Somewhere I veered off course. When I started this blog, I thought it would be a mere documentation of my travels through The South. I started off with a bang after I left LA and traversed Hwy 40, jotting down the kind of food I ate, the songs I listened to, the sunsets I saw. Traveling opens up your world again and alights the senses--everything is anew and fresh; driving on an open highway is like automotive yoga--it clears blocked energy and attunes you to a greater body at work. Using my iPhone as a compass and Ragmar's Kingdom as my destination, I thought that was where I was headed and where I would find Liberty.
My friend lives in Liberty, Tennessee, after all, hence the name of the blog. I think I simply hoped that it would be my final destination and where I would realize a triumphant release. I did jump off a 20-foot cliff into a river and I walked a mile on a winding forest road in the pitch black of night. I became friendly with insects, the sultry heat of a Southern summer, and experienced the exact solitude of being human--vital and vulnerable--in a wooded world stirring with life all around. I wrote about some of my adventures and discoveries, although I censored myself from writing about the wonderful world of faeries I had stumbled upon because I did not feel knowledgeable enough or qualified to write about them. Instead, I wrote about or to distract me from what I was consumed by: these temporal fixations and hang-ups that came in the name of a boy, but were plagued and fueled by a demon much greater than him.
You may think I have lost my mind. Writing about faeries and demons and such. Crazy. No, I actually encountered them in the woods of Tennessee. I found a delightful group of faeries who nurtured and tended to me during my two months there and I also began seeing the demon growing inside me as I was left to my own devices deep in the backwoods, 2,000 miles from my loved ones in Los Angeles. I became bosom buddies with a regenerating bottle of Bullit--a fantastic bourbon whiskey from Kentucky--and drank myself silly. I dealt with some issues around my father, this boy, and mostly myself and my own inequities during my time in Tennessee and in order to cope with the pain of going deeper and deeper, I drank.
Somehow, I stumbled into my car (not drunk, just hungover) and made my way to Atlanta to visit my dear friend, Charles. Then, I got back into my car and made my way to Savannah to visit my good friend, Fitz. Fitz said I could stay at his mother's house, who was away for the summer, and I arrived at a lovely row house in the Historic District and parked my car. I stayed there for three weeks, slowly losing my mind to Bullit, but the gentle arm of Savannah cradled me and helped me to regain my senses. I stopped drinking and decided to stay.
That is all I will write for now. It's been two months since I've had a drink. I've gotten an apartment. I've made some wonderful friends. I feel at home here, at peace, and I am happy. The Boy and I are still talking, but he becomes more and more distant as he continues with his shenanigans and I continue to tread a more honest path.
I will write more about faeries and demons, but I will also write more about The South because that was my intention to do so when I came out here. I was derailed for awhile, but I am back on track. I still don't know what this blog is really about or why I even bother to write it, but I do know that on each step of this journey I am coming closer and closer to finding liberty. Also, I promise to include more photos.
Showing posts with label Indigo Boy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Indigo Boy. Show all posts
Friday, October 8, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Gothic Appalachia
I arrived at Sassafras, the artist's collective located about twenty minutes from Ragmar, several days ago after trying to pack up the last of my stuff. As I trekked to and from from my car, it began to thunder and rain, and out-of-nowhere I received this barrage of text messages from the Scottish Whore. I last texted her two weeks ago. She proceeded to "show me" how she and Indigo Boy had "something" as I carted stuff back and forth from my car in the rain. I thought I was done hearing from her or about the whole mess. She's just a dumb-ass bitch in my book. Stupid whore making my blood boil again. I told her to fuck him or someone else and just to fuck off. Things aren't working out between them and now she's getting psycho on me. Just stirring up shit because she can't leave well enough alone. Doing everything now to screw the both of us. And still I try to find peace in the woods of Tennessee 2000 miles away from L.A. I'm glad I'm not there because she's the type of woman who would go to extreme measures to get back at us because she finally got dissed by him. And I am glad to be here because I have peace; they don't.
I have found my peace here at Sassafras. My cellphone has no reception, so phone calls and text messages are few and far between. What relief. What silence. What a breath of fresh air. I have Internet connection, my computer, great company, a gorgeous structure of windows and carefully-hewn wood to call home and 300 acres of verdant woods to roam and find reason.
I had a rockstar weekend with the lot of them, drinking whiskey on the porch and nursing bad hangovers the next morning. The day before Xavier and Paul left, the three of us hiked for two hours up the dense wooded mountainside, through a depressing decimated clearcut where we got lost, and back down through the trees and foliage to the Refuge. We hiked and walked for hours in our tall rainboots that we wore to protect us from chiggers and ticks. Eventually, we made it to Ragmar's (after walking another 45 minutes or so from the Refuge to his property) and collapsed onto the hammock. Anouk had to come pick us pathetic city slickers up, but we showered, had a lovely dinner of shrimp scampi and salad and slept like babies.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Indigo Boy
I've been hesitant to write about this for awhile, but this blog is an exercise in release for me: in finding "liberty"... and also to exorcise the demons that reared their ugly heads these last few weeks. Censorship simply does not have a place here. Warning: this post should not be read by the faint-hearted, the blind, or sexually prude.
