“that’s what the world is made of, that quantum stuff,” he said.
nearly echoing what I said two posts in a row–this world is energy.
yesterday experienced synchronicity. wish you were here led to wish you
were here, led to an image of a man on fire which reminded me of watching a
woman light herself on fire earlier that day. a synchronicity palindrome.
so i texted him, have you noticed synchronicities? like random things
or references repeating?
he did not answer and i told myself to wait. the waves were not strong
but they were there.
and this morning, sarah texts. asking me about paper lanterns.
when i was thinking about her all last week while searching my blog for
something specific for him, and i was wondering why she had asked me about
paper lanterns months ago. i almost called her too. and here she was.
paper lanterns?
you wouldn’t believe it, sarah. i’m looking at one right now and don’t
know what to make of it.
she said she has been seeing number patterns. 111, 222, 333. she said
that everything she’s read, Jung, angel numbers, jewish numbers, only seems to
say these patterns mean to pay attention. exactly what i had told him.
so i was going to see him today, and made a mental note to talk to him
about patterns. he was supposed to come over on tuesday but i had to leave
early, and he had wanted to come over earlier but i had to make a quick run. as
i was pulling out, he was driving in.
synchronicity, he finally replied. then i remember on tuesday when i
had said no, we had also passed each other at the entrance of the complex in
the exact same way.
as i was driving to my delivery, i thought about deja vu. about
dreaming of the future. of meeting the people whom you have dreamed about, and
recognizing them from before time. and then suddenly there is electricity, and
the code begins to reveal itself in tiny little coincidences and randomness and
it seems that you’re 2 beings speaking 2 languages to someone you believe
exists in and above this world, as you do.
and then…
like the many times you have looked up and spoken to the moon, feeling
a palpable sense of being seen and understood by something so enveloping and
knowing, you are convinced you will receive proof of life…
there’s nothing.
just a flatline.
sarah, you’ve asked, what are paper lanterns? what are their meanings?
and perhaps you wonder, is it enough to uproot entire earth over.
i told you, to get the answers you seek, you must ask the right
questions.
The reason I came to New York on Sunday was to see Hilary Mason speak on Monday night. Her topic was how to find the best cheeseburgers in NYC using algorithms. The next night, I sit next to a handsome stranger who mentions that the hotel he stays at, Le Parker Meridien, has a really good burger place. The next day (today), I’m sitting at a table at the conference and these guys ask if they can share my table. They all have burgers and I ask them where they got their burgers and they said a place in this hotel. I asked what hotel and they said, “The Parker Meridien.” It was like a theme went full circle on this trip. I just wrote to HM and asked her where she ranked the Parker Meridien burger.
Also a couple of other weird synchronicities. I was at the after party for the speaking event on Monday, when I look across the bar and see this guy I went to college with. The weird thing is that I live in the bay area, he lives in LA, we hadn’t seen each other in over 10 years, yet here we are running into each other in a bar in Manhattan. What’s weirder is the last time I’d heard from him was a few months ago, when I hadn’t previously heard from him in 10 years. He’d written to say he’d had a dream about me, that he’d dreamed he was at a party at my place and I was drinking a cup that was filled with light. It coincided with a period in my life where I felt like I was generating electricity, glowing. And here was another bizarre run-in for us.
The next thing that was weird was tonight, I went to the show’s party and this Indian guy walks right up to me and introduces himself. I ask him what company he works for and he says Lockheed Martin. I do a doubletake because I’d actually hadn’t heard his name and ask him, “Are you Ravi from Lockheed Martin.?” He says yes, looks down at my badge and realizes we’ve talked to each other. He tells me he went with a different vendor, and I’m pretty furious but I give him a playful but passionate earful and the end result was he tried to offer me a job. He said it was such a coincidence because the reason he even said hi to me was just because he thought I was a hot girl.
I leave, realize one of the guys eating a burger today had mentioned Shake Shack has better burgers and it was nearby, so I went and grabbed a burger (soooo slutty). As I was walking home, I passed a speakeasy type bar I had passed on Monday and thought would be cool to stop into, and ended up talking to a guy who worked for the FDA. As he was leaving, I asked him if he knew where I could get weed. His friend said he had it at his place if we all wanted to go back and smoke and I said hell no. For all I know the place is wired with cameras and I’m about to get double-teamed. So they leave after the FDA guy mentions he totally wanted to sleep with me but I was on to him. I leave. There’s a brutha in dreads outside with a sign that says Money 4 Weed. I tell him I’ll split with him and he uses my phone to call some number and he has me wait under a scaffolding in Time Square where his friend sells me a CD, after which he passes me a dime. Congratulations, I have now scored weed in NY.
As I’m walking back the engineer texts me. Says he’s back at his hotel. Asks me which hotel I’m at and when I tell him he says he’s google mapping it. I’m surprised, thinking he’s basically saying he wants to come over. I ask him if he smokes, and he says he’s down and coming over. I think, obviously I always planned to have someone in my hotel room, that’s why I straightened up before I left. I did ask him to promise to behave, because I try to limit the amount of time I spend with married men in hotel rooms. In my mind, I really didn’t want anything to happen because I don’t think I’m prepared for a world where I’ve seen him naked, but a part of me was also thinking, how would anyone ever find out? The shit I got was shwag, but I’d bummed a cigarette off a nice smoke shop owner, and emptied it out, then filled it in. Is it scary I know how to do this.
Knock on the door and I remind myself I got this. I’m in control of this. We smoke and I’ve got two queen beds so he’s on one and I’m on the other. It’s pretty weird to be in this situation though and know under no circumstances are we to hook up. We talked about life. He thinks it would take $10,000,000 for someone to have the freedom to really discover themselves, take things to the next level. He says in life you should try everything because you don’t know what you would really like unless you try everything.
At one point he asks me what my passion is, and I said, getting inside people. He asked me what I meant, and I said I was deep inside him right now. He said no way, outside of somehow knowing my birthday, you don’t know anything about me. I said, I’m deep inside you because you think about me all the time even when I’m not around. And he stopped and turned red, then laughed and said, “Well, duh, of course I do.” Then it was out there and it felt like some shell had broken. He’s wondering why we met and why we hit it off right away and I said these things just happen. He asks me how someone can even get close to me, that obviously they can’t sell themselves to me. But if they proved they were a really good person, like really proved it, would I let them in? I think so, but they would probably have to jump through some hoops.
My back was hurting so he told me to lay back in my bed, but then it would have been awkward because I couldn’t see him so he came and sat next to me on mine, promising he wouldn’t do anything. We sat and talked about life some more. Then it was late and he went home. Before he left he asked if I would be willing to give him a hug. Of course, I said, and we hugged like old friends because he’s always felt like an old friend to me, even from the first time I met him. (He’d actually mentioned that when he first saw me, he thought, “Okay.” Wherever she’s going, “Okay, I’m in.”) I was surprised he would even ask, and I said I thought I always gave him a hug. No, he said. Are you sure?, I asked. Positive, he said. Then I remembered, we’d never hugged before. I always shake your hand, I said. He laughed sheepishly and said, “I know! And I think, okay business associate. I guess we’re not friends.”
That guy totally likes me. And I know whatever could have happened he would have let happen. At one point, we were both laying in my bed, less than a foot apart. If he had been more aggressive, who knows. But the point of the story is, I didn’t want anything to happen and nothing did.
Everything into their own compartment. This is as close as I can get.
I’m watching Fringe (barely paying attention because Anna Torv possessed by Leonard Nimoy is hard to digest for me) when she says, “Destiny. Fate. Jung called it synchronicity, the interconnectedness of apparently unrelated events…”
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity
Jung called it synchronicity, too? This blog is basically me logging and obsessing over synchronicities.
Plus my obsession with astrology and archetypes and its importance to understanding psychology, human development and actualization. In my stumblings, when I found that Jung explored the same, it helped me validate it. I’ve always felt a kinship to him. He was into spiritualism, where different beliefs and perspectives converged. The development of each individuals potential, perspective.
I never knew he called what I called synchronicities. But when I heard this tonight, it jolted me. Maybe I was Jung in a past life, I thought. And then I remember once, I had a very vivid dream…I was a man in 1800’s Europe (Austria, I thought) whose father was more working class, narrow-minded and didn’t get me, but I was an intellectual, though people did not accept my thoughts. I grew old and fainted one day walking up a slight incline of a cobblestoned road and basically my life ended. Faded away.
I looked him up and he died in a Swiss village called Kussnacht. I looked it up and got to this page:
Cobblestone. Most of the population speaks German. I have an affinity to Germany. The landscape. The green. I call it heimat. Motherland.
Wtf.
I’ve been sleeping with a nightlight. My brother put it there when he was in a really accommodating mood and so I’ve been sleeping with a nightlight.
The last few months have been like hell. November, December and January felt like it was a fight for survival–I didn’t know if I was fighting not to be eaten or to prevent myself from eating someone. Meanwhile, I was filled with fears and doubts about if I was going in the right direction, but I had to keep moving even though some nights my insides were frozen with terror. Then something opened up the last two weeks, it felt like my time had come and fruit started falling from the tree.
I know something changed inside me since Jerry’s wedding. I feel like I went through a doorway and came out a different person. Maybe I just don’t give a fuck anymore. Like I told my coworker, 2012 we’re going balls to the walls and we’re not stopping until our pants are on the floor. In the last two weeks, I feel like so many things have come to a head and I’ve been called to step up, and I have stepped up, roaring, stomping, owning everything and everyone in my path. In fact, I just listed poning as one of my skills on Linked In. I feel massive. I feel like the energy running through me could light the night sky. I just don’t give a shit anymore and I’m not holding back.
Synchronicities lately too. Haven’t been many in a while so I feel like something’s coming in, plus the Leap Day. First, I had a meeting with a guy who told me his birthday was May 14th. I told him, good birthday. The next day, I run into my neighbor and she’s pregnant. I ask her when she’s due, and she says May 14th. Good birthday, I say for the second time in two days. Same meeting, the guy’s partner tells me to check out this YouTube clip of this guy with Tourette’s singing Crash Test Dummimies, Mmmm Mmmmm Mmmm. So the day I watch it, I end up driving around after work and decide I want to find a place with a jukebox. Turns out the place had a live blues band with a full line of beers on tap and the guy at the front waived my cover. Despite growing up in Fremont, I’d never known of this place’s existence but it turned out to be a hidden gem. So the band goes on break and someone puts on music over the speaker system. It’s Crash Test Dummies, Mmmm Mmmmm Mmmmm. It felt like the song was following me.
The last big one was how I was feeling this week, like Godzilla with a belly full of fire. The day after Leap Day, I get an email from a guy I went to college with whom I haven’t spoken to in over 10 years. He says he had a dream about me and is wondering how I’m doing. I told him it’s strange for him to be writing me now because I’m in the midst of being in a place I’ve never been before. I ask him what he’d dreamed and he said I was hosting a party at my place in LA and a bunch of people he knows were there. And I was drinking a drink that was fluorescent, like it was made out of light. I told him that’s uncanny because that’s exactly how I feel lately. I’m a ball of fire right now and he managed to see me all the way from Pittsburgh with a 10 year difference.
Speaking of dreams, if I dream I had sex with someone and it was good, and that makes me act nicer to that person in real life, deep down, is there a part of them that knows I’m being nicer because in a dream, we had sex?
I had two dream synchronicities too, where I found myself in a situation that I’d already experienced in a dream.
The first, so I was sitting across from Dave’s former manufacturer, and it’s like nemeses who have been fighting in the dark for so long, then finally see each other in the light. When I saw him, I thought about how I’d just dreamed of Dave. I wanted to ask Dave if this guy was the salesperson he said he hated, but didn’t really want to contact him. I try to be as uninterested in him as possible on principle. I tried to watch Desperate Housewives on my phone but the picture quality was so bad it was blurry like an old TV. My mind would drift off into really wanting to tell someone what that guy did. I sat on it for a day, then as I was getting lunch on the promenade the next day, I decided to text him. I was sitting on a bench with a group of drugged up bohemian kids hanging out nearby, eating a chicken pad thai I bought from a cute Asian woman in a little food cart. I texted him asking if his former rep was named Shawn. While I waited and ate, I realized I had the perfect comeback. I was so excited about what I wanted to zing him with, finally a way to balance out everything in our karmic circle. I was both anxious that he wouldn’t write back and anxious if what I wanted to say was inappropriate, then irritated I was giving it so much thought. At the same time, I was picking through my food and said in my head, “Is this chicken?This is not chicken,” and bam. Lightning went through me. I looked around. This scene was what my dream had Picasso’d.
