high tolerance of alcohol from her. “Did you know Grandma could really party when she was young?”

“I didn’t know she drank, since she’s always tasting our beers with a spoon, but I know she was a beauty queen. Did you know she had some French opera singer after her?”

I nudge my mom and ask her and she said the guy was Taiwanese not French, but was a music student who later on became a well-known opera singer, moving to France. Our grandmother already had 4 kids and a husband in prison, but yet, this sensitive young man who was more than 10 years younger than her still pursued her fervently. She turned him down and lost touch over the decades, but they had recently gotten in touch with each other through a mutual friend. They planned to meet, but then he cancelled. It had been over 50 years since they knew each other; they were old now. To meet now would mean the destruction of a treasured dream.

“That’s sad,” Ching Wen said.

“That’s kind of life,” I said. I asked her if she’d read Love in the Time of Cholera. I told her it was a rich book with a slow start, but an incredible story with incredible writing.

She said, “That’s the book in the movie, Serendipity.”

I remember seeing it, in the theater in fact, and that it had John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale. But I couldn’t remember anything about the story.

“They meet and she writes her phone number in a book, and tells him that she’s going to sell it to the first used books store she sees. If he finds the book, then it’s meant to be. The book was Love in the Time of Cholera. And he can’t find it, until years later, his fiance gives it to him as a wedding present the night before their wedding.”

How could I not remember any of this?!? I got passed Love in the Time of Cholera by Rie, who brought it over one day and told me to read it. She’s always been so great like that. I read the book in Amsterdam and it made me kind of resigned to the forces of life and nature, but it made me want to make the right choices in the present.

It also made me think about the movie Serendipity. I remember always wanting to watch it again, and in fact, this wasn’t the first time the film had been in my conscious mind the last few days. So the next night, I went out and rented it.

Basically, these two people meet while Christmas shopping for their significant others, but have an amazing connection over coffee. He asks for her number, “Just in case…” (Just in case of what?). They’re both in relationships. There’s nowhere to go with this. She asks him if he believes in fate. she asks him to write his phone number on a $5 bill, then goes and spends it right away on gum. Then she writes her number in the book. Her idea is that if it’s meant to be, these objects will find their way back. At the end of the night, she runs into a hotel elevator and tells him to pick a random floor. If they both pick the same floor, then what is happening is real. This is fate. So she gets in and hits 25, and he gets in and has a panic attack, then manages to choose…25. But the problem is, the elevator stops on a lower floor, and a fat guy and a kid inexplicably dressed as the devil comes in. The kid of course, presses all of the buttons. So the girl gets off on the 25th floor, and she’s looking around, not knowing what to expect. Meanwhile, he is in an elevator that stops on every floor. But everyone who gets on and hears the story of what he’s doing gets into it, running out on every floor to see if the girl is there. Finally, his elevator stops on the 25 floor, and he runs out just as the doors to the elevator she’s in close. She disappears.

They found each other again years later because they couldn’t forget. Maybe the only way for them to believe what they had was real was to lose each other then find each other again. It is the hard way, but perhaps it’s what makes certain things more valuable, more appreciated. I think it’s a beautiful story. I think ultimately, I believe in destiny, and within the fabric of reality there is a weaving of destinies that you can almost make out if you know how to recognize the signs. But still, I also don’t want to spend the best (and hottest) years of my life waiting. I want to give someone the best of me while it’s still here today.

i am swimming under the burden of story.
which is why i’m happy i learned how to breathe underwater

a writer sits in places all day, melting into shadows, thinking about all the powerful and admirable things she never dares to say, but which the words only fit her in writing. happy or not, when a writer closes her eyes in sleep, she goes home.

who is it she sees when she’s there?

So I took a walk in the rain and took pictures. Two terrifying sounds, but outside of that, it was amazingly desolate. Very happy I did it. It was purifying. Here’s what Seattle looks like at 4am in the first rain:

i was looking at this picture and thinking, it looks like a parade of ghosts who are really happy to be walking with each other, when just behind my left shoulder, i heard an electrical cracking like a radio tuner dial turned quickly through the oblivion frequencies. i nearly jumped out of my skin. i turned around there was nothing there, just the falling rain in pale yellow light. that was probably the freakiest moment of the night. I had to catch my breath.

now or never…3am walk in the rain?

oh my god, the season changed! oh my god, the rain is beautiful!

i think the reason i really like seattle is that no one knows me here, so no one has a point of reference for noticing that i’m a different person almost every day. that gives me freedom to be myself.

congrats, kid. this is the first 3am you’ve made it to in a really long time.

the train whistles here aren’t as romantic as the train whistles at home, but they’re good enough while i’m working. sometimes when i hear them, i get so happy, i curl up on the floor, laughing. i can’t believe i’m here.

i like my place. it’s private. there’s a sacred solitude. only michael has been here (he helped me build it), and the cable guy. when i imagined it, i always said it was a place no one knew about, the place where i go when i disappear. it reminds me of somewhere else i’ve been and loved, somewhere just a breath outside my periphery, maybe here on earth, maybe in a distant memory. that’s why i just won’t give out my phone number here. this place is for me.