For anyone keeping up with my blog, you might be wondering why I haven't written as much as I did in the beginning. Well, a few repairs were being made: my computer, my camera, and then my heart. About a week after I arrived in Liberty, Indigo Boy told me that he had slept with someone else. I knew something was up because he had been spending quite a bit of time with this girl from work the week that I left... I'll call her Scottish Whore. I call her that because I knew she was sketchy from my own experience, but then later I learned she had slept with more than a handful of people from work. That he fucked her came as a shock because Indigo Boy and I had just spent the last week talking on the phone every night, texting throughout the day and exchanging sweet nothings throughout my trip out here.
We agreed to have an open relationship after I left. There was no other alternative to our age difference or the literal distance we would be apart. I asked two things from him, however, before I left: use protection and don't sleep with anyone from work. I had already broken my cardinal rule of not sleeping with anyone from work by getting involved with him and I knew that if he did things would get very, very messy. There is something sacred about the workplace that needs to be honored. Sex just simply doesn't belong in the equation. Lesson learned for me: NEVER sleep with anyone from work!!!!!
Even though we had an open relationship, we were still very much together. We texted and talked everyday. We had spent the last three months practically inseparable. He had been so involved in my life; I wondered how his 24-year old attention span would deal with my absence once I was gone. I knew he was sad. The last picture I saw of him on Facebook taken by a friend of his after I left made my heart break. He looked so dejected. I knew he was lonely. I didn't think anything, at first, of him spending time with Scottish Whore because she claimed to be a lesbian and Indigo Boy insisted that he wasn't attracted to her "in that way." He said they were just hanging out because I was gone and he just wanted to play Wii. I told him that I thought she was seducing him with Wii. He is twenty-four, after all. He laughed and said, "I don't think so!" and I believed what he said to me. How could I not? He sent me a text pic of him kissing me while he was at her house. I told him to tell her "hello" for me while he was hanging out with her and he said "Scottish Whore says 'hello,' too!" Smiley face included or something insidious like that.
So I believed him... and then one night we talked on the phone before he was running out the door to her house again at 11pm. My antennae went on high alert. He said he would text me in the morning. Nothing. He had never done that to me before. He was always so good about checking in with me, doing what he said he would do, coming through for me in a pinch. I called him, left him a few frantic text messages the next day. Nothing again. I was 2000 miles away and I knew he had fucked her.
And then all hell broke loose. I knew this girl from work. I had hung out with her once before about a year ago and then stayed far, far away from her because I got such sketchy vibes. The night I hung out with her, she told me that she had left Scotland because her best friend's boyfriend had killed someone or something crazy like that and then she and her best friend got caught up in it and needed to get out of Scotland. Then she came onto me. And then I said my goodbyes and never looked back. I had a civil working relationship with her after that, but I kept my distance. I thought she was sketchy, needy and unstable. Whenever I saw her at work she was always complaining about this person and that person or how she had been wronged in some way. She looked like a strung-out junkie, too, with her pasty skin and sack of bones that she called a body. She was wretched. And then Indigo Boy slept with her... and I lost my shit.
I know it takes two to tango and I certainly don't hold Scottish Whore solely accountable for the whole thing, but I have very little sympathy for her. She is a lying bitch. She swore she would never have done anything to hurt me and then said she didn't want anything more to do with him after she found out we were together. I told her I wouldn't put it past her to keep sleeping with him. Had I been her, even if she was misled by him, if I found out that the guy I had just slept with was already involved with someone else (especially with someone I knew!), I wouldn't have slept with him again. After one stupid fling? And all the drama that is sure to come after? She's thirty-two years old. Come on woman!
I'm sure he told her he didn't want to be me with me anymore... that he wanted to be with her. Whatever he needed to tell her to keep sleeping with her. And then he just felt guilty for the whole mess and then he was trapped. There were four things at play here: he was lonely and vulnerable, she sank her claws into him, Indigo Boy and I had shit to work out that we never got a chance to and he has a terrible pattern of overlapping his relationships. I think he did the same thing to me after his "best friend" K freaked out on me one night after Indigo Boy and I had been together for a month or so. I thought her reaction was strange because he swore nothing was up between them and that, really, they were just friends. I told him that any girl who reacts that strongly to her "best friend's" new woman clearly has feelings for him and that he better sort that out, but I chalked it up to a 24-something crush. I didn't think he was lying to me. Now that I look back on it, he was probably sleeping with her the whole time, too.
So, I feel duped. Yes, like a "foolish woman" as my mother called me once she found out I was dating a 24-year old guy. I "shouldn't have"... shouldn't have gone there, shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have even bothered. But I couldn't resist. He was so disarmingly sweet. His energy so pure and fresh. How could I resist falling for him: this gorgeous boy with caramel skin, puppy-dog eyes, pillow lips and a body that makes women ravenous; this adoration, this soulful yearning, this love? We spent a full three months doting on each other everyday. We spent my birthday weekend dancing and rolling among the bedsheets, went to Santa Barbara for Valentine's Day, San Francisco for a four-day roadtrip, and did almost everything together. We are both die-hard romantics. Music was one of our connections and, though, we shared many songs, Esthero became our muse. He called me "That Girl." He was my "Indigo Boy." Yes, the sex was hot, but it was our kiss that sealed the deal for me. It was a kiss that I hadn't shared with someone since I was his age. It was the kiss of being twenty-four: a kiss full of belief and hope, rapture, longing, comfort, and desire. We kissed in elevators, among the pillows for hours, whenever we saw each other we kissed and, then, everything was made right in the world. It feels like we spent most of our time kissing. Just kissing. But he's twenty-four. He doesn't want to just kiss! He wants to fuck and experience sex in all forms! I get it... I was twenty-four once.
