ANGEL & BELOVED

ANGEL & BELOVED

5 0 0 Wo r d L o v e L e t e r s

3-1-17

I Would Make a Better Door Then a Window I don’t know much. Someone recently wondered if English was my second language — and I have an accent that implies a lesser then intelligence quotient so you’ll have to stumble through this piece and maybe roll your eyes a few times.

I don’t worry about editing — my editor — let’s call her Marsha, is a bitch. If I let that cunt get in the way I would never finish a single thought so Marsha is not allowed into my space. I’m not for everyone.

I might know something about something — maybe about walls and the cages we put ourselves in. About sadness and disappointment and loneliness. I know a thing or two about grief. I know that I want to know more and more and more about love.

We have walls that we create ourselves with great dramatic flourish — like when you’re riding the 43 Masonic (see I did it — I paid attention to grammar - your is not correct but it’s what I wanted to write but I caught it because English is actually my only language — usted esta’). You put up the — I am way too cool for you wall and slink down, pull your leather up a little higher then normal and put on your headphones — don’t fuck with me, no eye contact, sunglasses if possible. DO NOT TALK TO ME ASSHOLE. Then there are the walls you put up when you don’t really mean it but it just happens like when someone calls you fat or tells you that you have beautiful eyes. You know your (insert eye roll) not fat and that you do indeed have the most amazing eyes but you just put that wall up because one way or another it’s going to hurt. You look into your own eyes sometimes late at night — you force yourself to look — I forgive you — and you can see everything — the little tide pools of soft white bellies. Those soft white underthings need protection. They don’t even have an exoskeleton or a leg to stand on. Someone could just come along and call them fat and that would be it — like putting salt on a snail.

So you spend years avoiding eye contact with people or with your own reflection. Men call out to you “smile!” “what’s wrong honey — can’t smile?” “Bitch!” Eyes down, pull your jacket up. Walk faster. Get home. Lock the door.

The years go by. You learn things. You relax a little. You start making eye contact with people. Things happen. Walls fall away. You learn to love and be free and throw your head back and laugh. Sometimes you even forget your sunglasses and someone calls out to you “your smile is amazing!” and you laugh and say “thank you”. You glow and sparkle and dance.

Then something happens in the blink of an eye and you are living inside a fortress — a castle made of grief and pain with no mote — no drawbridge — no access to the outside world. No one will ever understand anyway so why let them try.

And then you meet someone and something thaws. The sun seems a little sunnier and the birds a little chirpier. You make eye contact with yourself in the mirror and you think, huh — you really do have beautiful eyes.

Then End.

He cried sitting next to a person he only just knew She told him her stories about miracles and thunder and candles, about her loss and her grief, her mother her heart and a wound that could not heal but baby steps, comforting comforting such a touching place to hold together they looked into each others eyes and ate mexican food for breakfast There was a poem she shared, google it haha wild geese and where a world calls itself to your imagination it dropped them both to their knees crushed under such weight but a glimmer of hope of recognition eating guacomole and huevos coffee and sweet witty remarks not on best behavior just real always be real behavior which is the best behavior

He knew we were falling in love at that moment.

It made him so happy, a miracle as if candles were dancing in the dark. she emailed him her letter instead a misunderstanding of one of your rules she said bitterly he stuttered and said something else and he felt misunderstood and the connection was lost and she said her phone was dead and would call tomorrow and that the feeling of love just made her feel vulnerable and she was sad and was was was and couldn’t say anymore She didn’t have the words to say what she needed to say He didn’t have the wisdom to make her feel whole again The miracle in a moment burst into flames of red flags of misunderstanding (This is where you face book texted me and the last two hours we unraveled our hearts and wound strings around our bodies and pulled on the sleeves of our sweaters watching the yarn fall at our feet removing our covers…

they both agreed and she had a way of just leaning into to him as if she knew him for years as if she his daughter as if she were alway his lover and always would be his partner He said lets write something to read to each other when we see each other next… felt so romantic made him miss him miss his girl so much but the blue eye beauty instead made him cry the thought that two people who believe in the faith allows them to hold love like that candle floating candle as the lights go out and Michael and Phoebe and Teresa and Loukas all surround their hearts creating their own miracle a story to recount

life is not always about miracles and magic but looking each other in the eye and saying what needs to be said… you did that tonight. We will learn we will learn…)

The both cried that morning it felt so good to be that vulnerable spoons and coffee and the table next to us drinking beer and 10:00 am.

No edit good nigh my love

In the end they found their center… it was their first kiss their first moment of that kind of argument that lovers see if they are real or not.

Their angels came to the rescue. Said okay… we see your love, we see your vulnerable hearts.

You have mastered the first test. There will be others, but now you have loved and you have learned how to lean into love when love is not just magic and tears but can also be barbs and words of truth that may hurt to hear, but must be heard.

The angels said it is okay… you are here to love each other. We will bless you and watch over you as we are glad you found each other oops 600 words

I love you. I truly love you

3-2-17 The Eight of Wands The girl was born in a cage. For years she just huddled in the corner — no sense in dreaming since dreams could not come true.

Why even try? As the years rolled on she started to explore the cage. One day she stood up and walked over to the door and peeked out over the edge — she saw a sheer cliff wall and rolling hills with trees and down below the rooftops of a little village. She could hold on to the bars and peek out over the side and see colors — the greens and golds of the trees — they would change as the sun moved through the sky.

She began to dream at night on the cold cage floor. The dreams were vivid and the colors were magnificent. She was flying through the sky — out and over the tree tops of green and gold and down to the village. She could see the people in their homes eating dinner by candle light. They had conversations about mathematics and farming and tending to the animals. She peered through their windows and flew past their doorways. When she woke up in the morning the dreams didn’t go away. She continued the dreaming, eyes wide open and had adventures. In dreams she was dancing — twirling and whirling around and around the hard wood floor — her shoes scraping and making little noises and the whisk whisk of her skirts. Her hair flew free and whipped around her head as she danced and danced with a fine looking man huge grins on their faces. And the music.

One day she woke up in the cage on the cold stone floor and walked over to the door. She reached out for the bars to lean out over the edge and they vanished. She simply had to step over the threshold and she was free. But she didn’t do that — she just huddled back in the corner — her eyes open and went back into the dream.

She told me she loved me. So many times that word has scared me. So many times that word has scared me. I love to love I love to fall in love I love the romance of love I love that feeling of just loving to love and breathing in the air and listening to birds sing and the warm air on my face, sun in my eyes, wind moving leaves in the trees with a wishing rushing sound I love that with my open heart. I open my arms and say love it all. I run down the beach and cry in the sand and say love. I stare at the cliffs and think of her falling and say how I still love and the pain still wraps around my stomach and the love aches but it grows even larger. I love my father who was so angry at thanksgiving but his soft words could barely be whispered that he loved me as he hung up. I have been loved by love that has been wounded and the love has felt like a noose around neck. I been loved by people who have lost something and don’t know what it was and they just need to say I love you as it gives them a place… so many times I’ve heard the word love love love…. so many times it has tricked me into believing in love, in the words, in the heart, in the healing wound, in the work in progress love, in the saving my life out of love, in helping hands, in digging ditches, in doing the work, in the process in the hate in the bed singing hallelujah…

But all that all that I just want to put it down. lay it to rest. Say I have seen love and I still believe… but I want to turn it myself and the woman I love inside out outside in… I want to make love my new religion. my new hope. my new meditation. I want the inspiration. I want the sex that brings the spirit into our bodies. I want the sex that catipults us out our bodies and into stars and galaxies. I want the fantasy and I want the play. The dinners and the candles…

But really really I want to look in the person’s eyes and see them. I want them to look into my eyes and they see me. I want us to know and to believe.

I have found someone who believes in this. Someone who knows the magic of this world and knows the dark corners. Someone who can see me. trusts that I am the good man, the great man that she has been looking for. And she sees me seeing her…

Yes in these great minds we find anguish and and uncertainty… these minds are not always supple, but they are tender and open… as they are connected to the heart… connected to the spirit.

And that is fucking hot. I love her so much.

I believe in it again.

She has found me.

I though I was not worthy.

But now I believe I am and that is all the difference in what love truly is.

I am worthy of this amazing woman’t love. I will not disappoint myself.

She will know that And this is the love that will change the world

3/3/17 THINGS JUST CLING TO KNOTTED BACKS She couldn’t sleep — how could someone sleep with the weight of the entire angel kingdom and love and everything that is good and sweet pushing down on her. How could this be happening — that he wasn’t who she thought he was, who she wanted. There was need but she didn’t want to admit that part yet. And the cage waited for her. It was safe and cold and demanded nothing. It demanded nothing.

She couldn’t sleep even though her eyes were sore and tired and her back hurt from the weight of it all. She had hoped for someone to come along and ease it a little, maybe shift it a little to the left so she could stand up straight or offer to carry her — oh wouldn’t that be lovely to be carried for a while. But he was flawed. How could that be? How could the universe want this for her — do this to her, expect her to be accepting of all these horrific flaws. She only asked for everything and now it seemed like all she would ever have was nothing.

Run! The messages said. He is a terrible man — he will hurt you and lie to you and manipulate you and give you horrible diseases and you will end up with nothing. The night was cut short by the pleadings by a tantrum so unbelievable immature and frightening she was left numb with grief. There is his story and her story and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

And me. I’m there in the middle, in a place I never wanted to be — so the cage calls to me. I am longing to go back. To nothing. Go back to nothing and everything will be as it should be. How could he even ask her to stay?

I want someone who is free to love me. Whose stories are told to me by him and not someone from his past. The past packs a heavy suitcase of dysfunction and ugliness. I can not carry it. How could the sun and the moon and the stars want this for me? How do I get out of this, go back — get away.

I am in the cage now but it doesn’t fit anymore. It doesn’t comfort me with it’s cold blank nothingness. I know what I want and what I need and it isn’t nothingness. There is a longing inside me — to be carried and held and seen.

She has a magic pussy. It comes from the sun and the moon and the stars.

3/3 Poignant though it may seem it remains a simple fact and one so basic it is often overlooked or when it is recognized there is such an array of emotions, uninhibited excitement, even profound joy that we begin to believe in things we’ve never imagined, notice things we never before saw.

It is not magic. It is not synchronicity. It is not angels smiling down upon us. It is not wonder or grace or the fairy magic. It is not the movement of the stars and the time you were born. ( I was born 6-3-55 in the town of orange at 6:00pm). It is not numbers, nor the Chinese new years. It is not how things happen in threes. It is not the power of prayer. It is not kum bi ya.

It is not powerful plant medicines handed down by a thousand years. It is not a miracle.

