rice cakes

“Somewhere between crackers and chips, there is a field.  I’ll meet you there, with rice cakes,” I told Ming.  We were in a Safeway grocery store on the Oregon coast, looking for snacks.

We’d just found the rice cakes, the dividing line between crackers and chips in a snack isle.  Snacks are big bucks, I notice.  I like rice cakes as a substrate since I don’t eat bread.

My sentence was making fun of a Rumi quote that’s been used against me.  That’s the reference.  Even if you don’t share trauma over beautiful poetry being used against you, maybe you can feel the energy–warm, burning–behind my of my use of humor to transform pain.

close

Yes, energy can be mysterious.  I remember long ago when I was a young person, chatting with elsewhere friends online.  Sometimes I would feel so close to this person who was so far away–closer than anything.  Deep inner life connection.  I’m outlier skilled at long distance intimacy.

My best friend and I used to call it our psychic channel.  That was before online chatting–we were writing letters on paper.  Some part of us was connected all the time.  I think we still have it–it’s been 32 years.

Not like the English channel.  But something under water, under ground, maybe.  That true love is so valuable.  I look at my life and how much love I’ve enjoyed.  It’s enough to cry about, how fortunate I’ve been.

sacred

Yesterday a friend invited me to their room, and I sat on their bed, for a conversation.  There was no chair.

What an honor, for anyone to invite me to this sacred place where they dream, on purple sheets.  Yet in a way, they were a million miles away.  How strange, to be very near and losing someone I wanted to love.

And how strange, to be very far from my bestie and other dear ones elsewhere, but snug in their heart.  Love really is like Emma Goldman said.  Nothing can tear it from the soil, once it’s taken root.  And nothing can make it form, in a heart that has no curious interest.

Win some, lose some.  Then I went to my own bed and talked with Ming.  The sun came out, and I decided to go outside.  Ming helped me transport my things.  I danced in the sun until I was warm.  Then the sun was behind a cloud, and I kept dancing with my previous warmth.

holy

Now a housemate is cooking downstairs, and I smell the onions clearly. I’m listening to holy music that comforts me.

Love to you, dear reader, and everything that comforts you.  Rice cakes, holy music, purple, a bed, the smell of citrus and vanilla mixed together, hope, a rainbow wristband given by a Lover so long lost, but still as real as anything.