I guess, these last three weeks have just been a painful wake-up call for me. I knew that things weren't right the last few weeks when I was still in L.A. I was in the midst of transition--quitting the job I had been at for 2-1/2 years, packing up all my things to go, trying to settle my heart as I tried absorbing this separation from Indigo Boy. He, too, was in the midst of transition. He knew I was leaving. He helped me move things around in my parents' basement. We spent as many nights as we could together going out or hanging out at his place. We talked or texted on the phone every day as he went carousing around with his boys or went to practice (he's an amazing dancer, btw... exceptionally talented), but I knew I was cramping his style. I knew he was flirting with girls and we would joke and tease about it. He was so much younger than me. I didn't want to get in the way of his having a good time or doing what 24-year olds do. His flirtations didn't really matter to me, anyway. What mattered was that I knew I was his #1 Girl and that we still communicated everyday or made the time to spend with each other when we could. But the last few weeks before I left were fraught with uncertainty--what would happen to "us" once I was gone? Would we, could we still remain true to each other in our hearts? Would we be able to withstand the pain and difficulty of what would come?
Apparently not. I don't know. I broke up with him last week because he handled things so poorly. I just don't know anymore where the lines of truth and loyalty exist for him anymore. He betrayed me. He strung me along with half-assed attempts at saying sorry, asking me what he could do to possible make it right again between us because he didn't want to throw what we had away and then kept fucking her and telling her only god knows what. Now she's probably hooked on him and embarrassed about the whole thing and acting needy and confused and he's too much of a softy to tell her goodbye. He couldn't say goodbye to me. I asked him after it all happened if he wanted to break up with me--that he should have just done so. He didn't have to kick me in the stomach, too. He insisted, No! No, I don't want to break up with you! I don't want to throw all of this away! But he transferred the feelings he had for me to her because she's there; I'm not. I don't want to be involved in that kind of bullshit. And I got pulled into it for a hot second. And, man, I went there. All my ugly junior high school vitriol came spewing out. My anger, all the hurts that I've already experienced with other men, all the many, many disappointments and betrayals.
I scared him off with the intensity of my anger and pain and probably drove the two of them closer together. But I don't regret doing so. I am learning that my emotions are my emotions and to own them fully and, also, to express them when they need to be released. Anger and pain are especially ugly emotions, but if you don't release them they sit in you and fester and morph into something much uglier and destructive. I've done that for too long--held my emotions in or taken them out on myself. And I don't want to hide my emotions anymore. Or to manipulate my emotions to hold onto something or someone because I am alone. I have learned how to be alone. My challenge is to learn and trust to be with another. I do believe, though that I will recognize my love when a Man can deal with the uncertainty of my pain and discomfort.
I told Indigo Boy once that though our bodies may age, our emotions do not. Each person's emotional world is full of every heartache, betrayal or loss that one may have suffered since childhood. Each person learns to deal with the pain or express it in different ways, but those seeds of pain still exist. I thought, at my age, that I would be able to handle it better once the inevitable came to pass, but I did not. My pain still exists. I am still a little girl lost, a jr. high school bitch, a woman who loves and distrusts men, a mother that has not found her child. I knew he would sleep with someone else or many, many other women. I knew that one would create heartache for the other. One of us would have found someone else at some point. We have different needs at the ages that we are: I want security; he wants to have fun. I just didn't think it would come so soon. I just believed that what we had created together would endure. I thought that what we has shared was sacred and that he would have honored it in some way.
I went there: into the magic and romance of being twenty-four again and I reveled in it. I swam in our love. We learned to swim together--to open ourselves to the uncertainty of the depth we may find, but then to release ourselves into the joy of finding equal amounts of recognition and nourishment. We introduced each other to different worlds. Our friends celebrated our love. We talked about the future--the near future seemed too uncertain, but the faraway future seemed like a distinct possibility. But I was more ready for it than he was. He hasn't been through enough bad relationships yet to know how to recognize something really good when he has it and then what to do to preserve it.
I don't regret "going there" with him. He gave me so much. I know he's a good guy with a beautiful heart. I can give him a reprieve for being twenty-four, but I just hope he knows that if he keeps going for older women, he better be prepared for the Pandora's Box of emotions that comes with it. I can forgive him for his indiscretions, another woman may not be so kind. For me, it took more than a decade to experience the purity and sanctity of the kind of love we shared. For him, he may find it sooner or more often than me. Maybe Indigo Boy will; maybe he won't. I hope he does. I hope he beds many women. I hope he gets his heart broken. I hope he learns all the ups and downs and ins and outs of love. I hope he learns from his mistakes and learns to be a better man.
For me, I would rather have loved and lost than not loved him at all. That Girl will always remember and hold Indigo Boy close to her heart, even as she says goodbye...
