How cool is the universe? Pretty dang.

No sooner did I declare my intentions out loud for all my Loving Partners, Allies & Guides to hear that I received the first of two phone calls answering my requests. Directly.

Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!

waiting for the bus i started to say, am i lost again? then i saw the penny shining in the snow.

I've been reading my favorite comic again. This will be my 6th time through it: my crack and my escape.

Reading something I love so much has a way of holding up a mirror. I admit it now. I've been hiding, trying to fend off a state of panic I've been too ashamed to admit to friends and family. I've been using movies and comics the way some would use over-working, drinking... whatever. Though they have been good and provocative distractions (okay, Gossip Girl does not fall into this category:)) I have nevertheless taken a brambly turn into a wallow-y dead-end.

Almost four weeks ago I quit what I thought was my dream job. I had solid reasons for quitting, even made sure I had a fair replacement, but I let an old shadow get a ring around my rosey's. My old acquaintance, doubt, crept in. Are doubt and fear the same thing? I let my doubt tangle with my commitments. Yesterday I said it out loud, "I wish I had just stayed in hell." That's when it hit me. I quit for a good reason, one more compelling than what I thought would have made me quit a year ago when I nearly sued the company for harassment. I made the choice to stay and work through what happened last year. I am so glad I did. But this last scenario was just too much.

It's always been "easy" for me to choose between what my heart tells me and what my mind tells me. Some people say I'm an impulsive, non-committal, fair weather sort, that I don't know how to follow through with anything. Maybe. Maybe it's more that I know what I need to do and I'm not afraid to do it, no matter the consequences. I even tried to stay and make it work based solely on the fact that the money was useful. I tried. But I am not the person who stays in a bad situation for long. But that's me. I'm not fucking sorry about it either.

In the last two years I have had such amazing, heart rending, mind blowing experiences. I learned so much about temperance, tolerance, patience... procrastination, fear, and the corrosive power of self doubt. Giving myself to this panic-y last few weeks flies in the face of what I say I've learned.

I know I need to work. I know I will pay back my enormous student loans on likely minimum wages for the rest of my natural born life. No matter how I struggle with the cost of existence in a primarily capitalist world I must strike a balance. No matter what. I don't aways know what I want, sometimes I want so much I can't see straight. Sometimes I don't want anything and am lost in my blindness.

However.

My personal happiness and well being are the only gifts I have to offer this world. Without them I'm a useless brain-dead, sourpuss who's not much to be around.

This is going to sound kind of funny, but I know I'm not the only one who finds meaning in little random things.... little is an arbitrary judgement anyway. I read and re-read Strangers In Paradise because it sends me back to square one every time. What's square one? First, it means you need to read Strangers In Paradise;) and second, it's everything that matters... love. I know love doesn't put food on my table or a roof over my head but it sure does send me out into the world to try again and again, no matter what.

...from utterly adrift to land-locked: message in a bottle with love from ben, york and joseph...

a few days ago i found a nickel while i was walking home:
i heard you tell me assistance was on the way, that you'd received my message,
watch the path ahead.

the cow: asking, receiving, abundance, nourishment
the serpent: knowledge, healing
the dragon: strength, power

the bag of silver coins

I have SO Much to tell you, watch for me May 31st 2010. In the meantime, a teaser:

Dog Days Are Over
Florence & The Machine
*
Happiness, it hurt like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming so you better run

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children and your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can't you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too. oh.

Happiness it hurt like a bullet in the mind
Stuck them up drainpipes
By someone who should know better than that

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses
Cuz here they come

Run fast for your mother and fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your loving behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come
The dog days are over
The dog days are gone
Can you hear the horses because here they come

Part One: 10 Months After The Glance

I thought it was a week ago but it turns out it's been three weeks since I posted My Home Is My Art: Meditations On The Second House. I tend to do this thing where I post some archaic blurb about something or other or post some random photo and not say anything about why I put it there.... But after a day like today I realize that I have so much going on, which I suck at giving myself credit for (example: a friend says, hi how are you ? what's new? i say, oh fine. not much.), that I don't even know where to start!

On the full moon in February (28th) I decided to unload a massive family secret into the trusting arms of two very good friends (thanks again btw!) and ever since that night I have had crazy vivid, lucid dreams, some pretty high highs and low lows. It sort of feels like the massive garage sale I had a few years ago when I sold two-thirds of the contents of my apartment in a move I hoped, to quote Brother Ali, "... push a whole heap o' hell outta my house." Afterward I sat in my echoing living room eating ice cream with friends and felt the panic rise in me: what the fuck did I just do? I let go of some serious crap that's what I did! The February full moon was no different. I just unloaded a different kind of heap.