Epilogue. I got to say to Dave: If your ex-lovers are as jilted as your ex-manufacturers, I’m glad I dodged that bullet.
It feels good to have said it.
Second synch. The night before I left for Denver, I had a dream I was playing basketball but didn’t have my basketball shoes, only my new running shoes which I do not trust at all for basketball. I decided to go ahead and play, but I was playing poorly because I was not stable and couldn’t cut in my shoes and didn’t want to get hurt.
When I went to play basketball with the guys from the conference, it was a mini half court gym where the three point line just curved into walls on each side. Small space and I was wearing those running shoes which I packed at the last minute but I couldn’t really cut in them and was worried I would get hurt so I only played at 40% aggressiveness. I beat two guys at one on one and then our team won about 7 games of two on two in a row except the last one. I didn’t play poorly but I felt bad about my performance because I knew I wasn’t playing at my usual speed. That night I tosses and turned, thinking about basketball that day when I suddenly realized the images I was seeing now and the feelings were the same as from my dream two nights earlier. But this time my mind was running through them as memories.
How bizarre. I think some people have a thinner partition between the present and the future. Sometimes in our dreams, we encounter bits of the future.
Magneticism. It’s next level shit. I am owning it and owning it and owning it well in Denver.
My mind fucking has reached sublimation. And it’s so good because I put all of myself into it.
I didn’t even have an idea how I ended up on this trip except Jodie said, “Do you want to go to Denver next week?” and I said sure. The company I was supposed to meet, Emulex, was flying me in for a conference, and I thought the name sounded like a childrens’ medication. Didn’t have time to look into it because it was busy and then I went to Tahiti. Was back for one day, had asked some passing people what Emulex did, and not knowing at all what I was going into, I figured I would figure it out when I got there.
I wanted to get in the night before because I wasn’t sure how bad the jet lag would be. My flight got delayed so I ended up getting in at 2am. Discovered they have a Mary Jane’s Pizza and they deliver until 4:20.
First day was an afternoon seminar then dinner, then drinks. Don’t know if it was the altitude compounding the full moon or what, but I was glowingly magnetic. I could feel people drawn, faces opening as if touched by light. I got into a deep conversation with one guy and he ended up telling me how in college a frat brother thought it would be funny to put an ad in the paper for a male escort service, and people actually called. And they ended up actually making some money. I had to know about his first client (a woman in her 60s and he had a hard time getting hard. It was awkward as he’ll and he kept picturing someone else just to get it done). His last time (he was sitting in the woman’s bed in his underwear and her husband came in with a shotgun. He cut his arm jumping out the window). That story was one of the best and most surprising conversations I’ve had with someone I’d just met in a long time. He says his wife kind of found out about it and doesn’t want to know and I think that’s amazing.
Day 2 is brutal having to get up 3am Tahiti time. We break up into round tables and who’s sitting across from me but this guy who’s a competitor. I’ve never met him before. Long story short, his biggest customer is now my biggest customer, and that customer is Dave.
So I see him and he sees me. His name tag is blaring at me as he scrunches up his face and gives me the evil eye. As only someone who now owns someone else’s favorite toy can, I smirked back. Made him real nervous. While other people introduced themselves and a little bit about their company, he just barked out his name and company real abruptly and just clamped up. There was an awkward silence, then the girl next to him said, “uh…where are you based out of?” when it was my turn to introduce, I looked at him and said, “I’m Julia S* from Amax…” then giving him my best I’m so close to fucking you I’ve got the taste of your skin on my tongue look…I say, snarkily, “That would be based in Fremont, which is located in Silicon Valley.
Later that night, I was in the hall talking to a rep when he walked up, made a cross at me like I was a vampire and hissed, then talked to the girl. I was smiling so hard on the inside and outside. I was finally getting the pleasure of meeting a dirty little man I had beaten. He was showing me in every way I owned him.
I wrangled some guys into playing basketball at a nearby gym. Remember how I always say you can tell a lot about a person by how they play basketball? I played with 3 guys and schooled them all. And I’m convinced what resulted was because of the experience–one guy promised me thousands in marketing funds, one guy asked me to come onto his business as a partner and when he found out I’m single, asked me if I would wait for his son. I asked him how old his son was and he said 16. I said the bigger question is how his son feels about arranged marriages.
The third who got the brunt of my jumpers in his face flatly
stated, “You should come work for me,” and was in great danger of chasing me out of the elevator at the end of the evening.
Lot of random synchronicities. Things I read coming up in different places. While I was in Tahiti, the only news I got from the states was a one xeroxed sheet of paper with all the news someone had deemed important. The first day of the seminar, I was small talking with the guy who sat next to me who had mentioned he had been at a hackers conference last week. I asked him if it was the show that gave a Pwnie to Sony for “Most Epic Fail” and he lit up and said he couldn’t believe I knew about that. And I told him about that one sheet of news, and for some reason, out of all the news coming out of the states, someone had deemed that important. And here we were, talking about it. And he’d been one of the voters.
Excerpt of email to Michelle re: The Other Night
So this is kind of an abstract way of answering your question about exploring the idea of an entire quest that takes place in the unconscious dream realm that leaves reality slightly altered, but when I read your question, I immediately thought about this thing I experienced my last night of my Asia trip. Don’t know if it will help, but perhaps it will open your mind to thought lines that will give you juice to spark off of. It’s kind of a mystical experience that requires an open mind, but bear with me. And I promise you, I haven’t gone insane.
So. I’m really into the idea of synchronicity. Murakami wrote in the Wind-Up Bird Chronicles something like, when it’s time to go up, you find the highest tower and climb. When it’s time to go down, you find the deepest well and go to the bottom. When there’s no flow, you stay still.
I feel like that has a lot to do with life. We’re taught to fight for things, to be aggressive. But so much of life is about timing, that it’s as much about the patience to wait for the right opportunities, the wisdom to recognize them, the assertiveness to jump when a door suddenly opens, and the courage to see a path through. So I pay attention to things, especially if I feel my life starts to synchronize, where things outside me tend to lead me, give me clues on things I’m working on, thinking about, where I need to be, who I need to talk to.
So one day last month, I was in the business center of my apartment building in Seattle, waiting for a computer. I had time, so I went to the bookshelf to browse books people had donated. I saw a book called Real Magic, a spirituality book by a guy named Wayne Dyer. I connected to the title right away because magic is something I’ve been exploring, what I call synchronicities–things that happen between your inner world and outer world that seem to give you proof of something greater and conscious at work around you. So I read a few pages that day, and took it with me. It’s about how to be open-minded to be able to experience miracles in daily life. To be honest, it’s stuff that I’ve been experiencing and exploring the last 3 years, so it was affirming and interesting. But I didn’t have time to read it through, so I forgot about it. But I took it with me on this trip, and it was always in my bag. I would read a few pages here and there, but I wasn’t really that dedicated.
So our last day in Taiwan, I happened to read a part in the book about being open-minded. He talks about how he read about this Brazilian guy who claims to be able to shoot light out of his hands and is a healer, and he thought the guy couldn’t be real. That just sounds crazy. But how randomly, he was in Hawaii visiting friends and they invited him to a dinner party where this healer he’d read about happened to be there. And so he and his wife had a session with the guy, and sure enough, as part of the guy’s process, light would come out of his hands as he touched their bodies, healing them. I remember thinking about how to have light come out of your hands is such a tangible proof of the supernatural. The best I’ve been able to do is remember places and people from dreams, or my bits of synchronicity that make people kind of think I’m psychic or magic. But nothing ever like light coming out of my hands.
So that night, I was laying in bed with my mom sleeping next to me. I happened to think about that story, and I remembered a dream I had, the night that everything with Curtis went down, when I showed up to Fremont and had a tormented night while he was hanging out with Sandi. Here’s my entry of it: “In my dream last night, I found a whole city covered by a thunderstorm sky and rainbow. I could walk freely in that city, as myself. The thing that people loved, was that I was their size, a normal girl, but if I reached up my hand, it would grow and touch the sky. Like a giant hand reaching out and touching the surface of water, rippling the sky and rainbow. This world was just a drop of water and we were safe in it. People would cry, hug me, instant family, so grateful, the greatest miracle they’d hoped for, to witness that the sky was not untouchable. It was just illusion. And this was everything I’d ever wanted in life. Just to give those people that.” After I had that dream, the next couple of days, I kept reaching my hand up to the sky. In my dream, my hand would grow, so it was like looking at reality through the refraction of water, where I was my size, my arm the same length, but my hand would somehow be the same proportion as the sky, despite being RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. It was this complete visual contradiction but I knew it was true. And that dream reminded me of a poem I wrote in 2003, about how the world is reduced to a puddle:
And I’m always writing about my hands. From April: “Ignore everything but the sound of my voice, it said, and trusting it, I handed over the reins to my hands.” “If she can not open herself to one person, she will pour her spirit into the ground, where it rises up around her. People are trees come to life. She has only one dream. It involves her hands. Few have seen her eyes. Few forget.”
I’m thinking about all this while laying in bed, and so I hold up my hands, willing them to grow like in my dream. Now the room was dark and I could see the outlines of my hands like thick black shadows. I stared at them, but the more intensely I looked, the more relaxed I seemed to become, like that intensity and will was being produced only be my complete state of relaxation and openness. My eyes swam a little as I stared, and while I still recognized the room and my hands, but things seemed to be recognizable, but also something…else. I started chanting something in my head I didn’t recognize and never heard before. It was like “Onya tanconsah…tonsila tonsila,” and it started getting louder and with more resonance. And the weirdest thing, Michelle, my hands began to grow. I can’t say that they literally grew, because I was aware of my human hands held above me, I was aware of the room, I was fully aware of my mom sleeping next to me, her breathing, this plane of reality. But it was like a simultaneous PERCEPTION just as real and present as my physical reality, not exactly overlapping, but just as there. My hands started getting bigger, and the chanting became more resonate, and space and proportion seemed to fold onto itself so when I touched the air, it rippled. I could feel tingling between my hands, and I saw them as being so big, they collected the world in a ball between my hands, and I could feel it, both nothing and something completely tangible. Like a giant cotton ball but which contained energy. I would try to expand this ball of energy, and every time I made it bigger, my mom next to me would gasp in her sleep! It felt like the sky was just within reach and I could reach up with my giant hands, grab the rim and climb out. And all of this felt familiar, like I’d been here before and had just forgotten. I put my hands up and pulled myself up, and as I did, I felt myself as a bigger being, one who these giant hands belonged to, beginning to wake up. I realized that while I was fully awake, though maybe in some kind of trance, this me in bed, this world, while real, was also just a dream to this bigger me that was stirring, and that world was as familiar to me as when I wake up here and look around and see the familiarity of my bedroom. I knew that if I kept pulling myself up, I would awake in that bigger me, to that world that I knew was real while this world was dream (I even knew that where that me lay sleeping, there was an upstairs connected by a set of stairs to the left of the room). I could do it. It would require a commitment to stirring awake, the way you commit to leaving a dream and waking up, but I was scared that for me to commit to seeing that world, to being conscious in it, I would die here, or I would never be able to find my way back. I’m not ready to leave this world yet. But to be honest, I felt like I’ve come this far before, I’ve come to this realization and this level of awakedness before, but I also knew that while that world and that bigger me was real and when it is real, this world and this me is a dream, I wasn’t convinced I could still come back. Like losing a dream and its unique world when you wake.
