Jolly Old

The first Christmas after my father died no one knew how to act or what to do. We went through the motions and pretended things were the same. I hid. I ignored that my life was falling apart. We watched the same presents being torn ooen. he same arguemnts. They same dinners. With a lot more silence.

The second year, well the second year was the year my mother was persuaded she was going to go broke and end up on the streets in poverty. I was in denial and only wanting to drown myself.

The third year my father died my mother spent all her money. 97 presents line the white, artificial tree.

Every year i say goodbye to someone else. SHould that be coming common place.

I knew i would never see evan again. i never saw my father. i went back into the house to hug my grandmother. i looked at a woman and hugged her knowing i would never see her again and then left the room. thats who we become. we accept this. we walk away knowing we will never see someone again. knowing they want to. knowing they dont want it to be the end. knowing they have nothing pressing the to come in on monday. and yet we walk away. it is life and death. she will die. and yet we walk away. do other people? do other people?

i write a letter to Santa every year. i know i'm too old.

They say when you are attempting to give up an addiction that you shouldn't say things like "last cigarette", this will be "the very last drink." they say it adds too much pressure. Whats an addiction though but a fear? a fear of losing something in which you take comfort. so they say. i shouldn't think. i shouldn't count the last ones. the last moments. the last christmas'. so they say.

i wrote evans card. i wrote evans letter. his present. his email. i wrote it all. i wrote a letter for fred. a letter for all who mattered. none will be read.

i wished for him. same every year. i wish for my animals. i wish for my life. i wish for my God. i wish to not have hope but simply faith. i wish that i can stop trying. i pray. i go to sleep thinking that when someone comes, when someone breaks in, itll be better. ill be rewarded. ill have been judged good. i wake up alone. cold. i told evan i would spend that christmas with him but i went home. it was the last time i ever saw my father. i never regretted that i never returned his calls. instead i regret that i went home. i regret that i didnt stay with evan. ill never write anything that will matter as much as that. no list, no story, no wish. i loved him. nothing made can ever amount to something that is.

i'm sorry i left. every second. it was someone else i was saying goodbye too. i dont know how any of us ever walk away.

Running, Written, Raped

It is officially the last day of summer. Labor day is here and that means schools will be back in session, night will come early, even the bus routes will change. I haven't written much but a lot has happened. The problem is everything that's happened has been in my head. I'll do my best to retell it all now.

L'anniversaire

What I Wrote:

Happy Birthday

It's been two years. Two years is a long time. In that time I have met a new group of friends, switched stores, traveled the East Coast, slept nights outside on a park bench, tried to kill myself, had writings published, been to Europe, had relatives die, been attacked, promoted. Yet nothing has changed. I am who I am. By now you have graduated. By now you have said you love he . By now you don't remember me. I've kept to my word. I haven't loved anyone. I think of you every day. I wait for you. 

So yes, today is your birthday. It is also the anniversary of the last time we talked. The anniversary of my attempt. The anniversary of the end of my life. 

I hope it is a good day for you. I hope you are happy. I hope you feel loved. I hope you remember me. 

Happy Birthday. And everything I can't say. 

What I Sent:

Two years later. I hope you are well. I hope your birthday is good. I hope you are happy. 

Happy Birthday.

Lara-Ashley

The dream last night
Last night in my dream I saw Evan. I was with Evan. I knew it was a dream. The he was only there It was a dream. Yet I still believed it was him. Like I could summon him. Make him really. E there be sued it didn't count. Because it was a dream.

In the dream I made us do everything. Made him hold me. Hug me. Go places with me. Spend every second with me. Say everything. Because even in the dream I knew I'd wake up so I had to hold on to the dream. I remember thinking that exact thought in the dram while he was holding me. I remember him saying we could go do something I had wanted to do but I remote bet thinking: no this dream will end soon and I can't give up a single moment of him holding me.

Capacity

There are moments when things just stand still. It's as if everyone around you is oblivious to you holding your breath but you do anyhow. You hold your breath for fear that even the slightest movement could offset everything you've prayed. I can't breathe. I can't risk ruining anything with my own breath. I can't breath.

To Live In Seattle

Then it came to be known that King Oton had taken ill and as had been decreed he was to select an heir to the kingdom as he had no son. King Oton ordered that he should give forth his kingdom to any man that came to show purity in character, that no man should rank above him in valor, strength or generosity and that he should not be shown lacking in any area.

The first to ask was Ginath. Ginath was well known for his cattle that gaze in the fields of the south. Ginath worked in the field from the time of the sunrise until the time of sun set with pause only for the prayer to the LORD. On the second day Ginath approached King Oton.

And King Oton said to Ginath, I shall not give to you this land as you have disappointed me. While you are here asking for the kingdom who is keeping watch of your cattle?

Ginath said to King Oton, As king I shall not have need of the cattle.

King Oton was unpleased with Ginath, Why should a king not have planned for all needs.

And King Oton had Ginath return to his cattle.

Ramoth was the second man to ask for the kingdom. Ramoth was a farmer and had a brother called Ribai. Ramoth and Ribai had lost the LORD's favor when they divided the land of their father and Rabai took over the land on the river. The river flooded and Ribai lost one forth his crop while the land of Ramoth was spared. Ramoth offered to let his brother purchase his excess harvest. When Ramoth came to King Oton he was denied the heir. King Oton was angry with Ramoth for his actions, You did not help your brother.

And Ramoth said to King Oton, Did I not offer my brother first choice of my harvest?

And King Oton said to Ramoth, You are his brother and yet you let him suffer. You are his brother and yet you make him beg. As King would you let your people suffer and make your people beg?

Then Ramoth said to King Oton, What shall you have me do for my brother?

And King Oton said to Ramoth, For your brother you are to give all of your harvest you do not need. For your brother you do not cease to help after one deed; after one obligation met. For your brother, as your people, you must do more than you knew you could.

And with that King Oton sent Ramoth back to his land.

Then Zaleb went to King Oton and asked after the inheritance of the kingdom as he had been a good man and faithful to his wife. But when Zaleb spoke to King Oton he was denied the kingdom. King Oton said to  Zaleb, I know you have been a good man and faithful to your wife but where is your neighbor?

And Zaleb said to King Oton, Have I not put my wife above all else? I have helped her in all manner and been loyal. I have done nothing but bring honor to my house and family. Why do you ask now of my neighbor?

And King Oton said to Zaleb, It is true that you have brought honor to your house but as you bring such joy to your home you ignore your neighbor who called for your help.

Then Zaleb said to King Oton, I did not hear my neighbor call as I was heeding the cry of my wife as she needed me more.

Therefor King Oton said to Zaleb, You bring happiness to your home by closing the door on your neighbor. You have not put in order your home and neighbor and would bring turmoil to the kingdom letting many die hearing only the voices in your own home.

And King Oton sent Zaleb away. Then the LORD came to King Oton in a dream saying, I have seen you speak to the people of your kingdom and yet you have not chosen an heir.

And King Oton said to the LORD in his dream, LORD I have not wanted to fail You and place the wrong man as king. I have found fault in all these men for not doing more as each has failed to try as hard as You would require LORD. And I do not want to make the same mistake so I shall seek for one worthy to serve you LORD.

Then the LORD said to King Oton, I have seen these men and I have seen you King Oton. The failing you find in your people is the failing of you. It is your role as king to lead your people. As you ask of them to do more you have not inspired in them the desire. You have condemned your people by not preparing them. As you have prepared no one to take your place as king I will destroy the kingdom.

