25: all divine

October 31, 2009 at 3:19 am | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment
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Bloggy, I feel really tired tonight, and so I think I’ll bow quickly here and take your leave. What can I quickly tell you that will differentiate this day, give No. 25 some character and separate it from the pack?

Ah, this idea that I just had as I said that. You know, I’ve always noticed that the universe is very repetitive, and everything mirrors everything. (Sometimes, I’ve wondered if you can predict the future that way … by watching something else take place and see how it’s similar to our own reality.)

Anyway, I can’t give you any specific examples right now because I can’t think of any. But, I just thought of this again: What if, the way I make each one of my consecutive 69 entries each day is how God makes his children?

Every day, I pour whatever I’m feeling into the same white box, engendering an entry with a separate identity at the push of the Publish button. Some entries end up flowing better, some are more brilliant, others more logical or insightful. Some are nostalgic, and some contain humor that others can’t match. Others are pretty boring, lagging behind lethargically, seeming without a point. And a few are made of just a handful of words, barely an acknowledgment of presence.

They’re all real, like separate little people. And maybe that’s the process God uses for us too, and that’s why we’re all different — not because some were chosen to be smarter, more gifted, etc. But rather, we differ by chance — because on that specific day when God decided to create you, he happened to feel the way you are.

In that case, our lifetime is simply a reflection of one day in the life of God. And if each one of us represents one day, then with almost seven billion people in the world, we’ve captured eternity. Then as we multiply, have kids, and our kids have kids, and so on, we’re not capturing more, but rather narrowing into our Self. Because if we are a day in the life of God, then our children are hours in the life of God, their children being minutes, seconds, and so on. The more we multiply, the tinier morsels of God time our offspring represent. But it doesn’t make them any less important, because put them and us and all the people of the world together, and what do we have?

God.

That’s why I’ve often thought we’re all divine. And I’m not even religious.

24: masquerade

October 30, 2009 at 5:52 am | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment
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I’m tired, squashing my nice dress under my butt, and there’s a masquerade ball tomorrow.

A beautiful mask from New Orleans lies atop my dresser. But I don’t feel like wearing it. Today or tomorrow or the day after.

I’d like to be like Michael. Open and free and loving, as I found him once again in his movie tonight. Such love that filled that man’s heart. It’s almost not a wonder that he’s gone, because it looks as if he was ready.

I’ve always believed deep down that people die because they’re ready, whether they know it or not. Some question why bad things happen to good people and vice versa, and I think it’s because they’ve learned all there is to learn or they’ve done what they were meant to do here, and they just don’t know it. Neither do we. And that’s why life seems tragic — only because we get a glimpse of it and spend the rest of our lives wondering about the rest.

Maybe that’s why religious people — the real religious people who feel it in their hearts, not the ones who hide behind it — are so at peace. Because they’ve come to realize that whether we know it or not, we’ll come to that fork in the road one day that will be our destiny, and we’ll probably pass right by it and not even notice because we weren’t meant to notice.

The ones who’ve achieved what was meant to be will be rewarded with a sign — an invisible sign at the fork, a thick black arrow on the bright metal, pointing toward Death. And so it makes sense when you walk down the road past the fork and trip over a pebble and die. We only find it tragic because we didn’t see the sign. So we focus on the pebble instead, the seeming impossibility that one tiny pebble would end such an immensely wonderful life, and then we cling to our own lives, shouting Carpe Diem and other inspiring statements in anticipation of Death happening unexpectedly to us too and in the hope that squeezing every last drop out of life will almost make Death worth it.

In truth, I don’t think squeezing every drop out of life will make life itself worth it. If you had one last day to live, I don’t think you’d want to go see the world, see all your friends and eat all of your favorite foods. By the end, you’d be so tired, you’d be looking forward to Death galloping down the street like a charming suitor ready to release you from your misery.

But I do think that you should live life in balance. Take it easily, do what you feel when you feel it (responsibly, though). Eat your favorite foods (but not all the time), exercise (a little), hang out with friends (without wearing yourself thin) and spend some quality time in quiet contemplation (don’t be a hermit, however).

