Echo

Last night featured an even more violent storm, which attacked the windows, making them cave on their frames. There was zero visibility, and for a while there, it felt like the building might be blown away. I tried not to let it bother me, figuring that this structure had been here for a while and banking on the fact that if it’s stayed intact for this long, it will stay intact yet. I was free writing, and all of a sudden, one line came out of nowhere and landed on the page. It’s appearance was as jarring as stepping in wet, sucking mud (which, incidentally, I did today.). The line was so out of place and strange, that I pulled on it like a loose string, and a whole world opened up. I wrote for 6 hours, just taking down the words, thoughts and lives of these people like a medium at a seance, until I could barely keep my head up. There were times when I was writing and thinking, this may be my most unbelievable writing night to date. Doubt began to creep in, if this was real, if this was any good, if I could carry this out. The story, as usual with me, is out of time, out of place. All I could do was just take down what the characters wanted to say, what they needed said. Even as I crawled into bed, they kept talking to me, showing their lives to me, and even though a part of me was terrified that I would lose this opening by sleeping. I usually write at night, but by morning, in the light of day, I’ll reject what I’ve written. A part of me had to tell myself to trust it. Trust that this is real and what is happening. Trust it long enough for it to fully emerge.

I felt like I was giving birth last night, like it was something that was happening despite whatever my thoughts were on it, and I could either fight it or go with it and help it come out. I remember once, when I read about the 5th house and how it ruled either romance, children or ultimate creative output, how sometimes, you had to choose one of the three to funnel that energy. Maybe for a woman, you can either literally have a child, or you can give birth to something that spiritually, metaphysically, is as deeply a part of you as a child. Maybe in lycan country, like lichen, I have reproduced asexually. Or maybe, I just won’t know who the father is until this thing has fully emerged. It quite possibly could be twins. It doesn’t appear to be black. And yes, what a weird thing to be talking about.

There’s been a lifelong personal debate between me and people who know me. “Are you romantic?”

I never know how to answer that. On one hand, I think the answer is an obvious yes. The fact my life for as long as I’ve been conscious has revolved around the notion of a soulmate, an Other, someone my entrance into this plane of perception separated me from and whom I almost singlemindedly search for. But then I think that could also be symbolism I’ve used in my personal search for god and/or meaning. I don’t believe my Other is the end all be all. I believe he is my partner in a greater search. I see the positive potential in people, I see the positive potential in life. I want us to strive for more, for higher. My relationship with the world around me is one of idealism and romanticism, in the framework of what is realistic (read: possible) for a given plane. I believe I have the power of transformation, if the world would guide me and teach me how to use my abilities. But in spirit, in soul, in mind, I’m the ultimate romantic.

In a conventional sense, what defines being romantic? I’m emotionally secretive and awkward with romantic gestures, even though my well of emotions runs very deep. I hide things even when I can tell in moments when it would serve me to be open, I still feel a need to hide. I rarely have the guts to actually make a full-blown romantic gesture. It’s not from lack of desire, it’s from lack of comfort, a feeling of exposure. But I’m drawn to those who are more easily able to express a romantic nature, who can draw me out. I express my deep feelings through consideration, being helpful, protectiveness, a psychic safeguarding of the hopes and dreams of those I love, their well-being. People I care about matter to me. But despite this, a history of complaints from people about not knowing where they stand. Maybe they just have to ask. Maybe I don’t even know myself. How do you know when you’ve found your Other? I assume you just know. I assume, that maybe you don’t know right away, maybe for the longest time you just know that you DON’T know for sure that they’re not him, until one day, you suddenly know. Until then, I can’t make any promises. I don’t think the question is if I, by nature, am romantic. It’s been the lack of expression. But am I capable? I think if the world is open to the form in which it comes in, my heart and its capacity to love will prove to be undeniable.

All this was in my head last night as my fingers flew along the keyboard and my mind rode the waves. I realized, as I watched the words spill out, I could possibly once and for all answer that question. Often a work reveals more about the writer than anything else. I want this to show what it is I can’t seem to outwardly express through my person. I want it to end the question. I want people to read this story, and know exactly what love means to me, and to what depths and lengths I believe in this world. I’ve made an art out of mirroring for other people to help them appreciate themselves, their potential. Now it’s time. I need these words, these people, this world inside, to be a truthful, powerful mirror of me.

We are people of good timing, aren’t we?
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My mom and I went to the sports store around Christmas. I needed new running shoes, and she was buying clothes. I saw an orange pair of Mizuno’s, a color I normally wouldn’t get because its impossible to match, but I wanted them. I got em and wandered around until my mom found me and we went to check out. When we got there, we realized we had both independently picked out the same pair of shoes. “What are we, orange girls now?” I laughed. I really liked them but didn’t wear them because they weren’t as comfortable as my blue Brooks.