So I moved away from that world, let my hands grow small again until my own hands were all I perceived, though I could still feel the energy around me. Then my hands starting doing their own things, strange gestures over my torso, like they were scanning it, moving energy around above it, gathering it while I watched them. The chanting in my mind came from both me and as though my mind had picked up a radio signal, because it felt like it was happening whether or not I was willing the words. When my hands were hot and tingly with energy, I put them over my heart and felt it all flow in in an intense beam (more felt than seen as light), and my mother exclaimed loudly in my sleep. That scared me enough to sit up and check her breathing. She had been laying with her back to me. She was fast asleep. And dawn was breaking now, even though all this had felt like maybe an hour. All in all very, strange. I’ve never experienced anything like it, and perhaps I had somehow put myself into a lucid dream state, but I was also so aware of my body and this world, and so aware of my mom making sounds that synchronized with what I was doing with the energy between my hands. Yet there was a world even more real than this one that I almost climbed into, and I knew, as I was in that moment, that I’d come this far before. Except this time I was conscious.
Now this is the reason I wrote you this long story, and forgive me for taking up so much of your time. I woke up the next morning so exhausted I could barely open my eyes. I felt like I’d been drugged, I was so tired. In fact, I’d slept 4 hours past when I usually get up. I went out to the living room and was just wandering around when my brother came out of his room.
“My necklace turned into a string,” he said. I was out of it and he was talking to my mom, but he sounded really confused. I heard her say, “That’s really strange.” He came up to me and said, “I don’t know how this happened. My necklace turned into a string.” I looked over at him and this is crazy. He wears a dolphin necklace on a thick black string. But it had somehow unraveled in the night, though staying in tact, so that part of the string had unraveled into a single thread, with the dolphin now hanging at his shins. It almost looked like he’d become a giant in the middle of the night and had shrunk back to regular size, but the transformation had stretched out his necklace. Of course I immediately thought about how big I had perceived my hands that night. Was it possible, that somehow, some part of us, had grown to giants in the night, or that we had allowed some kind of other plane in which we are bigger, slip in?
Take this story for what it’s worth. It’s probably the strangest thing that I’ve ever experienced. It could very well be a matter of random coincidence–from my mom making sounds in her sleep that coincided with what I was doing with my hands being just random, perhaps I was actually in a dream state while believing I was conscious, to the book’s presence just being another coincidence (though the strangest thing was, I went to look for the book that day and it was gone. I called the airline and it wasn’t on the plane, though that was the last place I’d read it, the day before, the part about keeping an open mind. Strange because my having come into possession of the book had also been random. I hope that perhaps someone else found that book at the right time that it could open up some magic for them).
Regardless, I kind of felt like, you asked me about why I recommended the change in your script to the adventure being a dream with a tangible change in reality upon waking, and I felt like it would bring the story full circle not just on a 2 dimensional plane (story), 3 dimensional plane (reality) but on a 4th dimension, this circle of where it is we go when we are not HERE, and if it’s the same person that returns. But as you can see, it could also be influenced by things I’m experiencing lately and it may not work for your story, but it just seems like my life has been so synchronized, and your question made me feel like I should tell you about these strange events that have occurred lately, so maybe I was meant to tell you. Again, please take it for what it’s worth, and I don’t want to muddle your train of thought about your script, so if you don’t see any relevance, I apologize.
I’m reading this book that starts off with this question. You kill a man with an ax, and in doing so, break the handle, so you buy a new handle and attach it to the blade. And then in chopping wood, you break the blade, so you replace the blade. If that man you killed should come back to life and say, “Hey, that’s the ax that killed me,” is he right?
Alright Michelle. Will write with more notes. Good luck with everything!
Take care,
Julia
If it was September that picked up March/April as being the next electric time, if you look at the post counts, September had been my highest in history, now second only to March. I’m looking for synchronicities between the words and context of all these months with abnormally high numbers. There’s something that connects them.
Maybe this synchronicity thing has been my complex but innovative resolution to address my loneliness issue. Everyone, including myself, often wonders who I’m writing to. It’s kind of like when I was a kid and I would talk to the night sky. I’m just sending these messages off into space. But then sometime in the future, I get redirected back to old posts through these synchronicities, or things that happen in the future are more interesting because I’d already written about them presciently. And it gets me all excited thinking, there’s something else in the world, there’s something out there, but it’s really just the echoes of me having a time-bending conversation with myself to keep myself from feeling alone. Well, they always say humans are great at finding ways to cope.
Everything is just perfect right now. Got the full moon today through tomorrow, I’m in a little apartment overlooking the ocean as it storms every night, and it feels like a portal has opened up around me. This book is exactly what I need at this exact moment. I got to the part yesterday where the main character finds the Orange Girl at the cafe and sits down at her table, and she reaches for his hand, and it’s just this moment. And I started laughing because I had written the night before I started the book about sitting down with strangers, holding their hand and their life unfolds.
I don’t know if these synchronicities actually mean anything outside of being fun and giving me a general feeling that I’m moving in the right direction, on the right track. They’re like a voice telling me I’m getting warmer, as I search to find that hidden key.
Wouldn’t it have been infinitely worse if we’d first been able to see each other every day for six months and then never met again?
This line made me feel sad and guilty.
So this is trippy.
A few weeks ago I wrote this post:
Saturday, October 10, 2009
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.
streamed by 3am wanderer – at 1:58 PM
***** I had originally posted it with a different last line– Most of the -ian’s make me pause and observe though. Not the -yan’s (like Ryan, Bryan), but the -ian’s (Adrian, Ian, Sebastian, etc).
But the next day, I reread it and erased the last part because of the name Sebastian. I have never met a Sebastian or had thoughts of the name recently…the name just popped up as I was writing that post. But when I saw it, I didn’t feel comfortable having it out in the open so I erased that line and reposted it. I get like that sometimes. I’ll write something and think, I don’t want to jinx anything, and I will hold it privately as something to keep an eye on, but I don’t feel comfortable putting it into writing. I don’t always know why or what I think might be “jinxed,” but it’s a feeling.
Then today, I was sitting in a bar in my pajamas, waiting to meet up with my cousin and her friends who were in town just for Halloween. I was people watching–there were some great costumes, like Beetlejuice, Mr. T and the Street Fighter guys. Some guys were dressed as bare-torsoed gladiators and their bodies were ridiculous, but they knew it, too, showboating, which takes a little something away. I was watching that group of guys and I could tell which one was the pack leader. I thought, I’ve never had the willingness to try seducing an alpha pack leader. I wondered if maybe that’s my problem, that I like to be the silent observer, but I’m actually hiding a lack of confidence. Could I, if I wanted to? Or do I not because I sense there’s no possibility for harmonious compatibility? I’m alpha but not an alpha derived from the hierarchy within a pack. I like male alphas, but usually the independent types–alpha in their own right but who can assimilate for the greater good. I have ambivalent feelings about creatures who move in packs but can only move in packs. I wondered if maybe that’s my next challenge, part of my constant quest to expand my comfort zone. I need to feel comfortable approaching whomever compels me, understand if my hesitance is intimidation or an assessment of unlikely positive end result.
As I’m thinking about these things, I suddenly realize the song that’s playing. Disturbia. Just like that night on the cruise when I had my sights set and I asked the DJ to play something more primal.
Disturbia…sometimes the darkness is the light.
I shot up straight, electricity buzzing through me. Is there an important connection here???
I looked around, methodically, scanning faces, looking for someone who captures me, possibly someone whom I would normally be too introverted to talk to. Someone I might recognize, within the face of a stranger. I saw a guy wearing a knit black cap, half in the shadows of the corner. Really nice smile, smooth skin, clean angles. He was talking animatedly with a mopey-looking friend in a tuxedo, in front of Elvis wearing a headset. Oblivious of me.
I always get really shy when I see a guy I want to talk to and don’t want to stare, which results in me never looking at him at all. But I was looking at him and thought, “What are you gonna do, Julia? You can’t just will a man over here.” But that’s exactly what I wanted. I was thinking about how I just wanted him to make things easy by coming over and talking to me, when I realized he was staring at me. I thought, maybe he’s just looking in this direction. But then he walked over. I thought, “I guess I really can will a man over.”
He was really nice, had an accent. I thought he was part black, part white, but he’s from Mexico (I know…my friends always ask me what’s up with me and international men. I have no idea). He asks me if I speak Spanish and I say, “un poquito.” Then I remember how I’d decided in August that I should freshen up my Spanish, and wondering at the time if this was a sign I was preparing to meet a Spanish speaker. He’s an engineer with Microsoft. He wasn’t surprised when I said I was from California. “The most beautiful women in Seattle, when I ask them where they’re from, they always say California. I guess it’s what California is known for.” He told me he thought I was from Seattle because I didn’t smile at him when we looked at each other. I didn’t want to tell him it was because I’m shy so I said, “Oh, I didn’t know you were looking at me.” (Technically true. I wasn’t sure). And then he introduced himself. I had him repeat his name twice so I could be sure. Sebastian.
Weird. That was the specific name that resonated hard for me weeks ago and had been on my mind, but which I’d chosen to keep private. We were talking and this other guy was hanging over my shoulder watching me, a faint smile in his eyes. Despite me being in mid-conversation with another guy, he leans over, taps me on the shoulder and says, “I don’t want to seem rude, but is this guy your boyfriend?” “I’m in my pajamas,” I said, diplomatically. “I’m pretending this is my living room and you guys are all my guests. So we’re all friends here.” He tells me that he’d been watching me sitting here from across the room, and he didn’t want to sound corny but he thought I was the most beautiful woman in the room. Radiant.
Let me remind you, I’m wearing pajamas. Not even sexy pajamas. Literally, just pajamas like it’s a Wednesday night on the couch. So I thank him, but I’m in the middle of talking to someone already and then there’s another even cuter guy at the end of the bar wearing a gray knit cap who’s staring and smiling, and I know from that guy’s smile he’s young and devilishly bad news, but oh, I’m still learning how to stay away from trouble. I’m feeling overwhelmed…there are just too many things going on that are stripping my attention. So I go back to talking to Sebastian, because I was talking to him first, but this guy just stands there over my shoulder, waiting. Smiling patiently. Staring. He tapped me again a few minutes later and asked if he could buy me a drink. I thanked him but politely declined, saying I was just having water. He said, “Ooooh,” like he thought maybe I was a recovering alcoholic who had to stay dry, and I told him it’s because I already had one drink and I’m a lightweight waiting for friends, so I had to pace myself. The truth is, I don’t like accepting drinks. I don’t want to feel obligated to having to talk to someone, or having someone feel I owe them anything.
So he just kept standing there. Waiting with that smile and staring. Even though I was still talking to another guy. My cousin and her friends showed up. We were catching up and Sebastian got sucked up into our group, which I was happy about because then I could talk to other people while being able to take a step back and observe him. I mentioned to my cousin that the guy standing behind her had been lurking for over an hour now, and I didn’t know what to do. She turned around and he started talking to her. I went to the bathroom. When I came back, she grabbed me and told me that the guy said I was the most beautiful woman he’s seen in a long time and asked her how he could get to know me better. I said, “Long time? Since what? Prison?”
She joked, “Ham [her boyfriend] said he’s probably a rapist. What do you do to these guys that make them go so crazy over you?” “I don’t know,” I tell her. “I’m in my pajamas at a bar. It makes no sense.”
That guy continues to stand there at the edge of our group for the rest of the night. I kind of ignore him because I don’t know what to make of it. And then he s
uddenly disappears. So weird.
Sebastian asked me for my number at the end of the night and I told him I don’t give out my number. He gave me his. My cousin’s friends really liked him since they’d been hanging out with him while I caught up with my cousin. He’s a Scorpio. You should have seen my jaw hit the ground; in a recent post I picked up on an incoming Scorpio.
It’s hard for me though. So many paper lanterns. So many connections are karmic work assignments–each person has something to teach, each has something to learn, and then they move on. Some are to walk with you for a certain amount of time, or at a certain distance. But they all spark the same initially. Sometimes they’re sign posts to get me to the next place, sometimes they’re reminders to not get lazy and “fall,” sometimes they’re just for me to help someone and gain wisdom in the process. The synchronicities don’t always add up to what I’m hoping they will some day add up to, but they’re always important for the process. The trick is to know where they and their function lay in the process.
