Thursday Morning Reflections

My body was stiffened in the night.
It could not quiet.
I felt like my very marrow was freezing.
The dog Doumba nestled in my stomach.

If the dog is cold...

I woke up in the morning
grateful that the ice in my blood has halted
and in the freezing of the night
I had been inert in this devastating weight of isolation.

It's time to invent
build
and create.

I'm bent on finding myself again
in the midst of this chaos.









I received calls after calls last night.
I was happy to be connected.
I'm so scared of loneliness.
Even as I acknowledge needing it.

I realize, however, the knowledge I get from reflecting with my friends -
In their need, I see my need.
I understand their wants.
And I can see what they're all hiding.
It all boils down to being wanted.
And we are all skipping the Appreciation step
to get to Integrity, yes, Decker.

The ways in which we protect ourselves, including pushing away what we want the most.
To be closer with others, to be Seen exactly as who we are, without judgment, shame, - to be accepted as individuals and as creatures who are of our own - one universal being.

How much of it that I do, even in minutely different ways. But they're all subtle, the ways in which we are different, are we not? On the grand scale of things.

I'm grateful to have so many mirrors.




My head spins. I need to vomit.
The cold has bit me hard.
I haven't felt like this - since before Christmas when I accidentally, unintentionally took acid.

I start up my longing - it is comforting, familiar. It nestles me in which my mother never has, and although it doesn't nourish me, the fantasy of it sustains me - for now.

Without my imagination, I am ordinary.
I breathe, I sustain, I am another figure on the street.
In my mind, I am a creature both powerful and tragically beautiful.
My emotions are my weapons
and All will hear it
All will understand
and the self-importance of my said emotions
will Impact impact impact...

How ridiculous is that?

I'm just okay with you laughing at my silliness.
I am so grateful for the loves in my life to hold space for me.
Here I go.




Reflections on this moment, this month, this year:

I quit my desk job. No regrets here.
I celebrate my 24th birthday with loving amazing chosen family.
I find myself unemployed.
I start an uneasy relationship with Job Hunting.
I become an occasional vagabond in the city.
I develop a quiet, nearly unacknowledged love for this Southern Gentleman.
I become closer to a woman who knows my heart and speaks my tongue.
With her, I get clear on who I am and what I want: that I am a Romantic inspired by relationships of all kinds (and especially the Intimate ones), I should not be ashamed of said Romanticism, and in the realm of my Intimate Relationships, I only want ONE to sustain me, to drive deeper with, to sit and be with despite all the turmoil of potential mundane ordinariness... I believe I can find the romanticism in that (note Harryette Mullen story - mundane turned gorgeous).
My mom and I have a fight. I didn't cry. I just realize that I didn't want to pretend that I'm okay with the message she continuously gives me: I don't want you, have never wanted you.
I leave home. Now I am a true vagabond.
In reflection, I cry in coffee shops: All my life, I have come to you with my heart, telling you that I am your daughter. Never could you receive that; you can only reflect that you can't be my mother. I am going to take my heart elsewhere - for myself. I refuse to repeat the actions of five-year-old Cindy.
In my sadness, I feel closer to Southern Gentleman. I believe we start the relating cycle in which we connect in our vulnerability. I love this, and fear my volatility (which is my word of the month, apparently).
In the midst of my heart opening, jealousy attacked, then acknowledged, and we sink into deeper vulnerability.
I audition to join a group of my friends. Community, my ass. I am angry that I have to audition. I am Enough, and if you need me to jump hoops, you are not worthy of Me.
I take my Southern Gentleman to the airport, and sitting in the passenger drop-off zone, he kisses me tenderly and tells me that he'll miss me.
We mention letter-writing, so I wait.
I get stranded on the mountain at this house we fondly call Beloit. My immobility causes a fear in me - my fear of stagnancy becomes loud and evident.
I go shopping with McD and unexpectedly started tripping on a psychedelic. I had accidentally taken a friend's pill in the morning, thinking it was an Altoid. The only bad part of this trip was that it was unintentional.
Finally, my Lover comes home from New York. I know what to say to him. We parted ways. Now he is simply dear to me, even when he drives me angry.
I go in for my yearly check-up. I am traumatized by my yearly check-ups. Especially in a Planned Parenthood clinic surrounded by teenage couples asking for condoms. There's a layer of humiliation here.
"Community" cannot extend to me, but out of its ashes, we create Treehouse. I am closer to being Myself and with Family, I hope.
I continue to be closer to Lady Loom. She makes me feel like I am okay to be Me. And I am less alone.
My body is wrecked with Tension. My Big Brother named it as I was driving. Tears rolled down my face when he acknowledged that I am experiencing Trauma. I am Surviving on the edge - in one month, I had lost my job, my blood family, a physical home. I barely have money, I feel resistance around asking to sleep on people's couches, and I have to learn how to ask for help - when I had pretended to be strong all of my life. Strong and not needing help.
Christmas greets me. I feel the loss of my family, but I had a chosen family of friends, and we delighted ourselves in getting closer. Even if it meant that my resentment, jealousy, and anger came up. But embracing that was appreciation, curiosity, and a lot of love.
I learn that my trust has been crossed. I had been violated by my Ex-Lover. I confront him, and learn that he is one of the few people that I trust so much with my vulnerability. That is hard to find. I sobbed in his arms because of his wounding, and all of the wounding that has been done to me. This month has been harsh.
Lady Loom and DK break up. I hear their sadness, their stories.
I begin understanding the prisms of their relationship. Loom asks me to mediate.
I see their triggers, the pain. I move in to mirror my understanding.
They return to each other. I am assured a place in their wedding.
My Southern Gentleman calls me. I had been in Waiting (which had evolved to panic/frenzy/little bits of negative resignation) and was happy and overjoyed to hear him, in all of our awkwardness.
I'm waiting for the New Year. I am enjoying my growing pains.


