Echo

i’m not in the business of engaging in problems. i’m in the business of finding solutions.

Not everyone who drinks is a poet. Some of us drink because we’re not poets.
-Arthur

I’m definitely a poet.

He was a commercial pilot–caramel skin, neatly cropped hair. He’d spent the better part of the night staring from the opposite side of the room.

*****
“My father’s a Gemini,” he said.

“Did you ever feel like you really got to know him?”

He looks surprised by the question, surprised like he believes I might already know his life, know his stories.

“No, not really. He passed away a few years ago…but no, I can’t say I really got to know him.”

“I’m sorry to hear. Gemini’s aren’t long for this world.”

He looks at me, deeply.

“Perhaps there is no one who wants more to be known and understood than a Gemini. That’s why we’re known for our obsession with communication. But the tragedy is that we are the hardest to be understood. That no matter how deep people dig, no matter how much we try to show, we’re never able to fully communicate our deepest truths. Souls trapped in a prism. In a way, that desire and that denial of desire make us inherently tragic characters.”

He looks away, searching for an answer in his glass. I can already tell he’s in over his head.

Finally! 1 month later…I have working wifi.

this song came up in my songs at night mix tonight. it’s from babel. i haven’t heard it in a while but on a cold, rainy night, it was perfect.

He told me he didn’t have enough time to do the things he wanted to do with his life.

I told him, “How you can make time…maybe that’s your lesson. Time is not just linear. It’s multidimensional. If you feel like you don’t have enough time, make time. Expand it. Stop complaining. Unless what you really like getting out of it is complaining.”

today, i was at a stoplight and said to myself, so when do i get to sleep with everything beautiful that moves me, like you promised?

i suspect i tricked even myself to get me to seattle.

were you born in 1982?

i am many things
and there are many things i’m not

“I overheard your conversation about the people of Seattle. I just moved here and I’ve really found that to be the case, that the people are very closed here.”

“Yeah, I mean, I grew up here, but I spent the last year living overseas. Coming back here, it’s just apparent that people are really hard to talk to. They’re very protective of their worlds if they don’t know you. Especially with the nightlife.”

“I’m thinking Seattle’s about ready for a revolution.”

“Whoa whoa, what do you mean, revolution?”

“It’s time for this city to relax and have something to be happy about. People need to warm up. We need a revolution to thaw the freeze. Get people to stop being afraid and mean. Cold weather doesn’t have to mean cold hearts.”

He kind of looked at me like he didn’t know whether to believe me or fear me.

“Maybe,” he said.

Yet, he kept coming back trying to figure me out, when I said exactly what I mean.

julia has found her home in the 12th house.

if people found out their Other existed on this earth
was a human just like them
had a life somewhere on the other side of the world
and even though you could traverse the world in a leap,
for them to be real, you could never touch them or their world…
would most people have the strength to accept that something magical exists by the power of faith, but only in the distance,
or would they not want to know there is something beautiful that only exists if they don’t touch it?

more than anything, i have most often been mistaken as a poet by seattleites. or perhaps, they are naming a truth i do not feel i can accept yet.

what defines a writer? is it by the number of works they have published? or is it by this private, inner compulsion for voice, to speak?

i have lately, become more at peace when i realized i am someone who will probably be known for one major work, finished close to the time i die.

today, the first day of rains. this city is tough on the body. but as i was feeling the sky for your echoes, i examined my inherent shame at calling myself a writer. it is because i write, but i do not publish. i don’t like people to know what i write, and most didn’t suspect the sheer volume until people found out about the notebooks and blog. but none of it is what i really want to say most, churning to keep me in shape until the time when i can. i write only what i want to say, and i have no control over the flow, like by saying, i want to finish a book, or i want to have a screenplay produced, i suddenly freeze up. i don’t seem to want these things. at least these are not as important to me.

i have something deep and pressing inside me. it is so deep, i don’t even have access to it myself. but the only thing i know, is that there is only one person i want to tell this story to. and i’ve been holding it for him, waiting for myself to get stronger so i could have the words. it is positive, but powerful. with great power comes great responsibility. i think that’s why i’m waiting for someone as strong as me.

i wonder if, perhaps, it won’t be me who writes this story. i wonder if the real writer, is the one who hears it.

Don’t wish it away
Don’t look at it like it’s forever
Between you and me
I could honestly say
That things can only get better

And while I’m away
Dust out the demons inside
And it won’t be long
Before you and me run
To the place in our hearts
Where we hide

–the beautiful sir elton john

Brand New By Tomorrow – Money Mark

Some things grow apart, some things grow together
Some things never start, ours is turning into memories
And guess there’s no way to avoid a broken heart
What I can say is, I will never go very far

We’ll be brand new by tomorrow
We’ll be brand new by tomorrow

I used to love the games we played
But now I have to stay on my side of the street
I like the words we used to say to each other
But now our vocabulary’s changed

Anytime you want me to pretend, I will
You’ll always be my friend looking out the window sill
No sense in getting down on yourself
We put the trophy on the shelf

We’ll be brand new by tomorrow

11 in the pm

i felt your echo in the still blue wind
a thousand breaths waiting on a ghost train
a thousand eyes for a spotlight
a thousand distances that all knew your name
every one, except the one that knew mine

and yet, all it takes is a moment
the space between two hands keeping time.

to lift your head towards the nearest star
to place your heart upon the highest mountain
to fill your eyes in the pools of the moon and say,

today was another beautiful day before i met you.

while in laguna beach last weekend, my parents were reminiscing about the past. they said that the thing about me as a kid, was that any toy that other kids had, the parents would turn around for a second and the next thing they would know, the toy would be in my hands. i just had a way of getting things from the other kids, and it kind of freaked the other parents out. but the kids wanted to give me these things, i said. it’s not like i took things against people’s will.

we realize that now, my dad said. but it was just the fact that we would turn around and things would always be in your hands.

and you were always the leader, my mom said. any party, by the end of the night, all the boys would be running around the house wild, and you would always be the leader. and the only thing that would stop you were the nose bleeds from getting so worked up. and do you remember linus? he absolutely adored you. his mother was so mad one day because you told him to be your watchdog, so he sat on the ground at your feet, guarding you, and even when his mother told him to get up, he wouldn’t.

i have a way with boys, i said.

we just didn’t understand then, my mom said. we should have just let you be you.

*****
a few days before, i saw one of my dad’s friends whom i haven’t seen in probably 8 years. he can’t believe how much i look like my mom when she was in her 20’s. he said he remembers me being 2 years old, and he and his wife watched me for an afternoon. they took me to a park, and anything that interested me, i had to give it a little kick before i could walk away.

some things never change, i said.

Names that resonate for me:

Adrian
Cameron
Miles
Ian

and most importantly,
Ames

Most of the -ian’s make me pause and observe though. Not the -yan’s (like Ryan, Bryan), but the -ian’s.

feedback from my work as a verb (Being) last night:

Hi Julia:
Wow, wow :) It was great talking to you last night, I am thoroughly impressed by your keen intellect and am figuring that some of it might rub off onto me if I hang out with you sometime?
How about that Band?

Thanks For The Introduction To Your World Last Night, You Speak On a level which I would like to be on more often.

Truly, Michael

*****
Unfortunately, I’m still in solitary, gathering mode. I’m looking for something very specific, but I am grateful for the positive connection and the feedback.

“You know what it was? It was your smile. And your smile led me to your eyes,” he said.