Then the LORD let out a fire that fell from the sky to destroy all of the kingdom.

Hunter S. On Suicide

She died out there; I left her with the coyotes. I held the money for a while, the leather bag in my clawed hands. Caked with sweat and dust, after so many days of cacti and sunsets a hundred thousand seems to mean less. The javelina wont stop charging ‘cause I waive some marked bills.

When we left she was wearing a navy suit with a jackets with big shoulders; I told her that it made her look right, professional. She bought it from goodwill, along with my jacket and the shoes I’m wearing. All told they cost three dollars by the pound. She wore it to the interview at the bank when they offered her the job. Maybe if they’d looked closer they’d have known she wasn’t a good fit; they’d have told her ‘we’ll keep your resume; let you know if something turns up.’ Then I’d never have had this idea and her bones wouldn’t be licked by the blue blooded animal I hear screaming after sun down. But that’s not how it went down and that’s not going to help me get water now.

The desert is God forsaken land, he threw the snake to here, on his stomach, in hell-that’s where I chose to run. The people here before, we saw pictures in books back in grade school, they built homes in the side of the mountains, hiding from the world. That’s what brought me here-needing to run, hide. The thing about the desert is there doesn’t need to be a place to hide-no one comes looking. God won’t look for you out here ‘cause anyone who comes this way aint looking for God. Sarah’s mom bought a house in Tucson: sent us picture of flowers and green grass: we all create mirages, I wish mine had a damn pool.

I kept the gun. Seemed more likely I’d need protection than money but I think the sound would wake hell and I can’t see Sarah yet.

I see gila monsters and trees now that stab me with green thorns and give no shade. They all lie to me; they hide the water and lie. They started talking to me in the morning when the sun conspired. I started hearing the tails going, mechanical sounds like they were getting wound up, sent lose on a mission, the flowers closed up and the birds tried to get me to follow them as they disappeared before my eyes inside green men with outstretched arms. The night is no better: bound by mud that throws off heat from satan himself. Still no water.

I hear the voices more. I don’t worry about food. I want to know who talks to me. The dead guard? My pop? I shut my eyes and go back to sleep-safety off, dreaming of water and death.

When I wake, old man Christmas is in front of me. He’s fat and his beard twirls around a mouth with scabbed lips and missing teeth. He’s chewing something, looking down at me. I think of shooting him but what’s the use of wasting a bullets on ghosts?

“You come for me?” I ask not caring the answer. The sand is stuck in my mouth, between my teeth, catching my tongue.

“Nope,” His gray face flat.

“What ya want ol’ man?” I start to get up but there doesn’t seem a use now. “Why you out in the desert? You die here with me, today?”

“I'm not ganna die, son.”

“You ain’t got no water, neither. You’re not lasting any bit longer than me.” Everything hurts. My body heavy and the sand burns running over my skin.

“I don’t need any.”

I don’t bother to ask, my body wont move.

“There’s water all around. What you think them animals live on? No, I don’t need any water ‘cause I know it’s here, I know it’s an option. That’s that gives me freedom to not hunt for it.”

I feel my pupils grow wide, everything is bright. Sarah and the man stare at me-waiting to stake a claim. 

The Mating Rituals Of Abandon Geese

In upstate New York, studies were done looking at the mating rituals of a certain group of geese. The reason for the study lie in the concern of environmental factors, you see there had been some chemical agent in the water that was effecting far more of the male geese than the female and since geese tend to mate for years at a time it was a topic of discussion for what the females would do. They adapted. Many of the geese began pairing off with female geese in the flock. When the population levels approached the normal, expected ratios, the geese returned to their typical male-female coupling.

I think about that often: to how many curve balls do we adapt in our every day lives? After Evan left me I looked at adopting a dog. Not just one. I fell in love with a beautiful puppy but he was adopted before I was able to contact the agency. I tried again. I tried two more times and each time something happened to take the dog away from me. Coming off everything with Evan, coming off the loss of my hopes, losing something else to love was not easy to take. I don't think I've ever talked that much about the days following, the days when Evan and I tried, the days when I lost it. This wont be an exception. It was difficult for me to have something else I wanted to love taken away and I remember the physicality of defeat.

I recently became rather ill. I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time off work and have a chance to recover at home. I had been putting off going to the doctor for months, much to the chagrin of a few people in my life that had offered to literally hold my hand during an entire exam if it would make me go to see a health care provider. When I went to see the doctor, I had ample opportunity to ask for anything I wanted, to bring up any other concerns that I had and yet I didn't, I did my best to utter as few words as possible. I wanted pills. I wanted some magic pill to hep me be happy. I have talked so negatively about anti-depressants but I thought that I had already done the work, I wanted to be happy and this was a way to help push me a small bit over the edge, I wasn't ask the pill to perform a miracle. I didn't though. I left with a handful of prescriptions, notes, and follow up requests but in the end I only got one of the four prescriptions, threw away all the notes and never called for a follow up.

I went to an event this weekend, one that I typically look forward to for quite some time when it occurred to me that I had no real desire to attend. I had thought, at that point, for a few weeks that I wasn't looking for what I thought I was anymore. I don't want; I don't need a relationship. I thought that if I help up this ideal for a relationship, treated it with the respect and adoration it deserves that I would eventually find that. Some point a few weeks ago led me to the realization that a relationship wasn't something I was searching for anylonger. I had come to accept and nye, even enjoy being single. To point, the idea of entering a relationship sounds taxing, annoying, and claustrophobic. So what do I want?

I went to the event on Saturday a bit perplexed, there is nothing there that I want. I was approached by a few people and the only thing that helped was that I didn't want any of them. No one appealed to me for other than the most basic of physical desires and even those were fleeting. I commented, again, about the my divvied up desires: Dave for rope, Nick for choking, Kurt for anything sexual, etc but I am not wanting any thing more from them, I want nothing more from most people. I miss Daniel. I miss few others. I have faith though.

I wanted to write a post about the nature of goodness about what it means to do the right thing in the face of such unyielding life. To me it still means everything. To do the right thing simply because it is the right thing is as close to pure as a sinner can get. The true, the good, will do the right thing because of the love they have for God and for others and the desire to express God's love through their own actions. I cannot be that person but I can come in a close second: I can do the right thing because it is the right thing and thus i live my life. I make every effort to do the right thing because it is the right thing. That does not for a moment stop me from judging and sadly it has not been enough to help me stop judging but it is enough to make sure that I act even while judging. This means then, that if someone I hated were to call me in the middle of the night from jail I would be the one to go get them. This means that all of my actions have to come from a place of definitions which, in turns, reinforces my black and white nature. I will never date a person who limits my interaction with another friend because it is the wrong thing to do. I will never have an affair because it is the wrong thing to do even if the wife seems to think it is ok. I will never cut across the street and force the on coming cars to stop as I jay walk. I will judge others for doing it though and I will be consistently and constantly saddened by other's decisions to do such things. I will be dissapointed. It will hurt me.

The thing with the geese is that their position still isn't favorable. They suffer to maintain their status. To have a partner they are forfeiting something. The geese that chose to have a relationship with another female, or in other cases the male geese that choose to have male-male relationships get put in an unfavorable position: they are forced to occupy the outside ranks. By choosing to have a relationship these geese are put in direct harm. The outside position int he flock is the position most exposed to the outside world, the most vulnerable to predators of all sorts.