But when I was back home recovering from surgery, those were the only gym shoes I had in Fremont so I started wearing them every day. They kind of drove me crazy because in secret, I loved the color but they weren’t comfortable and they didn’t match anything. But I wore them every day. And then one night. The strangest conversation. It was the kind of conversation you look back on and see that it was the one that opened things. He didn’t see me as a squirrel. He suddenly blurted out that I was a rabbit! And I remember standing there thinking, where the hell did that come from.

Whoa. The Orange Girl. No wonder I was so adamant about waiting until March to read it I even hid it from myself until I got back earlier this month. Just started it last night, with the ocean storming like an inconsolable beast outside, the wind and rain pelting and howling outside my window, making the entire room shudder. It seems to be a book about synchronicity and magic, coming at a time when the world around me has again begun to synchronize and connect in more than coincidental ways. I thought March/April would be a portal. I’m starting to strongly believe.
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I remember once I’d connected with a guy and it was all very platonic but poignant and caring. At the end, I told him we may never see each other again but I wished him well, and he thanked me and said he loved me. A few months later he was threatening that if I wanted to be with soulsuckers, no matter how far I buried myself, how well I hid, he would find me and dig me out.

That conversation made me more careful. Who knows, maybe on some level of interpretation, his intentions are actually really benevolent, but he really scared the hell out of me.

I’m in a second floor room with a balcony facing the moody Pacific. An obstacle course of littered driftwood creates a barrier between the cabins and the water, so you have to climb them to get through. I’ll probably make a training course from it, force myself to work on my concentration and focus. It’s stormy here- angry winds and a battering tide. The building shudders. Outside, large rock formations are as magnificent and mystical as those of Easter Island. Love the sound when the ocean is unsettled. You can do nothing but give in to it, succumb to it. Let yourself consume the fear. Whatever happens, happens. We’re near a tsunami warning area. I want to walk around there tomorrow. That area reminded me of that Murakami story about the artist. I’m very isolated here. It’s hard for me to hide in small towns. But it makes anyone who’s watching me stand out. People usually ask where I came from. What they really want to know is why I’m here alone. Maybe I came here looking for you, I say. And they sit down and I hold their hand and their life unfolds.

Not really. But maybe it could happen that way. I haven’t tried it.

When you’re at the end of the world, so isolated, no way to reach you, and someone gets a message through? Well, that message is going to come in loud and clear.

julia hunts a lone.

I’m in wolf country — La Push, WA. Have a room with a balcony overlooking ocean with beach right outside. Gonna be here to visit with the full moon. As soon as I step foot in mystical county, the guy following me shows up on my trail. Can’t be coincidence.
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Last night I had a conversation with a man from Texas. He warmed up when I told him I’m from Texas as well. We had a great, friendly conversation about travel, life, fate, etc. He asked me if I’d ever traveled through the Far East and I told him I’ve been to Taiwan, Japan, China, etc. He asked me where I liked best and I told him I liked visiting all those places, and they were good experiences, but I didn’t really feel a connection with the people. But I highly recommended hiking the Great Wall. I recommended that he see the temples of Angkor Wat while he still can (tourism is trampling and deteriorating the ruins). I’ve always wanted to go, but I’m afraid to visit Cambodia on my own. It’s easier and safer to travel to some places in this world alone if you’re a man.

He mentioned that China would be a total “mindfuck” and that word sparked. I laughed and said that the word “mindfuck” has come up a lot in conversations lately, and that words tend to synchronize in my life, whereas I’ll be writing or thinking of certain words or themes, and they’ll pop up randomly in conversation with people, except they’ll come out of the other person’s mouth. He asked if I thought the matrix was real and I laughed and said that 2 days ago, I finally decided to rewatch the Matrix because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. I do think it’s real, or something like it. I don’t think that this world as we know it is all there is.

“You’re from Texas, so you’re probably the best person I could talk to you about this,” I said to him, and he leaned in, his eyes widening in attentiveness.

“You know those tiny, dusty little Texas towns, where there’s just one main street drag and there’s nothing to do. You grow up there, you work there, you die there. You’re bored out of your fucking mind because you hang out at the same places with the same people. You marry someone you grew up with, you’re all fucking the same people. Hell, you’re even cheating on each other with the same people.”

He was laughing so hard while I talked about these Texas shitholes; he was well familiar with them. “And the best escape they have is maybe driving a few hours to some shitty little town in Mexico, and that’s as big as their world is,” he said.