I take a small breath. The moon sliver is orange and it’s cup is facing up and centers between me and the door. I take another breath. And feel thankful and open. I feel centered in my world for this one moment. So many wonderful things open before me. So many opportunities. So many smiles. All along the road there is sadness and chaos and confusion and rage and rants and marches and calling senators… and I walk there also. Yet in this moment. The network of threads attach so delicately I feel like all the stars and all the sands and all the microscopic mysylium surround my body like an electric glowing shield. Yet it is also just a night with this new moon.

It is not that 8.5 years ago I had been dropped from an airplane free falling to earth without a parachute. Without wings.

Without notice.

There is a shift in the world tonight. There is a world and it is filled with magic and wonder and angels and fairy and love and light and all the pieces that I never could have imagined. These 8 years of falling falling falling have been the insanity and the sins and daggers of a life time….

And here I am with all this around me. It is in every breath. it is not anything other than in each breath I take.

When I kiss her now…. It is in each kiss. Making love is no longer about my orgasm or going to some new place of arousal.

The stars and stings wrap us in their golden embrace.

I wake up with joy and there is a fox in my window. I go deep into meditation on the sorrow of our world and there is a bob cat. this morning I miss her there is family of quail and one male watching the same view from my chair. I write a song and listen and the coyotes sing.

My world is filled with particles and light. My world is magic, yet it is just me and my friends. Me and this falling falling falling… When will I ever land?

Still falling

3/4/17 XVII THE STAR Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. — Eskimo proverb The Star She is the star. The messenger of hope -holding her hands out to welcome all that want to come within. She holds the key to faith. She is the muse. She has a magic pussy. She is the oasis of peace and love and happiness. She is not a goddess or an actress or anything really — but for you she is the Star. The light that illuminates all that is good within you — all that you really truly are — without your ego and your petty addictions and your drama. She is faith. Faith in all that is good and sweet and kind and loving — a soft place to lay your head and feel the warmth that radiates from her very essence. She is the comfort that you crave.

That you deserve. She is love. Recognize her — see her. Give her everything and she will illumine you with a greatness you have never even imagined. Allow her to shine for you.

When we are born we are given a seed — the seed of death — that slow march towards completion. Creation gives birth to destruction and destruction gives birth to creation and around and around the Ouroborus eating his own tail — no end and no beginning. Where do we begin and end as lovers? There is no beginning and no end to love if it is truly love. Nothing to gain, no material wealth — nothing to control and manipulate and punch in the stomach. It simply is. It lies within us waiting to be released.

At the end the ego exposes itself — the cage loses it’s meaning and riddled with regret and illusions all falls away. The lies are revealed and everything we thought we knew on this Earth — everything we worked for and saved for and did and had done to us falls away. All will become black and empty and there is just a light — the beacon of truth. That is the star. That is her. She will guide you home. It is in this pit of darkness and despair that the star shines it’s brightest. I am the star. Follow me home. I have a magic pussy.

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star — Nietzsche

3/4/17 FALLING If men gave birth then this is the kind of falling could be such a thing. That rag doll may tag washing machine slapping and wrapping body parts and heart strings and psychic muscles pulled in all directions. pushed off the top of the building the windows rushing by like a waterfall of opportunities and meaningless smudges. His human body dropping dropping dropping, dancing like a clown, stumbling like a long legged paper-mache puppet. Some kind of puddle of confusion and sadness propped up like a man who knows something. How easy it is to have life takes a small toothpick and massive dominoes drop endlessly, how easy is it to have a life taken and your life disappears and is pressed down into the earth till being is blinded by grief and all you want to do is get a breath of air and touch your feet on the ground for one small moment. How easy to be removed from what you once loved. how do you replace it. falling falling. Praying for. One small piece of grace where the gnawing in your stomach stops and you say… yes I feel at peace. I can push out the baby now. But it starts over again.

There are moment of grace, there are moments of surfing large waves of ideas, philosophy, art, building, creating, friends, lovers, but still it is tossing and turning in a dream state. May tagged coming up for air. gulp and then sucked back down and in. Rest for a moment at sunset and watch the stars come out. But still the cycle is one of falling falling.

In one of her dreams he is there waiting for her. He pops out of the cycle of nonsense. Stands in a fertile ground. Surrounded by a clear night sky with a orange new moon facing upwards like a small tea cup. A cage different than hers. Hers is one to retreat to. His is one that is like strangling octopus tentacles where turmoil creates foggy borders, boundaries are shifting sands. Think to move outside, but still a wall right there, it has reformed itself as something else. He watches her come dancing from out of the stars. Shooting star! she exclaims and then shouts. I see one I am one.! Barefoot, light and cheerful. Light bounces off her laughing face, her cheeks like soft rose petals, her eyes full of turquoise. The words come out in a playful way but listen closely as they are knitted together with terse insights that are not masked with ego nor irony. A pureness. A purrness. Nothing ever so real or delicate or strong before. It is transcendental. She is mystery. She knows she is the magic. But only smiles back quiet answers.

For a moment they dance. He pull her close and stiffen. Magic body parts, bodies body pushing up against moist skin. Sliding inside it. Deeply penetrating the facade of each other’s cage and into another world that is past the dream and into a place that hold no definitions. They move through all the layers of sense of selves. Releasing the shrouds and tangents, all the past mistakes, all the disappointments, all the wounds. All the meaningless voices. Just for that moment. They are starlight. They are dream makers. They are purity.

It is her dream that he has awoken in. It is his arms that has held her when she has stepped across the threshold.

Does he believe in the Cinderella story.? She gets her manni-pedi and tells him her feet are perfect. he holds it in his hand and wonders is this truly her. He kisses her toe. licks her pussy. Yes this slipper fits. She has another orgasm.

Lightening bolts appear as if the Gods that were smiling have a sudden flurry of doubt. Or perhaps a sudden desire to purge the past completely and do so with a swift and merciless cut of the knife. She has already retreated back to the cage even before the unfair truths bombard the new lovers in romantic dream land with poignant shrapnel perpetuated by a wounded animal’s rage and rancor.

They both are flailing, failing, falling, running to find their cages. His myopic cage of gauze and her the chamber of isolation… both are gone. The gods and angels do not scoff, they say you are free the cages no longer exist. You are naked. We have bound you. Hands fastened. She wants to run, he feels shame and remorse. They have landed where there is no longer falling falling.

They begin counting days one at a time. There is a path and they walk towards it.

3/5/17 I am not proud of the quality of this writing - I need to go a little deeper here but this is what came out this morning in the 4 minutes I had before going to the city. I have to think a little bit more about her - she wasn’t just clothing and perfume...that doesn’t feel right but when you are a little kid that is what you see.

Nell Milich Gnesa I hail from great beauty. My Grammy Nell — yanked out of the 5th grade and forced to work on the family farm for wearing lipstick to school.

She was a great beauty - perfection. Today I took a Grammy bath — with her bubbles and soap and cosmetics. I wear her red Channel lipstick and carry her Prada purse in her honor. I wear Guerlain Eaux Cologne Du Perfumeur dabbed behind both ears and between my breasts. Grammy appreciated a good décolletage — it was from her I learned to unbutton an extra button and wear the most expensive lace bra you can afford — let it peak out — it is ok to be a woman. When people tell me “you missed a button” I look at them like they just farted. You are a peasant, I think to myself - you know nothing about love and fashion and being a woman.

Today I will wrap myself in her black wool wrap with the big gold rings and I will glide into the restaurant demanding attention as she did — oh Grammy you are magnificent. What a creature of pleasure.

She was very sexy but never trashy - sexy without trying too hard, just being who she really was - the Aphrodite in the room. She wore silk blouses and beautifully tailored pants and lots of very creative jewelry. Her jewelry was not your standard channel strand or something from Tiffany’s — that is expected. She wore art pieces — bold pieces. She took risks. She left her alcoholic husband and moved to Carmel — demanding the life that she wanted to live. I overheard her say “that drunk wouldn’t dare drive the Altamont pass!” — she was safe tucked into an amazing beachfront home - my Grammy left her mess of a husband and got a house right on the beach in Carmel...let that sink in for a minute. We spent weeks and months at that house eating salami and french bread on the beach and playing tennis at the club. No one put sunscreen on us or watched us at we explored the tide-pools and swam in the ferocious undertow. But there was always hot food and a hot shower at the end of the day — and grammy in her silk pajamas and blonde curls and lipstick. I love her dearly.

Grammy sent things back at restaurants — I would NEVER do that — she would bat her eyelashes and cock her head to the side and ask the waiter at Boulevard “could you put this back on the fire for a lick sweetie?” “Sweetie could you get me a different wine this one is not what I expected” and they would. Grammy wore bright yellow coats and red shoes and whatever the fuck she wanted to wear because she knew her power — she embodied the divine feminine — she created the life she wanted. She deserved it. She met a wonderful man, a gentle man that looked like a movie star and treated her like a Queen. Leo was the man she deserved — he loved her so much and she loved him - the called us from the airport on the way to Italy - “Oh Hi sweetie - Leo and I got married!” - they just got married - alone in a church in Carmel. They love each other tremendously until he took his last breath and was buried in Arlington. Grammy rests in Arlington too —missing him every single day for the rest of her life. I long to go there and see them together again. I long for a love like theirs. It was my one and only example of a solid marriage that I ever witnessed.

Today we go to Scalas in San Francisco — we will order a glass of white wine — send it back and get a different one — we will order the ravioli with half red sauce and half lemon creme sauce like Grammy always did. We will order all the desserts on the menu and have 2 bites each. Celebration of life. Yes — we celebrate you Grammy you elegant, sexy, sassy confident sweet woman of great feminine power. I will always think of you every day when I wear your sweet pink silk robe and dab on your perfume I NEED TO WRITE MORE ABOUT HER BUT I HAVE TO GO!

3/5 THE MIRACLE It was a late afternoon and they found themselves walking through a forest.

Is that you? he asked She was smelling the bark of a fir tree. Her nose buried into the bark her hands wrapped around the trunk with the tips of her fingers lightly touching as if she were listening with them. Which she was.

He did the same and wrapped his arms around the tree and until his fingers lightly touched her fingers.

There was a small electrical shock and a small crackling sound, the smell of vanilla and caramel filled his senses. Is that you?

Yes it is me. Are you dense? You are touching my fingers. She said gleefully.

I mean the smell? I mean fragrance. Do you also taste like caramel.?

Silly boy, that is this tree. Oh yes she is so so delicious. Me? I smell of stone fruit with a light hint of sandalwood and roses petals after a bath.

I feel dizzy, he said, also feeling confused which he kept to himself.

She began to laugh. She loved to laugh. She jumped from the tree and landed on two feet, poked him in the ribs and yelled, catch me! She started running.