For anyone keeping up with my blog, you might be wondering why I haven't written as much as I did in the beginning. Well, a few repairs were being made: my computer, my camera, and then my heart. About a week after I arrived in Liberty, Indigo Boy told me that he had slept with someone else. I knew something was up because he had been spending quite a bit of time with this girl from work the week that I left... I'll call her Scottish Whore. I call her that because I knew she was sketchy from my own experience, but then later I learned she had slept with more than a handful of people from work. That he fucked her came as a shock because Indigo Boy and I had just spent the last week talking on the phone every night, texting throughout the day and exchanging sweet nothings throughout my trip out here.
We agreed to have an open relationship after I left. There was no other alternative to our age difference or the literal distance we would be apart. I asked two things from him, however, before I left: use protection and don't sleep with anyone from work. I had already broken my cardinal rule of not sleeping with anyone from work by getting involved with him and I knew that if he did things would get very, very messy. There is something sacred about the workplace that needs to be honored. Sex just simply doesn't belong in the equation. Lesson learned for me: NEVER sleep with anyone from work!!!!!
Even though we had an open relationship, we were still very much together. We texted and talked everyday. We had spent the last three months practically inseparable. He had been so involved in my life; I wondered how his 24-year old attention span would deal with my absence once I was gone. I knew he was sad. The last picture I saw of him on Facebook taken by a friend of his after I left made my heart break. He looked so dejected. I knew he was lonely. I didn't think anything, at first, of him spending time with Scottish Whore because she claimed to be a lesbian and Indigo Boy insisted that he wasn't attracted to her "in that way." He said they were just hanging out because I was gone and he just wanted to play Wii. I told him that I thought she was seducing him with Wii. He is twenty-four, after all. He laughed and said, "I don't think so!" and I believed what he said to me. How could I not? He sent me a text pic of him kissing me while he was at her house. I told him to tell her "hello" for me while he was hanging out with her and he said "Scottish Whore says 'hello,' too!" Smiley face included or something insidious like that.
So I believed him... and then one night we talked on the phone before he was running out the door to her house again at 11pm. My antennae went on high alert. He said he would text me in the morning. Nothing. He had never done that to me before. He was always so good about checking in with me, doing what he said he would do, coming through for me in a pinch. I called him, left him a few frantic text messages the next day. Nothing again. I was 2000 miles away and I knew he had fucked her.
And then all hell broke loose. I knew this girl from work. I had hung out with her once before about a year ago and then stayed far, far away from her because I got such sketchy vibes. The night I hung out with her, she told me that she had left Scotland because her best friend's boyfriend had killed someone or something crazy like that and then she and her best friend got caught up in it and needed to get out of Scotland. Then she came onto me. And then I said my goodbyes and never looked back. I had a civil working relationship with her after that, but I kept my distance. I thought she was sketchy, needy and unstable. Whenever I saw her at work she was always complaining about this person and that person or how she had been wronged in some way. She looked like a strung-out junkie, too, with her pasty skin and sack of bones that she called a body. She was wretched. And then Indigo Boy slept with her... and I lost my shit.
I know it takes two to tango and I certainly don't hold Scottish Whore solely accountable for the whole thing, but I have very little sympathy for her. She is a lying bitch. She swore she would never have done anything to hurt me and then said she didn't want anything more to do with him after she found out we were together. I told her I wouldn't put it past her to keep sleeping with him. Had I been her, even if she was misled by him, if I found out that the guy I had just slept with was already involved with someone else (especially with someone I knew!), I wouldn't have slept with him again. After one stupid fling? And all the drama that is sure to come after? She's thirty-two years old. Come on woman!
I'm sure he told her he didn't want to be me with me anymore... that he wanted to be with her. Whatever he needed to tell her to keep sleeping with her. And then he just felt guilty for the whole mess and then he was trapped. There were four things at play here: he was lonely and vulnerable, she sank her claws into him, Indigo Boy and I had shit to work out that we never got a chance to and he has a terrible pattern of overlapping his relationships. I think he did the same thing to me after his "best friend" K freaked out on me one night after Indigo Boy and I had been together for a month or so. I thought her reaction was strange because he swore nothing was up between them and that, really, they were just friends. I told him that any girl who reacts that strongly to her "best friend's" new woman clearly has feelings for him and that he better sort that out, but I chalked it up to a 24-something crush. I didn't think he was lying to me. Now that I look back on it, he was probably sleeping with her the whole time, too.
So, I feel duped. Yes, like a "foolish woman" as my mother called me once she found out I was dating a 24-year old guy. I "shouldn't have"... shouldn't have gone there, shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have even bothered. But I couldn't resist. He was so disarmingly sweet. His energy so pure and fresh. How could I resist falling for him: this gorgeous boy with caramel skin, puppy-dog eyes, pillow lips and a body that makes women ravenous; this adoration, this soulful yearning, this love? We spent a full three months doting on each other everyday. We spent my birthday weekend dancing and rolling among the bedsheets, went to Santa Barbara for Valentine's Day, San Francisco for a four-day roadtrip, and did almost everything together. We are both die-hard romantics. Music was one of our connections and, though, we shared many songs, Esthero became our muse. He called me "That Girl." He was my "Indigo Boy." Yes, the sex was hot, but it was our kiss that sealed the deal for me. It was a kiss that I hadn't shared with someone since I was his age. It was the kiss of being twenty-four: a kiss full of belief and hope, rapture, longing, comfort, and desire. We kissed in elevators, among the pillows for hours, whenever we saw each other we kissed and, then, everything was made right in the world. It feels like we spent most of our time kissing. Just kissing. But he's twenty-four. He doesn't want to just kiss! He wants to fuck and experience sex in all forms! I get it... I was twenty-four once.