“In fact, randomly, I watched this movie about that town. It was some old black and white movie with Tim Bottoms, and Jeff Bridges…The Last Picture Show.”

“I know that one,” he said. “With Cybil Shepherd. That’s exactly the town!”

“Exactly! People in this shitty little Texas town don’t think about New York, or LA, or Paris,” I said. “All they know is that this tiny shithole is the extent of their entire world, their entire universe. That all their choices must come from this tiny place of limited options. They’re born into it, and eventually, it sucks them dry of their hopes and dreams and it kills them from the inside out. But what if that shitty little town is Earth? What if we’re sitting here thinking, this is it. This is the best life has to offer? At best, we dream of maybe moving to Paris, or taking a vacation in Australia. Meet someone, settle down, live out our lives. What if Paris is our little town in Mexico, and Fiji is the bar or pool house on Main St? What if you think you have to pick a partner from this group of people you grew up with, but meanwhile, someone who is a better match for you is out there, beyond the town limits of your tiny hometown, but you’ve never imagined it because your imagination is trapped by the confines of this place? And meanwhile, there’s an entire universe out there, an entire world of options out there, but we don’t realize because we grew up thinking all we know is all there is?”

“This place is too small for me,” I told him. “I love Earth, but this place is too small for me. What if Earth is just one little shitty town in the armpit of Texas, where people live and die smaller lives than they are capable of having, and meanwhile, there’s an entire living, breathing universe out there that we could live and touch if we could just commit to believing there’s more than just this town, this planet, this plane of existence?”

“I would love to go to Saturn,” he said.

“I would love to get out of here,” I said. “Anywhere. Just to know this isn’t all there is.”

Anna: Love bores you.
Dan: No, it disappoints me.

–Closer

Where is this love? I can’t see it, I can’t touch it. I can’t feel it. I can hear it. I can hear some words, but I can’t do anything with your easy words.

-Alice, Closer

on thursday, went to physical therapy and found out i was working between a pisces and a virgo. i found how interesting it is the way the world replicates itself in different arenas.

ideas were harmonious today. people at odds.

tonight, i was at the loft. the last time i was here, i was looking for a place to watch the warriors game so i could see my parents wave to me on tv. they were nice enough to turn on the sound and i met a bunch of regulars. the bartender and i were talking and she said that she was moving to the philipines to try to find work in film, and friday the 26th would be her last night. since we had been talking about sake bombs earlier and she’d never done one, i told her i would bring her sake on her last day.

i almost forgot! but last minute, as i was stepping out the door, i remembered. the same characters who had been there for the warriors game were there, including this guy whose wife had told me, “men need to feel like they’re in charge, but most of the time, we’re the ones taking care of things. there’s really only one place they should dominate, and that’s the bedroom.”

and dancing, rie had added when i told her the story.

personally, i like a man to take charge when he truly knows what he’s doing. then i don’t care where he asserts himself, as long as he does it well. i don’t need to dominate. don’t like to, in fact. but i do demand dominion.

met several people and got sucked into their group. one of them rubbed my back for much too long, and much too creepily. another guy told me that he finds most good-looking women to have bad personalities. and he knows because he’s been in that situation a lot. he was dumb. but otherwise, had good conversations all around that featured lots of synchronicity.

at one point, i heard daft punk, something about us, come on the speakers. electricity filled my head and i remembered that this song had been inside me in february. it stirred something inside me, and i kept it close for days. the presence of this song tonight sparked me, reminded me of all my arcade fire, wake up moments, and as i went to note the synchronicity that seemed to be present tonight in music, the song changed.

even hearing the distinct opening, i couldn’t believe it. it was silvia, by miike snow, the song i’d been damn near consumed by earlier this month. curtis had posted the song burial by miike snow to his facebook, and i checked it out, having not heard of the band. the song sounded very kcrw-like so i did a search and found they’d done a live performance on kcrw last june. while listening to that a few times, i got really into the song, silvia, to the point i would wake up in the middle of the night to that song echoing in my head sometimes. i’ve never heard it played anywhere in public at random, then as i was writing about the music seeming to be synchronized tonight, it came on. it was a complete visceral experience. it hijacked my senses and threw me right back to those moments with curtis earlier this month, where we would meet and talk, but mostly just stare at each other in thinly-masked disbelief. this song had spent so much time inside me, in privacy, in secrecy, to suddenly hear it in my world outside felt like i’d been flipped inside out. like time and space had run full circle. the last time i felt like this was that day on the cruise to alaska, when i went to see those acrobats only to find their intro song was ludovico einaudi’s primavera. my inner universe had manifested outwardly, and here was what felt like the stirrings of evidence of will over matter.