I had a wonderful time at the event, by far and away the best time I have had in a long time. I enjoyed most all the people I meant, I felt more confident and was able to relax a great deal more. I had accomplished a small goal the day after that had been weighing heavily on my mind. I have, in general, been experiencing better relationships and had some good things reinforced. I have been eating better and exercising. I am healthy again. I am not in a dire financial place. I have no majorly pressing concerns other than my long term ones and yet I am miserable. I think that is the key.

At the party I met a girl that I had fun with. I had specifically not been looking for anything and yet had a lovely time with her. In the book I am currently reading, it says that in fewer than 3% of people do their sexual preferences fluctuate. Most people are able to tell their sexual attraction to the other sex very young. Mine is changing but for no true reason. I still like guys better but am certainly not opposed to girls. I had considered briefly that perhaps it is the measure of the times: not getting what i want from men i decided to go to the outside and try the available alternative. It does seem about accurate that men have all been eating up by some remote chemical agent that only effects them. Nothing seems to help though.

By and large I am happier now than I have been in a while. I feel more calm more at peace and at rest. I don't feel quite so much that I am struggling all the time. I don't feel as if I have as much to prove. I feel less tired. I feel less like I am fighting for the chance to hold onto a hand rail and yet...

I keep imaging a scene where there is a window separating me from the rest of the world. I look out the window and see a raging forest fire. I can see myself scarcely reflected in the window plane. I watch the fire with no emotion. I see the flames in mostly orange consuming the trees by my house. I see their leaves crumble and fall away to a sicken ash. I see the bark as it falls away from the tree. I see the sap inside run dry. I see the frailty of the trees. I see myself reflected back in a purple robe, wet hair and hot coffee mug. The steam rises faintly, obscuring the view of the fire. I know that by touching the window, I will burn my hand. I know that the fire is close enough that i will feel its effects forever more. I am higher, on the second floor and i can see that there is no longer any life down with the trees; the animals all ran away but the trees were caught. From my vantage point there is less smoke than i expected. I know that there are helicopters over head and that they could bring water but most are simple from the news stations doing as I am, watching it all burn away. It's as if they are the children, the voices I used to hear but they have given up on me too, they know i wont save them. It gets dark but i presume it is from the smoke. There is little for me to do any more. I move my hand close to the glass, sip my coffee and shut the curtains.

I hear people tell me that I am crazy. It bothers me far less than one might assume. I also hear, and more frequently, that I am pretty tame and keep my crazy pretty hidden. I require little energy they say. It's merely because I don't see a reason to explain it anymore. I don't see a reason to try. Why call the news van when they can watch the destruction from above, from after.

I saw a dog online today that caught my attention. I thought long and hard about if I could do this: love a dog, watch a dog, be a friend to someone else, be stable. It wasn't an easy thing to consider. I could hear eduardo's voice telling me that I should do this, that it would be good for me. Took my several hours but I did. I contacted the woman with the puppy and she told me she had already gone to a good home. It felt about right.

I wonder about the geese. Why not just hold out? Why admit to the decrease, to the futility of it all? I think about their choice and the cost. Being on the outside if it means not being alone. It is almost like the drugs right? It is make the decision to be happy. It is forcing it. Less than 3%. But then for the 97% maybe it is easy. 10% of the geese chose the female-female coupling. Maybe they were always the ones in danger.

I am happier now than I have been and yet we are so close. I think about the idea of continuing to eat right, exercise, do the things I should. I think about the enormity of trying, caring, going through the same motions for the rest of my life, the rest of my natural life. The inevitability of it is more than I can comprehend. Faced with the option of waking up every single day and taking a shower, looking at the window at the orange flames, even it means I get something, even if it means I get a pretty girl, even if it means that I am more relaxed, even if...I will still know, I will still know that I am on the outside, I am still not getting the puppy. It sounds so small and in truth I am happier than I have been but it's odd because the entire time that I've felt happier there is this smaller feeling inside me saying I don't care, saying the magnitude of all of it is too much. Who are these idiots that say life is too short? You walk away from the fire because it will all burn anyway. The geese in New York adapted to nothing but a momentary acceptance. I'm just asking why believe in the momentary at all with the forever is the painful endurance we have to tolerate.

Take a shower, get dressed, eat the right thing, answer the phone calls, go to work. All for the chance to ring the right door bell. What do you do when the hope of a door bell is no longer appealing. I am capable of getting pills, making it easier to be happy, but why would I? Why prolong what is already doomed to repeat ad infinitum? I am happier. It's not worth it.

Maybe the geese move to the outside not because they are forced but because that 10% is ready to admit defeat, admit it doesn't matter, admit that temporarily this relationship is fixing something but that they are fine to sacrifice themselves because it's not a sacrifice, it's a relief, it's a breath, it's a way to not return to happier.

Fly away home. Fly away little bird.

Faith tells me not to worry. They come back. It's migration. It's instinctual. Why do they come back to me? My fear grounds them. I contain it. I feed them. They believe. But I lack the wings to fly myself, and worse, I'm content to watch them burn. Watch the sky turn to black. Have the voices silenced. The geese die out from the chemicals, their populations never return. The trees succumb to the fire and leave behind no evidence the wind can fix. How long must I wait for the same fate? Acceptance is the new suicide as nothing is more depressing than knowledge. Why can't I fly home?

a barn of candles

coming off my dreams of evan, i dreamed of my wedding. i was sitting in a church wondering if i would think of evan on my wedding day (obviously that was answered) and wondering who on earth i could ever agree to marry. in the dream i remember thinking it odd that i couldnt remember the groom. it was dark in the barn. not the type of place i would have guessed i'd marry in but at the same time perfect. old, dank, dark, mystical. i remember wondering why no one was coming to congratulate me. never occurred to me that it was strange for the bride to be out sitting in the audience. i remember feeling nervous and odd and alone when someone came and sat next to me and started singing. and i knew instantly. will-evidently-my fiance, just made things click and i remembered.

the important part is that my father was there. thats not at all unusual. i see him all the time in my dreams. more so than is to be expected. in fact that's what got me going tonight. i am drunk in my room, on my bed and some blurry memory of the sheltered candles lighting his face made me think of him. i realized how often i actually do dream of him. i dream of him more now than when he was ever alive. in fact, i see him more now than when he was alive. it is still odd to me, years later, that he is dead. i have to remind myself often that he chose to die. then i feel isolated. then i feel confused. and i feel like i have to put up a brace front.

tonight i went to find him, the traces of him left alive on the internet. tragically, again, there is more there now than when he was alive. i have almost no photos. i have one blurry, faded video and a few memories but almost nothing tangible. the internet though, it has his phone number, it has his address (i never had his address) and it tells of his rank in the army, of the places he was stationed. as i read it all, i begin to wonder how much i never knew. i always presumed he had affairs, sometimes i thought he had other children, at the end i thought him to be gay. i dont really care to be honest. thinking about it makes me feel even more distance from anyone im related to. but at night, in the dark, i start to wonder why i dream of someone i never knew. i start to wonder about the coffin he lies in. about the men buried next to him in the desert sand. i wonder about the things he saw and the things he felt.

i wonder about when it all started. the first lies, the last lies. i wonder about if he loved anyone. i see him all alone in every single dream, like even in a second chance he can't quite figure out how to join anyone. and i see him watching, i see him drinking, i see him lost. and i see the small flicker of the candle burn out and i see him lost to the shadows, to remain until i fall asleep again and grant him, i'm sure, the only daylight he has seen in 40 yeas.

he would have to cry at a wedding. he would have to leave church early. he could never accept communion. im pretty sure he never wore a wedding ring. although i am positive he carried around a tattered photo of me from when i was seven until the day he died. in his entire life i dont think he ever managed to start life. so he disappeared.

