Going to Portland

I'm going to portland, I used to live there for the beginning of college! i'm flying in a little plane with Aaron O'neill pilot and Aaron Fox Copilot and amanda and I, a little plan. i'm so excited! this is so dinky and cute and great. yes out of town in a city i roamed when i was 18 and 19. i think this trip will be very redeeming. i'm so excited to see joei, my friend from high school, i wonder what it will be like to spend so much unhurried time with her again, us all grown up and her all married and me all ... me....

Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness

The third time I saw him, I thought this must be a joke. In line at Cafe Pergolasi, I shake my head and almost laugh. He says "what are you following me?" Another time to stand there, to not feel threatened, however much my heart beat going fast. There I stood, him no longer looming so much, but just but then, then as I went back to the *gden and her Mr. Bronk, it dawned on me. "wait a second, was that MY shirt?" And going BACK to him, "Hey is that my Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness shirt?" "Yeah, I told you I had it and you said you'd get it when you got back [from Italy]. I get compliments on it all the time!" He rubs in. I am breathless and looking at this incomprehensible picture. MY Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness shirt 1997, when the Smashing Pumpkins came out with that Album, when they smashed the scene and the brink of my High School Years and everday was an undercover soliloquey to Billy Corgan and that sweeping album. I was 15. And I was 16, 17. I was 18, 19, when I wore that shirt. wearing it in all times, these Big times, these useless times and everyday times, but it was mine. I'm tripping there in Cafe Pergolesi seeing this guy who once wasloaded, now listless almost, now vacant. And he's wearing this shirt of mine with infinite memories, my whole high school years pouring out from this shirt. LIke a sea around this shirt, them washing up on the shore. (of him?) no, he was vacant there, listless there. Not belonging of my shirt.,
I have been thinking about the way we are clothed. Am I faking myself to believe that he wears me? that he wears some eternal piece of me? Well on that day I saw that he did not wear me, as much as he had my shirt with the best times ever I could see it had nothing to do with him, that he was random in it. that he could not participate. And how relieving to feel the throngs of those times wash up at me, and to know that he could not touch them, he could not touch those innoncent blooming days of my late 90s. And how much also then wishing that he does not stain all these days of consequence that did give him, and have given him since in the haunting, the haunting, the sunken downhearted. I am so tired so tired of carrying this. at all.,
This shirt, the Melancholy I loved to summon as I listened to the Pumpkins "get" the waning pain. the constant. the fertileness of it and I would lie there plush with that good ache, and the nudge of so much more to come, so much turning in my life of great chances and knowing that I would be so many persons of me and wear and render with all kinds of aches and longings and basement creations. And it pleased me then that I would have so many aches to find. And I would have so many long nights, in th way track 1 spills from the Infinite Sadness Album, long nights without cover or ceiling. I felt so big so big with the night and even me in my surburban neighborhood marked untouchable especially in track 2. OK, here is a messy little unfancy poem I wrote about it:

Wearing My Melancholy and Infinite Sadness

He was wearing my Melancholy and Infinite Sadness from 1997,
My shirt hung on him like a mast,
All my ripe memories sail by
of all my teenage inklings and nights brimming,
my long hair reaching,
the mischief,
and the nights of nowhere.

No, he wasn't wearing my Beforeness.
It had no resolve upon his vacant figure.
I stood there now seeing
my Beforeness spill out like lacquer.

My first boyfriend in his car listening
to "Tonight, Tonight" and going home.
The orchestra in Track 1 swelling:
The Civic Center. Duck Pond. Waiting in
the traffic jam to get out having just seen Billy.
Smashing Pumpkins: the music
so massive my fist closed to not lose it.
Or sitting with Richard and talking however I want to be,
or Going to Kaveh's house
with my big and hard heart.
And all times uneventful, and all times mine.

My beforeness is full of nowheres and surburbia,
It's full of the loser boyfriends
and their "I'm breaking up with you"
and losing myself in it
like the bottom of a soggy lunchbag given-up.
My Beforeness is hailing Rage Against the Machine
and trying to be harcore and chasing friends who didn't call me back.
And call girls "Girl!" at school even when they didn't like me,
like I could put up my homey-tent regardless.

My Beforeness has The Northgate Mall and bold girls around me
and being bright no matter what and
rushing to Bolinas at midnight to go in the Ocean.
It's making Daryoush dance with me to Cranberries
and knowing that he liked me.
It's liking the boys even after they dumped me
and stressing out over History Class.

But my Before is mine.
My before is mine. My Before had my
friends smoking Pot before it was my time. And
loving my sister a lot.
And holding my grandma's hand.

But my before can float.
My before is not lost on him,
it doesn't know him.
My before sails by
everybody in the room.

