Echo

He knows how big my love is. And he gives back without saying it. I know it’s there from the gravity.

In life, we bear archtypes. I’m the other woman.

me and jerry

-You know how I told you i had 4 dreams in tahiti that ended up happening? I told you three of them. The fourth was about you.

-What was I doing?

-We were talking. But it was very real. In a stairwell. So real that when i woke up it felt like we really had met up in that world just to talk. And then when we went to lunch for matt’s bday, when we first sat down, there was a split second when you had this sudden glint in your eye, just a flash, i thought you knew about the dream, like you really had been there too, and that made me flash back to the dream like it was deja vu.

-Maybe it was real.

-Did you dream of talking to me?

-I did not. But maybe I knew.

Just found out people can hack into people’s laptop cameras and watch. Just depends on how much someone wants to watch you. I feel terrified for my entire 20’s.

I feel the pain of everyone…

Brian is moving to London for a job. He keeps telling me he’s gonna tell me some news but hasn’t yet. I found out from Colin. At least that means I’ve got a reason to visit London now.

My heart is still heavy. I can see both sides and I agree why it was justified. But on a human level I feel their pain and I feel sad losing any member of my team.

Closure

A little story about something that happened in Tahiti that makes me wonder if the universe wants us to have closure.

We were staying at the St. Regis in Bora Bora, like most places in that area, it was a resort accessible by boat with most guests staying in either bungalows set out above the water, or private villas against a rockier coast.

They would put out about 30 bicycles every morning around 6am, and they were first come first serve. We couldn’t reserve them the night before, and once the bike was taken off the rack, wherever you put them–outside the open-air restaurant, on the beach next to your things while you went swimming, it was basically an honor system that those bikes were yours until you returned them to the rack and thus, communal use. The woman who gave us our welcome tour recommended that we get there no later than 7:30-8am if we wanted bikes.

So every morning around 7am, we would get up, run the half mile from our bungalow to the bike rack to lay claim to bikes. It was always a free for all and like the woman said, by 8am, they were all claimed.

One day, our third to last day there, my mom and I had left our bikes by my  hammock and went to eat lunch. As I came out of the restaurant, I noticed my green bike was missing. I went running towards the hammock and saw a family nearby, and that the 12 year-old son had a green bike. I asked him if he’d gotten it from next to the hammock and he nodded, so I told him it was my bike which he gave up without a word. Just then, the father came back, saw me take his son’s bike and glaring at me, walked away and took another bike that was in front of the restaurant.

Now most people at the resort were honeymooning couples. And for whatever reason, I felt protective of them as, if one of their bikes is missing, both people probably can’t ride.

So I went up to the guy and told him that the bike he took belonged to someone in the restaurant. He said, “You can’t reserve bikes.”

I told him I knew this but we all get up early in the morning to get the bikes off the racks, and once we do, they belong to us until we return them to the rack per what the hotel had told us.

He again repeated, “You can’t reserve bikes.”

I told him the only bikes he could take are the ones on the rack, but if he takes another bike, someone is going to come back to find their bike gone.

He said, “I’m not going to have this discussion with you” and rode off. Which pissed me off so I blurted out, “You’re a thief!”

I’m sure it didn’t sit well with him. Hell, the conversation didn’t sit well with me. I was kind of pissed and embarrassed about why I have this urge to champion everything, and I was also anxious about having to run into him again. There’s no where to go when you’re at a hotel in Bora Bora. My mom was happy about my standing up for principles and said she guaranteed me it would bother him and he would ask what the policy is with the bikes and he would find out that I was right. But still it bothered me. I need to be careful of my need to be right, when I know I’m right. I know it’s going to get me in trouble. Nevertheless, I was furious at the guy for being a dick, and did think that French people have such a talent for being assholes.