I have to be really careful with things that feel “fated.” I usually note the things that set off sparks in my mind, but carefully observe so I can get a feel for who a person is and why we have connected. I always say the hardest connection is the one where you feel fated when you meet someone, it comes as such a strong passion that mimics love/lust, but you’ve met just to learn how to get away from each other. And that lesson can only be challenging if it’s incredibly hard for you to WANT to get away from each other, even though it’s clearly necessary. This lesson is valuable in that it makes you face how strong you can be, how willing you are to do what’s best for yourself, and how important it is to trust your intuition. Sometimes, the universe sends you a person who triggers your synchronicity alarm, but just because it’s fated doesn’t mean it’s yours to keep. Sometimes, it’s the lesson that is fated, the meeting, not the person. Sometimes a soulmate comes to give you a rude awakening, or help you with a learning exercise versus to walk the rest of life with you. The key is to observe consciously and trust your intuition. Trust that you have your own best interests at heart.
I will say tonight was an intriguing night. Will I call him? I told him that I’m someone who does what I say, so if I say I’m going to call, I will. I do want to talk to him, see why this happened. Would love someone to talk to, if we connect mentally. But I’m still looking for something specific. I’m still looking for something that’s mine, and I’m careful about continuing to expand my world and make the connections, but to not get distracted.
don’t lose track of linear time but break away from it. translate time into distance, space, depth. and then you can see that while objects are connected by time, sometimes you can reach for them through space, which is just another dimension of time. if you are trying to observe the impact of the illusion of time, then you have to reach and find reflective objects outside of the linear projection. i was always good at memory match games–find the two objects that match by flipping over cards. so i found that if i was good about remembering things, i would recognize synchronicities. once you have a synchronicity, then you already have two points with which to triangulate a perception outside of the linear timeline.
i have always said the one thing humans did that released themselves was break the time-space dependency with transportation. i always use ants. an ant can walk in a straight line at its top speed for the entire length of its life, but it can only go so far before it dies. a human is the same. but once the species discovered transportation, we broke our maximum distance-time correlation. we are slowly understanding how we can change our relationship with time. time is a force. but so are we. we are learning how to work with it. the human world is about to get bigger.
actually, i do find that more synchronicities tend to happen during a retrograde. especially the phenomenon of thinking about someone, and they either show up or call out of the blue, or some other tie from the past emerges. the reflection in hindsight after the retrograde ends is usually very rich and beneficial to a person’s path ahead. it’s just all the inconveniences when you’re in it that are such a bitch to deal with.
because aren’t these synchronicities of fate just evidence of the divine?
i’m going to write the final chapter of the cruise story when i get back to la. seems fitting.
in the meantime, here’s a stream for you, on my personal dime. this is me at play.
when you can’t sleep, your mind processes reawakening in a very fragmented way. you suddenly find yourself in a moment of the space between, when you don’t know who you are, where you are, how you got here. and suddenly, there’s an idea, something familiar, that roots you back into reality.
so my question. synchronicity or coincidence:
in my downward sleep cycle when i thought my mind had completely taken over, i was awakened twice in a row by an unexpected kiss.
once on the plane home off of 2 hours of sleep, i was in a fragmented dream world when i suddenly became aware that i was being wetly kissed on the chin, suddenly finding myself back on the plane with my 4 year-old cousin on my lap. it was sweet and unexpected, putting me momentarily between worlds. it made me believe in a sweet, innocent world.
the next, i’d arrived home and michael and my dad were so happy to see us. they had such good energy, they must have had a really bonding father-son weekend together. my dad asked my mom how the cruise was. i popped in my earphones and listened to paranoid android. letting her tell her story.
we were on the bridge by the time i took my earphones out. i’d been watching the water fly by through the window, alternating streaks of grays and blues. everyone sooner or later became aware i was back in the room.
mom: julia was very popular. dad: yeah? mom: we were having drinks and the chef sent us drinks, then a bottle of wine at dinner. dad: really. julia: he’s a jamaican guy in his 40’s. i think he just really liked the song i chose. mom: but he’s part chinese.
we got home and i’m like staggering. if people really knew how tired i was, they would be amazed that i’m not in a coma. but this kind of strength is easy for me, when i feel what i’m doing means something.
i wanted to keep writing, get it all down before it faded, but it’s really hard for me to write in the day and trust i won’t take the soul out of writing. but i wanted to try. michael offered to buy me coffee and have his ride bring it back for me. it was amazingly conscious and sweet. i wrote down what i wanted, and sure enough, jan walks in with my coffee. but iced, not hot like i ordered. michael’s personal touch. once i saw it, i realized i actually preferred it iced.
started writing, wondered if i would be more efficient if i tried to get a little bit of sleep. i really prefer nighttime. went to bed, and forced myself to drift off into a meditational state, that dropped off into sleep. woke up not knowing who the hell just kissed me on my cheek. looked around the room for other people, because i just came from a world where a lot of kids were running around. realized, who else would it be but michael.
i’m going to get my new iphone, he said. he was giddy with happiness. pure love.
i’m assuming this is where the idea of kisses from princes waking up princesses became so magical. it pulls them out of a completely disordered or blank world.
went to the gym today. andrew seemed almost afraid to hug me. or too distracted. had no energy at all because i completely had no desire to eat yesterday. i’m telling everyone i forgot but i didn’t. my mind is so magnetized it’s completely running the ship here.
i’m itching to talk about all the synchronicities i experienced this week. there were so many, their occurrences started becoming a bit of a caricature of themselves. and all the while, i feel like because i can see them and they’re tickling me silly, i must be the sanest person in this place because i’m watching the magic as it happens. unless other people saw them, too. then it means there really are others like me.
Culmination – Cruise Report Part IV
Day 7, 8/1 – Inside Passage Emerging from the murky shapes of a confused dream passage, I awaken to find I am a strong, proud knight standing in a forest alone, my armor gleaming, the world solid beneath my feet. I look up at the trees towering above me, yellow light streaming through the branches like the soft fingertips of God brushing the earth, and I feel so strong, so powerful, so invincible. It is a moment of absolute completion and joy. Suddenly, my legs tremble and begin to melt, and I feel my strength draining from my body. I look down to find a spear protruding out of my chest, having pierced me clean through from behind. I fall to my knees, filled with surprise and sorrow, the darkness swirling around me, inside me, collapsing all that I have ever known. In the fading light of my eyes, as the world drifts away, I hear a familiar whisper so close to my ear as to be inside me. even the greatest warriors must fall…
*****
I wake up with a start, like having a bucket of ice water doused on me, my head crackling with electricity. I feel so loud, I can’t believe people in the room can’t hear me. I’m easily the first one up and out of bed. I head up to the mess hall and grab breakfast (all I eat for breakfast anymore are pineapple slices and muesli, despite claiming I’m going to try an omelet every day). I happen to see Tom’s parents so I sit down with them to chat, a conversation that soon deepens and widens as his mother opens up her world and her sorrow over her father’s death and her mother’s deterioration (his dad wasn’t particularly comfortable and kept changing the topic, but she would keep returning it to this place). I listened and felt within the spaces between her words, tasting her sorrow, more full and rich than metallic, and at the end, she gave me a really heartfelt hug and told me she liked me a lot and was very happy to have met me. She said she hoped to see me in the future, and wondered if I just didn’t like younger men. I laughed. Told her that Tom is an amazing person and will one day be a powerhouse who can do whatever he chooses with his life, but he’s at the beginning of his journey while I’m at a very specific place in mine. She gave me a big hug and we parted.
I’m walking around listening to my iPod set on random, when the song, Colors by Amos Lee comes on.
I find this song to be beautifully romantic with such delicate emotions. I’m thinking how I would love to see Justin Wade perform this song, and as the song is still playing in my ears and I’m thinking about him, he walks by. Synchronicity! I approach him and ask him if he knows this song, and he does but he doesn’t know how to play it. I say I figured he’d do an amazing cover, because his voice reminds me of Amos Lee.
Really?, he asks, skeptically. You think our styles are similar?
Hmm, I say. Not your styles, but something else. The way your voices have soul.
He smiles, asks me what my name is, and I introduce myself.
He says that with such a mixed crowd, he usually does songs that people know, but every once in a while, he’ll do more alternative music, like Decemberists or Death Cab for Cutie.
Which Death Cab song, I ask him.
I did I Will Follow You Into the Dark the other night, and two girls cried, he said.
I ask him if he’s ever been to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and I tell him how I saw Death Cab there a few weeks ago, and it was unbelievable. The Hollywood Bowl itself on a Sunday night is a spiritual, transcendental experience, but that night, as the band played Transatlanticism, they set off fireworks to the most powerful part of the song.
It was one of the most uplifting, soul-shaking musical experiences of my life.
I asked him if he knew any Damien Rice, and he said he knows Delicate. I ask him if he’ll play it tonight, but he says that he hasn’t practiced it in a while. So I tell him, then you’d better get to your room and start practicing! I mention that the album O is kind of like a drug to me, that I actually had to cut myself off from listening to it because when I get into it, I end up staring out of windows, listening to the album for hours on end.
When I walk away, I realize I’m craving it now so on comes Damien Rice and O, and off goes my mind staring out at the sea.
I go to the Cova, which I completely associate with creativity and discovery now, to write. For the first time in months, I feel I’m ready to delve back into my book, to review where I’d gotten to, and see where I will be going. But first, my morning pages.
8/1 Free-Write Excerpts:
I don’t know about perfect love, but I know about great love. And it’s okay, because sometime, somewhere, we’ve had it so that’s why we are thankful for it now. I am feeling everything bittersweetly. I remember something my college mentor, m, wrote that has always stayed with me:
writing a poem about the girl should never be better than the girl, than being with the girl. don’t write the poem about the girl unless you’d really rather be with the girl.
If you’re not really here, then I don’t want to be either. If vision is the only validation, then most of my life isn’t real (* Black & Gold, Sam Sparro)
I am looking for a man with a good sense of timing. I’ve learned how to fight for things. Now I’m learning how to fight for the right things at the right time. Learn to crawl before you walk. Learn to love before you commit.
Your daddy, he’s the iron man. Battleship wrecked on dry land. Your mama she’s a bitter bride, she’ll never be satisfied…you know, and that’s not right. But don’t cry, you know the tears will do no good so dry your eyes. They told you life is hard, misery from the start, it’s dull, it’s slow, it’s painful. But I tell you life is sweet, in spite of the misery, there’s so much more…be grateful. Well who do you believe? Who will you listen to, who will it be? Because it’s high time that you decide…in your own mind… (*Life is Sweet, Natalie Merchant)
The weight of the world is something that feeds you, an animated force that believes in you. That your own darkness becomes a source of strength. Inspired poetry in my heart and now I have a fever to burn off. I only move in one direction, forward. If it makes it hard, keep breaking it down until you have something you can manage, but you have to keep moving forward. In the struggle of bittersweetness, in the space between comes truth. You never completely know anyone. Platonic love might be the purest form of love–no demands, each accepts the other for what they are. But it is not just platonic love that lays sole (soul?) claim to this.
Jesus did not turn water into wine. He turned pain into bittersweetness and that’s the best we can do and still be truthful.
There’s still a little bit of your taste, in my mouth. There’s still a little bit of you laced, with my doubt. It’s still a little hard to say, what’s going on… (*Cannonball, Damien Rice)
Only the truly strong know how to be truly gentle. Perfect love is inspiration. Great love is tragic. But true love is unconditional acceptance. In a bittersweet world, learn to love every taste and texture because it’s what makes life rich. Accept that who you are today is the sum of your decisions. Believe in a beautiful tomorrow but know where you are today. And beyond all, trust that you’ll find beauty as deeply inside yourself as in the horizon of an outstretched universe. Then…then is a place that doesn’t exist yet. We is a figurative that today can be just as wide as tomorrow. I don’t forget. But I do let go. What was lost was once found. What’s found was once lost. Take solace. Nothing of value is ever lost forever. *****
I suddenly realize it’s the first day of August. I realize it’s time to celebrate because I’ve made it, and as I hoped I would be at this junction, I am not only back to my true self, I am stronger than ever.
Here’s some back story.