I guess, these last three weeks have just been a painful wake-up call for me. I knew that things weren't right the last few weeks when I was still in L.A. I was in the midst of transition--quitting the job I had been at for 2-1/2 years, packing up all my things to go, trying to settle my heart as I tried absorbing this separation from Indigo Boy. He, too, was in the midst of transition. He knew I was leaving. He helped me move things around in my parents' basement. We spent as many nights as we could together going out or hanging out at his place. We talked or texted on the phone every day as he went carousing around with his boys or went to practice (he's an amazing dancer, btw... exceptionally talented), but I knew I was cramping his style. I knew he was flirting with girls and we would joke and tease about it. He was so much younger than me. I didn't want to get in the way of his having a good time or doing what 24-year olds do. His flirtations didn't really matter to me, anyway. What mattered was that I knew I was his #1 Girl and that we still communicated everyday or made the time to spend with each other when we could. But the last few weeks before I left were fraught with uncertainty--what would happen to "us" once I was gone? Would we, could we still remain true to each other in our hearts? Would we be able to withstand the pain and difficulty of what would come?
Apparently not. I don't know. I broke up with him last week because he handled things so poorly. I just don't know anymore where the lines of truth and loyalty exist for him anymore. He betrayed me. He strung me along with half-assed attempts at saying sorry, asking me what he could do to possible make it right again between us because he didn't want to throw what we had away and then kept fucking her and telling her only god knows what. Now she's probably hooked on him and embarrassed about the whole thing and acting needy and confused and he's too much of a softy to tell her goodbye. He couldn't say goodbye to me. I asked him after it all happened if he wanted to break up with me--that he should have just done so. He didn't have to kick me in the stomach, too. He insisted, No! No, I don't want to break up with you! I don't want to throw all of this away! But he transferred the feelings he had for me to her because she's there; I'm not. I don't want to be involved in that kind of bullshit. And I got pulled into it for a hot second. And, man, I went there. All my ugly junior high school vitriol came spewing out. My anger, all the hurts that I've already experienced with other men, all the many, many disappointments and betrayals.
I scared him off with the intensity of my anger and pain and probably drove the two of them closer together. But I don't regret doing so. I am learning that my emotions are my emotions and to own them fully and, also, to express them when they need to be released. Anger and pain are especially ugly emotions, but if you don't release them they sit in you and fester and morph into something much uglier and destructive. I've done that for too long--held my emotions in or taken them out on myself. And I don't want to hide my emotions anymore. Or to manipulate my emotions to hold onto something or someone because I am alone. I have learned how to be alone. My challenge is to learn and trust to be with another. I do believe, though that I will recognize my love when a Man can deal with the uncertainty of my pain and discomfort.
I told Indigo Boy once that though our bodies may age, our emotions do not. Each person's emotional world is full of every heartache, betrayal or loss that one may have suffered since childhood. Each person learns to deal with the pain or express it in different ways, but those seeds of pain still exist. I thought, at my age, that I would be able to handle it better once the inevitable came to pass, but I did not. My pain still exists. I am still a little girl lost, a jr. high school bitch, a woman who loves and distrusts men, a mother that has not found her child. I knew he would sleep with someone else or many, many other women. I knew that one would create heartache for the other. One of us would have found someone else at some point. We have different needs at the ages that we are: I want security; he wants to have fun. I just didn't think it would come so soon. I just believed that what we had created together would endure. I thought that what we has shared was sacred and that he would have honored it in some way.
I went there: into the magic and romance of being twenty-four again and I reveled in it. I swam in our love. We learned to swim together--to open ourselves to the uncertainty of the depth we may find, but then to release ourselves into the joy of finding equal amounts of recognition and nourishment. We introduced each other to different worlds. Our friends celebrated our love. We talked about the future--the near future seemed too uncertain, but the faraway future seemed like a distinct possibility. But I was more ready for it than he was. He hasn't been through enough bad relationships yet to know how to recognize something really good when he has it and then what to do to preserve it.
I don't regret "going there" with him. He gave me so much. I know he's a good guy with a beautiful heart. I can give him a reprieve for being twenty-four, but I just hope he knows that if he keeps going for older women, he better be prepared for the Pandora's Box of emotions that comes with it. I can forgive him for his indiscretions, another woman may not be so kind. For me, it took more than a decade to experience the purity and sanctity of the kind of love we shared. For him, he may find it sooner or more often than me. Maybe Indigo Boy will; maybe he won't. I hope he does. I hope he beds many women. I hope he gets his heart broken. I hope he learns all the ups and downs and ins and outs of love. I hope he learns from his mistakes and learns to be a better man.
For me, I would rather have loved and lost than not loved him at all. That Girl will always remember and hold Indigo Boy close to her heart, even as she says goodbye...