The dreams are getting intense. (It's what always occurs when I'm on medicine.) the ones last night had me with Evan. Shocking? Right? Anyhow. He was single again and even in my dream I remember sighing and thinking how nothing could go back to how it used to be.

In waking life I have actually, finally , reached a point where I have no desire to be in a relationship. Nothing. Not sexual. Not love. Not a fling. Not flirty. I'm good. Which is crazy. Even more I turned a guy down. I have this golden rule that should encourage guys being brave and asking girls out by saying yes to dates. But, this guy asked me in Sunday and I just had no desire. It sounded awful. Just entirely not what I wanted. So that's good.

But then came the next dream. So it took a while but I finally fell back asleep. And dreamed about a spider. Three hours later I get back in bed and fall asleep a last time. Evans back. I'm in a car and the window is down. Evan is walking to me. He gets to the window, looks at me with his back pack on and says something. I don't know what. When I wake up i search for what it could have been And my mind adds "stop looking for me". What does that mean? How do I deal with that??

Tourniquet

There is a place between pain and fear where we live. We lie there in the dark imaging the depth of our shallow graves. We lie there in the depths of the sea wondering how long till our bodies disintegrate. There is secret we all cary about our demise: we know its imminent.

There is a spot on all of our hands that echos all the blood we've seen, all the stones we've cast. It stains our minds and preps our coffins yet we take that soil and we build a life around our secrets.

I have so many.

I was born singing a song. Young as i can remember i knew the melody and lyrics to a haunting song of death and loss. I cant imagine a time when i didnt hear it play in my head. I have watched people die. I have seen faces in a low sepia tone come through in the dark. Walking through the black hallway at my parent's house, my house, i would leave the light off in the hall way for fear that they would know my fear yet i would run to escape the hallow faces i would see in the ether. the children searching my mind for help that would die; i could see them. as long as i have been alive i could watch them and i could hear them calling me, begging me, as if i had some choice.

in virginia the single most haunting event of my life occured. i lie in bed looking at the window, the window that called to me every night and outside the window would be anything from the devil to the Lord and i would never know which it would be. i could hear footsteps, see shadows cross, but they all waited.

i made a deal with the Lord. i would kill myself for Him. i would be His martyr. i suppose we all did. we all read catcher in the rye, we all thought we were special. we all thought life to be a tool instead of the ledge to which we cling, the net. it is easier to die when you're young. tis easier to believe and that's all there is to death.

when eduardo left town and i was in stay of his place i lied to him; i took over someone. i took over my animals and set them up to see the entirety of his place. i wanted them to see the view and i valued them over him. anyday.

i pray, we all do whether we admit it or not, i pray to God for help. i used to. i became and angry and now just request and yet he doesn't answer. i thought that was par for the course till last night. i went out and became quite ill and i silently, instantly, asked God to fix me. He did. within moments i was fine until i got home. Thought nothing of it. till the same thing happened tonight. i was so ill i couldn't see straight and then i asked for help almost out of reflex, yet it came, instantly.

on the bus this morning there was a man two seats away from me that clearly seemed out to get a rise out of me. he was on his cell phone and yet making silly faces at me as though i were a child he could convince to smile. i ignored him as any sane woman would have done. he spoke on his cell phone in monotone spanish with his pressed white shirt and simple tie. his slicked back black hair and his aged face with wrinkles staring in front of him and yet, and yet when he knew i would look... then it all came together.

i have always known that certain things i could feel. more so with fred but it is true none the less. when i give up trying to control and let the world happen i usually know what will happen. drunk at a bar i knew my father died. half asleep in the car i could feel my puppy leave me. and alone in the snow, high in the mountains i felt the world shift away and the towers collapse. i've always known. the first and only time my mother took me out in the car with my permit we were going to pass by two cyclers and my mother and i both knew the girl would fall. and she did. i swerved and she was fine but nothing will take away what we knew would happen. i always know. i knew topher would get engaged. i knew. but it is easier to turn away. it is easier to turn on the light and not see the faces of the starving, of the diseased.

the man on the bus with his bronzed face and his cracked lips was waiting. at the last stop he turned to me and i tried to turn away but it was too late, i already knew. with the rest of the passengers gone, he turned to me, moved his phone, stared in my eyes and told me. and i was back. 14 years ago in my bed, in my room in arizona, staring at the end of the bed, covers above my head, a man i didn't know stared me down, looked me in the eyes and said he knew. how was i to know it was just prophecy? i couldnt speak. it was the same man. the same face. the same gesture. waiting.

there is a point in a crisis center called triage where you deal with the most serious issue first. so no matter if the person will go blind if you leave the glass in his eyes, you stop the leg from bleeding to save his blood. no matter if he is hysterical, you stop the bleeding.

so make it stop. make me stop these things. make the voices, my the screams, make the faces, and the darkness, and the horror stop.

God can hear me.

All of you can hear me. All of you had lied awake imagining the coffin, imagining the darkness and the dirt and the emptiness and the phobia and the death. And all of you have thought about the secrets you'll carry with you. i have waited and i have prayed. i have hurt and i have saved. but, in the end, the blood will be my own. and it will never wash from my hands. i have waited all this time. i have waited. in the blizzard, in the dark, the only stain that you can see is your guilt.

the rings are placed on your fingers, the promises are whispered in church and yet i know. you know. there is a smell in the emptiness. there is a vastness that can't be seen. so you stop by any means necessary. you apply a tourniquet and you hope. you hope the voices, the faces, the bleeding all stop so that you can hear, live and move on. you hope that death does matter, that you are old enough to understand that death does matter. suicide is easy. believing is hard. so you make it stop. there is a place between acceptance and hope that all of us fears. there is a place where we are useless but still want to exist, for ourselves.

i hear nicks voice ordering me not to cut. i see eduardo on the street stopping me, telling me how angry he will be. i see daniel kissing me because he thinks he will never see me again. i see jake forcing me away for fear i wont live another day. you treat the immediate. treat the bleeding. dont ever look back.

there are too many secrets.

i was born singing a song of loss. can you imagine what else we were born knowing?

it is easier to die in belief than to live in fear. knowing only ever hurts the cause.

Muscle Memory

It takes 18 months to let go of a repeated muscle memory. It's why people still reach for a limb they don't have. It's why patients under going cancer therapy still reach to twirl their hair.

I wear jewelry every single day. I feel strange venturing out to work without my watch and my ring and yet the instant I am home or away from work I pull them both off-they are my uniform more than anything else. When I wear them I know that I am going to work and when they come off-I know that world isn't mine any longer.

I am 28 years old and there are so many beautiful pieces of jewelry. I used to receive a wondrous new piece each year for both my birthday and Christmas. Typically, my father would give me a necklace or eventually earrings and as I grew older they would become more age appropriate. With my father's death, the jewelry stopped as well. It's funny, the first Christmas without him my mother handed me a card with cash in it, she said it would continue-the tradition of getting cash on Christmas, just like it had with my father. I didn't remember he had ever done that. I only remember that he would send someone out to get me a present of jewelry. I knew he didnt do it himself but I also knew that wherever it was he went kept records of what he had purchased.