He was dizzy. He wasn’t joking. The smell of cinnamon and cloves and roses and sandalwood, the crackling of their fingers touching, it was all too much, it gave him vertigo confusion. He saw her white dress with layers of lace and twine, knee high tights and no shoes, leaping through the redwood sorrel, over ferns and mossy fallen decomposing trees. She was a vision. He ran after her, tripping on the things she floated over barely catching himself. How could she be so graceful, yet he barely could move in a straight line. He thought himself an athlete, warrior, hunter, builder. He stumbled again.

Catch me catch me. Your so foolish. I’m right here. She was laughing, certainly not at him, but at the pure joy to be out again. The night the gods destroyed the dance, the wild animal scratched claws against the edges of their cages. Scared her. Threatened him. She cried and went back to her cage to sulk. He curled fetal and tight as a knot and rocked himself. The next day she woke up and something had shifted in the night. Was it a poem that he had sang to her in a dream. Was it her destiny now that the cage was no longer comforting. She was standing now and he came to her panting.

Ha I caught you. he panted. She laughed to herself as it was obvious she had been waiting. Be still now I want to show you something. She got down on her knees and crawled on all fours. He looked at her and thought, Oh my god she is so profoundly beautiful, so alive, so in this moment. It was like a light was glowing from her skin.

She looked back at him. Handsome as he was, it wasn’t that which attracted him to her. He was charming in his own way. He tried hard you had to give him credit for that.

She knew that he had the power within him to see her, to see her in a way that could set her free. The cage was gone and she would never think of it again. There was this other life and it took two parts to touch the other side. She saw that he might be able to follow her there. It was something she just knew.

Follow me follow me come on get down here with me crawl silent silent… You will scare them away… I need to show you this. You have to understand. She held out her hand and he took it and held it back. As he came close he looked at only her eyes. His heart beating loudly he could hear it. She saw him vulnerable and alive. She knew she would love him in this instance there on their knees in the moss and sorrel and ferns. She leaned forward and gave him the softest kiss not even a butterfly could feel.

The sweet cold moisture on her lips met his. If it was 5 seconds it could have been 5 hours, 5 days. A new lifeline. The dizziness vanished and he saw the forest with a clarity never experienced before, as if every detail were intensified clarified as some kind of magical etching past his eyes and into his body. Such details he never imagined. Get lower, she said softly and they got on there bellies. Now we must become invisible. Put away all of your ego, all of your thoughts, hold my hand we must drop down together now. It was like they were shrinking and the redwood sorrel with it’s delicate white and pink flowers consumed them.

Now look. Look. Look.

There was an old tree, gnarled and bent as if the weight of a hundred years had fallen on it’s shoulders and bent the top of the tree so it touched back into the ground and then it’s limbs once again, re-purposed, grew upward into a canopy that shimmered in the last of the afternoon light. It looks human, it glowed sentient. The late afternoon sun was on the horizon, resting on the ridge top shaft of horizontal light moved through the limbs of the tree into the grass and mushrooms on the forest floor. The golden light moved through the shadows, glowing tendrils reaching towards something. She saw it, or it should be said as them, although she had seen it them along, from birth she had been taught in her dreams. He was gazing straight ahead. He saw the beauty of the forest and all the forms, but he did not see them.

Look at me my Beloved. Will you love me only me forever. He did not hesitate. Dear Angel I will love you forever and forever again and again. When he said this he realized that he had already loved her forever. He knew it instantly. She knew all along. Yes yes she said yes yes he said. Love opened and the light stopped searching and in the still silence of that moment the miracle was evident.

It was one thing it was a thousand rays of light, the brilliance of life in the most delicate balance, the ephemeral waves of love, the gossamer wings of perfection… they danced and flew, they filtered they landed and touched each other. They threw sparkles of dust into the sky and the dance went around and around. The sun in the background was slowly setting. The whirlwind of energy feminine and ancient yet alive and infant swirled around the lovers. The sun set and the light faded. The fairies dissolved back to whence they came.

Angel and Beloved were one.

3/6/2017 Twin Flames and Baby Deer We may be twin flames she said. I don’t know what that means he said. She sighed and thought about it for a minute and started to explain and then stopped. She was always starting to explain something, realizing that what she knows in her soul sounds bat shit crazy and then stops. So she didn’t tell him that she knew him before she met him — that their souls had played together, courted each other and then waited for just the right moment to begin. She often played with other souls out beyond the veils.

He had waited for her for 6 years according to the blue print — he wanted to be wanted and not needed. He waited for her to put down her walls and open her heart before he could step forward. For her grief to take a pause so she could look around and begin to live again. But he didn’t even know about all that. He just thought he was lucky.

There were so many things she wanted to tell him but didn’t. She wanted to tell him he was wrong about spirit animals — call them whatever you wish but her own sweet baby deer sat on her feet since childhood. Gave her the gift of gentle wisdom and being patient and seeing the details before reacting that she wasn’t born with. She jumped first and asked questions later and baby deer was there to keep her alive. As a child she used to sit in the grass and eat dandelions and think — huh — what if we aren’t really here at all but just the dream of a deer sleeping in the forest.

She felt the weight of the entire world — cried every day for the first 20 years of her life — for Hiroshima, for Anne Frank, for the old drunk on the corner who slept in his own piss — for her own broken and battered heart. She brought half dead birds and mice into the house and nursed them back to health — sometimes they died, and she cried and gave them a proper burial in the backyard with ceremony and flowers and poetry. Sometimes they looked at her with their tender eyes and flew or scampered off to go and fight for another day of life. Her mom was a librarian with no child care so she sat in the musty stacks for days and days and read everything she could get her hands on. She went hungry. She was lonely.

She sat outside late at night and counted the stars. She brought her prism to school — the one that made the homemade camera box — for show and tell. Her crush stole it from her desk and her heart broke into a million pieces. He was in the yard showing it to the other kids. She never saw it again and the camera never worked after that. And she never crushed again in that same way.

She told her mom she was moving out. She was 6 and she and her cousin hatched a plan. Her Mother didn’t miss a beat and said “I will help you pack”. Another piece of her soul slipped from the protective flesh covering and floated into the universe where it waited for 40 years to return. She went to live with her aunt and uncle for 1 year. It was fun there but she was just a visitor — they partied and stayed up late and ate venison and drank sasparillas— but she missed her brother. There is more to this relationship but I don’t want to scare my new lover — I don’t want him to think that my wounds are too vast. To worry about what happens to a child when their mother screams “I wish you were never born”. At my feet sits the baby deer and he looks up at me within those soulful eyes and says — I am so glad you were born. I will never leave you. We chose each other.

So she thinks about her new lover and how it will all work out. She has a dream about a huge scary spider — it’s dead and crunchy — someone says “it’s ok Christie — it’s dead”. And she says BUT IT ALREADY LAYED A THOUSAND LITTLE SPIDER BABIES!!!” Then she looks again and the crunchy dead spider starts crawling away — Its alive!!!!! You idiots it’s alive! She has fears.

And then she thinks about her new lover. Her twin flame. She recognized him the minute she met him — she knows that he is in the blue print. For how long she doesn’t know — she has hopes and fears. She is the Star. She feels seen by him. Baby deer looks up from her lap and she reads his mind — you are worthy of great love. We are so glad you were born.l

Long Beach Airport.

OUT OF THE DREAM INTO THE MIRE Breakfast for mom and Dad. Dave is famous for making eggs with my parents. Dad eats three and for the days I’m down there that is the only food he has eaten. Waiting for plane to take me north. Oh Shit I forgot to give dad his meds. Better call him now.

No Dad in a small glass bowl next to the coffee maker, the coffee maker, not the cabinet, the machine that makes the fucking coffee,a small bowl, your pills dad, no not eggs, glass bowl the size of an egg, yes yes that’s it.

A small song bird trapped in the terminal flies and lands on the chair next to me when I hang up.

Disaster adverted, although to explain took a good 15 minutes. 2nd stroke dad is diminished, but happy. Angsty and Angry at Thanksgiving, three months and two strokes later he’s a different man. Soft and gentle and babylike. Memory of past or concept of future very slow to conjure up. In the moment. Could be the meds. Could be a part has checked out and there is another part that is so satisfied to be softened, tender and quiet inside. 4 years ago he had quadruple bypass and heart went from pretty ok (pacemaker since he was my age) to 30%. He was sure he was going to die within the year.

But changed his diet, stopped drinking, from tennis everyday, a life that revolved around growing tomatoes and taking Maggie for a short walk. In this place he could probably go another long spell unless he falls or gets pneumonia. I know one thing he will not want to go to a hospital again. If I was facing death and was in the house I raised my family, my wife sleeping by my side, my boys lookin in on me, world events don’t matter much, favorite teams and grandchildren do.

Facing death could be a lot worse. He has arrived with a child like outlook. He’s no Buddha, but who says that has less meaning.

Friday to Monday I’m not sure It is possible to recount the emotional movement. Friday a bomb went off, thrown by a wounded attacker. I don’t use the name of the president and I don’t use the name of the person when perpetrated this attack. Interesting how someone who is pathologically damaged emotionally can create such an emotional attack. Sneak into your world and create absolute chaos. Take a reality that you are siting in comfortably and take a psychic terrorist attack and send us spinning.

Cord cut. Freedom.

What happened was unexpected. I landed in her dream and she saved me. Why she chose me even she doesn’t know. But I’m like the lion with the thorn, the baby bird abandoned in the nest that imprints on a healing hand. In writing this and I’m back in the cage. Yes this is where it is. Moving around the shapes and dulled emotions to create nothingness. The grey reality. The veils. The words that line up to describe dramas and despair. Writing in the airport little bird on the seat I am reminded there is that place between the dream and the cage. Somewhere in this space between grey and dreamy color there is a place where two hearts and souls reached out. 500 words (this is 524). with no editor. No rewrite. Raw and honest in everything. We exposed everything. The wild animal tried to kill with evil but it actually exposed profound love as the outcome. We are poetry. We are love. We are magic. We are life. We are that tendril of light that exposes beauty where once only cages existed. The other name that cannot be mentioned will be defeated the same way. There are things at work now that we do not understand.

3/7/17 I have officially lost my mind - Im sending you the sappiest love prose ever written by a mere mortal.

Aprhodite herself would be ashamed.

Aphrodite...

Shhhhhhhh.

She looked into his eyes — she saw the vulnerability and the questioning and she wanted to whisk it away. “The louder the world gets the more inner we will go into each other” she whispered into his ear.

Feathery kisses on his nose and lips.