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Rock Island (Part II)
I followed my blue-haired faery as he swam across the river. The current from the waterfall was strong, but I tried to relax and find my rhythm in the water. I kept my eyes on my blue-haired faery--this boy who kept looking out for me--and swam the breaststroke through the current. The rocks on the other side didn't seem so far away. I kept swimming. I caught up to my friend as he reached for a log bobbing in the water.
"I'm going to wait here," he said a little breathless.
"Okay," I answered, also a little breathless, and kept swimming to the other side.
The edge of the river didn't seem so far away. I found a ledge and pulled myself up. My friend left the log, swam up and climbed up to the rocky shelf above us. I sat for a moment on the ledge to catch my breath and marveling in the swim and how good and open and alive I suddenly felt. I heard him oohing and aahing about something, but I couldn't hear him over the din of the rush of water.
"What is it?" I called.
He said something again, but it was muffled, so I pulled myself up over the ledge and went to him.
"What is it" I asked again, dripping wet.
"It's a rainbow!" And he pulled me over to see a small arc of color in the waterfall flowing before us. I smiled. I had seen more rainbows this year than I have since I was a child--two with Indigo Boy and now with my blue-haired faery.
It's been a good year so far, I thought.
The swim across the channel was just the first indication, though, that I could overcome obstacles and meet my fears face-to-face. My friend and I joined some of the other boys sitting in the sun on a slab of rock 20-feet above the water. One by one the boys jumped in. My blue-haired faery chimed in that he was also going to jump. I looked at the water below, churning around the ledges and tried looking for a spot that didn't have a pile of rocks waiting for me to crack my head open.
"It's not that far," I kept telling myself. "I'll be fine. I won't hurt myself." My blue-haired faery jumped in and suddenly I was alone on the rock. All the other boys gathered on the opposite side of the river waved to me. So I leapt. Feet first, preparing my stomach for a freefall, and then I was in--the cool water embraced my body and I swam up easily from its depths. I emerged into the air and then realized I still had to swim across the river again. The current was stronger, but as I swam I could see and hear Ragmar and the other boys erupt into cheers and clapping. I laughed and smiled broadly, swimming against the current and finding my rhythm again. I swam the breaststroke across the middle of the river and then relaxed as I got closer to shore. I flipped over, looking at the skyline above me--the silhouette of the rocky, wooded mountainside, the sky and sun shining through the trees. Then I felt the water change and move faster around me as I got closer to shore. I broke into a freestyle and pulled myself through the current toward the edge of the river. I found my footing among the rocks and joined the others feeling strong, sun-drenched and relaxed.
"I'm going to wait here," he said a little breathless.
"Okay," I answered, also a little breathless, and kept swimming to the other side.
The edge of the river didn't seem so far away. I found a ledge and pulled myself up. My friend left the log, swam up and climbed up to the rocky shelf above us. I sat for a moment on the ledge to catch my breath and marveling in the swim and how good and open and alive I suddenly felt. I heard him oohing and aahing about something, but I couldn't hear him over the din of the rush of water.
"What is it?" I called.
He said something again, but it was muffled, so I pulled myself up over the ledge and went to him.
"What is it" I asked again, dripping wet.
"It's a rainbow!" And he pulled me over to see a small arc of color in the waterfall flowing before us. I smiled. I had seen more rainbows this year than I have since I was a child--two with Indigo Boy and now with my blue-haired faery.
It's been a good year so far, I thought.
The swim across the channel was just the first indication, though, that I could overcome obstacles and meet my fears face-to-face. My friend and I joined some of the other boys sitting in the sun on a slab of rock 20-feet above the water. One by one the boys jumped in. My blue-haired faery chimed in that he was also going to jump. I looked at the water below, churning around the ledges and tried looking for a spot that didn't have a pile of rocks waiting for me to crack my head open.
"It's not that far," I kept telling myself. "I'll be fine. I won't hurt myself." My blue-haired faery jumped in and suddenly I was alone on the rock. All the other boys gathered on the opposite side of the river waved to me. So I leapt. Feet first, preparing my stomach for a freefall, and then I was in--the cool water embraced my body and I swam up easily from its depths. I emerged into the air and then realized I still had to swim across the river again. The current was stronger, but as I swam I could see and hear Ragmar and the other boys erupt into cheers and clapping. I laughed and smiled broadly, swimming against the current and finding my rhythm again. I swam the breaststroke across the middle of the river and then relaxed as I got closer to shore. I flipped over, looking at the skyline above me--the silhouette of the rocky, wooded mountainside, the sky and sun shining through the trees. Then I felt the water change and move faster around me as I got closer to shore. I broke into a freestyle and pulled myself through the current toward the edge of the river. I found my footing among the rocks and joined the others feeling strong, sun-drenched and relaxed.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Day One - Exhaustion!!
I'm exhausted. Seven hours on the road after not-enough sleep the last three to four days. After nearly three weeks of delaying my departure (for various reasons: withdrawal from my sweet Indigo Boy, reality checks from my family, and a mad dash to contain the entrails of my things that seemed to have spread from basement to downstairs guest room to my sister's childhood bedroom). Packing is a bitch. And I'm so organized now it's unsettling.