I'm 28 and with all of the jewelry I've worn: bracelets, anklets (lets skip over that), earrings, necklaces, broaches, everything, i have never once worn a ring on my left hand. i like to think i will have the next 60 years to wear that ring. that makes me smile. i think about it often. it makes me happy.

i should have learned something odd about myself years ago. people come back. ive never really lost someone for ever. not yet. i spent six years looking fred. summers searching for jules. letters upon letters to aaron. heyden said goodbye. daniel. scott. brandon. mike. yet somehow. i should have faith. i should believe he will come back. some how he will find me.

i talked to jake the other day. he said i had waited so long to have sex i should at least make it mean something now.

how long should i be true to someone i havent met? i dont wear a collar or anything similar out of respect for a man i can only imagine. never a ring because that is a symbol that i am his and he hasnt taken me yet.

i should have more faith. the world is smaller than it at first appears. they come. and i wait. each holiday i wait for him to give me that honor. for him to not have to ask someone else. i keep myself for someone im waiting to return, to meet.

Types of Deciduous Trees

I keep secrets. I have to, to protect myself. We all do. No one really knows what is inside of someone's mind, what they are capable of doing. I keep secrets too.

When I was younger I feel in love with a tree: the elephant tree. I loved this tree so much because it looked like an elephant. Elephants already had a very special place in my heart and i loved this tree. When I came home from school sometime in early elementary school the gardeners had cut it down. It was right after I had read the giving tree. I hate those men. I hated myself for not protecting the tree. I hated.

When a former friend of mine went away in October I stayed at his house. I would never tell him but once, when I slept at his place, i brought over my animals; I wanted them to see the place, i had told them so much.

I lied about when Evan asked me to marry him. We were on the floor in my forsaken apartment, doing more than kissing, when he asked me. I remember thinking about the hole i had just made in the door. I remember thinking about the carpet.

There are days when I believe somehow that the secrets will fall away. That somehow I will be able to keep moving, keep walking. I think that I can watch the thoughts float away as leaves down a river and I will find peace, I will find quiet.

When I was in middle school I had a special spot on top of this small mountain that I would climb. It wasn't far from my house and it was a treasured place. We even made Cappy walk up the steep slopes and rocky path, we carried a bowl so we could give him water at the top. It was the first time I saw my birthflower-asters. Years later my former best friend would tell her family and they would dig up the site to build a mansion.

The deciduous tree is a tree that lies to everyone. It plays dead. It makes all the leaves fall to the ground, abandon, alone, frail. It rids itself of everything from the last year, the markers, the habitats, and it rebuilds in the spring.

In the past four months I have had four friends get engaged. None of them are planning on being faithful to their future wives. All intend upon having open marriages. I have watched them all. I knew the last one was coming, i saw it days ago. I could lie and say it was a surprise and a coincidence but I knew, as I always somehow am blessed to. The first one joked that the wedding gifts would help pay off the debt him and his fiance have amassed. The second one has no idea why he is getting married other than that he needs to find a way to hold onto someone as someone else is slipping away. The third is a complete mystery to me based on the limited knowledge I have. The last is the first person I ever met in this new life. A man who told me he hated marriage, thought the idea was misogynistic and antiquated. He said it was something he would never want.

Being honest is too much to ask. I once asked a friend to keep a journal of his thoughts because i wanted so to understand how someone else thought. The mere act of writing the journal altered his thought process however. I want for someone to tell me the truth about what they are feeling, wanting but i know i dont get that.

When I joined this community i was inundated by things I had never experienced and yet, for the most part, i took them as acceptable. I wish I had known then what I know now. I wish that I could find people here who wanted to be here and didn't just run here from the rain. People lie about why they are here. So many are here because it is a group of outsiders and outsiders welcome other outsiders. It's why there are so many loners, so many with low self esteem. It is also why the community has trouble establishing boundaries and saying no. It is easier, more comfortable to simply accept others when that is what you so desperately need. But here, in this faux community, it is just the practice, the policy, to accept. So people flock. Not because this is what they have an interest in but because this is a group that will accept them. Which then means in turn that the new folks will be inundated with the accepted practices of the group and therefor the bad and the good that have become established are passed on to someone new.

When you see the trees in the dead of winter I imagine each of the limbs waiting to break off and snap under the heavy feet of those of walk over the fallen limbs. I see the leaves in the fall and imagine them blown far away, helpless and afraid. Yet, yet they seem so vulnerable, so bare.

I have been getting closer to colin lately and it dawned on me the high price that i have had to pay for that closeness. I started to realize that i was in no way a part of his life. He is taking his partners on at rip, he is leaving every weekend with them to do something. When he sees me we talk, or go to dinner, or do things. All of which are great but  i know nothing about him. i was seeing other people at one point but as soon as i get close to one person it all fades away. I have no desire to go out and be intimate, close with half dozen people. I trust myself, my secrets with one person and i expect the same. to see colin so hopelessly falling around two people that aim to stay at best friendly with him, it confuses me. but then, i know that him and i are not meant to be anything so what's the trouble? i tried that logic for a month. it didn't work for me. i dont want to have a relationship with colin, i dont need to be the pretty girl he stares at in the morning and cuddles with every night. i didnt need to be the girl for whom he set aside time each night to talk on the phone. i didnt need that. a part of me still doesnt. but more of me does. the closer i get to him, the more i allow him to see me, the more i try to trust him, the more i need to feel safe and the fact that he wants me to house sit while he takes a vacation with the girls he loves? i think it's what triggered all this. normally i would just at such a chance but after everything with eduardo...

there's nothing for me in this city anymore. it took me till yesterday to say it out loud. i dont truly have friends here anymore. i dont have a ton of stability. there isnt a job i adore that is holding me. its not like thers a school i plan to go to here. i certainly dont have roots. and. frankly. i am tired of the bs of this city. the amount of bs that comes out of the people with whom i associate? terrifying. theres nothing i want here any longer. theres no one to hold me. theres nothing left here for me. i seek things that this city cant offer. least not to me.

i want to know someone. fully. i want to understand who they are.

the tree died. expertly planted and cared for by professionals and it died. my grandmother found seeds somehow for a palm tree and dropped them in the ground. they were planted less than half a foot from each other. ten years later and they grow strong.

i used to tell secrets to the wind and beg for them to be delivered. we would spend each summer in California and i would sneak out of the house at night and climb down to the ocean and beg for it to take me away. to be claimed. to be swept back to something that mattered.

i told colin to leave me alone. i didnt want to be that other person any longer. tonight i was loosing it, i was a wreck and i asked if i could see him, if i could go to his place and stay the night. i needed someone to stay with me and i had already lied once tonight. colin said he was busy, had work to finish. i hadnt ever asked him for help before.

my scars never went away from last time. i cut the hell out of myself. my arms, stomach, back, legs, i just kept cutting. even my neck. i didnt want to ever stop. i wanted to suffer. to atone. to stop thinking. to find quiet. i thought they would be gone by now. i guess somehow we all give away clues about who we are. clues about our secrets. even our friend the deciduous trees still forms rings to show her years, still grows taller.

if i cut tonight. if i opt to lose control. to give in. does anything change? i go to sleep drunk and alone and locked on a floating block of ice watching the world carried away in a slow current. but im still here. and im still the same.

when the last one told me he was getting married he waited for my congratulations. i never gave it. i wanted to. a part of me anyway. i want to celebrate marriage but instead. instead when i said goodbye and he asked why i was leaving him, why i was turning my back on the one thing he did that i would approve of, instead of congratulations i said:

"tell me it means something to you. tell me th most important thing on earth to me isnt a joke to you. tell me you didnt lie to me about marriage all those times. tell me it will effect your life. till me it will mean something to you. tell me that the only thing on earth that matters to me isnt being wasted on you. tell me."

that was six drinks ago. but i will always mean it.

i remember when i came here and everyone was so accepting of my waiting till marriage to have sex. no one minded at all. and yet all of them passed judgement on my not being poly. i finally had someone tell me why. it was because everyone thought i was saying i disapproved of their lives and their view of relationships. well now we're even. marriage is the most sacred thing on earth to me and i am furious that this is the only thing left that i want on earth and instead it is being handed out to people who couldnt care less.

i thought i was better yet here i am. wine in one hand knife in the other.

i wont let colin near me. eduardo has chosen his path and it doesnt include any friends.

but me and the tree. we want the same thing. we want a ring. we want to survive another winter. we want to come back in the sprring. we want it to be ok.

but that tree. with its beautiful green leaves and wonderful flowers, with every passing day, with every shortened hour of sunlight it knows, it knows its leaves grow weak and frail, it knows they lose their life line, their color, their chance. with every cold wind, and every long night the tree and i know that fall will come again and that sometimes, sometimes it isn't a lie, sometimes we do die, sometimes we don't come back. and sometimes, sometimes, its ok.

irretrievable salvation

When you go to sleep at night your mind replays the events of your day. its how you dream. or so they say. Lingering thoughts. Lingering neurons and weird passages of electrons. its replaying emotions and thoughts; connecting half form thoughts that are stuck partially formed in some remote area of the brain.

Last night i couldn't sleep. it was around 3 am when i admitted what was going on. when i stopped drinking and stopped telling myself foolish fantasies and stopped pretending i was stressed about a job i hate. it was 3 am, four hours after i had turned of the lights, said goodnight to everyone i love, and pulled the blankets up over my head when i let the memory play. i tried all the tricks i've learned, i tried imagine swimming in a clear lake, floating in the pure water-i knew something was in the depths that would harm me. i tried flying, i imagined feathers and feeling the wind rush beneath me and the contact of the rain pushing on my hollow bones-something grabbed me from the shadows. i tried to sunbathe on the beach in the warm glow of the sun-someone was there every time i closed my eyes.  but i watched as the castle i built was swept away in the wave i ran from. i watched as the wind kicked up the only home i ever knew. and i watched as the water covered everything i ever held dear and took away the only light i ever could see. all of the fantasies and stories and stresses, they all faded into that single memory.

i was replaying the same awful night. i was watching again and again and again and again. over and over and over. that day. the day i drove to Canada. the day i drove to see evan. i showed up at his place and he invited me in, hesitantly. and the day he looked at me and told me he had met someone. and i knew last night that no matter how long i would live i would still have that day. it would still be a part of who i am. i could never erase it. i get to keep that. i get to hold on to that. to watch it when everyone else is asleep in someone's arms... i get to remember falling on my knees on his cold floor and having him sit there and watch me. no matter how long i live i will always carry that sadness, that awful memory, that horrible moment. it doesn't get erased, it is fixed in my life. and i'm not so sure how that is supposed to be ok.

and for the first time, in a long time, i feel out of people i can talk to.

what good is it to be someone better than you are if no one sees you anyway. build these temples and these shrines to the person you want to be, to the person you are inspired to be and you watch all around as the idols of everyone else false and you turn, and you see, you never got around to believing. and after that, its hard to know what's left.

i told nick the other night that i could never imagine doing again what i tried. it seemed so far. i seemed so dimensional. but in the end, i am defined, better or worse, by that point. i carry that with me. who was it who said you can never reach your destination because with every step you are only ever less than half way?

at the renaissance fair they would carve your name on a grain of rice, remember? and the girls would wear them, along with the long pleated braids, forever. that conversations is around my neck at nights. his voice swallows my soul. the cold of the morning steals my hope. but if i can stay away, if i can fend off the shadows and the depths and the wind, then i can walk that thin wire between honesty and salvation.

Judge and Jury

The beginning of Lent is marked by Ash Wednesday where the faithful go to mass and have a cross of ash stained on their forehead. The purpose of it is to signify mourning or repentance for one's sins. It helps prepare us to receive God. Same reason we give up something for Lent, to ready ourselves to hear the word of God.

This year, I gave up judging others. It has long been my interpretation that Lent should instead be focused on how to have a closer relationship with God and removing those things that serve as obstical. It doesn't sound like a big difference but I believe it is key.

Giving up juding others is not easy but even worse is trying to give up judging myself. I think awful things about myself, judge myself too harshly and am critical of every decision and action I make. It is exhausting. i am trying qquite hard to not do that though. I am trying to be accepting and understanding of others and myself. I am trying to be more open. Luckily, this community has provided me with a wonderful practice ground as it is a mix of a lot of things with which I have a hard time.

I asked someone I admire greatly how he does it. How he always accepts anything I share about myself no matter how awful it is. He just does. I asked how I can accept some of his flaws: like stealing. He said I shouldn't. I tried to reason it out and decided that something like stealing isn't a flaw it is a decision to hurt someone else and I don't have to be ok with that. So it is simply actions, decisions that hurt others that I have to worry about in terms of maintaining who I want to be morally. So, if someone were to want to get married at 18 and have both partners work laying asphalt for the rest of their lives while smoking weed all day, it shouldn't be something I judge. If they went out and were dangerous while high then that would be different. I have tried to keep that in mind as this has progressed.

I watched this episode the other day of a show that had been off the air for roughly a decade. In the episode there is a man named Johnny who takes out a gun and tries to shoot a man that is highly respected in the community. The victims name is Greg. Watching all of this play out is a huge supporter of Greg named Bruce. Well, it is inside an auditorium and when the first shots ring out the crowd panics and screams and runs and it is chaos. Another shot is fired and people are falling while others run them over. Greg is shot but it is not clear how bad. Someone near Greg takes out a gun and fires back on Johnny, fatally wounding him. The spectators are still running out as more shots are being fired and the sense of panic and doom is overwhelming and yet, and yet, Bruce kneels down, in the middle of the stampede and gives Johnny his last rights.

To me that is the epitome of good. I have thought so much about accepting others that I had forgotten the point of it. The point of all of it is to accept others, to let go of judging and anger so that I could be closer to God and as a Christian that means being closer to the Good that is God. Loving even someone who has done something evil. Something vile. I think about Bruce bending down in the midst of chaos to ensure that Johnny had a shot at Heaven. Even if it isn't the Heaven Johnny believes in, even if it is not something we know Johnny wants, Bruce is risking his life to grant this peace to someone else because he believes it is the right thing.

I tried to do the right thing myself. I have a friend named Nathan for the sake of this. I went out with him two, three times as most. The last date he stayed the night even though nothing happened. We parted amicably and mutually. Neither was what the other wanted. That was two years ago. Every great once in a while he contacts me and hits on me a bit; every time his girlfriend goes out of town. I've never thought much about it because, well we don't talk and I haven't seen him in two years. They are always just random messages. A week or so ago it became a bit more pushy. His girlfriend, of two years now, was on another continent and he took that as an opportunity to hit on me a bit more agressively. I told him I was going to tell her. I thought about it for a long time. I wanted to do the right thing. I kept thinking about this: was I judging him, was I being judge and jury, was this my business? And I kept coming back to what my friend said about not having to accept something that would hurt someone. I thought about everyhing: if he was joking, if I misread this, if I led him on, if I did nothing, if he was hitting on someone else, if they had an open relationship, but in the end I knew I had to do something. I had to step in just in case I was right and she would be hurt by not knowing. I told her.