This was the home she had been longing for so she laid her head on his chest and listened to him breathing. Smelled his smells and prayed that the spell would not be broken. Everything about him was familiar — the way her body fit perfectly into the curve of his. He was the big spoon. She wanted to cry when they were together. She wanted to eat scallops and chocolate and never go back out into the other world. The world of masks and pretense.

Do you love me? How about now? Now? Tell me all about it — our love — tell me! What’s it like for you? Do you feel that? How about that? Does it feel full and warm? Are you afraid? Do you see me?

Crawl inside me now. Closer. Can you smell that? It’s you — in my hair and on my breath. Lets make a nest and stay here for all eternity. I will write you love songs and sing them while you sleep. I will feed you spoonfuls of honey and rub oil into your tender skin. You can read me your stories and tell me all your dreams.

I am listening to you Beloved. I am answering your love songs calling. It is in the blue print. We have no choice. I have chosen. Please meet me here.

Please.

3/7 I PUT A SPELL ON YOU Angel what is this?

This is what we truly are Beloved. We are clear and pure here. We don’t get to live here but knowing it exists. She stopped in mid sentence.

Often she would not complete a sentence as if the momentum of words would keep going and her light exhale was more than clunky sounds off her tongue.

I know beauty, I know the sound of water. I can see gold light and I can count whiskers on the bobcat. Clear and Pure. I do not know the sound of this. My legs are strong but my heart is too full to carry all of this. Beloved puts his hand to his chest. But what he really feels is the anguish in his stomach.

He reaches out to touch angel’s hand as if to see if she is really there.

Angel takes it, they are still walking in the woods heading back down a trail. The new moon where they met is half full and has risen early to welcome them and light their walk. Overlooking the vast valley, out across the bay, to city sparkling with lights, soft purple shadows of mountains Tamalpas and Diablo. The smell of recent rains in earth that is early spring fertile.

She stops and looks B. in his eyes. You do not need to feel any shame with me. I know you. I see you. I understand you.

B looks at A. He says to her. He removes his shirt shows her his scar. I feel from a great height and landed wrong.

A interrupts B You said Feel from a great height. Is that what you meant to say.

B says, I have been Falling for so long. I thought I Fell this time. But this time I Feel.

A asks, Then what did you feel B? B looks at her. There anguish in his stomach moves up into his heart. I Feel I am unworthy of true love. my family left, my lover left, my friends left. The broken bone poking into my skin. The Birds, Deer, Fox, Bobcats, Raccoon, they were there in their silent indifference tomy pain but telling me something else.

They were telling you that you were alone but not alone, A says to B B answers, Yes but I knew then that I did not know how to be alone. Alone where you remove all the cages, all the wounds, all the fears, all the teachings, all the searches, all the stories. One by one they pealed off me. The bone would puncture my skin. My blood did not bleed.

If you want to be alone then why did you find me B. I am your A. I am here. I have been waiting. I will always be here. You called for me. You have more than animals around you. A laughs as she laughs at things that only she understands. But when A laughs it divides the world into pieces of joy and her self awareness that let you know nothing is too scary.

To learn to be alone B said, looking into her gazing pieces of turquoise.

Alone! A says a strong voice.

She is strong, but quick to feel and reacts to the word as she also know the quick words of men.

There is more. To know how to be alone but that I am not. I had given up finding you. In that singular moment when I said that you appeared.

Then dear B what did you say?

I am here to learn how to love and to love you back.

That’s alright Baby. You don’t have to worry.

Why Angel. I always worry.

I put a spell on you because your mine, A smiles and waves her magic crystal. And the trees peal back. And the moon light turns into a spot light. The animals following them eyes light up like small flashlights. They are standing on a large rock over looking a field and it turns into a stage. The world below them turns into a grand theater. She picks up a pine cone that becomes a microphone and stands inches away from his Beloved Nose. Smiling with absolute love. And sings to him

Dave

ha ha... that works That is the perfect love song Christie

Hahahaha.

How can you ever doubt me when that stuff pours out of my soul.

Dave

LOL ha ha I knew it youre such a tease I love you even more now Christie

Dave

I think I could write a 50 shades book and make millions.

Or we could write really sophisticated porn prose for white people

Christie

already been done... need to do it for really sophisticated white people then...

Dave

I think we could pull it off.

People would eat that shit up.

Not sure about the he was the big spoon ha ha... other than that... just kidding that made me laugh it was so big clumsy and perfect sweet... lvoe it baby we should write a romance novel and get super rich Hahaha.

That

Christie

I told you I had nothing@ Dave

so what were doing you have the perfect love prose Christie

Hahahaha.

Dave

I’m putting it in the book now... I’m going ot work on it.

Check your mail in the morning I lvoe you baby I’m yours Christie

Ok Night.

Dave

kisses all over you!!!

Christie

Night Sugar tits.

Dave

good night AMP Christie

What is that?

Dave

Angel’s Magic Pussy Christie

Ahhhh. Ok big spoon.

Dave

Christie

Dave

I like what were doing without thinking too much about what it means and just feeling the first line and then go baby go... 500 words or 45 minutes which ever comes first Christie

So we rent a gorgeous place in greece for the summer and just drink greek wine and wear all white and write really romantic stuff. Make love and write.

Dave

I’ll layout what has been created so far and you can look at it.

Christie

Ok. Night love.

Dave

Fuck baby now youre talking Boys can come too Christie

Yes everyone can come we make big dinners and invite the locals.

Manifesting that now...I’ll make a crystal grid for it.

We need a crystal grid for travel. I want to see the world with you.

Dave

Yes... the world want to see us also. We are both charmers

I put a spell on you because you’re mine

You better stop the things that you do I ain’t lyin’, no, I ain’t lyin’ I just can’t stand it babe The way you’re always runnin’ ‘round I just can’t stand it, the way you always put me down I put a spell on you because you’re mine I put a spell on you because you’re mine You better stop the things that you do I ain’t lyin’, no, I ain’t lyin’.

I just can’t stand it babe The way you’re always runnin’ ‘round I just can’t stand it, the way you always put me down I put a spell on you because you’re mine I put a spell on you. I put a spell on you I put a spell on you. I put a spell on you

WEDNESDAY 4/8 SEX MAGIC

She locks the door and lights the candles. Takes the altar cloth out of the basket and sets it in the middle of the room. The athame, the cauldron, a red candle and crystals. She gets the sage and cleanses the space, setting the intention to call them in. The candles flicker across the faces of her beloved dead on the altar — she looks at them and asks them if they are ready.

She opens the circle — North/Earth, East/Air, South/Fire and West/Water — water who always knows which way to flow…all that is above and all that is below and center. She calls in her mighty dead, the ancestors known and unknown and pauses to feel them enter the space. They are here. She calls in Aphrodite and Mary and the great Moon — she settles into their energies all that wanton feminine lusty whip smart and shadowy vibration. She calls in her own Angels and Guides and asks them to please come and do this working with her. It is important — she needs them and they all come in for her. They are here. She can smell the faint scent of roses and dirt. She can feel them holding her in this space. She is never alone.

She lights the incense from the church in France — his church — Arch Angel Michael and asks him to come to her and bring her more roses. She slips into a very hot bubble bath filled with rose petals and oils and salt from the Dead Sea. She cries into the bath, deep sobs from this life and lives lived before — releases everything into the bath — all the pain from all the past lovers and Fathers and Mothers — it all goes into the bath until she can’t conjure anything else up. He is in that bath — her ex. The water is murky. She pulls the plug and watches as it drains. She stands up and pours a poulstice of rose petals and lavender over her head and walks naked to the altar.

A song begins deep in her heart and she starts to sing — the sound is so beautiful — the Angels and the guides and the Goddesses sway and hum along: Show me the way Please help me I’m sorry please forgive me thank you I love you I am a creator show me more Show me the way Show me the way.

She writes down everything she wants in a love, a lover. She is thoughtful and specific — she pours rose oil onto the paper and little petals from her yard and wraps it up and ties it with a red satin ribbon — she sees a pink feather and puts that onto the spell. She raises the spell to the sky and demands — This! This is what I want. This is what I shall have — bring him to me, I am ready.

She finishes the ritual, closes the circle and goes to bed naked clutching the spell. The next day she puts it on the altar. Everyday she eyes it suspiciously — will it work? Will he come? I don’t want to go through this life alone…one day she knows. She takes the spell and places it into the cauldron and douses it with florida water and lights it on fire — she watches it burn — the flames dancing the dance of love until there is nothing left but ashes. She takes the ashes and releases them in the backyard and looks up into the sun and says “I surrender”.

It took one moon cycle to complete the spell. New Moon to New Moon. She has a magic pussy.

4/8 I HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU Oh B you look so sad. Where are you. How can you be sad? Baby… ah my sweet A, how does this really happen. I’m like the school boy. I’m 61 years old and I have a crush. I can’t believe I could feel this way.

I have a crush too. A is happy always laughing. You’re my crush. Whose your crush baby. Your my big spoon. my sugar tits. Me. I’m your loving baby. I’m cute and sassy and sexy and I see you, I know you. Baby I love you.

B looks up still looking sad. Maybe the word is forlornness with a hint of pensive and a simmering in a bone broth of empathetic memory. He holds his hands out like a cup holding his feelings in the sacred gesture. There are tears in his eyes. It is sunrise there are pink clouds moving across the ridge. High on a knoll looking down into the valley the tule fog below is like a mystic river softly moving the gauze web like a water in a tide pool.

Oh A look at me. How did this happen. I am joyous beyond words that have ever been told to me or words that I have ever tried to write. I am loved. I asked for you. Exactly you. Nothing about you is not perfect even the parts that may not seem perfect to someone else make you even more perfect. Not a fucking pedestal. fuck that shit baby… You come to me real all the time. You are fierce in who you are. I love that. But so tender. Look here I am writing in third person ( Ha ha pierce the narrative) and it’s inspired by who you are. This is a crush of heart, but also of something else baby. You have pulled the veil back. You opened me up and shook out the parts that were stuck and filled them with the muse of your body, heart, soul, spirit, love. You provoke me, not to run away and count the redflags of fear but provoke me to step forward. run to the top of the mountain build a fire and step into the middle and release every particle of my self to become the greatness you called for.

A looks at him. Takes the broth cupped in his hands and drinks it. She takes her fingers and outlines the corners of his mouth and lets him taste his own liquid alchemy on his tongue. You are so beautiful my love. What is this?