So luckily, I didn’t run into that guy or his family again by the time we left two days later. We took a boat from the St. Regis to the airport in Bora Bora, then a propeller plane to Papeete where we would fly to LA. They gave us vouchers for the airline’s lounge because we were in business class. There had to have been hundreds of people at the airport as the propellers were bringing people in every half hour and we made our way through the crowd to the single elevator up to the 2nd floor to the lounge. There was no one waiting for the elevator and we hit the button, but the elevator never came. I told my brother we should take the stairs and I was 5 steps up the stairs when I noticed the elevator had a door in the back, so we came back downstairs and tried that button and that got the elevator moving.

We got in and as the door was closing, a family came running up to catch it. It wasn’t until we were all packed into the tiny elevator that I noticed it was the bike thief and his family. His wife noticed my moment of realization and she chuckled nervously.

We ended up being two of only about 4 groups in the lounge so it was pretty awkward. We made a big point of avoiding each other and acting like we didn’t notice, but it was kind of hard not to.

When they called our flight, I had to go to the bathroom but I noticed he was gone. There were only two bathrooms, and I knew my brother was in one of them. I thought, man, what are the chances, and the door opened up and he came out. We were face to face in a tiny hallway, and I couldn’t believe our interaction came down to this point, but I’d thought about it a lot during my time in the lounge, so I smiled at him and said hi like I didn’t care, and he smiled and said hi, kind of relieved, and that was that.

I thought about it on the plane ride back. If we hadn’t met again in a tiny elevator of all places, we would have gone back to our respective homes, gone back to our respective countries, thinking about that blight on our vacation, that unpleasant incident where some Asian American bitch called this guy a thief, and some French asshole stole a bike, and the incident would always hold this negative magnetism in our memory.

But now, it’s a funny little story about coincidence, and we were both clearly embarrassed about it and could have done without it. With that random encounter, and the fact that we had more or less made peace in that hallway outside the bathrooms, it became a non-issue, something we both silently agreed was not something we wanted to carry with us the way we could have. In a weird way, because of the way things turned out, I almost like the guy.

I find that I still meet people who want to challenge me by saying I read too much into things, blah blah blah, but I find these people uninspired and living two dimensional lives of judgment. There are too many coincidences in life to ignore the fact that there is something there. Even if it isn’t some greater omniscient sentient force. Even if it’s somehow human beings willing things into their lives like magnets. There’s something more at work sometimes than just sheer coincidence, randomness, chaos.

Sometimes, things align and you look at it and say, this makes sense. And you’re grateful.

I can’t talk about a lot of stuff in regards to work due to protecting the company and not chancing anything I say being used against the company. Then I have no one to talk to since my family is too closely involved and I lack non-work confidantes. The root issue is my lack of a group. Core friends.

I think I would be more upset if he left his fiance for someone else than if he got married.

I don’t know if it’s my intuition or my jealousy.

I was telling Jerry about having those dreams that came true. About how I finally got closure with Dave. But then I thought about the dream I had with the two of us, and the glint in his eye when he sat across from me at lunch today, and for a split second, we both knew.

I told him I had four dreams in Tahiti that came true, but only recounted three to him.

I can’t in good conscious tell him about the one with us. So instead, I tell him the last time my dreams were jumbled up like this was August 2009. Around another full moon. And then I shortly moved to Seattle.

What worries me about what happened today, is it’s full moon in a mercury retrograde, and mistakes happen.

I’ve always assumed he knew, but sometimes he looks me in the eyes like he knows.

I need to recognize the tells to erase them.

I think it’s biological. I’m looking for high testosterone markers. I’m not into beards, only some type of guy with a beard. I used to really dislike them. It’s like I’m subconsciously preparing to nest.

I’m so consistent now. Dark hair, beard. Dark hair. Beard. Even mornings when I come into work to find Jerry has shaved off his beard give me a shock. I feel like it’s not him, where’s the other guy?

This has to be something.

Outside Lands yesterday, watching The Roots. I can’t believ how much weed there was. Everyone was smoking. Guy in the group next to me. Black hair. Black beard. Looked like a former linebacker. The sun was setting and he took off his sunglasses and when I saw his eyes, I got a jolt. For a split second I recognized him. And then it was gone, faded into a muted familiarity. He looked like Brian from Parks and Recreations but more sharp. He looked like my ex best friend/boyfriend of 3 weeks Rob, if his life had been together. And he must have recognized me too, because when we locked eyes, he froze.