My before is where went Sarah,
My before no longer stores soreness,
it floats wide.
it sits there uncompromised.
It's not even bummed, and I can't even beckon it.

My beforeness is a sadness that can no longer grow.
It has no binds
He opened the blinds
to a light that escapes him,
a light of my melancholy infinite.
He can't fan.
so much mine, like leggings they are mine
The left place he can't go groping.
My infinite me.
uncaptivating with seam.

Permanent

Just finished a 12 hour Theophostic Training. My whole world/spiritual view is blown. GET TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. READ THIS POST. How Jesus wants us to be whole and free. So Theophostic is rooted in the belief that emotional pain experienced in a present situation is as a result of a mental associal to a historical event from childhood being triggered. What Theophostic does is invites the Lord to take that person to the origin of their pain, (the person doing Theophostic does not make any suggestions or offer any advice, they mearly ask questions and allow the person receiving to take them to the memories that are revealed). Then the Lord is invited to bring truth to the situation, and like that Jesus can come into a memory of a tramatic experience and speak truth. And it's amazing because going through this process can bring Permanent change and lasting healing. It's about getting past tolerable recovery, settling for healing that we have to maintain. No it's about being free and free indeed. I think when Christ really comes in the situation and brings light and truth, the trama, the wound is unplugged. It is about not standing on top of your pain, but the pain being over. that unbearable pain. It's like turning on a light in a very dark room. Once you turn the light on, the darkness is gone immediately. and the darkness can't come back to the room, the darkness can't remain. And this is important, it is important that we correct our history, not to invalidate the fact that we go through genuinely awful things. but we can correct the lie that is implanted, or the imprint, whether it is a lasting sense of not being good enough, a fear of rejection or abandonment, a sense of being alone, etc, etc. We can go into those memories which are containers for lies and bring christ into them, and release the lie that has woven itself into our whole life.
But what I do want to share is some amazing insight.
When we forgive, we are asked to forgive not the person or relationship but the debt. the debt. like the story in the bible when the king asked to servant to take account. He did the inventory of the debt and he forgave the debt, which was unpayable. So in otherwords we are not asked to forgive the person or the relationship, that would take reconciliation which takes the other person giving an account of their wrong, it would take the other person coming clean. and this does not usually happen in life, right? we have these people who are never going to fully get it, or fully admit, or fully show-up. Right? The broken relationships with father, etc, and guess what everybody. WE don't have to forgive that whole relationship. We can't reconcile unless both people in the relaitonship are willing. But we CAN forgive their debt. Like in the story of the king who forgave the servant's debts, First he called him to "settle the account." And the servant he owed so many minas it would have taken more than a lifetime to payback. In other words, the debt was unpayable. And isn't this the case with those people who have wounded us, especially our family? Like let's say an absent father, is that payable? not really, you can't get that time back in your childhood, even if he did apologize or realize or what not, that loss or offense would not be payable. So you see this parable is very strong in its likeness. So the King in the story, though the debt is huge, forgives the man's debt. Now the man does not owe him anything. And think of the Lord's prayer. Jesus asks us to forgive those for their trespasses. for their actions, their debts. I am so relieved for learning this slight new angle. WE are not asked to reconcile a relationship, but just forgive the debt the person owes us, their actions. this we can do.
And let me tell you, all the terror of that situation, of that past relationship after going into the stuff, then seeing that person 2 more times last week. That terror has melted away.. I feel that he doesn't owe me anything, like there is no debt. Their is no need and no more violent fear.
Here is another thing I learned from yesterday: a misconception is "I can never be free until you are healed." being dependent on another person getting it, or doing what we project to be the right behavior towards us, for us to be enabled or OK. And no! we can be free when we are free. I'm not limited to you. I'm not limited to those people who have wronged me.
And the cool thing about this, is it just really speaks to the person. You can try reasoning or counseling someone for hours about how logically some chiildhood event was not their fault, or logically show them tools for when they get triggered to realize (with Logic) that they are reacting from a so-and-so need, and you can tell them great phrases about how they are not in that tramatic state so they can let go of it, and etc, etc. but that is logical truth, and our experiential truth speaks larger than the logical we keep on our bookshelf. and man, that logical truth is darn hard to really coat some unbearable early memory with. And weve all done this, wehere we tell another a logical truh and then when our own stuff comes up, we still feel those darn feeling which we know to be untruthful in our minds, but still feel yanked on just like we're back to being that little boy, or little girl. So this is putting the light and truth in the experiential knowledge, and to grasp it in every way today.