BUT I did it. After a sweet, but too brief last goodbye to Indigo Boy late yesterday evening, I returned home, slept like a log, woke up at around 9 and spent the morning packing up the rest of my things and cleaning the rooms I overtook like a nice Japanese American daughter should before she leaves on "vacation." This is not a vacation, though. I am taking this journey to get down to work. As I packed for my trip I had to very discerning about what I would take with me. I had to go through quite a bit of writing and computer files. I have a lot of work ahead of me.
I left Los Angeles as a light drizzle begins to fall. Ruby, my mother's ridiculously adorable Jack Russell, sits in my car for the last hour as I cart bags and stuff back and forth from the house to my Toyota Corolla. We have to coax her out from atop my pillows in the backseat so I can leave. I take one last deep inhale of her sweet Ruby smell, give big hugs to my parents and finally hit the road.
Although, in true Me fashion, I don't actually leave at 1pm, even though I left my mom's at 1pm. I have a few stops to make. I buy two packs of Nat Shermans at the local liquor store, thinking that I wouldn't be able to find any on the road and I only want enough cigarettes to last me the car trip and maybe a few here and there once I'm in Tennessee. (The goal is to quit soon. My family, Indigo Boy and the Mayor, my ex-boyfriend, all want me to quit and even though I'll be thick into the writing process, I'd like to stop smoking. But more on that in a later post...). I also drop off a pile of books to Goodwill and then spend a good twenty minutes or so at a Shell station, trying to put air in my tires. A kind Middle Eastern man helps me and teaches me to read the pressure gauge on the air pump. He also releases some of the air on my right rear tire that I filled up with too much air.
""It's a wonder your tire didn't blow!"
"Oh? But I just filled it a few moments ago," thinking of the gauge I used: my eyes. I just kept filling it until the tire looked full.
"That's the quickest way to blow your tires... too much air. Air expands once it gets hot. Just fill it between 40-50."
I take mental notes and thank him for his kindness. By the time my tires are properly pressurized and full, it's 1:45pm and the rain is coming down harder. Steam rises from the pavement.
It takes me awhile to get out of LA. All the major arteries in the city are clogged. Freeway is a misnomer in LA. Not to mention that it's raining and whenever it rains in Los Angeles, something close to panic overtakes its inhabitants. The traffic finally starts to clear as I head toward the 10 East from the 101 South. I snack on a few onigiris that my mother makes for me before I leave. Yum. The ones with umeboshi inside are the best! Like a Japanese rolo or something, except it makes your mouth pucker.
Patches of blue sky begin to appear as I pass through Ontario and take note of the familiar brand names: Westfield, Target, In N Out, Starbucks. I merge onto the I-15 toward Barstow and Las Vegas and the sky clears even more. The mustard flowers and blue skies lift my mood as I head up toward the El Cajon pass. As my car snakes up the mountain (I am surprised, too, at how sturdy my little Corolla is. Full of all my stuff and she still climbs mountains in the rain! I am so proud of her!) I notice veils of water dangling from pregnant clouds, dancing a little against the bright blue sky. The higher I get up the mountain, I feel like I am driving an airplane. The clouds are eye level and I can see above and below them.
I make two stops: one at a random Chevron station just to stretch my legs around 4:45 and another to get gas after I finally make it to the 40 East--my guide to Liberty. Gas is $3.99/gallon at this strange RV pitstop where a bug-eyed chihuahua sits at the glass doors looking at the tumbleweeds rolling across the parking lot.
A desert woman (thin, leathery skin from too many cigarettes or days in the sun) wears a black Bebe t-shirt that barely contains her wrinkled cleavage and is almost startled when I give her my card to fill up my tank. Two men sitting in an eating area are eating something and watching something on television. No one moves very much.
I fill up my tank and take a few photos. Faux Greek or Roman statues saluting and gesticulating in various states of repose line a large dry, empty pond-like, swimming poolish thing.
It is windy and the fronds of the short, fat palm trees rustle madly.
After crossing the Arizona state line, I notice the sun going down behind me and a long train traveling parallel to the road. The speed limit changes to 75 mph. I try to figure out how long it will take me to get to Flagstaff and I realize I have another 2-3 hours. It takes about an hour for the sun to set and I turn my headlights on. My eyes try to adjust to the dark and I tell myself I will not drive again after the sun goes down. There are no streetlamps and I can't see the landscape anymore. As I get closer to Flagstaff I sense that there are trees around me, but I cannot see them--only can make out their shapes and silhouettes. I pass many, many semis on my drive down the 40, but I am unusually comfortable driving next to them. Most of the time, I hate their lumbering, imposing figures that create a strange vacuum as you pass by them, but I've learned to hold onto the steering wheel a little tighter and to turn a little to the left. They seem like large, loud elephants that you just have to avoid as best as possible. I wish I was in the passenger seat because, like an elephant, I want them to toot their horns when I give them the tug tug signal.
I finally pull into Flagstaff around 9:45, just as Indigo Boy texts me. I have already made a reservation at the Travelodge because I read online that they have nice East Indian owners who keep the motel very clean. The room is very clean (and spacious, I might add). I call my parents after checking in and almost jump into the shower. It takes me awhile to get motivated to write my first blog entry, but I force myself to do it. How am I ever going to be a real writer if I don't write?