His friend was between us so we had a barrier. I know he was aware of me and I was aware of him. We were both dancing and we would smile at each other sometimes. I knew he was sneaking looks at me, and I was sneaking looks at him. Then I don’t know, I got distracted. I thought this girl was buying pills from this dude in dreadlocks and he and his friend were leaving. He swung my way, leaned in and said hi. No smile, no presumption, both a statement and a question. I said hi. I had the impulse that I should shake his hand, engage in touch. Acknowledge that we both recognized each other. But I didn’t. It was that moment in that dream with Jerry on the stairs. My instincts fired but my body didn’t react. I smiled at him like I’m just friendly, and then he was gone.

I was hit by regret but kept telling myself he would find me. If he’s my guy, he would find me, when I’m ready, whoever he is.

And of course it makes me sad. When I had that dream with Jerry it was hopeful. There was an intimacy and bond there that reminded me it’s there. Whether it’s him or the person my dreams use him to represent. And then lately, with me getting glimpses of the future in dreams, it makes me wonder if I warned myself to do what I wanted, to control the moment, or was this a pay attention crib sheet, so I would know there was a lesson embedded into the moment, even if this encounter wasnt the end result?

Dark hair. Beard. Shaved head sometimes. Eyes. I recognize him by his eyes and energy in every dream. The man before time. Last night I was showing the universe that I believe that. I let the guy go and figured he would find me if he was right. Otherwise, this guy is still out there. I’m becoming very consistent. Also, they’re built big. Whatever their ethnicity, they’ve been either physical or energetic embodiments of panthers.

I’m sitting here thinking about using weed as incense as these two guys next to me treat getting a joint out of a backpack like a covert military operation. We’re at a Sia concert at golden gate park. I think you’re good.

Never give them the body.

While in Denver, I was at dinner with this company and this guy was talking about his daughter and how he wants her to take her time, date and get to know what she wants. He doesn’t want her to just settle down, and I was telling him how based on his experience (he’s Taiwanese so he got married to a girl he dated in high school), he has a rich life because he has walked all of his life with the same person and they’ve built a history together, so they have a rich shared experience but what I find of this generation of Taiwanese parents is that the open-minded ones want their kids to have opportunities they didn’t, like exploring relationships first before settling down.

The guy was nodding saying, yes, that’s exactly it, and the guy next to me blurted out, “Boy you really do read body language!”

I didn’t ask him, but I was surprised and curious what he had observed of me in that conversation to say specifically that I was reading from the other guy’s body language. To me, I’m listening to the words and the echo between the words. But I’m also listening and watching everything. It made me curious what he had observed of my listening and response that correlated to my reading of body language.

My process is intuitive, but maybe to an outside observer who is watching me carefully, they can pick up my processes.

I flat out stay away from Brits.

This half-black half-filipino guy talks to me and tells me he’s a Raiders fan, a Lakers fan and a USC fan. I accuse him of being an incarnation of the devil. I tell him my dad is open to me dating any ethnicity or type except he says no Raider fans. And I can’t stand Lakers and USC fans. What’s your name?, I ask him.

Aristotle, he says.

Some trick, I think.

Birthday 1/27/78. He shows me his license but he thinks I must be born in 82. His friend Ray Solomon, a delicate olive-skinned guy with exotic eyes is his sidekick. He offers his birthday. 4/28/74. I tell him two of my friends have the  same birthday and they’re the same year.

He says he wants to play basketball with me. Or just shoot around and he could give me some pointers. Naive dipshit. What part of that would I find enjoyable. I told him that offer was patronizing. But he has a sweet smile so I’m not rude to him.

They say I’m really tough when I won’t give them my number but are still polite enough to say it was nice meeting me.

I flip through time zones on my watch seeing what time it is around the world.

Sometimes I feel like a panther in a world of geese. Sometimes I don’t know anymore.