all i have is an air mattress that kind of feels like a waterbed, which reminded me of a curious time in my childhood when i slept in a waterbed. ah, how our early experiences shape our eyes. i kind of like it. i contemplated the poetry of just making this the arrangement, sleeping on an air mattress that i have to keep inflated with my own breath, with the only other real piece of furniture being the chair i sit in when i stare out at the ocean.

this makes me want to run a social experiment of what would happen if i only interact with the world at night and responsible julia says, “nooooo.”

so many decisions to make! i really like my pace of life right now. today i ate 2 sandwiches for lunch, met a tour group of women all outfitted from head to toe to hair in hot pink, played the only video game i have for 6 hours (nba live09–finally got a chance to break it out). did a fantasy draft and got rashard lewis, al jefferson, andris biedrins, chris paul, mike conley jr., nick young and anthony randolph for my golden state warriors. went undefeated for the first 5 games. it was like a warriors fan’s dream, to take control of our beloved team and steer them into victory. i love my basketball team the way i love a little brother with a disability who has a heart of gold. it felt good to imagine an inspirational, happy world for something i love, even if only in a video game.

my mom called. everyone was in a good mood. i almost told her about what i’d been doing, but felt tired at the thought of trying to explain to her why i was happy. our whole family loves the warriors. i’m convinced that this past april, when jamal crawford pushed through the crowd after our last home game to give my dad a hug and thank him, that was a miracle to give him a push towards living.

light changes time to color.

we are all the same
and sometimes we are different

i don’t want anyone who will clip my wings.
i want someone who can fly.

Losing the star without a sky
Losing the reasons why
You’re losing the calling that you’ve been faking
And I’m not kidding

It’s damned if you don’t and it’s damned if you do
Be true ’cause they’ll lock you up in a sad sad zoo
Oh hidy hidy hidy what cha tryin to prove
By hidy hidy hiding you’re not worth a thing

Sew your fortunes on a string
And hold them up to light
Blue smoke will take
A very violent flight
And you will be changed
Sand everything
And you will be in a very sad sad zoo.

I once was lost but now I’m found was blind
But now I see you
How selfish of you to believe in the meaning of all the bad dreaming

Metal heart you’re not hiding
Metal heart you’re not worth a thing

–cat power

i’m thinking, reading back to what i wrote about wanting a reason to change the season…i’ve been bright and uncomplicated for a while now, and i know that emotional storms bleed the most creativity for me. i’ve told people that i suspect i’ve come to seattle to self-induce a depression. now that i’m on the eve of something that i feel strongly is coming in, something electrical (i see all the signs), i wonder if i’m really ready.

but then again, with most big things in life, you’re never ready. you just look back and you say, “these are the things that happened.” and you say it with whatever beliefs you’ve decided to accept things with that allow you to maintain who you are (or who you believe you are). there really are no right answers, only what you want to make of things. i think all big life changes are scary. fear of the unknown, fear of your untested capabilities, fear of your true hidden nature, yet a feeling of inevitability. but in a way, everything that happens is good for you. nothing good comes from spending a lifetime sitting in the same place, as the same person. acknowledge the fear, acknowledge your humanness, but walk into the next step with your eyes open.

i bought a really good bottle of port today and had a glass for the end of the evening (or the beginning of my night). to passionate storms and even more passionate words upon words. to love, fear, regret and redemption in past present and future. to you and me, and everything in between.

we’ll get through this. there are smiles on the other side of the forest.

there is this one store on 3rd street that plays opera over speakers 24/7. i have yet to figure out what that store is because i’m always on the other side of the street when i walk by.

Things this Mercury Retrograde has put on the fritz:

-my Polar heart rate monitor watch (as the repairman said, “She’s a dead soldier.”). Had to buy a replacement. Working out has been brutal because I set calorie goals and now I’m adrift because I have no way of gauging workouts. It is making me lackadaisical.

-my Kindle. On top of not having my heart rate monitor, I have nothing to focus my attention since my Kindle has been sent back in exchange for a Kindle II.

-my new router. It’s currently being used as an expensive jack extension since it’s fickle about its wifi functionality. Homeboy needs to understand who he’s working for.

-my car key/my car. On the way here, the comfort access malfunctioned so it wouldn’t let us in the car. On top of that, the key’s buttons no longer worked. Luckily, Michael has my spare so the buttons on that one worked, but comfort access is still wonky. I have to take it in. This car drives me crazy.

-my GPS system. The number of times it’s tried to get me to turn the wrong way down a one way street, or completely lost my position.

Other little electronic malfunctions to my laptop, phone and ipod. Can’t wait for the retrograde to be over. Can’t wait to stop thinking about the past (another symptom of the retrograde).

Oh, I do remember this. When I got in my my car, the song “Good” by Better than Ezra came on and all the good feelings that have run through the last two months came flooding back. I attribute that to the power of a 29 day.