And my mind is gung-ho over it! (Is it okay to say 'gung-ho'?)

Anyway. After I spilled this secret I had two dreams - both of which were about hostage situations. In both dreams a man/boy/fellow hostage held his hands out to me and in his palms materialize weapons.

In the first dream it was a teenage boy who held a switchblade - he used it to turn the lock to the closet we were stuck in. After turning the lock he looks me straight in the face and says, "You've held this in your mind the entire time." In dream time I knew he was referring to the knife. The second dream, which involved many more people and children, an older male faced me in a dark hallway. Things were quite intense at this point, we were all feeling desperate and had glimpsed a chance at liberation... He and I were arguing in whispers trying to decide what to do next as it was clear the time to act was now. He looks me straight in the face, holds both hands out, palms upward. As I look at his hands I see two small guns appear. They are finely crafted, about the size and weight of apples, one is clear and reveals its mechanical guts; the other is white, like a milkstone or an ivory or maybe even plastic. I am amazed to see them there. He seems to have been expecting them. He says to me, "You've had these the entire time."

Neither dream culminates in violence. In fact after each man says nearly the same thing, I wake up.

I think this is rad.

Prior to this fabulous full moon I'd had what I'll refer to as Round Two at my current place of employment; serious crappy crap was going down in the work place. Again. This crappy crap had me thinking like this: crap at work sucks> how much crap is too much crap> if i quit this crap how much crap is at new work> what comes after too much crap if new job has crappy crap too?

Last May I set a course for "What Do I Want To Do With The Rest Of My Life?" and here's the update:

I realize now that it was never that I didn't know what to do, it's that I want to do it ALL. This is what I was noodling on when I posted that half post on the 17th: I can leave my apartment and move in with a friend, lick my wounds and make some cash. And find myself in the same place a year later?

Turns out I don't need to leave my apartment. This apartment represents the first house and the second house. All this esoteric mumbo-jumbo (which I dig btw) is all about freeing my mind. If I am to take responsibility for my own happiness - I mean REALLY take responsibility for it - what purpose is served in running away? Though it would be fun to stay with said friend does it mean that I'll have less of a need to provide for myself? I read that passage from Soulcraft three years ago and have been chewing on it all this time and now I feel that I finally understand it.

I ain't movin'. It was never about moving... it was about maturity. YO LA TENGO!!

I have spun into a thousand directions in this post but who cares? If you have questions, ask 'em. I'm done keeping this blog 'clean' and 'artistic' and 'interesting.' Fuck it. This is it.

It all starts with a glance...

... and the next thing I know I'm rearranging furniture...

I can change my entire living room/dining room in less than a few hours. It's kinda nuts. I moved my first sofa when I was seven... little did I know then I would be slinging furniture as a form of therapy for the next leg, or two, of my life.

I've been going through a kind of separation lately; leaving an old version of myself in the compost of recycled stuff. It's not that difficult to do really, it's like math: straightforward, intuitive. The odd thing is, when I look at the equation of my life straight on, my eyes go wiggy and I lose my concentration.

Someone once said to me that I was the most intuitive person they'd ever met; in a dark place I would always find my way home. In some ways I envy the person motivated by the logical brain, there are days when I could surely make use of it in my own life. It's not that I don't live by logic, it's just my own special logic;)

I'm of two minds about my stuff: I love my stuff, my stuff is beautiful, my stuff is a reflection of my interests and an occupation of various kinds, and conversely, all this stuff could burn to ash and I'd never look back, it's just stuff, stuff is a distraction, stuff is not life.

It's a funny thing, living this life. I watched a program on channel 2 the other day about a family that's lived most of their lives on a thirty-three foot boat, sailing the world. One kid born in Australia, one in the U.S., another in Iceland... Thirty years at sea. Something they said struck me deeply... They said if you want to set sail, set a goal, a departure date; everything else in your life will fall into place around it. They said your life will take on a new clarity and reflect your new priority.

So here I am, reconnoitering... sitting on the brink of my life, enjoying a position of freedom and a full vision of myself and my desires. I have complete lateral movement. I choose to be myself, utterly, completely, honestly, openly, without fear. The confusion ends now, I focus my will into the shape of my new life.

I promise, on this day, one year from now, I will have a handle on my next move... the move into a life at sea, away from the staid, torn version I am living now.

Blessed Be.