B looks up. I have been waiting in my cage pacing in it and painting stories on it’s walls. So much pretensions and omissions. I have wounds like all of us. My wounds have put me on a journey that is incomprehensible to me. I feel like fucking Ulysses returning to the golden fields of his home. So many tentacles of wounds wanting to attache to me. All the wounds want is love. They are all crying out for love. Not medicine. Not Narcotics. Not fucking margaritas with miniskirts and knee high boots. I look back through my life. Replay my moments of love. Maybe my Highschool sweetheart we did something…. things in your twenties don’t count they only pave the road for things to count later. Every love I have encountered feels wounded. I thought I only attract wounded love. I am wounded love. Every woman I have ever been with has lost their father before the age of 20. That is a true fact. All their stories fill me with sadness. Yes I loved them back and they loved me. But it was a love that covered me in wet blankets of holding each other to our damaged hearts. I would run and then shifting sands always drew me back… It was as if love took away my freedom not offered it to me. Sitting here I see that.

After all these years. I understand this.

True love is freedom.

You have offered me that.

I have a crush on you. I am going to take you somewhere baby. We will be Giants and walk like kings and queens

4/9 Thursday It’s Thursday! And my Beloved is taking me somewhere overnight. A place I don’t remember ever going before so that is very exciting. It’s a place that holds great meaning for him and now for us. We are us. For a while.

The ocean has saved my life before. I grew up on the beach in Carmel exploring and swimming and building things — we lived in Modesto where there is nothing but strip malls and almond orchards but my Grammy lived on the beach so it was vacations and summers. It was the greatest pleasure to play all day and sleep to the sounds of the waves crashing into the sand.

When I first got divorced I went looking for things. Things that would heal me and my tremendous wounds. I was unsure about my body as a 44 year old woman and practicing deep self love. I decided that I should go to a nude beach. What the fuck. It will be a bunch of gay guys, some old guy and a lady with wrinkly tits — and me. I will have a grand solo adventure. So I googled nude beaches and got into the car. I had on a summer dress — a tube top and a skirt with sequins on it — I love that dress.

When I arrived at Limintour — when you first round the bend and see it — I sucked in a deep breath. I felt a flood of emotion and spiritual energy — I knew there was a God in that very moment and that I would devote myself to exploring that energy. No I don’t believe God is the punisher or a dude with a white beard — God is everything and everywhere and the all that is and great love and we are never truly alone.

I was however very alone at the beach…not a single car in sight. I got all my stuff — the bag with the blueberries and almonds and my journal and headed down the path. It was beautiful and I felt like a Goddess floating on air down to the water. I found a spot nestled in some sand dunes and took off my dress.

I let the wind blow over my naked body. I bared my bits to the sea and put my face up to the sun and said “I surrender”. This is me — I am the Goddess. I wrapped my arms around myself and felt all my parts and said — you are perfect just as you are my love. I love you so much.

Then I heard someone clear their throat and whisper — “Dear? What are you doing? This is not a nude beach!” And I adjusted my eyes against the wind and the sun and there they were — a cute little couple in their REI windbreakers walking their fluffy little nugget of a puppy. “Excuse me?” I said. The woman clutched her “pearls” and the man giggled and I remembered I was fully naked…So I guess I didn’t find the nude beach that day and gave some elders a nice story to tell. But I found the true face of God and the true meaning of self love. There was great healing…

After that I drove there 3 or 4 times a week to write in my journal and heal and watch the whales and dolphins come to me. I built fires and eventually I invited people to join me — I hosted full moon drum circles and roasted corn and passed around a bottle of wine. I have done several deep magic rituals on that beach — gotten down on my knees and begged for healing and received. Got drunk. Fell in the water. Wrote his name in the sand over and over.

So today I get to share my beloveds special place and I am so honored. I hope I can meet him where he needs to be today. I know I can. We are so similar. We are emotional and spiritual and deep and I love getting to know my own self through his eyes. If he decides to love me, to walk through this life with me - I will be healed. There is a spell - it was cast and delivered.

4/9 MY GREATEST JOY Today I get to take you somewhere. Our last time was sabotaged. Shaken to our cores. Perhaps in someways our greatest gift. Love does not live in just magic and dreams there is a world out there and let just say‌ there is crazy shit that no one knows when and where. Venus in retrograde or not Love transcends. I believe that. Love takes all our senses to hold it, cherish it, nourish it, learn about it.

Today I get to take you somewhere. A place I have gone for a long time. A place I have seen so many beautiful things. It is a gateway. My very own portal.

There is nothing magical about it, because all of it is magical, it is the norm not the peculiar. This is how nature makes life work. The river flows to the sea and life wild loves what happens when the confluence of waters meet. Animals flourish here. Drift wood from the large storms land here. Small gifts of rocks, shells, ancient beach glass, plants, strange flotsam and jetsam wait to be found.

I come here on April 14th. Phoebe died on a cliff above the ocean. She fell at the edge of the ocean. The water touched her. I can never move too far from the ocean. My local mountains, The red rocks of Utah, the rain forests of Oregon, the rivers and streams in our sierras all sustain me. The ocean is where I touch infinity. The west coast is our final destination. We stand at the edge of the ocean and see our future our destiny our last hope out there. As the sun sets here I take a deep breath thank life that I have arrived and feel blessed that I there will be another one tomorrow that I will wait for my next gift to arrive.

So many things this coast brings to me. I am now a man that gets most of his medicine from the forest as I live in it. I ride my bike through it. I have crawled on all fours to be comforted there. But my life and all the pieces it contains has created it’s most profound ceremony at these sands and rocks near the ocean. And this place in particular holds all the pieces. She is my mother. She is where I see God. She is where I am held the deepest. She can be brutal here. Even in tempest winds (and they are more than they are not) there are places in her beach side bosom we can find protection.

It is not legal to make fires on the beach. But I always build a fire here. I make a shelter or add to one that already exists. Once I took my boys out of school. We woke up and as I was making lunch I said guess what? And told them I was taking them out of school and we were going to spend the day at the beach making a driftwood fort and eating our lunch there. The first thing we saw was a mother whale and her calf playing in the surf.

For phoebe I always write I love you phoebe in the low tide sand and watch the waves wash it away. It is the impermanence of my statement but it is the proof of my love that like the infinite horizon goes on forever.

It is my greatest joy to take you here. I am a ranger of knowing magical and beautiful places. We will sit and explore all of them.

March 11 JENNER

Falling in love is just about the most important thing anyone can do — for themselves and for the universe. The universe is conspiring right now for you to fall in love too — if you just shut the fuck up and look around.

The problem with falling in love is sometimes you fall madly in love before you even get to know the person and all their quirks and “flaws”. So then you have to observe these things through the tinted lens of emotion and react appropriately. Like when he asks you if he can use your toothbrush and you say no.

Is that the reply of a woman in love, no? But seriously — no. Ha ha. I mean just do it and don’t tell me…that is exactly what I would do!

So he is exactly as he should be — the knower of so many wonderful things. The guy with the kayaks and the best butcher shop and the cute soulful eyes. He gives you everything and you try not to roll your own eyes. You try not to put some walls up and be bitchy because everything is what you wanted exactly and now you have it and you are really really scared.

He gives you everything — he orders the oysters and the wine and the cutest spot to stay in. He takes you to the beach and doesn’t get mad when you are dressed inappropriately and complain about being scared. I am a worrier. I worry that I won’t be able to find my way back — like what if he has a seizure down there on that secret beach and only the acid freak in the unicorn onesie is there and she is no help and I have to find my way to the top and drive that big truck to go get someone? I mean do they even have a difibulator in Jenner — do they? And Joe the only guy that knows how to use the difibulator is probably in Petaluma getting the battery charged or going to that specialty meat shop to get his beloved some yummy foie pate. I googled it and he’s right — it doesn’t have heavy cream in it…its just all that yummy fat. So he’s right. He is always right.

I love him. That is the whole truth of the matter and the reason why I roll my eyes and think — WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

4/11 KINGS AND QUEENS Sometimes you jump in, you jump all the way in. Don’t think. Just Leap. What ever follows you look at, touch, reveal, listen, explore, hold, release. Repeat.

I do Adventures. I’m the man and I can do that. I know the place to buy this food and that food. I know the road to take or the alternate road to take or the small place to pull off or the place to tuck into if there is too much wind or she needs to piss in the middle of no where. These things are my magic wand. She has a different wand. We both know how to use our magic.

The trail down from the 100 year winter rains is much more treacherous than usual and even usual is not an easy trail. She brings her fashion sweater (no jacket) and her clean low cut clean sole work Frye $285 fry boots. I say I thought I said you wouldn’t need that sweater bring a jacket she says I thought you were kidding I don’t do the REI look. I don’t wear that shit. I should have brought my lesbian boots I think. I note we are different here. But we have jumped in and down the trail she goes. Her Frye boots get muddy. She doesn’t care. I love her.

We walk down the beach. I am not going back up that in the dark. No way. I nod. I’ve walked up that in the dark. I know this trail. I know this beach. I assume she will just trust me. I say don’t worry. I’m a worrier she says. I hear her say warrior. I know you’re a warrior I say. no I mean worrier not warrior. I say yes warrior or do you mean worrier. Yes I’m a worrier. I’m still not sure which she is. I think she means worrier.

I’m sorry I don’t trust you yet. We are walking down there. I point to the end of the beach. I want to walk down there, I tell her. It is my place. Protected. I have a back pack. of firewood, firewood starter, bottle of wine, blanket, a down jacket (I brought one as I knew she wouldn’t bring one ha ha). I’ve built fires I know how to make that place feel right. I know it so well. I’m ranger dave. She doesn’t know that. I assumed she did. I don’t trust you yet. I’m a worrier.

We pick up gifts along the way. Shells, glass, rocks, small pieces of wood. She opens her hand and it has an array of glass and rock. I say, I’d bring the kids to the beach and I’d tell them that the blue glass is the best. They’d look for hours. She moves the shell and there is a small piece of blue glass. Ah yes she knows. I laugh. She comments, But this in new blue glass it probably comes from Mexico. I like it anyway.

We walk slowly looking for things. Talking quietly. There are no fortress, lean-tos, driftwood tepees, just piles of winter driftwood. We set our things down and clean the area. There are few sticks piled up. There is a burnt piece of a log that has a few rocks like an alter placed. By end of summer this area will be a community of log dwellings. But now it is just us. I make a fire. Set our things on the alter. Light palo Santo. Set the oranges she has brought.

We kiss. I say don’t pull away this time. Hold the kiss as if our lives depended on it. The kiss starts awkward as there was a challenge and it feels self conscious.

But then that changes and the kiss takes off and our bodies become lighter. My head slightly dizzy. Our feet on on the sand. It is warm. Her sweater is perfect.

We don’t need a jacket. Her boots are cute and I love them. The kiss turns happy. the kiss turns joyful. the kiss turns sexy. The kiss turns erotic. The kiss turns transcendental. The kiss turns timeless. The kiss turns us into warriors. The kiss picks us off the ground. The kiss has us floating feeling love. The kiss reminds us of the spirits we have brought here. The kiss has us hold each other tighter. We squeeze each other. We are not breathing. We are suffocating in our kiss.