People say “listen to your heart.” But what they’re missing is that most people aren’t psychic and can’t hear what their heart says. (Besides, heart is so deeply lost in walls of tissue — and whatever else scientists have discovered separates organs from skin — that even if it whispered some magic desire to you, you’d miss it.) The way the heart works is different. It’s not outright; it never tells you a full sentence. In fact, it begins saying one thing, then finishes another. It only slings hints at you, hoping they’ll catch somewhere and you’ll grab onto the rope and follow. But many times, it misses. You grab onto the rope anyway, but if it hasn’t caught anywhere, you fall. And fall again. Or slide backward. Or worst of all, you begin to hang, slowly sliding down this time, edging closer and closer to the end. (Imagine the anxiety.)

I don’t remember my point anymore at the start of my rant on the heart. But I’m going to follow the trail my own heart just left me and say that I do believe that if you work with what you have, dole out the work evenly between the players of your own field (a little guessing with the heart, a little thinking with the mind, a little feeling on intuition), you’ll be OK. You’ll know what to do, slowly. You may not know what you’re doing as you’re doing it, but it’ll all make sense later when you look back — in this life or later.

I’m sure Michael can see us now, feel the love we have in our hearts for him. I’m sure he understands why he died at 51. Why he lived the life he did. What incredible inspiration he’s given so many of us.

I’m sure he smiled as I sat at the movie theater tonight, quietly bawling in my seat, and watched him perform one last time — watched him coming closer and closer to the inevitable, himself hinting at it so many times without realizing. “God bless you,” he must have said to me (like he often said to all who helped him put together his final This Is It tour), wanting to dry my tears.

I wished I could reach out then too and touch him. But then I thought about all those times he had beat me to it over the years, and then I wasn’t crying anymore. Touch is a two-way street, and it changes you. That’s one thing we know for sure in this lifetime, and since we have no luxury of further explanations, some certainties like this one fill in the gaps, nourish our wonder with hope, and give us courage to wait long enough until we meet again.

23: europeans

October 29, 2009 at 4:40 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I had dinner with the Europeans tonight.

It really always goes the same, like a short round-trip vacation to Europe.

First, you arrive and you feel strangely familiar yet disconnected at the same time, only because you’ve seen more, you know more, and these people are just the same old. Then, slowly you start to realize how much you enjoy the warmth of the conversation, the feeling of home weaving in and out of words. Finally, you are home, and you don’t even bother with the mechanics.

It’s only later when you’re sitting on an empty train at midnight, drawing closer to tomorrow, that you think about time and wonder what that feeling was that was there on that table tonight that seems to be missing at times from a meal at Applebee’s with the Americans.

22: tom waits

October 28, 2009 at 4:05 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
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On the warm summer nights of the South, I sought comfort in his den after classes.

It was the last summer, right before life began. To prepare, I lifted a heavy load on my shoulders then: an acoustic guitar, all the way from class to his apartment. That’s it, I had decided, I was going to learn to play. It was the only living souvenir of college that I could carry with me for the rest of my life.

I practiced a little, but mostly it was he who played. And he played it so well. We smoked cigarettes in between songs, and the sun slowly fell behind the trees outside the big windows. After a few nights, I found courage and started to sing. I felt the blood rush to my cheeks each time. Singing in front of a stranger? Me? Finally? I couldn’t believe it.

With the sun tucked in under the earth at 10, we’d put down the guitar and walk downtown. There were so many shows every night, and young people flocking the town, lit against a black backdrop. And we took in the music with dollar cans of beer in our hands, smiles on our faces. We spoke French as we sat on a bench outside a bar sometimes, always in between songs. We knew we’d never use it again, but it made us feel good practicing, putting to use a skill we’d learned in school, as if we’d beat time to the real world that was edging toward us like a pair of inevitable headlights.

An older guy passed by one night as we spoke. His friend. “Where will you go?” he asked. Where was I going. New York, for one. That’s all I knew then. Who knew what I would do then. “She sings,” confessed my friend. She’s got a Tom Waits soprano voice.

Although I blushed, I never understood what that meant. Never leave it. I knew it was a good thing. And so I left it there — along with the guitar and my fantasy of singing in front of strangers — for years, as an old college memory.

