The Starless Sea

 I hurt myself today

To see if I still feel

I focus on the pain

The only thing that's real

The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting

Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt.

So, this is my new tattoo. I actually enjoy the feeling of being tattooed. I've wanted this one for a year, but started making actual plans for it in October. Spoke to an artist, made an appointment, etc. If you haven't read the book The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, you should. I read it the week it came out in November 2019. Then I read it again. It's a story about stories, in the loosest terms. It hits a number of my important life themes. I went out and bought a hardback copy to share with James right after I read it, and he isn't a huge reader. The imagery is stunning.

If you know me, you know that I have a thing about choices, doorways, and crossroads. Each one is always a choice, choice is sacred, the only thing we can control is our own choices. My love and consideration of every door has led to a love of keys, and doorknobs. This book speaks to me on a level I cannot properly express. I looked at art and artists intensely to find one local to me that could do what I wanted. I spoke to a couple who told me what I wanted wasn't what I wanted. After many emails, phone calls, and a consultation, I decided on Emily Page at Rat-A-Tat-Tat's in downtown Cary. Her art is amazing, and can be so delicate. Sebastian, who handles the emails and phone provides amazing customer service, and comes across as patient, and non judgemental of the crazy. The shop is cute and clean and unintimidating. They are taking every possible safety precaution.I love tattoos, and tattoo shops, but some are intentionally dickish and can make people feel less than for what they want. 

The bee symbolizes community, industry, personal power, spring and summer and flowers, the goddess and fertility, sweetness and honey, you can follow a bee to a new destination. Bees are always a positive symbol. Bees are omens of good luck and prosperity.

The key is an opener of locks. It can be freedom, or the safekeeping of something sacred or precious. It's a moment of pause, to contemplate a door. They are symbols of gateways and choice, mystery, knowledge, initiation, growth via unlocking. Gatekeeper deities keep sets of keys as symbols. Different keys do different things. The correct corresponding key is required for each lock. If you have the key, you can access a new path or room. A key is access.

The sword is a symbol of might and strength. Power and authority. It can be seen as a phallic symbol, with it's corresponding sheath being the yonic. In alchemy, they are the symbol of purification.

What do they mean in The Starless Sea? There are three paths. The acolyte. The guardian. The keeper. They all involve you reading the book.There are owls and muffins and cocktails and door knobs and deception and books and pirates and labyrinths and masks and libraries and video games and tea and snow and ice and a dollhouse. A lot of people really dislike the book, I find the bad reviews as illuminating as the good ones.  I loved her first novel, and an NPR interview led me to getting this one the day it came out. I can't really explain what the book means to me, how it affected me.

It's a story of time and fate and struggle and beauty and loss. I was in a completely different place when I decided I wanted a personalized version of this. There is a sentence that makes me ugly cry, every time that I read it. Which has been a few now. The struggle seems unbearable. The losses and gains unimaginable but the bit that gets me, why this is here, on me, so that I can see it? This is by most tattoo standards upside down. It is for me and me alone, even if it is my most visible tattoo now.  It is a reminder. For me. That line? it's after the spoiler alert. It's your choice to read from there.

On a relationship note, I suppose there is none. It's been a week since I've seen his face. A week since I've had the lingering scent of his skin on mine from a hug. I miss memes and videos that he thought I'd like, or that he wanted to share to make me smile. I miss knowing he was thinking of me. Maybe he doesn't.  It's been 4 days since I sent a good morning. Which has always meant i love you and I choose you. I really want to run to him, to share this with him. To get that giant hug, be wrapped in him. I did send him a message on Sunday, with a blog link, and saying that this is in his hands now. Rebuild, or whatever may come. I've fought with every fiber of my being for months. I don't know what happens now. I release any semblance of control. Which doesn't mean anything has changed about how I feel. It hasn't. He's not a bad man. He's a very good man. He handled a situation badly. So have I. I love all of him. Even mistakes. Not that breaking up with me was a mistake for him, I believe he stands behind it. I wish I knew what he really thought. I may never. Or, nothing has changed from the original, devastating, statements that he made. I deluded myself into thinking he was considering my words. I asked for a choice, he had no intention of restating. I don't know.

Miss is a highly insufficient word.

I will still say good morning. Every morning. Which means more. I'll just say it aloud.

SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER

This book could be a tragedy so easily. The line that makes me cry?

"He never expected a happy ending."