I’ve been striving for August. Earlier this year, as I was burning the pain of the end of my heaviest but most heartbreaking relationship through my system, when every day was a crawl on the path of returning to myself, I was hit by a sudden inspiration, an intuition, a knowledge, that everything would be upright again by August. That if I could put myself back together and be my whole self again by August, I would already know a man there who would make all this pain worthwhile. I knew this with a conviction I could not explain. Who or what he was, I wasn’t sure, but he was someone I’ve been very, very excited about since March, someone I needed to work my ass off in order to be in the right place for. In fact, when I finally opened up to my ex’s brother about the pain from the relationship in June, I mentioned it:
Dear Ian, Thank you for your sentiment. It actually meant a lot to me, hearing your perspective. I’ve been pretty private about things, but I have to admit that relationship with your brother was one of the most difficult and painful experiences of my life, particularly because of how high our hopes were for it, because I did truly care about him and wanted the best for him, and because I had always been someone who believes that with enough love and desire to make things work, you can ultimately make things work. But I look back and can’t help seeing how naive I was, and that things can only work out if both people are honest with each other and are genuinely working towards the same goal. Your brother is not a bad person but he’s a man of many secrets, many hidden rooms and rooms hidden inside hidden rooms, so many that I think he doesn’t even know all of them or at least, can not keep track of them. So at the end, no matter how deeply I tried to see, feel and understand him, to this day I still have absolutely no idea who he is, or if the person he wanted me to believe he was even existed.
This…this is a very, very sad knowledge to have to hold in your hands about someone you loved.
I believe at the end of the day, he is his own man defined by his own needs, desires and agenda, and the only decision available to me was how much I was willing to give up. In the end, I just wasn’t willing to give up on myself. It would have been disaster. But time heals all wounds no matter how deep, and the benefit is that I’m more able to appreciate people who are open and honest and just overall, kind-hearted, gentle people. Not saying these particular people and I are necessarily romantically fated, but I can tell that I’m definitely clearer on what is good for me, someone I can form a true cooperative partnership with who makes me feel safe and loved and whom I can trust. Someone I can give these exact positive, warm feelings back to and he’ll appreciate them. I think I probably needed to go through what I did in order to grow up more and be more clear on what’s good for me. Isn’t it strange how we don’t always want what’s good for us? I really think this understanding is a major part of growing up.
Meanwhile, life is relaxed, family is doing GREAT, I’m meeting so many new people so randomly, men and women, old and young…lots of connections and interesting conversations. One thing I’ve been excited about is I have had a strong feeling that I will be meeting someone extraordinary around August, but have no idea who, so that has been a source of intrigue. I’m patient though–won’t ever settle again for anyone who isn’t kind, open-hearted and genuinely wants to be with me, so whoever it is who touches my heart I trust will be a cool dude.
There had also been a spike in men circling around me in June and July, some pretty aggressively. Many seemed really nice and very interesting, potentially suitable partners, but I’d suddenly become very clear in my concept of “Not My Dude.” They were like last chance impulse buys, things to test
me when I’d already come so far. Could I be tempted to give up in the final lap? I felt sure that whatever happened would be revealed around August, but a relationship that was established in June or July would not be it. It wasn’t August yet…wait for August. I would know by August. Do not commit before August. So I have been patient in waiting, patient to not settle or give anything away until I had reached and passed through August. I figure I would have a better idea by then. And now, here I was.
*****
So sitting in the Cova Cafe, I’m going through my notebooks and I noticed I would look up sometimes and catch a lot of people staring at me. Maybe it was my level of intensity when I’m working. Maybe it was my giant pile of papers and notebooks strewn over the table. Maybe it was because my t-shirt said, wtf?
I didn’t let it distract me though. I had to get through this while the door was open and while I had the desire. I found myself staring out the window a lot at the rolling gray waves, and wondering how one could come to know the ocean best. By understanding every tiny drop, or by drinking in the entire expanse of its meaning.
One of my favorite ideas that I try to live my life by is,
Do not lose the forest for the trees.
But do not lose the trees for the forest.
Ifeel it probably goes the same for the ocean. And the sky. And everything else under the umbrella of life. All that exists, and all the spaces in between. It’s the parts as well as the whole as well as their relationships with each other that make up true meaning.
Suddenly I look up and Christian is standing at my table. He says hello. I love how polite and courteous he is. I like men who are gentlemen. We chat, and he says he’ll be free for tea at 3:30, and I tell him I’ll probably still be here.
My family comes by a few times, invites me to do things, but I’m busy. Mostly staring out the window at the water and listening to Damien Rice, but busy.
Christian comes by later and we have tea. Another one of our deep, easy conversations. One of the most glaring things I notice is how easy it is to communicate with him. I’d recently written about how I feel so often I’m translating my thoughts and feelings to people, building off analogies instead of just communicating. How I didn’t want to translate anymore because it was so tedious. I want to find someone I can just talk with, someone whose mind and soul is on my level, and we would naturally understand each other.
I completely felt this with him, and it astounded me in my realization of how lacking this clarity and ease of connection has been in my life thus far. The connection was so natural in breadth and depth–his mind is quick, responsive, expansive, intelligent, generous. He had mentioned before that his girlfriend felt he didn’t talk enough. I was astounded by the wealth of his mind. I knew that I was seeing just a very small sample of the man, but he had so many ideas and perspectives and wisdom, they were like fireflies burning so bright they could be seen illuminating the daylight. I felt thankful that he was being so expressive, so open and communicative, and I felt lucky in how it seemed he was also able to understand my thoughts, feelings and perspective.
My God, I thought to myself. I may have finally found my equal.
I remember a point when he was telling me he felt that he had been very lucky about his career progression and how he’d found the various jobs on his path, and something sparked in my head; I was suddenly dying to ask him if he considered himself a man with a good sense of timing. But I held my tongue. My head was buzzing. Suddenly, I had a thought.
An inkling.
Too bizarre to be true but still…
When’s your birthday, I ask him.
September, he says, a bit hesitantly.
September what?, I ask, feeling the top of my ears go numb.
8th, he says.
Now I am dizzy with numbness in my head, but I maintain a poker face, make a comment about fall birthdays, how since my birthday was always during summer break, I was always jealous of people who had birthdays during the school year.
But really, my mind was flying back to that night in that bar, that conversation I had with the hipster.
That night, I had actually been disappointed because I thought it had been a false lead, so bitter about why the universe would lead me to something bright but empty. The problem wasn’t the emptiness of the encounter with the Missed Connections guy. He was a distraction. A red herring.
The problem was I didn’t recognize the most important clues that were dropped that night, details I had originally been too lazy to write down when I’d originally posted about the experience, but which now I truly believe I was just withholding from myself somewhere in my subconscious to prevent me from being overly influenced. What I’m about to reveal, I swear, I am not making up.
So flashback, early July, the world ramping up for the full moon that would also feature a lunar eclipse. It was supposed to be magical, mystical…something intangible but powerful in the air. I’ve never been so drawn to a full moon as this one. That week I had been particularly restless as electricity was sparking in my brain to the point of making me uncomfortable, and I felt hot on the trail of something. My mouth would water inexplicably with the passing scent of whatever was on the edge of my psychic periphery, but which I could never quite grasp or pull into focus.
So I walk into The Other Room, which has been very good to me in bringing me connections with strangers that have been illuminating. I’ve been coming here a lot because it’s safe, comfortable, a great place to watch the sunset, and I have been working on being patient–that if I sit in one place long enough, the universe will bring the connections I need.
I had recently been hanging out with my trainer, this young guy with a very green outlook on life. Definitely not my dude, but a friend to pass the time with. He had asked me one day if I was Batman, because he noticed I never seem to sleep, I’m always off helping people and making strange and powerful connections at night, I’m good at appearing and disappearing, I always talk about how I use my powers of darkness for good, and I guess, because I live in what friends call the Tower of London (top floor of a secured building) and drive a black car. So I laughed at this idea that I have a secret superhero identity, but it is true that I have a strong urge to help people and work against true darkness (evil, negativity). I do most of my connecting at night. And I am a bit mysterious and magical. So it got me thinking about Batman, and how he had Alfred, a mentor and right-hand man who took care of Batman so he could go out and fully be Batman. Plus, I liked the idea of someone who could iron my clothes, prepare my meals and keep me on schedule. More than anything, I wanted someone who could be there for me when I come home, torn up and bloody with fighting life’s battles, and this person would be there to bring me back to myself, the private me that the world doesn’t get to touch, and help me return to strength.
So I’m sitting at the bar, thinking about how I could find a real life Alfred, a person who allows me to do what I do best (didn’t have to be a roman
tic connection), when this guy next to me starts talking to me. His name is Louc, aka the hipster, a French-Canadian graphic artist. I kind of don’t welcome him talking to me because I think he’s hitting on me, but the ice finally breaks when I mention that I find that I have important experiences because I’m alone, and he tells me he understands. Because, if we were both here with other people, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But this conversation could only happen because we are both here, by ourselves, looking for some kind of experience that could help us find the next step in our paths.
Cool, I think. Maybe we can talk, so thus begins a 3 hour conversation.
I’ve already written a bit about what the night meant for him, but the thing I left out was that after I helped him feel understood and gave him hope of finding someone amazing he could spend the rest of his life with, he turned around and said he wanted to help me as well. He asked the bartender for something to write on and got a server’s notepad. He asked me what I was looking for and I told him about this idea I’d been thinking about…having an Alfred to take care of me. We went through it, and he told me that I probably could find a guy who would take care of me, my organization, my basic emotional needs, etc., but this man would suffer, because he would always want to be my partner, and he would probably secretly be deeply in love me, but I would never see him as a partner. He said what I want is a partner I consider an equal. That Alfred would never work for me because I would never allow someone to serve me but suffer.
It’s true. I would never want someone to stand by me, give me things of great value but suffer for what I can not give him in return. But Louc had kind of presented it as an either/or, and I wondered if it was possible to find someone dynamic I could consider as a partner and an equal, but who could also help me take care of the smaller but necessary details of life. The basic needs. The simple pleasures. What kind of person would this be? What kind of person……….
Then I got a spark. A symbol. Alfred, the eternal mentor/servant/caretaker/healer, was like the exact archetype embodied by the symbol, Virgo. Maybe I was looking for a very dynamic Virgo.
And then I remembered something else…prophecy.
Years ago, I was told by a very spiritual woman that she felt my eventual life partner would be an Earth sign. I was 21 years old and at the time, I found Earth signs to be very boring, or difficult to get along with because we had nothing in common. My Gemini world is one of constant change, ideas, adventure, connections. I couldn’t stand the idea of being tied down. I never saw myself settling down and getting married, let alone willingly getting trapped by the mundane. Earth signs, to me, were terrestrial people who sat on the ground like lumps, obsessing over meaningless details. I couldn’t possibly see what they and I could have in common.
But over the years, as I’ve gotten to know myself better, I realized that at heart, I am a serious and practical person. I do have my Mars in Virgo which means I feel most comfortable when things have been practically considered and plans are carried out with foresight and efficiency. I like making lists. I like things to be in order. I like being spontaneous, but not without direction. But still, I couldn’t imagine being compatible with an Earth Sign–I found the Capricorns I knew to be too cautious and out of touch with deeper emotions, Tauruses a lot of fun but close-minded, and Virgos…well…I didn’t think I’d met many Virgos. I was always intimidated by the idea of them because they’re known to be very detail-oriented to the point of being critical, and I hate being taken apart and criticized (my grandmother is a Virgo and can be a bit of a critical terrorist). I don’t want people to forget about my forest because they’re too busy criticizing my trees!
So I’ve walked through life, but that prophecy has always been in the background, firmly ignored of course. Yet even when I learned how to use the symbols within tarot cards to help me organize and understand the abstract impressions I get in my mindspace when I’m alone at night, I would always find that there was an Earth Man in the distance. Sometimes I would gauge whether I’m on or off my path by if this symbol was moving further or closer.
But to be honest, I take these things with a grain of salt. As much as my mind is open and able to grasp the abstract and mystical, and as much as I’ve experienced some highly unusual and unexplainable things in my life, I’m still very practical and prefer hard, tangible evidence before I fully trust something enough to believe in it. Or at least, I like having corroboration from another person who can swear they experienced the same thing.
So as we sat at the bar and we discussed this Alfred business, I wondered…maybe ultimately, I really am looking for a Virgo. Maybe that’s why I haven’t really crossed paths with any… perhaps because I’ve never been open to it. But now I’m in more of a place to appreciate their qualities.