This year:
I take Bryan on as a lover. With him, I explore jealousy in a polygamous relationship.
I grow distant from my college friends.
I learn a lot from community; lots of self-growth.
Revelations upon revelations.
I start letting go my attachments to my old emotions.
I let go of attachments of my Personality, including my role in theatre, writing, and self-expected sustainability.
I continuously get self-renewed. Flowing quicker.
I get clear on what I want in relationships.
I am a year older.

I love/am impacted by people this year:
Michael Mojica
Arjang Taiby
Elizabeth Loomis
Daniel Kendall
Bryan Bayer
Oanh Thanh
Michael McDonald
Dalton K. Finney
Maria Chiang
Derek Pankaew
Keli McArthur
Breann Petree
Lucy Beckwith
Charlotte Gulezian
Rachel Mayes
Drew Schober
ASF Family
and of course, My Birth Family

Favorite Harryette

Resonating light.




The Gene for Music
by Harryette Mullen

He wants to know if I am happy here and have I eaten any apples yet. I tell him no, I like to let them fall off the trees and rot. They won't turn red and the ones I like to eat are red, but these sweeten the air with their decay. They are eaten. They are never wasted. They have their use, when they fall, never far from proverbial tree. Yellow apples falling with brown leaves more slowly onto grass that's greener than ever. Green in winter, tawner in summer. Don't burn. Consume yourself more slowly.

Right now the ground is damp and marshy. In summer there were many fires. Some started maliciously, others were spontaneous. Apple trees are here but he's not sure they belong. He dreams of rice growing where they are, a hilarious dream. The blood of agrarian ancestors does him no good. Some of his favorite trees are books. Besides, if he grew rice, which anyone knows he'd never do, where would the squirrels live? The black one was the aggressor, chasing tail. She flicked her tail in his face.

Squirrels multiply on his tree-filled acres. The sky is clear blue. A cloudless sky with two airplanes flying at different angles. Each is given a line, a path to fly in. The pilots communicate with someone on the ground. They all communicate with precise machines that very rarely make a fatal error. The ground is damp and moldy and a fire not likely to start int he air this time of year. Spontaneous combustion, midair collision. Try not to burn. Try not to alarm. The phone rang but she didn't answer it. Later he will ask her where she went and she will say, "To the laundromat or the library, I forget which." He might seem hurt but his honesty will prevail and he'll become earnest and blunt. That's when he starts to smoke. He'll want to get to the bottom of it, clear the air, work it through. At times like these he's most endearing and yet she'll have no place to hide because the house has no walls.

He can see her from another room. He likes to whisper at her while a record is playing. That's how cool he can be. He'll ask which books she's been reading. She could give him a list and we could discuss them later. We could gossip about books, which was one of his favorite activities. He didn't want to forbid her singing in the bathtub, but she would notice that he flinched a little, so she tried not to do it when he was around. She had not inherited the gene for music, just as his blood had distinguished itself from the red stuff of his ancestors. At all times he tried to indulge her, having heard the story of her austere childhood. She in turn would try to soothe and distract him from the score of abandonments that caused him such pain when remembered. They both had violent histories but longed to live in peace and so it was a pact sealed in blood, a sweetheart contract in which there were provisions for each to get the upper hand. Even though she bled every month, she always had someone to blame; while he noted that each time he touched her, her body was there, which had not always been the case with her predecessors.

She listened to his lists and made her own in secret. A grocery list was necessary because he avoided buying food, preferring to spend cash on inessentials because they bought more satisfaction. "But you," he told her, "are impossible to satisfy because you never seem to want, except to sleep and eat." She lives in his house like a sleepy cat though once he joked he might pay to keep her here, because even a woman with no wants must have money to supply her needs.