It was Tom Waits himself  who resurrected the memory, tonight. His raspy voice wrapped around my wine glass as I sat on the couch of DG’s basement apartment. I clutched a pillow and watched DG scramble for the right words. “I kinda get it,” he nodded, setting his own glass on the coffee table. A small pang shot inside me. He sat up, crossed his legs and scrunched his eyebrows in thought. “Your voice is a little deeper than other girls’ but very sweet, like a melody.”

That’s what I was missing all this time.

21: spell

October 27, 2009 at 3:18 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

When I got back home last night, I looked at myself in the mirror, and I thought that face wasn’t mine.

My hair flew wildly, naturally around my face. My almond eyes were huge, and the small gap between my teeth was more pronounced. My lips were a little stained, giving my reflection a fresh, berry hint of natural vitality.

I felt closer to the earth. As I watched myself unscrew the same tube of toothpaste I’d used in the past two months, I felt stunned by the unfamiliar gracefulness. Who was this Spanish woman staring back at me?

**

This morning, I found the courage to wear my hair down. You should feel different this week. I felt it already. The first thing I did when I got to the office was check my email. Boy’d sent a response. I really enjoyed seeing you too. Sorry about last weekend.

How sweet, the double apology. And yet, that wasn’t at the top of my mind. The spiritual session was. The feeling of awe had remained, his words rewinding and playing in my mind over and over again. Was I really psychic? Was my spirit really bigger than body? Would I really be OK with my breathing? Nooo ….

I questioned these things over dinner too. Under a dangling lamp, I spoke to Art and broke the bread. The white light glistened in our empty plates. Our energies fought with each other. After a few appetizers, a battle ensued between our spirits. With the arrival of the entree, it raged into a war, settling down only at mid-dessert. Why must we always rehash the past? I asked him impatiently. And then the healer’s words entered my head again … those who eat a lot of sugar are usually missing something sweet in their lives.

By the time we walked outside, we were fine again. Our spirits had reconciled. “The past is a foreign country,” Art said. “They do things differently there.” I was quiet. The fall chill still hung between us as we walked.

***

We said goodbye at the train. He took the downtown route, I took the uptown, and so we stood facing each other, a rail track apart, across the platform. My train came first, carrying me away, and I knelt in the hard seat against the window and waved until he was out of sight. When I turned around and sat, I raised my eyes to the Spaniard sitting across from me. He smiled sweetly, knowingly at me. I smiled back, then looked away quickly. I was restless. I wanted to walk, feel the cold enter my bones again.

When the train reached the next stop, I got out, although it wasn’t mine. I walked down the stairs, turned the familiar route, and before I knew what I was doing, I realized that I was walking to the bar again. The place where the session took place yesterday. The healer’s bar. In horror, a quick thought raced through my mind, fast like the mice that passed under the bench I sat with Boy at a few nights ago: What if he cast a spell on me last night?

A spell that says, “You will always follow me. And when you stray, you will always come find me.” I laughed nervously, feeling as if I was being videotaped at night for a movie, but I continued to walk. My feet carried me closer and closer, and I wondered if he stood behind the wine bottles, knowing, seeing me in his mind. Suddenly, I missed my friends. I missed the simple anguish of wondering if Boy likes me. I missed the stagnant certainty of the daily routine, the way it feels to hold a book, eat a banana, wait for a train or fashion a scarf over your coat. What if the spell keeps me from doing these things I love?

I was a short block away, and I could already see the bar. It looked dark inside. And then, another thought. Don’t do it. The little girl inside me talked. You can do it. Listen to her. I listened. In an instant, I turned around, and took the long road to my own house. The farther I went from that block, the more empowered I felt. And suddenly I realized: How can anyone ever control your mind if you make the conscious decision not to let them?

Magic isn’t that magical anymore when you stop believing it. In fact, stop believing in anything in life, and it will stop existing. That’s why Santa never makes it into adulthood.

20: fallopians

October 26, 2009 at 6:33 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Once you get off his table, you will never be the same again. That’s according to  one of his many clients.

Other testimonials on his site make similar claims too. A glance down the fees page tells you that his service isn’t acclaimed for nothing. An hour of healing touch will cost you about $75, three hours $250, and were you to want a whole day of his attention, that would be just about a grand.

Considering a day to be eight hours, I just spent seven and a half with him … for free.

The more he said during this time, the more questions arose in my mind. He quoted tons of sources, and every quote he said, I had to question. It was good, it was frustrating, and he said I’m ready. I feel ready, I mean, I’ve been thinking about this stuff for two years now.

