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.

Storm Witch (A Fiction, kind of)

 She'd always been at home in storms. The wind and rain made her feel clean and new. Even when things twisted and broke, and wet leaves stuck in places they don't normally go. The sea is like a storm, crashing, moving, surging, changing. The beach you walked on once does not exist after the next tide, the grains of sand having been changed, down the way, out to sea. Shells and glass grinding down, shiny in the moon light. A night time storm by the sea...

She walked along the edge, small waves slapping at her feet, no gentle lapping here. A pull into deeper waves. The wind tangling her hair, salt on her skin, electricity in the air. And she remembered....

An early summer night, an uncharacteristic wind, standing outside with the very air tearing at her. Leaning into him, a port she never thought she'd find. Gentle kisses in a hard wind. A shelter. Warmth. Strength. The night she knew that this was magic, that he was magic. Every one has poetry inside of them. Some have words, some have music, some can draw poetry with ink and paint and graphite. His poetry was stillness. Languidity like a summer evening sunset. He was fireflies and freshly cut grass. The warm smell of stone after a rain shower, stone strewn with jasmine petals and street light reflections. Starry evening swirls in the heavens. He was calmness and heat at the same time.  The breath before the storm. Distant thunder. Lightning flashing on the horizon. She wanted that moment back. To tell him he was magic. To feel that warmth. She was the storm, wishing for her port.

Her feet left momentary prints in the sand. Temporary, barely a dent left seconds after the flesh was gone. The water slightly warmer than the air. She imagined the magic she had lost, not her own, but it made her feel stronger. His lighthouse flash no longer on the horizon. The tears wouldn't stop. Great, indelicate sobs. Undainty. Unseemly. She hadn't expected this much pain. She had her own magic. A thousand times a day she thought of his smile, his eyes, his hands. The feeling of being sheltered in his warmth. She almost reached out. Sharing a message to picture his smile. But his turning away was absolute, it seems. No more smiles in her direction.

Lost without a map, only the edge of the sea and land as a marker, and even that moving as she watched, each wave pulling slightly further away, the tide yearning for the moon. Every time she thought it might be okay, the sobs ripped from her again and again and again. She screamed into the wind until blood flecked her lips. She looked at the moon and wished it closer. The storm within and the storm without raged.

Alone, she clutched in her hand a list of names, those gone to the moon before her. Those whose loss still haunted her. Those who she missed, like she missed the wind. Those she missed like she missed her port. Those she still hadn't learned to live without. She said their names, one by one, like a prayer. Please. Please help me. She faced the silence. The raging white noise silence of the storm.

The ocean called. The moon called. The wind called. The people, they were silent.

Wind, rain, salt, the pull of waves at her hem. Tear stained. 

{I know it's melodramatic. None of the words are right. I really do feel like everyone is overtired of me and I've overstayed my welcome. I can't reach out. I wish I could. Say hello, I will answer. Tell me something you like about me, maybe. A memory that makes you smile. Yes, I'm getting professional help, but I could still use a friend or two. It's not getting easier. Please tell me there's something worthwhile about me. This isn't anyone's fault but mine. Mine alone. This is a hard enough ask.}

Mint Chocolate Chip?

 I'm not serial killer obsessed, but I do know a lot about Charles Manson, oddly. Who was never convicted of killing anyone. I don't know what his favorite ice cream was, though.

This could be long.

I lost something this week. A relationship. I am so unhappy about it. I love him so much.

In September, I fell. I'm clumsy. I did some damage to my face, I lost my bottom front teeth. There's not a gap, I have an appliance. I am extremely insecure about how I speak, now. I avoid it even more than usual. This process has been far more psychologically devastating than I can properly explain. It hurts. It's uncomfortable. I hate everything about it. If I'm not wearing it, there is a huge space. I can't talk like that, either.  My anxiety has been through the roof. I understand that I haven't handled it well.

Neopolitan, maybe? A classic choice for a man who grew up poor. 

