Waiting

This is my friend Suchanderina's message to her teenage daughter:
There will be boys who like you. There will be many boys who like you. They will not all be able to give you what you need. You will be miserable if you let a boy into your life if he can't give you what you need. You don't want to feel miserable waiting and wondering if he will contact you; and feel miserable if he disappears for a week and a half and then contacts you and then disappears for another week and a half; and tells you he'll see you when he's finished with being with his friends or after this or that important thing, and then maybe, or maybe not, follow up after that. You need and should have more than that, because that lack of care will make you feel miserable. You need someone who makes you his priority, who will be there for you, who will care for you and about you, who will want to contact you as much as you need, who will wait for you and be respectful of your time and listen to you and do what you want to do, when you want to do it. The only way to be sure that you have found that person is to wait until you get to know him before you give yourself to him in a most vulnerable way. Once you give it, it's too late to not have feelings for that person. It'll be a struggle to let those feelings go, despite the lack of care you feel. You can only let someone else into your life to give you that after you let those feelings go, so let them go so you can make room in your mind and your heart for one who can make you his priority. You have to wait for that moment, until you're sure that person has the capacity to care for you and give you the time and attention you need, before you give in, because if you don't, and he can't give you all that, you will be miserable, hurt, lost, confused.

Daniel and Me

Greenness has crept into everything, and the scenery on sunny days is that perfectly spectacular combination of deep blue sky and happy healthy green. I watched The Devil and Daniel Johnston last night, and I kept thinking about the patterns of shadowy stars, flowers, snowflakes and dusty spots that appeared all over everyone in what I perceived to be his imagination. He has a high, gentle voice in the songs he sings, and a gentleness and a wisdom in there that occasionally borders on the genius, the outrageous and the unstable. Some of his drawings shown in the movie look like mine. I saw one of an eye with no eyelid, flying with wings and that I had drawn about 14 years ago, a drawing of which I had presumed when I drew it to be original in as original of a form that is plausible. I wondered how else Daniel and I thought alike.

Sunday

Happiness replaced negativity so much faster than I predicted, and nothing really happened to make me feel better except the advent of the return of equilibrium. And that makes me happy. Perhaps committing it to words helped my cause.

Moving

My brain is fighting a brave and fierce battle with a spill of negativity in its many pathways, like a sickness that hovers and saturates the landscape of my well being. I wait in enthusiastic anticipation until it heals and passes. I know it will heal and pass, and I want it to happen quickly, but it doesn't work that way. I've learned this lesson so many times and it doesn't make it that much less painful, knowing that it's just a matter of time.

Slow

Sunday I was an audience member in the play "The Wizard of Oz," and I cannot think of a better way I could have spent my afternoon. Aside from the amazing performances, energetic and talented dancers dancing, scarecrow falling with grace and perfection, and magical characters filling the theatre with sentimentality and sweetness, I finally took the story's message into my brain: everyone only and already has exactly what they need inside of themselves, and as soon as they know it they will find it. All that singing, dancing and fantastical characters and scenery had consistently distracted me from the obvious. I had understood it and heard the message the first time I read the book, with the lion and the scarecrow and the tin man, but this time, I didn't realize it was true for Dorothy as well. When I knew that, it all suddenly clicked and somehow that realization offered layers of new dimensions of understandings for me -- how we make all our choices and how only we can hold ourselves back.