BUT I did it. After a sweet, but too brief last goodbye to Indigo Boy late yesterday evening, I returned home, slept like a log, woke up at around 9 and spent the morning packing up the rest of my things and cleaning the rooms I overtook like a nice Japanese American daughter should before she leaves on "vacation." This is not a vacation, though. I am taking this journey to get down to work. As I packed for my trip I had to very discerning about what I would take with me. I had to go through quite a bit of writing and computer files. I have a lot of work ahead of me.
I left Los Angeles as a light drizzle begins to fall. Ruby, my mother's ridiculously adorable Jack Russell, sits in my car for the last hour as I cart bags and stuff back and forth from the house to my Toyota Corolla. We have to coax her out from atop my pillows in the backseat so I can leave. I take one last deep inhale of her sweet Ruby smell, give big hugs to my parents and finally hit the road.
Although, in true Me fashion, I don't actually leave at 1pm, even though I left my mom's at 1pm. I have a few stops to make. I buy two packs of Nat Shermans at the local liquor store, thinking that I wouldn't be able to find any on the road and I only want enough cigarettes to last me the car trip and maybe a few here and there once I'm in Tennessee. (The goal is to quit soon. My family, Indigo Boy and the Mayor, my ex-boyfriend, all want me to quit and even though I'll be thick into the writing process, I'd like to stop smoking. But more on that in a later post...). I also drop off a pile of books to Goodwill and then spend a good twenty minutes or so at a Shell station, trying to put air in my tires. A kind Middle Eastern man helps me and teaches me to read the pressure gauge on the air pump. He also releases some of the air on my right rear tire that I filled up with too much air.
""It's a wonder your tire didn't blow!"
"Oh? But I just filled it a few moments ago," thinking of the gauge I used: my eyes. I just kept filling it until the tire looked full.
"That's the quickest way to blow your tires... too much air. Air expands once it gets hot. Just fill it between 40-50."
I take mental notes and thank him for his kindness. By the time my tires are properly pressurized and full, it's 1:45pm and the rain is coming down harder. Steam rises from the pavement.
It takes me awhile to get out of LA. All the major arteries in the city are clogged. Freeway is a misnomer in LA. Not to mention that it's raining and whenever it rains in Los Angeles, something close to panic overtakes its inhabitants. The traffic finally starts to clear as I head toward the 10 East from the 101 South. I snack on a few onigiris that my mother makes for me before I leave. Yum. The ones with umeboshi inside are the best! Like a Japanese rolo or something, except it makes your mouth pucker.
Patches of blue sky begin to appear as I pass through Ontario and take note of the familiar brand names: Westfield, Target, In N Out, Starbucks. I merge onto the I-15 toward Barstow and Las Vegas and the sky clears even more. The mustard flowers and blue skies lift my mood as I head up toward the El Cajon pass. As my car snakes up the mountain (I am surprised, too, at how sturdy my little Corolla is. Full of all my stuff and she still climbs mountains in the rain! I am so proud of her!) I notice veils of water dangling from pregnant clouds, dancing a little against the bright blue sky. The higher I get up the mountain, I feel like I am driving an airplane. The clouds are eye level and I can see above and below them.
I make two stops: one at a random Chevron station just to stretch my legs around 4:45 and another to get gas after I finally make it to the 40 East--my guide to Liberty. Gas is $3.99/gallon at this strange RV pitstop where a bug-eyed chihuahua sits at the glass doors looking at the tumbleweeds rolling across the parking lot.
A desert woman (thin, leathery skin from too many cigarettes or days in the sun) wears a black Bebe t-shirt that barely contains her wrinkled cleavage and is almost startled when I give her my card to fill up my tank. Two men sitting in an eating area are eating something and watching something on television. No one moves very much.I fill up my tank and take a few photos. Faux Greek or Roman statues saluting and gesticulating in various states of repose line a large dry, empty pond-like, swimming poolish thing.
It is windy and the fronds of the short, fat palm trees rustle madly.After crossing the Arizona state line, I notice the sun going down behind me and a long train traveling parallel to the road. The speed limit changes to 75 mph. I try to figure out how long it will take me to get to Flagstaff and I realize I have another 2-3 hours. It takes about an hour for the sun to set and I turn my headlights on. My eyes try to adjust to the dark and I tell myself I will not drive again after the sun goes down. There are no streetlamps and I can't see the landscape anymore. As I get closer to Flagstaff I sense that there are trees around me, but I cannot see them--only can make out their shapes and silhouettes. I pass many, many semis on my drive down the 40, but I am unusually comfortable driving next to them. Most of the time, I hate their lumbering, imposing figures that create a strange vacuum as you pass by them, but I've learned to hold onto the steering wheel a little tighter and to turn a little to the left. They seem like large, loud elephants that you just have to avoid as best as possible. I wish I was in the passenger seat because, like an elephant, I want them to toot their horns when I give them the tug tug signal.
I finally pull into Flagstaff around 9:45, just as Indigo Boy texts me. I have already made a reservation at the Travelodge because I read online that they have nice East Indian owners who keep the motel very clean. The room is very clean (and spacious, I might add). I call my parents after checking in and almost jump into the shower. It takes me awhile to get motivated to write my first blog entry, but I force myself to do it. How am I ever going to be a real writer if I don't write?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)