He said I’m impatient, and that he forsees me achiving greatness only if I manage my impatience. He held my hands and closed his eyes. Then he said, “Your destiny is based around food.” He explained that he sees a hungry, underfed woman. On his table, he met the little woman inside me. Apparently, she’s very nice yet very hungry, undernourished. He evaluated my diet, told me what to eat and to limit my sugar, because I have five years. If I don’t watch it, in five years I’ll have problems with my fallopian tubes, and that’s because of my appendicitis surgery from youth. (Strangely enough, my gyno said the same thing last year.)

He says he sees a boy and a girl. “In my 30s?” I asked. Sooner. Imagine that.

Anyway, he also said that my spirit is so big, my body’s is in it instead of the other way around.

I don’t know what I believe and what I don’t, but the over-an-hour session on that table left me relaxed, almost elastic enough to dance for hours.

Now I’m back home, ready to sleep. He said I should notice a change this week. Let’s see if that’s true.

19: wonder

October 25, 2009 at 9:14 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
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A few years ago, as summer slipped into the folds of fall, I felt a transition. Time stood still, and I walked around with my mind completely quiet, taking in everything as if I’d laid my eyes on it for the first time. For the first time, I wasn’t lost in the details of my life … I was lost in the present. Just the present as it was happening around me. All of it. When you are really happy, blissful, time disappears, space disappears. One is transported to another world.

When I read his sentences, something very deep rises within me — a wail, as if in mourning, remembering a quiet, forgotten bliss. There is a recognition here, as if something has been erased from my memory, and the words sting the spot. There is something in you that has a great receptivity for truth, almost a longing for it.

Yesterday, he told me about love and relationships. The importance of love being a verb, not a noun — relating instead of being in a relationship. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. Getting deeper into the other, knowing his feelings, his thoughts, his deeper stirrings, you will be knowing your own deeper stirrings too. Lovers become mirrors to each other, and then love becomes a meditation.

The day before, he defined life and freedom. Life goes on moving with a thousand and one uncertainties. That’s its freedom. Don’t call it insecurity. He said that insecurity is an intrinsic part of life, and that’s a good thing since it makes life a freedom and a continuous surprise. Don’t call it uncertainty, he said. Call it wonder.

I guess life is still a wonder now. On Monday, I was tired and almost stayed home. But at the last minute, I thought about the plan I had set out for myself the day before: Put on a warm coat and go to the political debate. “Oh, big deal,” my mind complained. “You won’t miss much if you stay in this cozy bed, I promise!” So I slipped out of bed to find out if mind was lying.

Turns out I really would have missed a great debate. Would have missed meeting some of my neighbors, a few of the candidates and signing on to help an inspiring woman’s campaign before election day.

But most important, had I stayed under the blankets, I wouldn’t have had the chance to discover that the man behind the bar is actually a spiritual healer. You are very sensitive. You get hurt very easily. You eat a lot of sugar. You have ambition, but you don’t follow through with a lot of things. It was already 2 a.m. I felt the tears rise. I looked down in my purse and fumbled to find a few more singles. (It’s a new bar, and it’s cash only.) “Tell you what … add our bar’s Facebook group to your page, and we call it a deal,” he said.

Instead, I got home and added him as a friend. And now I pry his mind almost daily.

That is the joy of love: the exploration of consciousness.

Who would have thought.

18: faith

October 24, 2009 at 6:54 am | In Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The first thing that caught my attention was her name.

She was just as old as I was, a year younger in school (since I had started school at an early age). Like me, she was a good student, pretty enough, cared about her future. And she grew up in the South too.

Those are the reasons why she stayed with me for months, and why recently her case held my attention for days again.

As I finished my second year of college in 2005, she was gearing up for her high school graduation. And as I started my first summer job — a school library assistant — she was already on her post-graduation trip. Aruba. That’s where she vanished. In the morning of May 30, I stared at her picture, flickering behind the old computer screen in the musty library basement.

I was sure she’d be found. Yet days passed, weeks. Michael Jackson’s trials ended, but no sign of Natalee. He’s not guilty! Come back!