We release all the shadows and we bring in all the moments. We open our eyes kissing. Blink and we both let go of the kiss at the same time.

I want to walk back in the dark, she says. Okay I say. But we don’t have to. I want to. I want to do something I’ve never wanted to do. She points up at the clouds. A spot has softened and the moon is diffused but showing. Look the moon. We will walk back in the dark but it wont be dark. We have that to light our way, I say.

I’m beginning to trust you she says.

I’m beginning to love you I say.

We can trust this Love.

The fire grows, we finish the wine, eat the oranges and walk slowly and climb back up the moon lit cliff in the warm evening and back to our cabin with it’s perfect view of the world. We order oysters and eat like kings and queens on the floor.

March 12 Time Change The moon was full and I didn’t even really acknowledge her. There she was up in the sky bright and beckoning. I really am a piece of shit sometimes. I don’t know what I am doing. I am drowning.

He was there with his soft skin and his voice. We went to a bar and I sucked down too many drinks in a small amount of time trying to find myself. Drowning.

I wanted to dance under the moon and make pledges and burn incense and pound my drum and wail and cry and demand something better for myself. I wanted all the creatures of the forest to come to me and share their wisdom. Instead I opened my legs and moved my body and brought him in. He responded well. We are made for this dance.

I got the fuck out of there in the middle of the night — the fog filling the spaces, mascara caked under my tired eyes. I gripped the wheel a little too tightly and begged — please dont let me hit a deer please, I can’t live with that. But then I saw her — She laid by the side of the road in a pile — the body still warm and steam coming off — blood oozing out and down the street. Someone else has to live with it. Someone else is drowning too. I am so sorry. What is wrong with us. Why can’t people be more careful.

I came home and gathered my stuff and looked up at her, the moon and I said — don’t fucking judge me. I left him there in his bed — I had to go — one foot out the door. Always one foot out the door.

I want things — all the things. I want the love and the companionship and the soft warmth of his body next to me. Yes I want all of that. I just don’t know how to do it without choking.

Short StoryLove

4/12 IT’S OKAY IF YOU NEED TO GO A arrives. They don’t kiss. A is early B is still cleaning. I haven’t even made my bed yet, B exclaims embarrassed. A says I never make my bed. B wonders really… and quickly makes his bed. Earlier in the day B took his first bike ride after his surgery perhaps rode a little too long and hard and feels dehydrated, a little dizzy, there is a small poison oak tingle in his body from Jenner. B is not quite feeling solid in his body today. B says he has a bit of a headache and makes himself a vitamin C drink searching for Advil and pulls out two likely bottles only to find one is Tylenol PM and the other is a stool softener. I guess these won’t work, says B. Only if you want to sleep and A looks at the other bottle and just laughs. Maybe I should just go, A says.

B feels a bit like wow is she really here? Excited, but asking himself was Jenner real, is this real, is this amazing woman arriving at his house the greatest gift ever B has ever received? Wondering wondering. Earlier he had called her at work and said isn’t leaning into True Love amazing thing? She didn’t answer.

Silence on her end of the phone. Maybe she was selling a sweater and this interruption… I’ll be over around 6:30 it’s so fucking slow today, A finally says.

When they hung up B is left wondering wondering wondering. Had he spoken out of his heart or out of some kind of fantasy that he is unraveling. Another B Story. Romantic Love can do that B tells himself. A hadn’t answered, the question left hanging. B feels foolish. She is the wise one B reminds himself.

But B is filled with a kind of sadness that wraps around a gnawing doubt that his overworked dehydrated itchy body doesn’t seem to know how to understand. NO NO NO don’t go B says emphatically to A, perhaps with too much emphasis, perhaps his emotions don’t balance with the moment. He already has plans for them this evening. Her leaving would only manifest, exasperate his his anxiety. A answers thoughtfully, oh Beloved I just know that when I have a headache, she strokes his cheek and side of head… I want to be alone. Whatever you need darling…. B wonders is A being loving or patronizing.

But relieved she is staying.

They go down to his local pub ostensibly to watch a Basket Ball game but really to get out of the house. She orders vodka and tonic he orders beer and a shot of whiskey. B asks A what is going on he tells her about his wondering wondering. At first she denies it and then she explains that it is natural all so much so fast she needs time to integrate. She orders her second Vodka and tonic. He realizes the basketball game is meaningless and stares at her. Feels love and pecks a small kiss on her lips cool from the drinks ice.

You are the most sensitive man I have ever met A says to B. She looks at him the way a cat looks at something and tilts her head a little as if to see him clearer. A is the most sensitive woman B has ever met. She can see through things. She is the best writer he has ever met and her words conjure a sensitivity with her voice, stories and objects in ways B could never dream. She has crystals and magic wands and knows enchantments and rituals. She has lucid dreams that teach her sensitive things like how whales fornicate and about magical love. She sees through him and sees his greatness and also see’s his folly. She is sensitive to the world and can see through its veils with sensitive psychic antennas as if she were from another planet. She is sensitive to the moons and the universe yet always has boisterous optimism and electrified humor, yet within that a quiet sensitive tenderness as if she holds all the wounds of the world, or the small injured deer, in her heart with compassion that is embodied by deepest river imaginable.

She is the sensitive that feels things intuitively and her body immediately understands the reference and importance. He at first thinks that this is the greatest complement ever given him. Yes B is sensitive just like A, but then realizes as her feline stare moves through him that she means a different kind of sensitive. B realizes that A is just saying sensitive as in being too sensitive. B looks at her. All this process has taken the time to glance at the game, sip a beer, taste her cool lips, look into the depths of her eyes.

He sees himself and too sensitive is not the complement he was hoping. My kids used to complain about me always being too sensitive. They would call me weird, I’d get all bent out of shape and then they would all laugh and call me too sensitive. B laughs at himself. He has that quality. A says yes she means that. A looks at him. B I love you. I love you more than anything I can imagine. There is just more to life than this passion. I need to integrate. Trust me. He does. They get ready to leave. A finishes her third drink. B kisses her icy cool lips.

They finish dinner and A quickly climbs into bed and curls up fetal and cozy and asks B to come snuggle her. B straightens his kitchen first and puts away perishables and quickly rinses dishes. There is a party B wanted to go to in Point Reyes for a young friend raising money for community and his musical dreams but he climbs into bed to hold A instead. Their bodies wrap around each other as if they have known each others for many many life times. He is not feeling sexual but is feeling vast tenderness and loving. They quietly hold each other. She said she had stopped drinking when they first met. But tonight a bottle of wine and vodkas he wonders what she really meant by that and they lay in bed both tired, dizzy and tenderly caring without words and fall asleep. The party is not as important as this connection.

A wakes up at 12:30 and says she needs to go home. Full moon she needs her own space. I am a woman of the moons I need to get rest and do some things. They kiss and B touches her breasts. B is slowly becoming her lover. Yes they have had amazing sex from the moment their bodies have landed in this field together. But B is only beginning to understand her vast road map and understands he only beginning to realize the gift A truly is. What magic sensitivity really lies below the cellular epidermal layers of this sensual skin. He lightly touches her nipples with his tongue and tries to describe this to her. She touches her self as he sucks and bites and pinches her nipples and she comes. They kiss and do this again this time he touches her wetness and she comes again. A and her magic pussy are soft and full and wet with her cum juices and she exclaims this fact with a joy and open sexuality that is even more intoxicating. I know you said you didn’t want to make love tonight, A says softly, but I want to feel your cock inside me without moving. B hears her quiet voice that has a new sound and one that is familiar and yet one he has never heard. He feels different. He is a different man.

She is his woman. She is offering her soul to him. Saying here I am, all that I am, not perfect, but as perfect as I can be and I am offering this to you. This is your greatest love. Bring your cock to me now. You are my greatest lover. Will you only love me? Yes B says. Can you promise never to hurt me? yes B says. A is opening her body and heart to B. Yes he says touching her. B climbs on top of A watching her eyes in the red light. His cock is very hard. Her pussy is very wet and lush. He tastes her first and with his fingers gives her another clitoris orgasm. Some nights she has had 14 or more of these. His cock enters her, slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly. A is trying to impatiently pull him inside her, but B reprimands her and ties her wrists with his scarf and holds them above her head so she cannot change the imperceptible slowness of this moment.

He has fully entered her and as he does she shifts her pelvis and releases hips her knees falling back near her ears her pelvis pushes his large body up a few inches and his cock enters her as if a magic cave exists within her. His cock suddenly feels as long as his body. Her body a lake he once saw in a dream of Tibet that he is swimming in. He is not moving and they are traveling traveling traveling. She is the lake and she is also swimming opening her body even further and he deepens into her not thrusting but just deepening deepening. She begins to call his name in a language that he has not heard but has always wanted to hear. She is coming as if the caged animal from within, the fierce lioness, not the kitten looking at him askance, but the vast animal energy that holds all the secrets walks forward. Her pelvis pushing him upwards with a strength he could not have imagined that she carried within her. They are floating towards the ceiling, past that into the ether. He is not moving yet his entire body is electrified on fire. He will not orgasm now as that is not even close to the fire that he is feeling as she still lifts them into the heaven of this moment…. Higher and higher and deeper and deeper. She comes again and again. He says do not stop do not stop and she doesn’t and she doesn’t. When she has finally finished B pulls out and strokes his masculine hard cock and unloads all his semen onto her soft white belly.

It is 5:30 and she gets out of bed. He knows what she is doing.

It is okay if you need to go B says to A. Thank you she says.

I love you B. You are my greatest lover. Where is my bra? A is looking for her things in the dark.

B smiles and says it is on top of his massage table. You can turn the light on. She doesn’t and finds her bra He loves her more than any love he has ever known. And falls asleep not hearing A leave the room. Later B hears A and calls out to her but it is only the cat and the full Virgo moon setting on the ridge out his window. It is pink and beautiful.

A knows B is happy in her own bed.

As is he.

Monday, March 13 DOWN THE HOLE She peered into the vast dark hole — vines and dirt and then nothing. Helloooooo her voice echoed down. Anyone heeeerrreeeee? Hellllooooo?

Nothing. She was alone. She backed up, her bare feet sinking into the soft dirt, took a deep breath then ran straight for the hole and jumped feet first. Her skirt flew up around her waist and down down she went. Past all the roots and stones, the layers of dirt, the bones of the mighty dead — down down past all the crystal caves and rock formations and pockets of gemstones — down down into the belly of the Mother. Splat. She landed flat on her ass in the center of it all.