He never seems to sleep or eat but lives on a mysterious energy source, adapted for life on her planet. That's why she can't laugh at her jokes, because humor is local. He was born far away but feels at home. Or he was born close to home but feels far from there now. Nothing touches him now except her hands, her mouth. He touches her hair. Her wet hair. He makes her a gift of his solitude. Solitude is something she misses. He takes hers with him when he leaves. She goes out on short walks, looking at sidewalks. He takes her to mountains and deserts. He seeks out old trees. They walk until she's out of breath. "Chill," he says, and she feels cold, suddenly noticing the air.

Survivor's Edge

This morning I poured soy milk into my granola and immediately noticed the clumping nature. I threw the bowl out, and noticed a pain. It's that same tension I get when a friend suggests that we go out for a meal. It occurs as panic. I calculate. I'm feeling guilt. Wasting. I'm living on an edge, and that edge is called Survival. It's painful, and it's real, and it was more intense when I couldn't name it, didn't know what the pain was that I felt when it came to spending money and eating. It was hidden under my gratitude, that the given moment included being supported by friends who are there for me emotionally, that I can sleep warmly every night, that I can get a hot shower and a space to process. When that pain was named, that I was living on the survivor's edge of coping, that energy moved. And I am still grateful, hopeful, wanting without limits.

Stop waiting. Feel everything. Love achingly. Give impeccably. Let go.

David Deida

The Breadth of this 24th Year Thus Far on This 24th

I am in Shadow Land.




The eclipse was hanging. Tied to a string, tied to the black ceiling. Hanging with the racing fog marooned over San Francisco. I was hanging with the eclipse. My skin got dewy and I blinked back some. Coming back to my body, I felt shame for not hanging in his atmosphere. But have I ever? Does he even noticed that I like playing with the stars - or can I notice him? Over the bridge, we sit in terse silence. He asked knowingly, "do you have a withhold for me?" I replied, "yes." Later, I laid across the bed to watch him undress for the last time. His skin was cold under the duvet. His body vibrated, from cold, from anticipation, I'm not sure. But as he turned his face to me, I felt a projected sadness for him. But I had pushed that sadness down, deep. I don't truly anticipate true sadness from him. I gave him my withhold, that I am wanting something More, something that he can't provide. I wanted to take away our name Lovers, and the chapter holding our lovership came to a close. He told me that he was sad. He told me that he mourned our sexual relationship. I tried to feel him, the mourning, the disappointment, and especially the jealousy that he has for my future love. But I couldn't feel anything that originated from Me.




She assured me that my cervix bleeding can be normal during a pap smear. Her attempt at reassurance made me glance down, and my head spun at the sight of all that red.




Joni Mitchell's River

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
But it don't snow here
It stays pretty green
I'm going to make a lot of money
Then I'm going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I'm so hard to handle
I'm selfish and I'm sad
Now I've gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

Her voice was thick with mourning. She asked a disheartening question. I had no answers.




You know where I am?
I am in the indigo particles of the rainbow.
Trembling, I colored cautiously on his canvas. Then waited.
Waited.
Still waiting.
That excitement of back and forth, giddy whirlwind of school childish love - crushes - object of affection (or obsession), you know... - has simmered to pure anxiety.
I feel silly, foolish.
That's the problem with running around with your heart cupped in your hands, palms up. It's bound to get dropped, mushed, stabbed, kicked, and other excursions of heart pain.
They never said that vulnerability is a pretty sight.
But it's pretty damn beautiful.




We leapt away from the breaking glass. Later I tiptoed through the shards.




One morning, she readied for a day of Christmas shopping. Upon her friend Michael's arrival for the outing, she quickened her pace: hair-brushing, lotion rubbing, mint in mouth, socks before shoes. Hey, she's a girl. They got in Michael's car, drove to the spirits store, parked the car, found the bottle of liqueur Michael was eyeing for his dad, purchased it, got back in the car, drove to the annual crafts fair in the South of Market area, parked. Inside the exhibition center, she was in awe of the artistry and creativity of the work on display. They spoke to different places of her, leapt out at her even. She never thought she'd have the experience of art leaping out at her... Suddenly she felt a lurch in her stomach and her head spins. I must not be taking very good care of myself, she thought. She wondered if sitting down and getting a bite to eat would help with the dizzying sensations. She spoke aloud, almost unconsciously, "I need to feel my feet." Michael, who was preoccupied with his Christmas list, shot her a look of confusion. "That's a weird thing to say, even coming from you," he observed. His comment stopped her dead in her tracks. The mint she ate that morning wasn't MINTY. Story to be continued...

Risk of Birth Defects

Paranoia is the unwarranted fear that people are out to get you.