We moved on to other topics when he asked me what I was looking for. He said he had a feeling that my being in an equal partnership with someone who is on my mental and spiritual level is very important. That when I find this person that I’m looking for as a partner, children would suddenly become very important to me as well. I told him that I wasn’t highly motivated by the idea of having children, because I only wanted to have them in the right situation with the right person. But if I never did, I could accept that because sometimes I feel that I’m out helping and guiding so many people, that if I never have children of my own, there will still be plenty of people in this world that I can give that nurturing energy to. But he said it would be different, because when I have my own children, I will be able to take all of my wisdom and shape them into extraordinary people, and because my partner will also be someone of extraordinary wisdom (because this is the only kind of person I would accept as an equal), our children would probably have the chance to be very special and influential to the world.
It made sense to me. It almost seemed too good to be anything but a wish or dream, but I liked the idea of it.
Somehow we got on number theory and I told him about how I see numbers (energetically dimensionally), and how they sometimes guide me in my decisions. How I’m a 9 (all the numbers of my birthday added together then collapsed: 6141978=36, 3+6=9), and how 9 is a number that I feel is the culmination of human experience and wisdom, that the outlook of someone who is a 9 will be always humanitarian…to get people to rise towards their most humane potential and strive for a higher level of awareness. Plus, if I’m anywhere around a craps table, 9 comes up a lot.
I told him how 9 is the only number where if you multiply any number with it, it turns back into 9 (ie 9×2=18, 1+8=9. 9 x52 = 468=4+6+8, 18=9). I also say that when you add any number to 9, it turns it back into that number (9+5= 14, 1+4=5). So I had a theory that 9 is both a mirror and a collective embodiment of the entire numerical spectrum of energy. That as soon as I realized the mathematical properties of this number, I realized how it correlated to my life and my abilities, how I have an ability to mirror people so they project their inner selves onto me to be able to understand themselves; I believe that’s why so many people feel that I’m “kindred.” They are seeing their own reflection in me.
It also correlates with how I seem to be able to take in other people’s energy and embody their traits, like by taking in their true selves, perspectives, feelings, ideas and experiences, I am able to more fully realize the spectrum of human perspective a
nd human experience, becoming more a collective being holding a greater understanding of the world. That the more people I meet, the more people who I have dynamic interactions with, it adds to me, so I find greater and deeper ways within myself to relate to others. because I’ve collected not just the sum of who I am, but I’ve also incorporated the knowledge that comes from the sum of others. I relate this with how 9 multiplied with anything turns back into 9. I travel the reaches of the universe through others, going so far just to return to myself, but now possessing a deeper knowledge than before I left this exact point.
He wants to know what he is. He gives me his birthday and I find that he’s an 11 (11 and 22 are the only two numbers that don’t collapse because they’re ideals). I say, wow, 11 is a good number; it’s the next number up from 9. 11 is a leader of men, someone who brings new ideas into this world. I tell him how I’ve been wondering lately, if I’m looking for an 11 to help lead me to my next step (just another one of those ideas that sprouted in my head sometime over the last few months for no discernible reason, and just seemed to linger persistently).
What do you think I’m doing right now, filling up this notepad for you?!?, he asked with a smirk. I laughed. True, I said. You’ve been beyond helpful to me with your insight tonight, and I appreciate it.
We continued our discussion, and I imagine that anyone listening in would have thought it quite unusual, but it seemed to make absolute sense to us in that moment. He thought September, 2009 would be an interesting month for me because of how important 9’s are to me, and told me to really think about how to manifest my money goals that month to lay down the groundwork for the next stage of my path. He said to look out for 9/9/2009 in particular, which would be a 29 day, always a magical day for me.
By the end of the night, we’d exhausted the notepad.
It was a beautiful connection, a beautiful night. A few minutes later, in walked Missed Connections guy and this entire conversation took a backseat in my mind, but before Louc bade me farewell that night, one of the last things he said to me was, “Keep a look out for 11’s!”
*****
And now, back on the cruise ship, here I was talking to a dynamic Virgo. And here we are on a boat called the Mercury, which is the ruling planet of only two signs–Gemini and Virgo. And what first caught my attention about him, but of course…the number 11 he was wearing on his back.
hahaha.
My t-shirt said it all.
WTF?
My brain has to file it away. My mind feels just a push away from being blown, and I do NOT want to start suddenly babbling like a lunatic about numbers and astrology and French-Canadians and fate. Not to a guy with a girlfriend whom I technically just met. So I bite my tongue and continue having a pleasant, civilized conversation like the sane, totally normal person I know I’m capable of being.
Christian mentions that there will be a magician performing tonight, and that the act will feature a segment about time. He thinks I might really enjoy it because of the way we talk about time, and wants to know what I think. We actually spend a bit of time talking about the show, and I’m definitely enthusiastic about it. When we part, he mentions again that I should really catch the part about time that the magician does, and to tell him what I think about it.
I go up to the Sky Deck, taking pictures. We’re going through the Inner Passage, and the water and the surrounding mountains are beautiful. Catch a couple of Orcas leaping out of the water. Stunning.
*****
The show. The first act is this acrobatic couple performing a piece that’s like Cirque du S’oleil. While the performance is pretty amazing, I’m more amazed by the song they’d chosen:
Ludovico Einaudi’s Primavera.
I can’t believe it. This day is killing me.
Now, maybe it takes another writer to understand this, but I will try to explain anyway.
My creative inspiration requires energy. Mood. Anima. A lot of times when I’m writing, if I find music that is inspirational, I will loop it in the background and it becomes ingrained in the soul of the work, inspiring it, feeding it. I remember the day Brian introduced me to Einaudi’s album Divenire and suddenly, it was all I could listen to, and suddenly, I was writing again.
I remember hours upon hours upon hours of writing with this album coming through my earphones, so much a part of my inner mindspace and thoughts, that it almost seemed to reside inside me.
Now, to hear this piece of music I’d associated with being inside me played in the world outside, this music that had inspired me as I wrote a book about strangers and chance encounters and magic being shared with a room full of people, just…blew me away.
It was like being turned inside out, and I felt the entire room magnetize as the line between what was inside me and outside of me suddenly become fuzzy.
The magician was next. He was a young guy with great energy. Had an entertaining and funny act, nothing mindblowing but definitely enjoyable. At the end of his set, he gets serious and says he wants to talk about time.
My heart speeds up. I need to pay attention. He takes out a piece of paper in the form of a circle, like a clock face, with 4 lines drawn at the 3, 6, 9, 12 marks.
He talks about the nature of time. How if we enjoyed the show, then the time went by quickly. But if we didn’t enjoy the show, time went by slowly. How we can waste time, give away time, have spare time, etc.
Meanwhile, as he says these things, he’s ripping off pieces of the clock face.
He tells the story of his aunt who always supported his doing magic, but she died of breast cancer before she could see his first performance.
He says that on any gravestone, you’ll find two numbers–the date you came into this world, the date you leave. But what’s even more important than the numbers, is this.
He rips off a piece of the clock and holds it up. It’s one of the black lines, held horizontally.
This dash that separates the numbers, he says, this is your life. This dash represents how you lived your life. He remembers something his mother said, about how it’s not the money we make that’s important in life, but how we invest our time. That life is short, and we don’t have much time, so we have to make the most of it.
Then he takes out a fan from his pocket and fans under his hand. The folded piece of paper that had previously been held there whirlwinds into a snowstorm of confetti, glimmering off the stage lights. It was powerful and poignant. It was the truth.
At the end of the show, the house lights came on and people started exiting. I saw Christian at the top of the stairs, and I figured I could have gone up and told him what I thought about the “time” piece, but for some reason, I felt an urgency to go pack my bag to prepare for disembarking the next morning, so I ran out the other entrance and went back to the room to pack.
*****
Last dinner. We were late because my mom and I were out on the deck taking pictures with the sunset. O’Neil, my favorite drinks server, comes by and
offers to take a picture for us. I also get a picture with him.
Dinner’s good, and there’s a little parting ceremony as they introduce the restaurant staff, and the servers come out with Baked Alaska’s. We’re nearing the end of the trip, and in a few days, I will return to LA and the rest of my family will remain in the bay area. This is the closing of the short but amazing time I’ve gotten to spend with my cousins, so I bring it down to a serious moment for Edison and Jonathan, telling them, “I want you to know that I’m always gonna be there for you. So whenever you get depressed or mad, you just remember your cousin Julia, and how when we get together again we’re going to–” (and taking from Notorious B.I.G.’s “Party and Bullshit”) I tell them we’re gonna “Party…and eat cake. And party. And eat cake.” They start laughing so hard and the rest of the night features them rapping about partying and eating cake. I wanted to leave them with a happy memory of me.
My camera battery inexplicably goes from 2/3rds full to flashing red, so I decide to run up to the room to charge it for a few minutes. Before I go, Edison, who had been playing a game on his dad’s iPhone, suddenly says, “Julia, you can have this.”
I look up and he’s thrusting a piece of paper across the table at me. I’m not thinking much, so I take it and open it up.
What’s this, I ask.
And then I see.
It’s the DASH from the magician’s clock.
My hands and mind go numb.
Where did you get this, I ask him.
The man gave it to us, he said.
Where did you get this, I ask again.
The man gave it to us, he said again.
I asked him again with the same answer, like I thought maybe I wasn’t hearing him correctly, that I wasn’t holding what I thought I was holding in my hand. That suddenly, I was amidst an elaborate hallucination.
Why are you giving it to me, I ask.
He shrugs. I don’t want it anymore, he said.
I’m thinking about the trail of coincidence that led to this piece of paper being in my hand. It started with Christian mentioning that I had to catch the show, noting in particular that the piece about “time” would be most interesting to me. We had spent some time in conversation about it, and it was the last thing he said to me when we parted, to make sure to catch the “time” piece and to let him know what I thought. I remember thinking that the most interesting thing about the piece was of course, the dash, how poetic and poignant of a symbol it was to denote the expanse of life between the point a person enters the world, and the point a person leaves. I remember that’s what I would have told him, if I hadn’t been hit with a sudden urge to avoid him and run out of the theater to go pack my bag.
Then I think about how, in a room of hundreds, how Edison had ended up with this piece of paper. I remember I had seen them come into the show late, and I had saved them seats but I waved and couldn’t get their attention. If they had seen me, they wouldn’t have been in the position to pick this up.
Then I think about how it had ended up in my hands. You give any trivial object to a child, it can go anywhere–in their pockets, left someplace random, in the garbage, to one of their parents who puts it away carelessly or throws it away. Yet he had held on to it, all through dinner, and rather than putting it down or giving it to someone closer (his mom, my mom, his brother), he reaches across the table and gives it to me. In fact, I would later ask his father about this piece of paper, and he would tell me it was given to him as “spare time” by the magician, that they had made several efforts after the show to get him to throw it away but he wouldn’t, clinging to it like it was a part of him he wasn’t ready to let go of yet.
I’m blown away. Either I am suffering from a brain tumor, or this day is building up real evidence of magic.
I know that Christian and I have been talking a lot about the direction of his life, his next step, etc., and I figure, since he was the one who pushed me to pay attention to this piece on time, this must be a gift from the universe to him to let him know that the universe was watching and had him in its hands.
So I put it in my pocket, and I’m going up to the room to charge my camera, when as I’m running out the door, I see…Christian. Whom I’ve never seen in the restaurant, but he was pretty much the exact person I wanted to talk to. But he was talking with someone, so I just breezed by and said that I had something for him, and ran out.
He was still there when I came back. I asked him if he was going up to the dance club later for the farewell party, and he said he would stop by.
I skipped dessert and headed out to watch Justin Wade who was playing in the Cova, because I hoped he would play Delicate.
I listened for a while, and he was good, but I had promised to meet up with my family at the dance club before 11 and dance with my cousins (they kick out anyone under 18 after 11pm). I went up but they weren’t there. In fact, there was no one on the dance floor. I went back downstairs, and found that Tom and the girls had shown up and were at one of the tables. I stopped to talk to them. I wondered how Tom was doing with Sarah, but I couldn’t tell.