She stood up and looked around. There were so many tall trees and low trees and ground cover and moss and ferns. She could hear water flowing from somewhere and a little deer peered his head around a plant — she saw deep into his soulful eyes and recognized him right away. Without saying a word the little deer fell into step beside her and there he stayed for the rest of their lives.

Living a life outside of the cage has proven a difficult task. There is a fine protective layer of energy surrounding me now as I walk around this life. The protective layer is made of sarcasm and deflective humor. It’s barbed but invisible. He senses it. He thinks she is pulling back. It hurts him.

She isn’t pulling back. She isn’t. She loves him so much it is confusing but she isn’t pulling back. He has a lot of expectations and rules — he wants the story to go his way. It doesn’t work like that — the story will unfold as the story sees fit. There is a blueprint.

She wants to have a good time. She wants to throw her head back and laugh. She wants to have amazing sex and kissing and hear all about his day. She wants him to show her things and read her stories in bed. She has her own set of expectations but she is too scared to admit them. She has rules too.

4/13 I COULD NOT SEE I was sitting outside because I could not see when this beautiful woman came walking towards me. Smiling. Big strong walk. Arms swinging. Cool Turquoise leather Jacket with no collar and ripped jeans and sexy white sheer Tee. I can’t see but I can see that. Who is that?

I was talking to my dear friend Renu who saying t I can’t wait to meet your new girl friend. I didn’t tell her. Word is getting around. My friends inside who thought she was coming with me. Where is Christie where is Christie?. Like why are you here? I thought you were brining her. We didn’t invite you to see you… duh.

I couldn’t see. I had walked into the bar and immediately my left eye started burning. I washed it so much that my right eye started burning. Both eyes felt like they were on fire. Like someone had thrown pepper spray into them. My sinuses became clogged like my nose was a piece of concrete except for a continual nasal drip that stuck to my mustache. It was spring time there was a time change. 6:00 and warm and bright and sunny. California Poppies on the hillside. Everywhere. I had gone on my first bike ride the day before. This day I had driven to Oakland to talk about building the BRC Temple 2017.

It felt like the first day of spring. Christie had left super early in the morning. I was kind of bummed about it. Bur honestly I was so glad to have my house and morning and day to myself. My son called me (he never calls) and we talked for an hour about everything. Oh it feels so good to be a good dad and have a sensitive (good way) son who will talk about everything. We talked about our new relationships. I told him about the 500 words a day Christie and I write to each other and how it has opened me to her, to my self, to my process and to the love of writing. He says hey Dad that is great I think I will do that with Taylor.

While I was talking I walked outside, this perfect spring day sit on the couch overlooking my valley. It still had blankets from the night before where Christie and I snuggled and watched the moon shadows and the stars together before dinner. A bittersweet memory as I had woken sad that she was not there and a few things that lingered. I wonder if something is too good to be true then it usually isn’t. Is this too good to be true. Glistening in the sunlight. Left on my table which is an upside down water trough. There were her two bracelets. Not just bracelets but her charms. Her talismans. Her amulets. Her magic curled like a ying and yang. Her left hand and right hand. They filled me with joy I couldn’t describe.

I was sitting outside the bar talking to Renu because I couldn’t see, my eyes burned, my nose all runny and disgusting. My eyes red on fire as if I had some kind of contagious disease. Ugly as ugly.

The beautiful girl walking towards me. I look again she has her hair pulled back and her face is glowing and smiling a smile that holds nothing but joy and love. Oh my god she is my dream.

I can’t see I have eye drops in the car.

Everyone wants to see you.

I can’t wait to see them.

I look horrible No you look fine.

You look beautiful my eyes running like I am crying Sometimes love gets centered on friendship more than magic or great sex.

This morning my eyes are fine and I can see. Clearly and no stinging fire.

Tuesday 4/14 HAPPY Happy — feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.

“Melissa came in looking happy and excited” synonyms:cheerful, cheery, merry, joyful, jovial, jolly, jocular, gleeful, carefree, untroubled, delighted, smiling, beaming, grinning, in good spirits, in a good mood, lighthearted, pleased, contented, content, satisfied, gratified, buoyant, radiant, sunny, blithe, joyous, beatific.

I remember laying on a massage table in a strange room in San Francisco while some guru or healer was trying to save me. He yelled in my face “what do you want?!” I answered “love”. “NO!” he screamed at me — “what do you want?” “love?”. NO!!!!! You already have that — think of your children. What do you want”. “Love! (I just want love sir…that is all I want — to love and be loved by someone…Im sorry I am failing this healing that is what I want…) He tried to explain it to me — how love is inside us all the time you just need to lean into it.

I didn’t really get it. I left the healing and I did feel amazingly giddy. I laughed for about 4 hours straight — something shifted. But I didn’t get the thing about love. I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and thought about it. Then I realized what he meant. Like when you are in love with someone but you are angry at them and you don’t feel the love but then they kiss your neck and hold you and you do feel it. It was there all along. Making love.

You can just feel into that wonderful feeling and it is there for you — no one gifted it to you — it belongs to you and you alone. Love. That feeling you have for your kids — love.

I am going through something. I hope I don’t have a tizzy and lose the best man I’ve ever known. He really is a great person. I am going through something and I hope he just holds some space for me and helps me through it. That would be incredible. I gave him the stupid plate because when I saw it I thought of him. I thought it would brighten up his day to see that plate and think of me. Choose happy. Choose me.

4/14 LOVE ANCHORS THE SOUL

I am the writer with a writers mind to create stories I am the art director with a scanning vision to align aesthetics I am the photographer waiting for the perfect light and perfect moment to capture it in a frame Limantour sunsets with sandy dunes Drakes Bay wrapping it’s gentle arm around the coastal vista with it’s hand being Point Reyes and the lighthouse. Perfect light, sunsets, shimmering water, birds dunes, walking couples, people nestled in the dunes in with blankets and picnics.

This is the poet in me loving all the elements with sweet words to share.

I choose a spot in the dunes, I choose the wine (Crema Pinot gris on sale $5.00 off), assorted condiments— you know red pepper humis, have chips, crackers from jenner, avocado, pistachios, blueberries (oops not organic from chilie missed that ugh poison) sweet orange cuties… open up the indian batik blue sheet with white circles and toss it into the light breeze to lay between the soft pastels of the sand and bunch grasses.

This is the art director in me We are lying there so much enjoying the moments. All the pieces of the beauty and love between us. Talking and challenging each other with ideas and philosophies. Sharing stories that tangent on this place and where we are and who we are. Smiling and Laughing. Moments of consternation that turn into moments of understanding. Waiting for sunset.

People walk by. Dogs run around and sniff each others butts. Sunset late afternoon light glow. the tips of the bunch grass light up I take a photo with perfect light.

This is the photographer in me There are things that are our gifts and there are things that are our curse. In me they are the same thing. As they say— too much of a good thing…

A group of young people walk by one comes running up and yells can we get naked here. Angel had just finished telling me about the story that after her divorce feel her self alive she came here thinking it was a nude beach. I’ve heard the story and now when I here it I get angry at the gaul for someone to tell her it is not a nude beach. The woman is at beach edge who yells can we get naked, the gentle off shore breeze doesn’t hold sound back and we both laugh at her words as we are having that discussion in that moment. Angel yells back: GET NAKED. They Laugh We laugh. They walk down the beach.

Sun is beginning to set over the elbow of Point Reyes towards the north end of the beach. Scanning the south end the low light shines with a golden glow. Looking south I smile as I see the young couple, she did get naked and he is with his camera shooting pictures. She is frolicking in the surf, creating poses, seductive, playful, mermaid, goddess, youthful. She is in the water. It is cold yet she plays in the water as if it is Hawaii.

Wow look at that I say to Angel.

We see two different things in this moment. She sees two people ignoring the perfection of the moment and creating posed photos that will probably be put on line and sold as pornography.

I see two playful adults being art director, poets and photographers enjoying dancing in the moment.

We have one of our playful barbed intellectual stimulating conversations about our different perspectives. Is it better to just be in the moment or is it okay to be in the moment and to photograph it as well… Somehow, and maybe it is the wine, or maybe it is the challenge of getting to know each other… the conversation takes on a more of a I am right you are wrong kind of tone.

You have a lot of rules she says. There is a name thrown in with it. I say you shouldn’t say a name like that. She catches herself and says Oh shit I’m sorry and then turns over into a fetal ball and says I want to go now.

I say don’t get into a tizzy it is okay. We don’t want to leave before sunset do we?

She is silent. Sulking.

Suddenly I see that poet, art director, photographer in me. I have always had such complements for these parts of my self but somehow with all that the person who I am reaching out to and wanting to anchor our love I can see them as controlling, yes controlling the moment for my own ego. Yes even beautiful rules are still rules and perhaps I have too many. I see the treachery of what I see as beautiful for someone else can seem controlling.

Angel sits up… laughing did you say tizzy. My therapist said don’t go getting into tizzies. The spell is broken and she is laughing again. I’m sorry I called you that name. I didn’t mean to sound like I meant it. And I don’t. I love you very much. I’m sorry.

We pick up our stuff and watch the sunset as we walk up the beach towards our truck.

As we drive out Angel exclaims pull in her pull in here. You have to park a certain way. I understand and park a certain way. She laughs and leaps out of the car.

I’m not sure what she is doing but runs to my side and opens my door. She leans forward and lifts her dress. Oh baby baby… I’ve never done this before but I want to do it now. She bends over her perfect white form vulnerable and magic before me. Waiting.

We hold hands all the way home. Our hearts open. No words, no aesthetics, no photos just joy and love and the moment we have surrendered to.

Love anchors the soul.

4/15 DREAMS The first time I went to a psychic she told me I had the biggest heart she had ever seen. So much joy and love she told me. She said other things too like I was like a rose reaching up to the sun…it was awesome. I had past lives so long back she saw amoeba — talk about an old soul. So of course being a double leo firesign I wanted to hear more great things about myself…meow — so I went to a second psychic. This woman has her phd in metaphysics and studies the energy fields. She wrote a book. Her name is Zorica. I mean come on.

I settled into the chair all excited to hear more about my roseness and my big love and what a free bird I am. I could feel her inside my energy field — it felt odd.

Then she started to cry. I wiggled in the chair to find a comfortable position but I couldn’t. After a while she opened her eyes and she said “It’s just so sad. So much deep deep sadness. You don’t even dream. You’ve been led to believe that dreams don’t come true for you so you just don’t even try.” Um. Oh fuck. Yes, this is true. I worked with Z for several years and I learned how to sparkle and shine and dream and expect great things. She moved away but whenever she comes we catch up and visit.

So now I have a few dreams. Somewhere deep inside I distrust them but I think I am just going to have to manifest them now. Fuck it. What do I have to lose?

