dangerous compassions

I call you / from the comet's cradle

Thursday, December 13, 2018

old mail, believing things, plentiful lizards

I was cleaning out a bag and found some old mail never replied to. Some of it had never even been opened. Oh, what a bad penpal I am. Well, it varies.

There was a letter from a political prisoner from February that I never replied to. I think he might be out, though. I'm trying to figure it out.

I just want to stay home and email people and sort things and relax. But I get the feeling life is slipping away from me. As if life were happening elsewhere.

Ming comes and goes, while I stay home. Last night I got lonely as he went to a chorus thing with community and I was on my own for the second evening in a row.

I write in my journal, add to a list, marvel as my desk grows more unacceptably covered in papers. A penpal from Australia sent me a tiny packet of vegemite, herbal tea, floral washi tape wrapped around a card, a double-sided paper cat, a spiral pink paperclip, a letter. That was last year. Oops. And it's almost next year.

Was talking to Ming then another friend about belief. I've heard Eastern philosophers say not to believe anything. But it seems like it happens kind of automatically. Like you're walking down the street and you believe in the sidewalk? Or you could just be living in the moment, I guess, and feel the wind and the hear the traffic and it's an experience, without concepts.

I always used to say friendships are made of ideas, and we're constantly trying to figure out who we're talking to, imagining the other person, correctly or incorrectly. Varying degrees of incorrectly. Long distance friendships, I can be good at them, though there's nothing like a hug.

I remember when my bestie had her play produced. I traveled to watch it in Santa Barbara. Someone said to me it was nice I could reconnect with my friend. But it wasn't reconnecting--she and I have never been disconnected. Living far apart means nothing. She's my best friend for a reason.

If I go to Red Robin with Ming so he can have a free shake, then am I participating in life? I'm definitely participating in commerce. It's free with purchase! 

I was thinking more like Red Rock, to feel nature, but I'm so lazy. Would rather just sit on a boulder for a while than hike. Like a lizard soaking up sun.

I found this horney toad necklace I bought myself a long time ago, I think in a gift shop in Arizona. It was still on its paper tag and I saw it had cost $9.99. I was delighted to see it again, lost among crinkled stationery and pens and old mail. I feel close to horney toads, that they are survivors like me, and I loved them when I was a little girl. My dad would catch them. They were living under the porch in Tanglewood.

The paper tag says PLENTIFUL, which made me laugh. They are not a delicate endangered species or threatened. Like Ming's trilobites, plentiful, but the trilobites did all die. Creatures comes and go.

Well, I said I'd take a shower and go out. On the calendar this afternoon is marked "fun" so I better find some.

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