Just before 11 I headed back up to the dance club again, and this time, my mom and aunt were there. I tried to dance with them a bit but the music was really bad, so I told them I was going to go downstairs. I preferred the acoustic music anyway, to be honest.
As I’m heading downstairs, I’m wondering if I should call Christian to tell him that I would be in the Cova instead. I thought about it, and I knew that we hadn’t exactly made plans to meet up, and plus, I felt weird calling because he’s technically at work. So I get off the elevator and I’m debating, and I figure, wouldn’t it be easier if I just ran into him. And around the corner…there he is, walking towards me. Unbelievable.
I was just coming to look for you, he said.
I’m laughing and tell him I was just thinking about running into him when it happened. It seems the perfect circumstance, the perfect timing, the perfect culmination of a storm of evidence to ask him…
“Christian, what do you think about fate?”
What do I think about fate, he replies. Well, I think there are many things in life that are coincidences that don’t mean anything, but then I think there are some things that happen, that are just too unusual to just be coincidence. That there has to be something else. Like you and I being here at this moment and connecting the way we did. So to answer your question…I do believe in fate.
Man, I’m so happy. That was exactly what I was hoping he would say. That was exactly how I felt, that in this moment, in this place, there was no one else I should be sharing this magic with but him.
Big grin on my face, so excited I can barely talk, I ask him what he thought about the piece in the show about time.
He said that he thought it was very true and poetic. That life is short, so you have to take risks, you have to go for the things you want. And that his favorite part about it was how he used that dash to represent our lives.
The dash, huh? It’s funny that you say that because…
I pull out the piece of paper with that one, simple slash of black.
His face lights up and he laughs that otherworldly laugh of his that fills my well with happiness and stirs poetry in my heart. And looking into his eyes, through our laughter, I am suddenly so conscious, so aware, so connected to him in the right here and now, that for maybe the first time in my life, I am completely conscious of having found a treasure that must be absolutely real because there is someone else who believes
in it as well.
I have finally found someone who can see the rainbow.
Where did you get this!, he asks.
My cousin gave it to me!
Then I tell him the story.
We end up sitting down in the Cova, but not before I tried haggling with Justin to play Delicate. He still says he hasn’t played it in a while and is convinced he’s gonna butcher it, but I felt like considering what was happening today, between my insides and the outside world, that if he would just attempt it, good things would happen. I could feel it. My happiness was spilling out into the world, and magic was happening.
We sat down and talked; I was still so happy and giddy that I blamed it on the wine. But really, it was life. This moment. This proof of something…more…woven within the fabric of reality. The fact that Christian was here. The fact that I have never, ever met anyone like him, anyone I truly felt was my equal. The fact that upon meeting him, the rainbow appeared, and he could see it.
He mentioned that he’d been busy taking pictures with guests and noticed I’d never taken a picture with him. I told him that the day we’d first really talked, he’d mentioned so many people were taking pictures of him and he didn’t know where these pictures go, that maybe he didn’t feel comfortable having his picture taken, so I wanted to respect that. He laughed and said he wasn’t an Aborigine. He told me that in a few days I was going to wake up and wonder if meeting him had been a dream, and I wouldn’t know because I didn’t have any pictures.
I laugh, because this is the same thing I’m always saying to people I randomly connect with. You’ll probably wake up tomorrow and wonder if meeting me was just a dream…
He had mentioned he had his own ways of remembering me. It made me wonder how we would remember each other. How much of it we would believe.
We talked long into the night again, but somewhere along the way, there were moments where we seemed to lose the path. All that truth that had previously come so easily, now became a struggle, tentative, as the corners of the room began filling with doubt.
Who is this man? What is this? Is any of this real, or has this all been some kind of joke, a trick of my mind where I’m reading reality from a completely insane, fantastical, skewed point of view? What if I’m hallucinating and not even here?
I’m suddenly terrified that I’ve made this entire connection up in my head. Above me, I hear cracks in the dome encompassing my world, fissures upon fissures running rivers and branches along the surface of all that I know and believe, threatening to crumble over me, taking with it, everything I thought to be true. Oh, this better not be another joke on me.
But if I actually am sane and still rooted to reality, if this moment, and all the things that have led up to it are indeed real, if this connection is real, then what the hell were we supposed to do with it? We’ve each built very real lives in our own worlds. Real responsibilities. Do we even really know each other, outside of this special, magical connection, this connection that the universe seemed to be having so much fun with?
How can such a beautiful thing survive in an imagination-less world that would never allow it? Because all of it is true, isn’t it? The simultaneous existence of magic, and the equally stunning reality of life.
We could feel it. We were good for each other, we brought out happiness and serenity within each other, such a level of mutual positive regard and acceptance. Such understanding, strength, comfort and beauty. Such a simple, easy connection that unlocked big, powerful things, things we’ve dreamed of but were uncertain in an uncompromising existence…and yet…what is potential but something that may or may not exist but in a place far away from the world in which you presently live? Somewhere, we each had built our own worlds. Here, we have co-created a dream. A beautiful dream witnessed simultaneously by two extraordinary people with their eyes wide open, but still, a dream. Because the world is still rooted by reality. And what fools try to bring the fantastical treasures of one world into the cold, stark reality of another?
It felt impossible.
As I listened into the spaces in between, I asked not, what is this, but, what now.
And in the middle of everything, one word emerged, a voice deep inside whispering, faintly at first, then louder. One word.
Undeniable in its presence.
Singular in its resonance.
Surfacing against the stark white napkin laying on the table next to those long, beautiful fingers of the man, just one word in thick, black, oily script:
Drop.
Merde.
I’m being ordered to let go.
He asked for my blog address, and I gave it to him, after writing a little farewell message. Until our paths cross again when we least expect it…
The room was heavy with the hearts of giants.
He said, you would be a nice person to sit on a sofa and watch a movie with.
She thought, you would be a nice person to slow dance by candlelight with.
Oh, the things we want but can not say.
The unspoken is tragedy. We have such potential for happiness together, but we live in a world that would never allow it.
Is it fate that crosses two people from completely different worlds on a path? Is it fate that also leads us away? Or does fate bring us together, and life tear us apart? Where does free will play into the equation, the drive of the human heart, the boundless soul, when it recognizes something of great value, something it once lost long ago in a distance memory, and reaches with all its might to hang on?
Fate, you tricky little fucker. I want to throttle you.
I ponder that if we lived in the same city, we would probably be the kind of people who meet and become instant best friends. He says that he would have to be gay to be friends with me.
Do you think men and women can’t be friends?, I ask.
They can, he says carefully…but if we lived in the same city and met, I would probably fall for you, and that would be very complicated given my situation, he says.
Like he hasn’t already fallen, I think. I’m pretty sure we both hit our heads on the way down.
It got late again, and it was getting close to having to say goodbye. I remember the espresso machine kept making intermittent loud noises, like that sound Jim Carrey makes in Dumb and Dumber when he asks people if they want to hear the most annoying sound in the world. That rude fucking bastard. He just wouldn’t let us talk.
Finally, it was time. My heart was breaking, but my mind must not know. It must soldier on, maintain the surface, present a ship that’s not sinking slowly back into the murk. Be strong for him. Be strong for me. It must make the leap into something more abstract and noble, because on a cosmic level, on a spiritual level…holy hell! On a fucking moral level, this was the right thing to do. We were playing with something powerful here, and the universe wanted to know what we would do with it, when there was really only one thing we could do, being the kind of people we are.
I was suddenly hit with an epiphany. It’s all in the contradictions. That the greatest, most powerful things in life, in the universe, in existence, are the mos
t simple, the most pure, the most honest, straightforward truths. The beauty of naked connections. That love is so big, so massive, that it transcends all of time and space, the entire giant realm of possibility and infinity, just to be here, in the right now, in this very moment and place, this tiny seed connecting two flawed and fallible human beings trying to make their way through a complicated life like all the other billions… but regardless of whether it makes sense, it is here. And this is all that matters.
As with the knight in my dream, the realization fell me to my knees.
I would give it all up, I realized. All this lofty seeking, the search for God and meaning, the need to find the ends of the universe. I would give it all up, give up all of this, just for the simple pleasure of being with someone kind and decent with whom I could live a simple, happy life.
And that was the truth.
I asked him if I would see him the next day, and he said he didn’t know, because we would be disembarking early in the morning. We hug, and it is a deep, soulful hug, and in that moment, in the space between all that is here and all that has brought us to this exact place in each other’s arms, I caught a glimpse of it:
Ouroboros.
The snake eating its own tail.
hello goodbye
in one breath
to the one person I have ever met in my life who made me feel complete.
through time and space
past present future
my equal.
He had asked me where he stood in my life, of the many characters I have met in my adventures, and I told him, he was in my Top 5.
This has been the only time I have ever lied to him.
He had been so serious and intent on building a wall of boundaries that I didn’t want to scare him, didn’t want to tell him what I knew in the deepest parts of me to be true.
He was the most important character of my story up to this point.
But I walked away from the hug, walked away from the man, because there’s a place and a time to find what’s yours, but for whatever reason, this wasn’t it. The timing wasn’t right. And we are people of good timing.
It was painful, letting go, taking so much strength and restraint to break that hug, respect the walls when I wanted to fall into it, feel the beating heart of this incredible stranger who had given me proof of life, proof of magic, proof that there can be someone out there who is my equal and can see the incredible beauty and synchronicities of the universe beyond the mundane. Who can make me feel so understood, so comfortable, so me, giving me the same kind of understanding and peace that I have found I can give others.
Somewhere, a sword was easily pulled from the stone, and what I was left with was an utter belief in the simple truth of happiness.
Bittersweet.
As the greatest love affairs are.
*****
The next morning was brutal. I woke up early again on 2 hours of sleep, nothing feeling real anymore, not even the feel of my body or my own reflection in the mirror. We had to go to the theater to wait for our group to be called to disembark, so I got there early. My iPod wouldn’t turn on. I don’t know why, it was fully charged. I was sitting there with my head in my hands when I hear a loud, happy voice.
“Judia!!!”
I look up and it’s my cousin Jonathan, that little ray of devilish sunshine bounding down the walkway, the pinwheel I got him for his birthday in hand. He’s wearing an over-sized blue t-shirt sporting a ferociously growling wolf that contradicts the soft pureness of the boy’s heart–so unconditional and wide open. I smile and open my arms, and he immediately crawls into my lap as though it had always belonged to him. I kiss the top of his head, inhaling the scent of youth and innocence.
“We’re going home today!,” he says.
“Yes we are,” I say.
“Judia,” he says, happily, as he rests his head against my chest.
“Do you love me, Jonathan?” I whisper. I realize as I ask this, I’ve never asked him this before. He raises his head, ponders his answer, then breaks out in that trademark smile that will some day break hearts with the sheer truth of its radiance.
“I love you very much,” he says as he gives me a big wet kiss on the cheek, filling my eyes with tears. This love. This is a love I can count on.
*****
They call our group and we all line up to disembark. Jonathan wants to ride on my back so I hunch down and he climbs on. As we near the opening to the gangway, I’m surprised to see Christian near the front of the line. My chest simultaneously fills with joy and heaviness.
As we approach, I ask him if he’s here to say goodbye and he says he is. I reach out my hand and we shake, but he gives me a hug as well. He walks us down the gangway, all the way to customs, and this long goodbye is perhaps the most profound show of mutual restraint that no one will ever know. We hug again and part, saying goodbye. I turn and watch him walk away, through clenched teeth. My heart unravels from its cradle in my chest. Slides to the ground. Shatters.
My family has watched the whole farewell, though they pretend they haven’t. All week, they have been aware of something going on, but I’ve offered very little about it, and they haven’t had the guts to pry. I’ve been quite surprised and proud of their respect for my privacy. We’re riding back to my uncle’s condo in Vancouver, the place where this journey began so long ago, so far away in time that it seems a part of another life. I’m looking out the window, mind blank, staring in silence.
Suddenly, my uncle chuckles.
“You’ll see each other again,” he says. I look up. He looks like a laughing Buddha sometimes, with his round, smooth face and his whimsical smiles.
“How do you know?” I ask him.
“Seriously?” he asks.
“How could you not?”
I don’t say anything, but I’m laughing inside.
Life. What can you do?