I had a boyfriend then. My first real love, and things were starting to waver. Our relationship was suffering an internal earthquake, and the cracks began to show. Slowly, like the investigative progress in Aruba that summer. I turned off the TV as the heat dragged on in the months of June and July, and when he came to visit, we played poker together, drank grape soda and vodka, and smoked cigarettes. I baked him a cake. I wrapped presents for his birthday. And at nights, we lay naked under a blanket on the living room floor.

In the mornings, I checked for signs of Natalee. These things happen all the time. She’ll turn up.

She didn’t. Katrina happened at the end of August, hundreds lost their lives, and we still had no clue what happened to the little girl in Aruba.

As the new school year rolled in with September, I turned my attention to schoolwork. It was almost as if I was preparing myself for the worst, which came at the end of the month: I found out he cheated. With my best friend.

My world ended there. And I forgot all about Natalee.

—

A few days ago, I was browsing the Internet for story ideas at work, when I came across her name again. I felt a pang of remorse. Lifetime made a movie on her, and her mom wrote a book. Amazing. I piddled around until lunch, and when noon hit, I was out the door. I walked around the block, made a library card, found the book and checked it out and began to read.

It took me two days. A powerful story — powerful in that it’s not a story, but reality. A girl like me puts her guard down for two seconds, and it’s over forever. Two seconds was all it took. It didn’t matter how careful, how responsible she’d been in the rest of her days. Two seconds.

They believe she was drugged, raped and either murdered or trafficked into a foreign country. Terrible. Why would I want to read a story like this? Because I believe that the people who have been through the worse, the biggest hardships, can teach us the biggest lessons. And Beth, Natalee’s mom, did. It was her faith and faith in God that helped her pull through that horrible summer. And although, she never got her daughter back, it was her faith too that helped her heal. I am very surprised at how a person can exhibit such courage, strength and persistence through something as terrible as this. But thank God she did, and now she teaches young people around the nation how to protect themselves.

A new role model. May Natalee be in peace, whether she’s in this world or the next one.

17: jam2

October 22, 2009 at 4:58 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

I spent the past two hours on my roomie’s bed, listening to her guide me through her photo albums.

She’s a flight attendant, so it was interesting to get a glimpse of her seeing the whole world, but at some point, I thought about my world and wondered why I don’t know how to get out of situations when I need to.

So here I am, finally having extracted myself from her room, left with only 6 hours of possible sleep time ahead. By the time I actually go to bed, there will only be five and a half. Tomorrow, work is going to suck.

Big time.

16: jam

October 21, 2009 at 2:10 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
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Dear bloggy readers,

Today, I don’t know what to talk to you about. I guess there’s a lot on my mind, and when that happens, it’s like a traffic jam: You’re stuck right in the center, and there’s no way out.

So I don’t know where to start, what to pick and choose, and I’m so tired. I’m already an hour late for my 9 p.m. bedtime. So let me take your leave early tonight, sleep tight, then catch up with you tomorrow.

What do you have to look forward to, you ask? Well, let’s see. I could tell you about my thoughts on the train, the rain in London. The baker in my neighborhood. The candidates running for city council. Last night’s debate. A conversation with a spiritual healer. A wine bar. An apology.

I’m not so sure if any of that will keep you intrigued, and so I will whip up something quick and sweet for you: I’ll paste a part of a teeny facebook chat convo I just had.

This is a guy I met last week. That night, he saw a girl he said looked just like me. I was intrigued, and I wanted to find her. We tried for an hour, and fiinally, he pointed her out, sitting at a table lost in conversation with a friend. I was flattered — the girl was pretty with minimal makeup, and she looked kind, warm and genuine. From then on, we dubbed her my twin.

John: Lol. I’m already failing at your advice.
Me: u r? already? what did u do? can we stop the damage?
John: Going to get a beer in a few minutes

Me: with my twin?
John: I wish

Me: Hands off my twin. she’s a nun.
John:  :( :(
John: But she looks just like some sweet girl I know
*silence*

Me:   :)
Me: have u located a third long-lost twin? ;)

And there you have it, audience. So cute when you find out someone likes you. The most priceless feeling in the world, regardless of whether you like them or not. Because then you know that someone out there in the jungle of the world appreciates your existence, is drawn to your essence.

It’s flattering to the human spirit.

And I thank you for reading.

love,
me

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