To make sure I wasn't reading into it I sent her every message Nathan had sent me and told her straight up front that I might be wrong, that I could be crazy but that if I wasn't, she might want to know how he acts every time she travels. She got back to me rather quickly. She was upset but at him. I spoke with her exceptionally briefly and she asked me to not speak to him so she could confront him herself. I surely agreed-I had no desire to talk to him at all. I had no idea what happened for a few days. I was worried. For her, for them, but I knew nothing. Then, a few days later, it started. I got facebook messages, text messages, even my friends got messages. He was threatening me, yelling at me, calling me a slut saying I was only doing this to hurt him, that I personally ruined his life, he even mentioned my work. I told him he had to stop, that I would go to the police. He laughed. This went on for a few days (still is). I try to ignore him now but obviously if it does get worse I will have to finish filling out the police report.

I called a few friends because I was upset. I didn't tell them the whole story because I didn't want to embarrass him, luckily we have almost no similar friends. I was upset too. All I had wanted to do was the right thing. She ended up breaking up with him. I can only imagine how she felt. They had been together for two years. She thought they were going to get married. I kept replaying it in my mind wondering if I had done the right thing. Over and over and over. Should have I gotten involved, should have I ignored the entire thing? Everyone said he simply was angry and needed to vent which I understood. I started to think about how quickly I had tried him for his reactions. I was furious for his threats, for the things he said but it does suck, he lost the girl he loves. I kept trying to tell myself that he didn't love her if he would hit on anything that moved as soon as she left his sight but that's not mine to judge either. He kept asking why I was angry with him, why I hated him so much that i would ruin his life on purpose. The more I thought about it i realized i did this with zero malice, zero anger. I just wanted to do the right thing. The calls and texts didn't ever stop though and even with me trying to be more understanding, Nathan was becoming more persistent in his threats. I offered to help him but he laughed and in truth I have no idea how I could have helped him but I felt I should try. So, what was left?

One of my friends ran through the entire thing with me again. He said I had done the right thing but I could tell he wasn't answering fully. He said Nathan needed to vent. Then it hit me. Doing the right thing, being good, being closer to God isn't about accepting people and letting live. It was about committing to doing that in the face of adversity. It was about committing to do that as rocks are being slung at you. It is easy to do the right thing and then walk away feeling good but i don't know how much that let's you feel God. Maybe though, maybe, doing what's right and then sticking around and allowing all of the crap that comes with that hit you instead of someone else, someone who for a moment needs help, needs strength, maybe that is being good. Nathan does need to vent, needs to throw stones and needs to yell at me. I did cause him a lot of pain. I took something from him that he loved. I know that wasn't what my intent was, I know that I didn't put it in motion, but I'm starting to see that what I need to do, is kneel next to him, help him breath, and give him any strength that i have left, even as the stampede around me turns to chaos, i need to hold his hand even as he hates me, because I can at least do that, I can at least let him hate me so that for a moment, he doesn't have to hate himself.

Smoke

We were close to my hometown; we used to play in this tunnel as kids. It was dark as the coal back then but we would run down there to drink, to get high or just disappear. It was a long tunnel but she was right, people held their breath through it believing if they could last the entire length, their wish would could true. I would watch the kids do it on the morning route and I’d seen old women try to do it in secret, their faces growing red before they gave up and stared off at the past. It was on top of us now, the first cars already deep inside the moss covered blackness, Hailey’s chests rose, eyes grew wide; she took her breath and smiled-wishing for love, for forever. Hands held, he mimicked her. The couple in the front continued snoring. I closed my eyes but still I heard it, faintly, over the hum of the wheels, over the echo off the walls, I heard him, Hailey's new fiance, head turned to the aisle, I heard him exhale. I walked out the back door of the train into the screaming wind and lit my first cigarette in three years.

In Sickness and Grace

I've been sick lately. It's been getting worse. I used to get sick all the time and finally it stopped a few years back. But, last ten days or so I have been awful. Sick nearly every day and just miserable. Tonight is by far the worst. I've been so ill the past few hours I could hardly move. Part of it is that I frightened myself but after hours of misery I am ready to concede the rest of it. 

I went out with him the other night, Eduardo. We went and ran these errands and got his dry cleaning and some groceries and had a wonderful evening. 

You know the worst part of an affair? I mean naturally the trust is gone and the betrayal and the hurt are hard to deal with it but there is something that I think we forget. 

I want to have grace. I want to accept people but I am not sure how. I was so inspired by Nicholas that Grace has become my word of the year. To learn to accept others without judgment but to be there for them, through everything and support them even, and perhaps during, times of errors. That is hard to do. I remember clearly the day that I realized that I loved Evan and his faults not in spite of his faults. But, Nicholas, to his credit, has never judged me, he has been there for anything and at times he has pissed me off and ruined many, many of days but I truly believe on some level he has never meant to hurt anyone. 

I complained to him recently that I don't always know to whom to listen. I hear friends telling me that I am being used by this person and the other and then other friends will tell me that friend is manipulating me when he says that and still others say the third friend is pathological. But the second and third like each other as to the first and third...

I'd like to know how to have grace and morals. Eduardo tells me the problem with this group of people he and I know is that there are no boundaries. The way that it is set, everything is ok, everything is encouraged and no limits or justifiable ends are established. At no point is it ever viewed as ok to say 'no, that is not ok anymore. That is wrong.' everyone is just so busy being encouraging and open that we forget that sometimes there are limits and should be limits. 

I attended this wonderful little showing of a movie where a woman asserts she lives with no money. Instead she housesits, lets others buy her travel and masquerades as laboring and bartering for food. What she doesn’t ever account is that money isn't evil; it isn’t as bad as she insists. She is so busy telling everyone that they can do with out these restricts and arbitrary conditions and forced worship at the foot of the dollar that she neglects to see that money is simply a tool. And sometimes it is for the better, sometimes it helps. In fact, money is simply a way of bartering with an established cost where the buyer is as much protected as the seller. 

So how do I know when something is just wrong and when it’s ok to say its wrong? How do I still be open while saying 'no. What you are doing is immoral and wrong.' and do I still stand by that person? Lets look at some examples shall we? Lets say that you know someone who shoplifts regularly. Clearly this is bad but its not awful and its hard to pin point exactly who is being hurt. But the action is wrong. Ok so if we go by action or motivation perhaps? The motivation there is arguably not to hurt someone so perhaps I could be more forgiving. What about an affair? How do I stand by and watch my best friend have an affair and hurt his girlfriend? How do I watch my best friend profess his love for someone while slapping me on the ass and flirting with me? I mean if that would ever happen. Maybe that is harder because people are being hurt. So is that the rule? Be accepting of things as long as everyone involved is saying its ok? It seems like at some level that shouldn’t be enough. That at some level it should be expected that I jump in and say no. That I should defend and protect those who cant or aren’t protecting themselves. I mean its all fine and good to say oh yes I am open to everything and whatever you say is good and I accept it but its far harder to say this is what I stand for, you are in violation of that, you don’t want to change, but I will continue to be your friend. On some level are you obligated to make them change or walk away? I’m just not entirely sure. 

How do I have grace there?

The worst part of an affair is that those are the moments you need your best friend to talk to and when he cheated on you, he took away your best friend at the same time. The person you needed to have around the most, the one you needed to talk to, and that’s whom you have been robbed. 