My iPod has decided it wants to be functional again. I put on the song that most fits the moment, fold my arms over my chest and watch the scenes of the city fly by at the speed of a new morning’s light as I slowly disappear.
wow. last night i made a big discovery. everything i’ve been talking about in terms of mirroring and life path was confirmed by a book i’ve already owned but never read.
it started with my analysis of that egyptian graffiti, trying to put identities to the characters involved. once i realized the hooded woman was isis (goddess of life) and the male holding the male part of the mars equation was thoth (representing mercury, gemini and writing), i realized i was reading exactly about these people right now in this random book i had decided to take with me and read in germany, about how patriarchal religious orders and writing took power away from goddesses and the goddess power within women.
the only tarot deck i can use is the thoth deck, based on aleister crowley’s update of the medieval tarot, incorporating symbols and ideas from various religions as well as science, mathematics, philosophy and anthropology. i particularly find it easier to intuit meaning because it uses astrology symbols and concepts which i’ve worked hard over the years to create a personal language for to translate it into emotional, intellectual and spiritual colors and textures which i can then communicate. (for people who balk at the name aleister crowley, separate the messenger from the message).
so i went back to my deck, which i haven’t looked at in several months. on impulse, i wanted to pull out cards with colors and textures that i felt were indicative of david, who believes he is my spiritual mirror. my other half. my polarity. i selected cards based only on artwork, not by astrological association since i know all his personal planets and didn’t want to be biased (he was very easy to intuit. in fact i had corrected him on his time of birth. he told me he was born at 8am and when i checked, i told him i didn’t think so. he had heavy 4th house energy so i told him i wouldn’t be surprised if he was actually born at 8pm which would put his sun, venus and mars in the 4th house, so i switched his chart to that. he checked with his mother and turns out i was right).
so i pulled the Lovers:
Art:
the 6 of Wands:
and the Sun:
The 6 of Wands is the closest in color and texture to his energy. Intellectual expression of fire. This card most represents what he looks like to me. Incidentally, he does have Mercury in Sagittarius. But then, I just noticed right now the rainbow at the top of the card and it makes me think of my Valentine’s Day discovery of something I want. I still will not give credence to this yet and will see how it unfolds.
The Sun was the color around him when I saw him at the train station in Berlin. While waiting, I was scared I wouldn’t recognize him. But when I saw this energy radiating from within him, I immediately recognized what he was.
The other two, I chose to represent the forces between us, the colors and textures I perceive when I look at the two of us as a unit.
After having this deck for most of my 20’s and reading based on intuition and my own meditation, I actually decided to read the booklet and was shocked by how prepared I was to understand certain concepts because of the journey I had been on and the book I was reading.
The Tarot represents, in symbolic form, an inheritance which is universal. It is the knowledge which man has inherited concerning the world in which he lives and the forces at work in it.
The history of comparative religions shows that, allowing for variations due to climatic and other local causes, man’s conception of his relation to God, the Life-Force, or whatever term we may safely employ, has followed the same broad outlines among all peoples. The Tarot is a record of the spiritual journey of Man and the rituals by which at each stage those capable of understanding the sign-posts are admitted to initiation. It is not therefore to be supposed that a tradition common to the human race can be ascribed to any particular nation or epoch. All that can be described with assurance is the way in which the Tarot has been used at different times by different people.
I spent the last year asking people to look out for signs, and I’ve been following them, all these synchronicities and coincidences. And now I’m amidst studying how we were tricked into thinking that power resided not only within a select few, but in men only, not women.
So back to the matter at hand. I still don’t trust him, even though he tells me that whether I’m willing to believe it now or not, one day, I’m going to find out that we’re two halves and when we come together, it will be powerful because it will make the universe happy because a circle is complete. He says I am the key and he is the lock, and we can do great, positive things.
So I remember this, and while I do know we’re astrological opposites (Gemini/Sagittarius) and that I rarely interact with Sags and have never dated one (it’s the only sign I haven’t gotten intimately involved with on any level), I do know that it’s a strange sort of mirror connection that I demand to be verified. My Scorpio had once told me that we each had a key so now we just had to turn them to unleash power but I was refusing it, but I think I intuitively did so because I didn’t feel he was the fit, even though he understood power. I felt like he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing trying to convince me he was the other half so that I would open the door.
So I look up Art and what I never realized, is it’s the second alchemical card, in which the Lovers are united in an androgyne figure, the Prince becoming white and the Princess black, the red lion white, the white eagle red and the cup is lighting the torch. There is a crucible engraved with a raven standing on a skull which holds the seething elements whose iridescent bubbles are reflected by the rainbow overhead. All these typify the destruction of two elements at the birth of a third. The inscription on the rainbow is the alchemical mandage, “Visita interiora terrae rectificando invenies occultem lapidem.”
What is the first? The other cards I pulled, the Lovers.
This is an alchemical card illustrating the marriage or union of two opposites, thus we have the prince and princess holding the wand and the cup. Cain and Abel, Lilith and Eve. The swords at the back suggest the intellectual process in the uniting of two elements. The figure of the Creator blesses this deliberate synthesis. The alchemical white eagle of salt and the red eagle of sulphur, the Egg of wisdom and the winged wand of Osiris are at the bottom of the card.
“The Creator” is actually the “Hermit” which I’ll get into later. But as I ponder that these two cards tha
t I pulled are the only two cards representing alchemy in the deck and how when we first met, David wanted to tell me that he didn’t believe in magic even though he’d just read a very interesting book, The Alchemist, and throughout the night, his mind kept going back to it. I was gentle about it and let him make his own discovery of his own awareness.
But as I was reading these things and taking in the cards in this new light, I suddenly notice the astrological symbols associated with each card.
The Lovers = Gemini Art = Sagittarius
That Gemini/Sag opposition again, the one I am exploring for the first time. Opposites creating alchemy. Polarities joining together, then giving up of two individuals for the synthesis of a powerful 3rd through transcendental transformation. But very specifically, the most intellectual opposition in the cycle, the one that brings forth new realities and knowledge.
So I have to verify further. I pull out my accompanying handbook for this deck that I had bought when I got it but never read because I wanted to build my own connection with the deck.
First,the Lovers:
The Lovers remind us that in every relationship, whether it be a friend, family member or colleague, or a deep-love one, what is required is: child-like innocence, curiosity and playfulness, represented by children on the card; loyalty and commitment, represented by the couple facing each other; and the gift of spaciousness–the allowing of space for contemplation, introspection and the need for being alone, necessary for any relationship–which is represented by the Hermit, who is giving the couple a blessing. This is the only symbol, other than the Hermit symbol itself, where the Hermit appears. In the background of the card are iron gates, symbolizing the Lovers’ need not to be limited, restricted, barred or restrained in their relationships, and also symbolizing a line from the I Ching, the Oriental Book of Changes, which says: But when two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze; and when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts, their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids.
The Lovers symbol represents to us the different kinds of relationship lines or the different kinds of bonding that we can experience within our life, and the responsibility that is incurred with different relationship lines. Regardless of the type of relationship that we have, either with people, ideas or our creative projects, we will be faced in any of our relationship lines with the principle of duality, or principles of good and evil that are found within our nature. Another way of representing good and evil would be the light or the dark, or that which is known or unknown within us, or that which is considered positive or negative within us. The principle of duality is represented by the children at the base of the card, symbolizing the Yin and the Yang within our nature, or the dynamic and magnetic within our nature, or the light and the dark within our nature.
In the I Ching hexagram of Break-Through, we have an important statement about how to resolve the struggle of good and evil, or opposites, that might be apparent within our natures. The I Ching says: Even a single passion still lurking in the heart has power to obscure reason. Passion and reason cannot exist side by side. Therefore, fight without quarter is necessary if the good is to prevail. In a resolute struggle of the good against evil, there are, however, definite rules that must not be discarded if good is to succeed. First, resolution must be based on a union of strength and friendliness. Second, a compromise with evil is not possible: evil must under all circumstances be openly discredited. Nor must our own passions and shortcomings be glossed over. Third, the struggle must not be carried on directly by force. If evil is branded, it thinks of weapons, and if we do it the favor of fighting against it blow for blow, we lose in the end because thus we ourselves get entangled in hatred and passion. Therefore, it is important to begin at home, to be on guard in our own persons against the faults that we have branded. In this way, finding no opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil become dulled. For the same reasons we should not combat our own faults directly. As long as we wrestle with them, they continue victorious. Finally, the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good.
The energetic progress of the good within our natures is represented by the four tools that are held by each of the children. In times of darkness, which is represented by the child that is the dark figure, it is important that we trust our intuition, which is represented by the club or the wand; and that we have right attitude in our beliefs and thinking, which is represented by the spear or the sword he holds. In times of positivity, it is important that we follow what has heart and meaning, which is the cup held by the child that is the white figure; and that we also through our actions and behavior, implement what has passion and heart for us, which is symbolized by the cluster of pine cones or flowers that the other child holds, representative of the disks in the Tarot deck.
Essentially, the Lovers archetype reminds us that fundamental sincerity is the only proper basis for forming relationships of any kind.
So I read all that, and it resonated within what I’ve been thinking and talking about lately, especially evil and the battle between good and evil.
Then Art:
This symbol represents the universal principle of integration, synthesis and synergy. In order to come into the artistry of who we are, it is important to balance the apparent paradoxes, oppositions or polarities within our nature. Every symbol on this card represents the union of opposition which creates something new.
This is the Sagittarius symbol which is represented by the arrow going up the central part of the figure. Sagittarius reminds us it is through our life visions and dreams that we fully express the artistry of who we are as well as resolve any apparent conflicts or opposition within our nature.
The light and dark of our nature needs to be incorporated before we can fully express who we are. This is represented by the light and dark arms and faces which, when combined, create the balanced and tempered Being.
When I saw that you can also find your card based on your soul number, I looked up mine, 9, and it came back to the Hermit. And suddenly, many things that have been happening since last May made sense:
The Hermit is your life-time spiritual symbol. You have a deep regard for order and harmony in your life which is represented by the Virgo aspect of this symbol. You have a deep love for quietude and time spent alone. You can be around many people and situations as long as you have a feeling of psychological, emotional and environmental space. You will withdraw and be like a Hermit under two conditions: 1) whenever you feel limited, restricted or restrained, you will leave and take the space that you need; clasutrophobic situations are unbearable to you; and 2) whenever situations become too chaotic, disharmonious, and disorganized, you will remove yourself because of the inherent love of balance, beauty and harmony that you revere and desire in your life.
People will put you in leadership positions whether you want to be there or not because of the respect and integrity that you command and model. You are unwilling to communicate or lead in any situation where you have not had direct experience of some kind.
You want to make sure that old business from the past is complete before you move forward, which is symbolized by the three-headed Cerberus. You are gifted in assis
ting others in making transitions either in completing and ending situations (the Cerberus) or initiating and starting new beginnings (the Orphic Egg, the snake wrapping the egg).
You are a natural way-shower and lantern-bearer to people in transitions and in helping others discover and honor the internal essence of who they are. Hermit people live and model their spirituality and are not prone to talk about spiritual issues randomly. You are deeply philosophical and value the time that you have to be alone in activities that give you comfort and nourishment.
Like quitting your job so you can hang out with your blog, wander the cities on foot for inspiration, ideas and concepts to give you a versatile vocabulary for reaching into others, and help strangers break out of spiritual/existential ruts.
The fact that all the knowledge I gathered on my trip led me right back to my most prized possession and a book that had grown dusty on my shelf makes me think that I’m on the right path. It talks about how to recognize mirrors in other people and surroundings to help you understand concepts and inner dynamics, but I won’t get into it because I’ve already talked about a lot of this stuff. But it felt really good to see confirmed in writing, a tool that I’ve recently discovered and awakened.
I do believe the more positive projectors we can wake up, people who have the magnetism to affect others and their surroundings with positive energy and will, the more we will see the balance of the world reach closer towards equilibrium.
experimental stream of consciousness writer who may or may not be a liar. sanest person you've ever met but i'll look you in the eyes like a computer eating magnets. what i don't know about you, i'll make up. and you'll still love me because you don't know where i went that moment you swore i disappeared. my moods chase the seasons and i hear it makes an interesting read. i like smelling good.