Dream #1: Buy a plot of land on a hilltop in Marin county. Buy a prefabricated Geodesic dome and put it on the property. Put the kitchen in the middle and build the other spaces around it. Get a couple of rescue dogs, some chickens and 2 goats — rescues — oh and a bunny for Gio. Plant some things that like to grow and attract butterflies and bees. Partner with a responsible permaculture group and get some shoeless hippies to live in a trailer on the property and grow the food. Put a big farm table under a tree and have meals together. Plant a garden just for the deer to eat.

Dream #2: Rent the Debbie Does Desserts space in downtown San Anselmo. Call it Raven. Have divination tools and classes and make crystal crowns with a big torch in the back room. There is a tree growing on the back patio and little altars for people to leave their dreams…help others. Host writers workshops and sex magic classes. Wear really witchy clothing and keep people guessing about what my powers are exactly.

If you are wondering why you are not in here - in the dreams. You are. I am just too scared to admit that part yet - that part seems really far fetched. I want to share these dreams with you. I want to know your dreams and help you to attain them. I want you with me all the way to the end. To the part where I hold your hand and tell you to let go and visit me in my dreams - when we are very very old.

4/15 THIS IS NOT A LOVE POEM I felt a tingle. She said she would kill me. Married twice a few wonderful year to 4 year relationships, a few one night stands, never gave anyone anything.

I went to planned parenthood. Sat in the lobby waiting, watching Office with no sound calling my new insurance to see if they would cover STD panel and Vasectomy. If I felt a tingle that would mean that the herpes might beginning to show and I wanted to confirm if it was or not.

This is so not poetic. This is so not about love… This is so not a love poem.

Or maybe it is even more so. Suddenly, I feel like this is a woman worth fighting for. Being real as real as I can be. Honest as honest as I can be. Forthcoming as forthcoming as I can be. I say when I meet a person I’m about to have sex with… I’ve been tested and have been with good women I feel very confident about. But then again what is confident? I say I have a herpes on my spine shows up a few times a year. I’ve never given it to anyone. When you google herpes the information says that 80% of the population has it and that only 20% of the people who have it show signs. This means like everyone except like 6 people are walking around with an STD. And my baby is one of those. Or so she believes. How would you know if you gave anyone anything or if they already have something. Its a mind field and a mind fuck.

My X sent out notifications to everyone that I was a sex addict, a pathological lier, had STDs and didn’t tell people, had multiple affairs on her, pimped her out for sex, and fucked prostitutes. This shaming and humiliation texted, facebooked, emailed, called or spoken to my friends, lovers and x lovers, my father, my mentor, her own children wounds my inside in a way that even when I know that each one of those things is not me and her truth suits her own purpose not reality… that at some level she is saying them to say yes these are you. Fucker. Duche bag. Narcissistic Asshole. Masogonist. Manipulator. How can someone who loved me for almost 5 years use such terms? True or not true… at some level they are all me. My movie a rouge accounting, a terrorist slander, a violent violation, a hurt saboteur doing dirty work? Even with the reasoning and context how could someone trust or love all that even if 1% was true?

So I’m sitting in this room. I’ve sat here before as it is low stress and a sliding scale. I tell my new love that I made an appointment for a male birth control.

They have a clinic once a month and it’s only $600. Talked to her even more openly about the STD things and the herpes.

She says she trusts me. It is the most gracious thing. She says we can go in together and get tested for herpes. It opens my heart that someone will love me with all the names with all the uncertainties that this world brings to our plates. You meet someone on line and you just don’t know.

I opened up Facebook just now and this is the first thing I see from my friend Polina…

When you finally muster up the will to go on a tinder date and the date says, “I think i’m the next Mahatma Gandhi or Malcom X,” and when you joke that that sounds a tad bit arrogant he responds, “I’m sorry you’re so deeply insecure you need to cut my down. I hope one day you can see your own greatness.”

In truth everyone is a bit insecure about there own greatness and everyone puts on a bit of a show.

When she says she trust me. It was really me she was talking to. When she says she is working on becoming a better person. It is the first time I see a person that I love and already cherish say she want to love deeper and more openly and with more heart and love fully in ways that are real and honest. Even with the real and honest are showing sides that we are afraid to reveal.

That is the purest trust and the cleanest deepest love that includes the shadows that are not always clean and not just deep but buried. We love to open all the doors. To become our greatest potentials.

The world is a sideways motherfucker these days. We only move to our greatest potentials otherwise we might as well be hermits.

This is a love poem.

3/16

THREE IS A CROWD ] I am a new relationship. It should just be “dating” since I think it’s been about three weeks but it’s a relationship — shaping up to be something big and juicy and rich.

I can’t help but wonder however if I am the rebound girl. The rebound girl is sexy and fun and takes you away from your last destroyed relationship so you can break away — get free. I have been the rebound girl before only due to a tragedy and a shit ton of grief it lasted much longer then it should have and instead of the rebounder feeling joyful and free he is crushed. He hung around too long — he didn’t get the memo about what a rebound girls does.

I know way too much about the new guys last relationship and she knows way too much about me. I can’t help but feel her in the room with us. It casts an energy field around me and I can’t shake it. The energy is angry and sick and sad and it just lays there and pouts. It looks like one of those dark grainy pictures of a weird fish creature under the sea — his mouth gaping and grotesque — feed me!!! I feel dirty. I need a vacation. I need to lighten things up a bit. He likes to talk about it. He is processing. He needs to grieve the relationship but here I am wanting to be loved.

He is strong willed. He likes things to go a certain way. He is the man. He wants to go to the MOMA but I was just there. When I was in college at SFCC in the late 80’s I would go to the MOMA 2 times a week for a class. I would sit with my journal and sketch book for hours and hours — alone. I was always alone. It’s hard for me to want to go there on a date with a man who might want to have things a certain way. I might get moody. I might want to break off and go look at things by myself so I don’t feel pressured to nod and smile. It will make me rebellious. It will make me want to pound a bunch of drinks and create chaos. Have a tizzy.

I like things a certain way too I guess. Lighten up. I can do this. Calm down. Be good. Don’t be bratty. Stop having tizzies. Don’t break away. Don’t be alone. Smile and nod. Act normal. Kiss longer. Use more tongue. Drop 20 pounds. Do more. Be more. Find your talents.

Cue tizzy.

3/16 IN ACCORDANCE

There is a fullness in my heart that I can not ignore. There are also other things in my body that are pulsing and throbbing. I get everything. My body is my litmus. The fullness is that I am in the center of the universe and my life is in balance in accordance to this time and place.

I have never said that before it just how I feel getting up early to type. Not quite enough hours to give me rest. This has been a winter of getting not enough rest even though I was sat down on my ass by a protruding broken bone and then a surgery to fix it and all the healing and recovery. A winter of healing and recovery. Sit my ass down. Rest my body but activate my soul, sprit, emotions, heart, mind— I’m not sure what aspect I am supposed to align to this healing and recovery… but certainly it was much more than just my broken bone and broken heart.

And let this be said. I am mended but I am not recovered. But life in balance in accordance to this time and place that feels right. Whatever road map was placed in front of me, whatever road I am walking down these days. Feels proper and alive with intuition, significance, light, awareness. There is always my ancient sorrow, my constant nudge of anxiety, a hint of trepidation, shards of shame, sadness an relief from the final broken cord…. but mostly a enlightening sense of well being that allows me to say yes Yes YES! I am alive and feeling great and I welcome this new path in my journey. I welcome this new love. I welcome my new skin. I welcome and am grateful for this process.

On January 10th 2017 President Obama gave his farewell speech. The Chaos of the new regime had already started and the cut into our skins was palatable. President Obama represented yes disappointment that someone we put so much hope still continued a horrible war and other domestic and political travesties but still I felt he was one of us. I have no TV so I watched and listened with a number of devices trying to catch what he was saying but as he spoke. Watching him standing with his wife and one of his daughters I was filled with a powerful feeling that had nothing to do with politics. Whatever words he was saying, honestly, were gibberish and meaningless. I heard maybe 4 words, but I was crying filled with a kind of grief and awakening.

Phoebe died the year we elected Obama. It was 8 years that he has been in office. This is a period of time. This is a bracket of life. This is a definition of my journey to this point. I lost Phoebe April 2008 and now it is 2016. The sea has parted, the road across the mountain has a gaping chasm across it. I remember putting so much hope into that election. My grief unsurmountable and fresh and confusing believing if Obama didn’t win that I would just give up crawl under a bush stop drinking water and just wait to die. In that moment I thought of a neighbor who had lost two beautiful young sons nearly the same age of Phoebe.This moment feels like the awakening moment.

In the morning on the following day I got up early and sat at my table. Lit my beeswax candle laid out my Pachebo Cloth from the amazon, placed pieces of things I deem sacred and pulled out cards for Jetara and her two boys. I wrote her a letter. I spoke about the Obama moment and how much in disbelief she must be feeling. I reread the letter and I saw that it was also about the loss of our planet, the loss of our community, the loss of our hope. In that moment I saw the writing and the significance of being aligned in that moment. I closed my eyes and meditated and sat quietly going deeper into this feeling. The alignment, the balance in accordance to this moment. But even more significant I was feeling my daughter as if I had forgotten what that grief truly was. The kind of power and beauty that underlies the deep sadness and also the rawness that this woman now must feel and can not possibly decipher. I felt a profound epiphany in that moment the letter warm with it’s wrods, the candle burning, the soft light of the early morning beginning to awaken the day.

I opened my eyes and saw an animal in through my window of my door. We are at the same level. She did not stop. She did not turn and face me. When I opnened my eyes i saw this beautiful creature. Full winter coat shining in the morning light. Every detail perfect lit to capture the ripples of color and texture. Each whisker. The tuff of white on the tip of each ear. The tuff of white on it’s short bobbed tail. The strong feline muscles frozen still as it moved slowly without fear or trepidation across my plane. It moved past. I walked to the window and took a photo of it as it turned down the hill. I walked outside to watch it disappear into the woods and underbrush, down into my valley. I looked up and over us was a rainbow. I have lived in my sacred home ( I feel so fortunate to land here) and have not seen a rainbow, a few hints of colored prisms filtered in the clouds. This was one as if drawn by fluorescent sharpie pens. The bottom just below my beehives and the end of it on the other side of the valley. A rainbow of the exclamation point just to say… Dave do not miss this moment. You are alive and living in a world that is filled with magic and wonder and you can live within it.

There has not been a day since that moment that I have not touched that feeling. That voice saying to me over and over Dave do not miss this moment. You are alive and living in a world that is filled with magic and wonder and you can live within it.

I feel blessed.