i texted curtis and told him that silvia was playing and asked if he’d willed that to happen. that song is a million percent tied to him. he said he’d willed for me to be thinking about him, too. i told him how i’d watched the front door of the bar when the song came on, thinking how weird it would be if he walked into the room, wondering what if he did walk through that door. i watched the door, hard, not realizing until much later that i was holding my breath.

yesterday, i had heard the lady antebellum song that i had recently spent an entire day listening to, and pondered the lines, another shot of whiskey can’t stop looking at the door…wishing you’d come sweeping in the way you did before.

how many times in a life does a person think about someone, long so achingly for someone that they stare at a door thinking, what if he or she walked in right this moment? Even if it meant a transcendence of time and space?

but it never happens. you always wonder, “what if?” but there’s always reality to contend with.

he asked me what would i do if he had walked in. i told him i would believe in everything.

i always said that if i dropped my keys into the ocean and found them again years later unexpectedly on some distant land, i would believe in god and universe. if he’d walk through those doors today, somehow managing to surmount time/space and appear, i would have believed the unbelievable. i would have believed our minds are stronger than the world we live in, and we can create our own worlds and make them habitable. it would have gone beyond just proof of magic. i would have found proof of belief. and i would have taken it as the universe giving me permission to unleash.

but it didn’t happen. reality marched on.

he asked me what i would do if he had walked in. i told him i would believe in everything.

i’m not everything, he said.

what are you?, i asked.

something, he said. special to you someday.

something, someday, somewhere.

isn’t it always?

What do you say to someone you meet whom you recognize from a dream? Hey, you don’t know me, and this is going to sound weird and uncanny but…I think you were in my dream last night.

Douchebags of the world have killed everyone’s credibility for sincere and mystical stranger moments, so when it’s actually true, people never take you seriously.

I usually don’t say anything. Just wait. And if they approach me, I pay attention.

1. you may or may not have a power of magnitude building inside you.

2. you have been saving it and plan to devote it to one person.

3. through that devotion you will commit yourself to fly that path as far as it will go.

4. you can give it to anyone.

5. but most likely you will devote it to the one you love.

6. you believed that great love requires a great sacrifice. you were wrong. it required letting go.

7. you talk to ghosts. is the only way for a person of the world to reach you, by crossing over?

8. if you chose that your greatest lesson be to experience great love through letting go, then you chose a very challenging path.

9. i wish you good luck.

nobody is any one thing. i’m not a good person or bad person. i’m just a person.  i was taught very young that the more i recognize how small i am in the grand scheme of things, the bigger i would be. my personal life has been defined by following that vision.

got off the elevator on my floor and i immediately smelled weed.

i knew it wasn’t because of me.

as i got closer to the source, i couldn’t tell if it was air freshener or weed.

either way, good for them.

are we the last…living souls. are we the last…living souls.

what about the prophecy?

On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning by Haruki Murakami (from The Elephant Vanishes)

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo’s fashionable Harajuku neighborhood, I walk past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she’s not that good-looking. She doesn’t stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn’t young, either — must be near thirty, not even close to a “girl,” properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She’s the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl — one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you’re drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I’ll catch myself staring at the girl at the table next to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can’t recall the shape of hers–or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It’s weird.

“Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% perfect girl,” I tell someone.

“Yeah?” he says. “Good-looking?”

“Not really.”

“Your favorite type, then?”

“I don’t know. I can’t seem to remember anything about her–the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah Strange.”

“So anyhow,” he says, already bored, “what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?”

“Nah. Just passed her on the street.”

She’s walking east to west, and I west to east. It’s a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and — what I’d really like to do — explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This is something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.

After talking, we’d have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

“Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?”

Ridiculous. I’d sound like an insurance salesman.

“Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?”

No, this is just as ridiculous. I’m not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who’s going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. “Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me.”

No, she wouldn’t believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you’re not the 100%  perfect boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I’d probably go to pieces. I’d never recover from the shock. I’m thirty-two, and that’s what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can’t bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So:  She’s written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she’s ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She’s lost in the crowd.

*****

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started “Once upon a time” and ended “A sad story, don’t you think?”

*****

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

“This is amazing,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you’re the 100% perfect girl for me.”

“And you,” she said to him, “are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I’d pictured you in every detail. It’s like a dream.”

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. It’s a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one’s dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, “Let’s test ourselves–just once. If we really are each other’s 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we’ll marry then and there. What do you think?”

“Yes” she said, “that is exactly what we should do.”

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other’s 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season’s terrible influenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence’s piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, both along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in the chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fourteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don’t you think?

Yes, that’s it, that is what I should have said to her.

And then the roads converged into a single point in the horizon, always just out of reach.

Are we the last living souls?