I dream of my father nightly anymore. I don’t believe in recurring dreams but this is close. I see him and he looks fine yet he knows he is going to die and he is going along with it. No effort to stop it just letting it happens. In the one two nights ago I was going to an opera and he was there as well. I was wondering why he was in attendance and was being a little odd. I went over to see him and my mother stopped me and said he was busy and I could see him after. I knew then that he was about to die and yet it meant nothing to him that I still wanted to see him, talk to him. He just let it happen. Nicholas told me how he asked for permission to propose. I realized that cant ever happen to me. To be honest, my father had no right to give me away anyhow. It always should have been Fred. My father didn’t know me, didn’t care for me. He left me right? How many times over. 

I don’t need a relationship or want one. But there are some nights when it would be nice to be held. Scientists say we fall in love seven times before getting married: I'm at three. I've said it a few more and thought it twice more. I wonder what changes in us. Maybe it takes that long to learn to love a flaw or to get over our own. Sometimes I wonder if it is just that after that many we learn to accept compromise. Maybe we will never love anyone the way we loved our first love and we just slowly accept it. After seven loves... who has seven loves?! 

The groceries we bought should make a nice dinner for him. I should have recognized that he has never gone out of his way to purchase food before. But I didn’t. I was too happy to be with him, to see him. Took me a few hours to realize I was assisting him in his preparation for her. I want to be the one who makes him happy. I want to be the one for whom he lights up and smiles. It so rare that he does. I wish that could be me. 

I’ve been trying to take it the best I can as I ant to be there for him, I want to support him. I want him to be happy. More so than anyone I know. I wish I could be the one that did that for him but I cant. So. Grace. The only trouble is that grace is hard. And my body isn't quite sure of it. And so I lie on the floor, sick in pain, sore throat, dizzy, running a fever. It’s easier. It may not quite be grace but I’m pretty sure it is the true and moral thing to do and that is what I want for him. 

Train Maps of The World

It is nearly Valentine's Day and I will be subjected at any moment to defend my dissertation: Valentine's Day is not evil, even for singles. I adore Valentine's Day. It is a day to celebrate your love for someone else, a national day where we recognize how important love is to each of us. I think that says quite a bit. Goodness knows it has to be more lucrative, more joyful, more celebrated than president's day, labor or half the rest of the insanity we get off work. I love Valentine's day. I admit that i am frequently jealous of those in the perfect relationship where they will celebrate Valentine's Day with their loved one and be happy but even still, I am happy.

I suppose I could do what half the single women do which is go out with their girlfriends and raise a toast to the single life, to their rebellion against the institute and pressures of the world to conform and show off a ring. Not happening. If it was them getting together because they were first in each other's world and that is how they wanted things to stay I would be swayed but I'm not.

I have this incredible new book about the railway maps from across the globe. The maps are beautiful ranging from technical to charactures. Some artists render the complicated maps in shapes of alligators to help it be more memorble. THen, naturally, we all remember the most beautiful subway map of all time? With it's straight lines and a focus on the route instead of the geography above, Piet Mondrian's map changed the context of the map and made something that is still used today.

Want to know why the maps of railways are so complicated and awkward? It's because of how the railroads developed. Most the railroads, especially in Europe, were intended for short trips between two not very far destinations. So many of these small little tracks sprung up that it began to make sense to connect them and much as with our golden spike, there was soon a massive empire of wood and steel. That was never the intention but eventually it turned out to be a good thing, it solved numerous problems and built cities were there was literally nothing. In one case a city went from 400 people to over 6,000 in the course of half a decade. It made sense to change the goal and how much was compromised?

On Valentine's Day there will be an assumption that everyone will do what they can do to get a date no matter if that means you scramble back to an ex or ask someone out that you think is beneath you, or perhaps it means going out with someone you don't like as much because your primary partner is busy, perhaps it means sacrificing and going to a party where everyone can be together. People use Valentine's Day like New Years to establish a commitment, a sentence, a status. It becomes about the outcome for some: not being alone, getting a ring. If a good bottle of wine accompanies it though I mean is it truly a loss?

I woke up this morning wanting to have sex. Yes, all of you know my stance on sex and my strong religious beliefs and the aggravation it causes for so many of you who do not want to understand. I started my believe of no sex before marriage well before sex was a possibility. I was quite young and confidently asserted that I wanted my life to be for God and that he should come before all else until the time when I find someone that I am willing to give my life to. This is probably a little confusing but it is important to me. Waking up and wanting to have sex with someone then should be a warning sign to some degree right? Does that mean that I am losing my connection with God? That I think I should go and sleep with all these people? Not really. It simply means something I had admitted for a little while now which is that I don't think God cares. How much of this though was ever about Him.

People often go on these tangents to me about how I have been hopelessly deceived by religion and the Church. In fact, there is a youtube video with a million hits about some poor boy who loves God and hates the Church. He uses all of these lines from the Bible that prove the inconsistencies in Church practice, raises questions about the money that people donate to the Church and a host of other egregious actions. I have no trouble with the Church. I view it as a tool. I don't care if you eat an cheese bagel. The point, to me, of having these rules is that, as I have previously heralded it gives a method of order. I think these monstrous and controlling rules are for our bennefit. You know how people fast to get closer to God? You know how they isolate themselves for years and go without speaking to obtain meditation? I have never believed that God needed someone to do that. But its out there. It's there for us. As a method to help us. As a way for us to feel closer to God. Not because He demands it but because we then know what we are willing to do for God, because we have an idea of His suffering and appreciate him more, because it helps us appreciate the things and people He has given us.

I heard this idiotic argument the other day on a television show about a girl who died and came back to life. She had been the ultimate goodie two shoes. WHen she came back from the dead people asked her what it was like and she responded only by saying there was no God. To her that gave her free reign to do whatever she wanted: sex with everyone and anyone, drugs, even murder. Ok crazy people chill for a second i am not saying anything with that yet. The point to me is that if you are doing these things simply to appease God, well, you have already failed.

If i have grown out of my need to wait until I'm married to have sex than that's that. It has protected me from things I couldn't begin to describe to people. It was something I needed to stay alive. If that's not there anymore than I need to ask why I am continuing to do it. It wont matter to God one way or the other but is it imperative to something else, something, I'm sorry but I can't even tell you.

Did you know that New York didn't want a train? Originally it was planned with the intentions of using canals to transport goods. I find trains to be beautiful, endearing and timeless. So much has changed but there is a timelessness, a sense of might that disappears with every cloud of steam. There is a beauty in the constantly hum of the wheels on the tracks, the weight of the cars and the fading light on the caboose. I suppose it is true that the purpose of the train was always simple, transport objects from one place to another and it has done that. For so long.

Those girls would be happy to leave that table when Mr. Right came in the door. How many would look it? How many of them would let that idea drift off into the fog?

There are these massive maps to dictate where things should go, how things should work and we pretend that if we follow them, or if we do the opposite and ignore everything because we want to rebel, that they will get us somewhere. Either way, we still use them, every day, to tell us what to love, what to do. I am just advocating something a little different. Recognize that we made the maps ourselves. We begged God for the commandments. Moses when back twice right? He needed them. I needed them. I created my own. I heard my own. We all have.

We needed this. All of us did. It is easy to stand on the back of the train car and wave goodbye. It is hard to watch the world drive farther away and stand there in God's true goal. But that is why He gave us maps, why we created rules, so we could find it, so we could stay there, so we could hear it, so we could do it, so we could find our grace.

Happy Valentine's Day, I hope your journey goes beautifully.