I don't want this relationship to end. Let me tell you about him. He is warm where I am cold. He is a sunflower in a filed of daisies. I love his laugh. I love how his eyes crinkle when he smiles. I love how his mind works, he is methodical and considered. I truly love watching his face when he figures through something. He makes me feel safe, which I never really have before. He is like the sun, steady and hot, where I am mercurial and sometimes hidden in the dark, like the moon. He has all of the physical traits that I have said aren't really my thing, yet he is to me radiant and glorious. I have never felt so blissfully lost, physically, in another person. Was it love at first sight? Not by an extremely long shot. He was the partner to a friend for a long time. I don't think that way, poly past or not. I lost her, too, during this process. No conversation or anything. She just, walked away. I never meant to hurt her. 

He was a friend. He made me the best cookies I've ever had for my birthday once, a few years ago. He is everything. Of course I know he's not perfect. But he is amazing. It's not rose colored glasses. He is the sun.

Maybe plain vanilla? Or chocolate. I don't think there was cookies and cream when Charles Manson grew up. Maybe homemade strawberry, or peach.

I was always insecure about how glorious he is, and how... me I am.

Fudge ripple? Pistachio? I really liked Spumoni as a kid. There's pistachio ice cream in that, right?

Let me tell you how I failed. SO many things I did not say. He can be seen as arrogant, but he doesn't take compliments well. I hate that the last time we were together went like it did, but I think he had already made up his mind. I wish I had asked to take walks with him. Be outside. Held hands in the woods. I wish I had pushed "doing things" a bit more. We never watched a movie together. There isn't a single picture of us. There is no trace on social media. I get the impression he didn't really tell anyone about us, I think we have a bunch of mutual friends who don't realize we were together. Maybe I wish I had said more. Maybe I wanted to be something to be proud of. I don't know. I wish I had talked more, about us. He is quieter than me, and that is saying something. I love his stillness. I could have made more plans, but I fell into an unsatisfying routine. I wish I had instigated adventure. 

Maybe it was sherbet. 

I want to fight for this, but I don't know how. I know he thought it through, and decided I fell more to the cost side than benefit. I want to scream how much I love him, and how I know I fucked up. But how can you argue with someone you know has thought it through? He isn't impulsive or irrational. I can't change how he feels now. I wish I knew how he did, before.  I want to fight, but I don't know how. How do i fight for this? 

I think peanut butter and chocolate is my favorite, specifically Baskin Robins. I don't know if Mr. Manson ever tried it. The peanut butter swirl is extra salty. Oddly, I don't like salted caramel and chocolate.

For 524 days, I sent him a good morning message, if I didn't say it in person. I wake up, and smile, and reach for the phone to send him good morning. I still reach for the phone before it comes back. He is the reason I smile in the morning. He's still out there. Now I get tears, because I want to touch him.

Peppermint ice cream? Did Mr. Manson have holiday spirit?

I ended up in the emergency room a couple of weeks ago. I thought I was having another heart attack. I find it strangely comforting that they test for heart attack by blood, now. Your heart sheds dying cells that can be measured. I also now know, by numbers, how close I came to death the first heart attack. The ER doctor gave me my medecine for a month. I feel so much better. I just have to figure out, in two weeks, how to gwt new prescriptions, without insurance. I can't go back to always feeling like I do without it, being afraid to go to sleep because I'm sure I won't wake up, because of the chest pain. I have had chest pain since my heart attack in February 2018. Dressler's syndrome, apparently. The heart medecine takes that away, which takes away a lot of my constant anxiety. I am demonstrably, medically, better.

Butter pecan? Praline?

This song has been in my head since Tuesday.

How do I fight for this? Please?

I bet it was vanilla.

