Two Orange Chairs, One Dark Sky, Three Parts

10 June 2005 - 00:44

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>

Part One
Part Two

I wish I knew a direct path to that state I found six years ago, that expansiveness and ability to accept what was in front of me. Instead, it took me three years to deal with all the emotions that break up stirred in me. And in that situation it was patently obvious that I was the one who needed to bend, change, and broaden myself.

Somehow I feel it is true that we all are as far apart as distant stars and that every choice must be recognized and embraced, even if it is so difficult we must focus on the distance, instead of the beams of light we send each other. On some level I feel that the heat from all the stars is the same blazing fury, the same white hot love, the same miasmic intensity, and it binds us so tightly to each other that there need never be an external expression.

And yet�

I don�t always know how to live this on a practical level.

***
In the past year, Becky and I have both learned that throwing money at a problem doesn�t always solve it, contrary to what I believed here . It�s so strange to be able to provide for someone, be so proud and grateful you can offer her the resources she needs to be comfortable, and have her fret all the more because she�s not the one making that money.

One night they pounced on me, saying, �Don�t you think it�s a little odd that the people you surround yourself with have so many vices, so many problems? Don�t you think there might be something in YOU that attracts it?�

It seems harsh, but what they were saying was, look at yourself. And when I look at myself, this is what I see: I have become a triage nurse treating the most dangerous wounds first; I have made my friends' struggles larger than my own and focused more on them than on my own, ignoring the fact that my primary responsibility is to myself. Unfortunately, the wounds my friends manifest are quite compelling -- dope habits, life threatening illness, missing family members.

***
I know sometimes it takes years to reach a place emotionally that you can visualize with your intellect.

I also know that until I look at myself for a long time I�m not going to be able to know where black turns to gray for me. For me. For me. Everyone else is drawing their lines, and I�m trying to understand what shapes their figures make. It�s all a distraction. It�s time to ignore the constellations, ignore even the light coming from any star but my own.

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>