When I first read it, I was in a completely different place, I thought , just maybe, I'd found that unexpected happy ending in the man that took my breath away. Things are different now. I have no clue what the future holds. My present isn't very happy. I'm still shattered and damaged and so fucking confused how exactly this is where I am. I desperately wanted that happy ending that I thought I had found the beginning of. I needed it. You know what else the book reminds me of?

To keep seeking.

So I will try. I will look at this tattoo, and remember that.

Torchwood Day 2019

This day, each year, is an important day for me. Not Father's Day, though I do usually do something for my Mom, since she is a single parent, and always has been, but June 16. I call June 16 my Torchwood day, or at least I have since 2006 or so. If you haven't watched Torchwood, you should probably go do that, instead of reading this. Or not. The intro to Torchwood says the 21st century is when everything changes. Many life changing things have happened to me on, or very near, June 16, so I use it as a day, each year, to reflect on things in my life, and think about changes that need to be made. On June 16, historically, I have lost a friend, had a friend buried, lost another friend (in a different year.) I finally knew that I had to end a relationship, though it took me a few months of planning to leave. I have seen The Cure, not knowing it was the last night of an almost three year relationship, and that I would be quite single in the morning. Nine years ago, I was in an ill advised relationship, and Concrete Blonde was touring, but not coming here, so I decided to take myself on a trip for a few days. I could choose DC or Atlanta. I chose Atlanta. On June 16, 2010, I decided that I was going to move to Atlanta. I also met the man I thought would be my forever human. To this day, he'll tell you that because I decided to move there the day that I met him there, that I moved to be close to him. I decided to move while talking to Sydney on the phone, standing in front of my hotel, waiting for a cab to take me to The Vortex to meet a friend for dinner. The man who would end up shattering me more of me than I ever thought possible was meeting the same friend. Which is how I ended up in the foyer of The Vortex with some strange man staring into my face and forgetting to let go of my hand after being introduced to me, for an oddly long time. It was an amazing show. It was a really great trip, the first time I had just gone somewhere by myself. I saw the whale sharks for the first time. I was hooked. This is the correct timeline, no matter what he'll try to tell you. There were other reasons to move there.

 There are other things that have happened on Torchwood day. It just seems to be a day of change, for me. Not always negative.

If I had gone to DC, what would have been different? Would I have decided to move there? Would I have come back, and just, stayed? I know so many truly amazing people from my time in Atlanta. So many people I can't imagine my life without, now. I got more involved in conventions, though I had been to both of the ones I return to Atlanta for before. Multiple times, even. But I have the convention family that I have now, because of that decision.

So, today I ponder.

Gramma is still dead, and will remain so. I've been feeling lately like I am nothing but a burden. To everyone. So, I've been hiding. It's not uncommon for me to not leave the house, or put on pants, or talk to another person for two or three consecutive days.

To be honest, I am making positive changes. I start working tomorrow, at a job I will actually get paid for. I'm a little terrified, but it will be fine.  I'll be putting on pants and interacting with people, anyway.

That shattered heart and life are healing in ways I also never thought possible. I'm going to be okay.
It turns out, I can fathom, imagine, and manifest whole worlds without the pain he left behind.

It's a full moon. I love the moon. While I have many witchy ways, I follow astrology only haphazardly. It's just not my thing. I follow the phases of the moon, but not really horoscopes. I do know that this full moon is in Sagittarius, and that it signifies (for those who follow) celebration, philosophizing, owning your passions, seeking a sense of purpose, standing up for justice, and wild adventure. Excellent. I do these things most of the time. So, I will carry on. Well, I'm lacking in adventure, but there is adventure potential. There is someone that I spend time with that feels like adventure to me, even when still, even sitting on my couch. They feel like the joy of looking at the full moon, like a strong breeze under the stars, like sitting on a bank with my feet in a swift, cold mountain stream. Which are all on my list of very favorite things. It being Torchwood day, I feel I should be brave enough to pose a few questions that I wonder about. To say things that I stumble over not saying. But I most likely will not. It's Schrodinger's fear, I am both afarid and completely unafraid of the answers, while the questions are safely in the box. When the box is opened, though... perhaps there's another, smaller box inside.

Go look at the moon tonight. Here, it will rise at 7:59 pm and set at 5:25 am. I do love astronomy. It will be at it's fullest at 1:30 am. I think. The moon is beautiful, no matter what you believe.

I leave you with this, a video from the actual Concrete Blonde show on June 16, 2010. Actually from very close to where I was standing the whole night, though I did not take it. I was to busy crying at this point, no matter that I'd seen it live before, and I've seen it since.