All the world just stopped now
So you say you don't want to stay together anymore
Let me take a deep breath babe
If you need me, me and Neil'll be hangin' out with the dream king

Neil says hi by the way
I don't believe you're leaving cause me and Charles Manson like the same ice cream
I think it's that girl and I think there're pieces of me you've never seen
Maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen well

All the world is
All I am
The black of the blackest ocean
And that tear in your hand
All the world is danglin', danglin', danglin' for me darlin'
You don't know the power that you have
With that tear in your hand
That tear in your hand

Maybe I ain't used to maybes
Smashing in a cold room cutting my hands up
Every time I touch you
Maybe maybe it's time to wave goodbye now
Time to wave goodbye now

Caught a ride with the moon
I know I know you well well better than I used to
Haze all clouded up my mind
In the daze of the why it could've never been
So you say and I say you know you're full of wish
And your baby ,baby, baby ,babies
I tell you there are pieces of me you've never seen
Maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen well

All the world is
All I am
The black of the blackest ocean
And that tear in your hand
All the world is danglin', danglin', danglin' for me darlin'
You don't know the power that you have
With that tear in your hand
That tear in your hand

With that tear in your hand

Hug Your Friends, Or, A Love Letter to a Man I've Never Been in Love WIth

So, here we are. One year ago, I was counting down to going to Atlanta to see Gary Numan. I was so excited. Best laid plans, yeah?
It was the beginning of the worst year of my life, not even being melodramatic. I literally almost died this year. Like, honestly almost died. By the anniversary of that, I don’t think I’ll even be able to see the scar that saved my life, it’s so wee. There have been good moments, sure. I’ve even made new friends and such. But December 10, 2017 started a vortex of suck. I lost what I honestly thought was my forever human in a disastrous way. It left me far more broken than I can describe. It left me completely alone. It’s not that I believe that I’m not worthy of love, I know that I am. I’m just not sure that I can do it again. I am a whole, complete, person on my own, I don’t need anything or anyone to “complete me.” I find the thought ludicrous. Several people have told me that they don’t know what happened, really. That’s true. I’m not a victim. I made wrong choices. I fully trusted someone with my heart. Turns out, that was a bad plan. This is what I will say, as plenty of you are friends with him, this isn’t a secret. He has an addiction to pain. As a mate, I don’t scream and yell. I don’t try to wound another for my own leverage. He found someone better suited to his needs. He hurt everyone involved tremendously in the process. As he says a lot, just like Bill Belichek says, it is what it is. I don’t hate her. I don’t hate him. I am tired of being nice. How should you be expected to treat your junkie ex’s dealer? I love him. I always will. I will never be with him, no matter what. I have no intention of being with anyone in that way, ever again. I’m broken, heart and soul. Just as much today as I was then. Just, broken. But, that isn’t the focus of this missive.
I don’t remember much about the actual show, I was slowly dying inside. I know that I have an autographed copy of Savage. That’s cool. Everyone involved with this idiotic farce was in the same room for the show. I lived in Atlanta for six years. I was desperately looking for anyone to talk to that I knew. Not like, serious, meaningful talk, just to say hi. A reason to walk away from him, as I went to the show with him, and was leaving with him. I saw entirely one person. Which brings us to the point. You ever know someone who affected you profoundly, but probably has no idea? This is kind of about that. It just needed that much setup. But wait! There’s more setup!
When I was a young goth, I loved going dancing. I lived in NC, but I went to Georgia a lot. Fun Fact: I am the only member of my direct family for many, many years not to be born in eastern NC. Generations, even. I was born in Duluth, GA, because my mom got pissed off and moved away. We moved back when I was five, so I grew up here, but spent a bit of time down there, because that’s where her two best friends live. Well, when I was of travelling on my own age, I discovered The Chamber in Atlanta. It was my super happy place. I have never cared about dancing by myself, but sometimes it’s just nice to be surrounded by a lot of people really digging the same thing at the same time. And at The Chamber, there were so many boys that actually danced, and danced well. It was like The Fallout Shelter here, but four times the size and people. Maybe five. There was one, especially. He was like a work of art. I could