The Sequel to the Show Down

The day past after my confrontation, and for the whole day I couldn't shake that I didn't get to say the one important part (TO ME) the real truth, full truth to why I would not have a conversation with him. B/c in all my experience of him apologizing, he would make me feel very small. he would assume a position over me where I would end up with little to say, and the one apologizing. And for some reason it was important to me, and i went around wishing i had said this to this guy, as little as it seems. I sat with Hannah after work, we walked around, we got a taco, we sat and had coffee. me remorsing this little thread. we decided to write, "2 minutes" then share, but ended up writing for 45 minutes, i writing into the junk, tumbling my exhaustion out for this 3 year waining situation. And as we crossed the street, I was midsentence bringing up again how i wished i said that part, and there he was. in front of the roaster, and i went up to him, eager, "i was just talking about you" very myself and almost with a smile on my face, (like, I can handle this, like "ok let's do this") and even introduced the guy to hannah and they shook hands. She went inside. And I told him, i told him that last part. And he offered again to talk to me, and i refused again. and I wont get into the all details, but i said that little bit, how whenever he apologized I'd feel small. When I walked away inside Hannah hugged me, we coarsed all around the avenue using the back alley ways to not run into him, but this time I was not scared. we were just thick in our reveling conversation. She saw that when he was talking to me he was very seated. he was humble and he was taking in what i said. "That was 3 years ago, he pushed it as the past" but at one point he said "your feelings are valid" and though I kept it inside my little heart breathed. I was myself. I was just talking to him, I have woven in a saffe memory, an natural interaction, a unfolding calm moment with this hikedup hurling shadow. I feel so good today, I feel the worse chunk gone. I feel so less scared and threatened. i feel it is going to be OK, i feel the end of an era just occured. And how good god Gave me the chance to express the small thing of me feeling small. God gave me just one m ore interaction to speak into the past, to name. There is more work, I know and more healing, but I feel the bullets drop from the loaded gun in my back, in otherwords the disarm.

The taqueria downtown

The run-in replays over and over in my mind. I had an appointment at 2 with Katie, to go over my little parable writing lesson for the kids at VFC. I got there at 2, ordered, turned towards the soda machine, and there he was. I sat in the corner, and katie came. He came up to me, we spoke more words then ever. than 03. I was shaking. I have made some steps of progress today. It wasn't as scarry as every other time. And Ironically, I just worked with a pastor in San jose on some of this stuff last night. Theophostic. And it was good, we took the long trail that my mind went and that christ showed and yep, all this childhood stuff and recent stuff, and the feelings came up, and i forgave my dad, i put it in a big pile and Brian (pastor) told me to do it, and i thought oh man this is too quick, so i muttered as much as i could about all the sadness and madness i felt and let down and this morning i felt the all of my chest really with space, really like so much junk gone. and we were on the tip of the boat and that was what Jesus finally told me at the end of our session. I heard the phrase "jump off the boat" and i knew there's this tendency for me to stay hostil on the boat with those i don't want to be going with and i just have to get off. as soon as i'm not dealing. like what am i searching for from this guy? here i am feeling bad that I didn't say more of my whys, why i won't sit and have an "adult conversation" why i'm so overwhelmed. its that he makes me feel so so small, even when he's apologizing in his high and mighty how good am i and knowing way. why am i trying to make him get it so badly? i took a good step today, i dindn't feel as disarmed or unsafe.
But here is what I did say, when I went back to where he was in the Taqueria, I said "What I was trying to express to you before [when i got in his face and pushed back] was that that relationship was very destructive to me." And that's all I could say, he tried again to tell me he'd talk to me, as he offered before. and I "I feel to overwhelmed by that, i'm not comfortable with that. You are the only person in the world who I can't even sit with or be around."

Glory is heavy

The Glory is heavy, that is what i'm learning from the Fresh Fire Worship meetings in San Jose. This was my fourth night. To Call on the Spirit! To Demand! The warmth when He knocks in your body. The prophecy over me was this, that I had a musical talent in my family line, and that I was annointed to prophecy myself. And that I would use music, i would use art. And I really think there could be. My grandma was a singer on the radio and ever since I could make sounds, I was making sounds. And a mantle of rhythm. I flow, and though i'm not extraordinary, I will keep going. I can just keep injecting words that make for good breaks, words that come up out of water, when they've been under for as long as they come, and they come up for that gasp of breath. And then i know how to dig into the beat and around it. I was walking around the Art museum and the pastor was prophecying over me while I was on the cell phone. and shucks. it sure felt like a match for me. He said I would relate, relate to their hearts, that I would gain a command over scripture, and be able to quote it like that, pick just the right scripture to speak into someone's life, so that they go"hey that was just what i needed to hear" or "that spoke to me on all these differnt levels" and what i see with myself so far is that is a gift, that i can relate to people, especially many non-christians or new-agers, and I can speak about christ in a way that makes them smile, or go "wonderful" i just say things in new way. ...