the old-school guestbook archives
my amazon wish list... my favorite astrologer... my favorite artist... yerba mate revolution! erowid: a travel guide for interior journeys... no more war: MoveOn.org United for Peace and Justice True Majority seek the truth: Common Dreams Unamerican Activities The Nation people I adore, diaries I read: rev.raikes ariana cubiclegirl epiphany glitter333 laurakay wammo the music: the asylum street spankers backyard tire fire blue highway bill camplin wendy colonna freedom tribe joules graves guy forsyth band hamsa lila hanuman libby kirkpatrick leftover salmon pamela means medeski martin & wood the motet the nice outfit nickel creek open road rose polenzani railroad earth south austin jug band string cheese incident taarka tha musemeant the devil makes three tim o'brien band trolley wild sage keller williams yonder mountain string band |
the phone rings... ~ 2000-11-11 - 20:37:20 ...so I'm sitting in my car in front of steven and shanda's house, having showered and collected my belongings and meditated, feeling somewhat ready to face the day... I'm about to start the car when my cell phone rings. I've had this cell phone for all of two weeks, and I still have a tendency to look at it like it's some exotic species of poisonous spider when it makes its presence known. there's a light on it that flashes green and red when someone's calling, and I fumble with it, unfold it, note the unfamiliarity of the number on the glowing LED screen before I find the button that answers the call. the voice on the phone is smooth, teasing... I have to ask two or three times before he tells me who he is, and then when he does, six or seven different emotions tear through my body at the same time, and I have to reach to find some response other than OH. this is a call I never expected to receive, never even conceptualized receiving. My cell phone number is not hard to get. I make it public on purpose, so friends and venue managers can find me on the road. but this man is neither, or maybe both. he represents a highly surreal moment in time, an incident as brief as it was baffling, a memory which is nothing so much as a rapid series of sensory impressions. I've been successfully avoiding dealing with that memory in any kind of meaningful way in the months since. I think I believed that I could just put it away, file it away in some dusty filing cabinet at the back of my mind and forget about making any sense of it. but I had forgotten that there were two human beings who participated in the creation of that memory, as different as our conceptions of that time may be. and here is that other human being, large as life on the other end of my cell phone. I'm in berkeley he says. I really want to see you. I don't know what to say. I begin to hedge... berkeley is two hours away, I say. I don't say that there is a woman I love with a mad passion and fierce tenderness in berkeley, and that if I'm going to make that drive, it won't be for him. I'll meet you, he says. still I don't know what to say. there is a part of me that wants to say SEE me? don't you mean you want to FUCK me? you don't even KNOW me. all of this is true, and yet there are several other people in this world who could call me up this way, with this same intention, invitation, and I would happily ditch my responsibilities for a night to follow where it leads. this man is not one of them, and I still don't know why. I run him in circles for a few minutes on the phone, trying to buy myself time to think. I have, after all, always liked his energy. I am, after all, attracted to him. but something in my gut is pushing this one away. there are voices inside me that I've learned to respect, from long, hard experience. he says he will call me back later, that we can talk about logistics then. when he does call back later, he will probably regret having given me time to think. a coven in santa cruz is holding a full moon ritual tonight to heal "the psychic scars of war". I know in my heart where I need to be. also I know this: there's a dusty filing cabinet stuck somewhere in the back of my mind, and it's time I cleared out my files.
(((rings))) |