watch him for hours. Not even in a lustful sort of way, just like art. When I was living with and married to the first ex husband (it’s a joke, haha. There has only been one,) he frequently spent his nights elsewhere. On more than one occasion, I would drive to Atlanta, dance, and come back, and no one ever knew that I was gone. That kind of thing is very easy, when you are young. When I was stressed out, I would go watch this guy dance. Never tried to talk to him, nit sure that it ever crossed my mind. Years pass, and I end up getting pissed off and moving to Atlanta. Perhaps it’s genetic. Anyway, I go dancing, like I am wont to do. As often as I can. One night, I’m in the parking lot of the bar, and my most favorite car drives up. I’m finishing my makeup, as I do, in my car, and guess who gets out of that car? Right?!?! It’s him! So I go in, and I’m not sure it is him. Until he dances. He dances like I do, not really looking at anything around him, except for collision detection purposes. Completely lost in the music. He dances perfectly. He’s beautiful, perfectly. He really is flawless. One of the top three most beautiful men that I have met, ever. Like, ever. Oooh, but I haven’t met him, yet, right? So, one night, I walk up to him, because I was drunk, and I learned what it was like to have that brilliant smile aimed at me. Also like me, his neutral expression is very neutral, but if he makes eye contact with someone familiar, the smile is nearly blinding, it lights up his whole face. He smiles with his whole body. So, I’m fuck-it-all drunk, and I walk up and say hi, and tell him my name. He tells me his ( I knew it already, we’ll call him Kevin.) I tell him. That I used to drive for six hours to dance, and to watch him dance. Then, I quietly freak out. What if he’s not very nice? His (then) girlfriend was a customer of mine, she wasn’t ever very nice. Oh god, I’m thinking, this is why they tell you not to meet your idols, because you never know what people are really like. He’s not an idol, he’s just so intimidatingly perfect. Again, I wasn’t flirting, his (then) girlfriend was a customer of mine, and she was so pretty. Me? I’m forgettable, at best, maybe completely ignorable. I’m usually surprised when people remember me. I’m not pretty, not like that. Different league. Fuck, different sport, even. My attraction to him has never been a crush, not lust, not physical. He’s just like, a little sun in any room. So, I’m still freaking out, and wondering where I’m going to find a hole to crawl into in a second floor bar. It seems like forever since the stupid words came out of my stupid mouth. Complete suspended animation. The air has become jello. I might drown. (I don’t people well.) So, after fourteen years (or two seconds) he smiles. At me. And laughs, and hugs me, a real hug, and tells me that that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to him. From then on, as long as I lived in Atlanta, when we were in the same place, he would smile and wave, occasionally I got a hug, if we were close. Y’all know, I’m completely weird about touching about 90% of the human population, even casually. He seems to fall into the 10% that don’t make me cringe. It turns out, he’s honestly nice. And so fucking smart. I read his facebook arguments, he’s always logical and not condescending. He doesn’t call people names. He’s smart and funny and gorgeous and classy and perfect. He dances like an angel. This is the strangest love letter to someone I’ve never been in love with, or felt that way about, ever. I told you there was more setup.
December 10, 2017. Gary Numan show at The Masquerade (new location.) Nothing makes sense. I’ve been stress crying and puking. I am literally falling apart, holding myself together with my own arms wrapped around me, trying to act okay. Looking for a reason to walk away from the ex. Any reason.
There he is. Kevin. I walk up in front of him and give a silly little wave. He smiles that smile at me, a real smile, and gives me a hug. A real hug. A hug I don’t back out of, which is uncharacteristic. We make small talk, he asks about NC, I point out that he’s tall (in case he’s never noticed, I really don’t people well!) I go to walk away, and get another small hug.
Are we friends? Superficially, sure. We aren’t close. I always see him dancing, in my head, when I hear Cuts You Up or Fade To Grey, I’m not sure why those two songs, specifically. But I will always remember that moment of kindness, that moment that literally held me together when all I wanted to do was fall apart. I thought it couldn’t get worse (it did.) I don’t remember as much of the show as I should. But I will always remember the hug that grounded me. He probably doesn’t even remember that I was there. I have no words for what that hug meant. I actually hug more people now, because I know what that one hug meant for me, in a moment of (hidden) crisis.
Be kind, y’all.