It's one of those emotional hangover days.
Last night, talking to Tyler, him working on his ego death, encouraging me to meditate.
"You're not your thoughts."
I'm not sold on meditation. I like working. I like moving. I like crafting. I like emotional richness. Messiness. He's doing his thing. I told him about the psychic biome, vibe basically. He's been working on his. I'm not one for deprivation, unless it's fasting. I like going with the flow, being in league with the Divine. I like getting caught up and pulled along or run alongside. I don't want to make a ton of choices. I don't want to blame myself for too much when things go awry.
They always go awry.
I'm going with the flow, I'm staying calm. My ego is my homebase. I don't understand the ego death. I am buoyed by my memories. I define myself by many things and those definitions are foundational. I define myself by my relationships. I define myself by looking in the mirror a thousand times a day.
I was reading the Ram Daas Be Here Now writer's LSD caused ego death.
"What a luxury," I had thought. I couldn't get excited. A man giving up everything in a world that doesn't threaten his existence. What brave. How courage.
I told Tyler about last year's experimentation in meditation and how I'd be in conversations with nothing to say. I was so fucking boring. The usual cadence I could bring into social scenarios was gone. I just listened, was present, and it wasn't interesting or helpful to the person I was attempting to connect with. Maybe relinquishing that responsibility and seeing what's beyond that is the purpose. 
Yet here I am a cacophony of invasive manic repetitive thoughts that feel like music playing in three different rooms. I'm going after myself, unpacking how I showed up in the last few days, examining the dip in my approval ratings. Realizing how on edge so much of the time, vibrating so fast. I found myself just making shit up when I'd speak out loud sourcing information from a unthethered disconnected self. I just wanted to play the role everyone wanted me to play because when I played my own part it was so gross.
I'm never doing enough. It will never be enough. I need to draw back. Accept the not enoughness and sleep for three days. Really disappoint. Withdraw.
I think that's the thing about the ego I can examine critically. It's need for outcome, it's wish for continuous approval. Validation. I could do without. I could have this time of free to recoup the extensions. Pull back. Gather my personal power back into my arms. Reclaim. Try not to spend the time in memory during these states..
Maybe all that's a nudge to meditate I guess. Random.
Or rest. Read. Lay around. Not make plans. Stop lying.
*deep sigh*

The way the light comes in, right before solstice, it cuts.

Horizon skirting, a broad brimmed hat won't keep it out. Dust particles in the air, every grit on surfaces cast shadows revealing the delusion of cleanliness. The space around us full of particulates, the air in the Kokiri Forest village. Full of magic, swirling. You can see someone move through the space, the magic opening up for them. Perhaps catch ghosts this way.
Even though there is less light in the day everything is revealed.

I almost texted Tyler the other day, "I never miss you. I always feel connected."
We go awhile without talking, then we have some back-and-forth.

Glorified pen-pals is what I've been calling it. These identifiers are important. These labels are important. It's important for me to be creative. I'm trying to escape the mundane, but we need to communicate. I tossed around the word soulmate today. It fit in the way it was nebulous, not beholden to physical proximity. Idealized. That didn't seem fair.

Along the margins of the dance floor I watched E figure her place out in the world. She was in her body, yet her body was also forming questions and answering them.
"Are we ok?" it asked, "Yes," it responded.
Over and over.
"It" being the non-gendered objectified third person between her fears and her reassurance. A somatic entity. An elder.  Internal counsel.
"Stay calm."
Her lover danced with another lover. And she was working through her feelings. She was hurt, and the pangs came over her again and again. She wasn't openly retracting though maybe she had wanted to.
"Yes."
Remain open.
Keep moving.
Her lover danced with another lover. Her lover danced with her. Her lover danced alone. She danced alone. Her lover danced with another lover. She danced with her lover. She danced alone. He danced alone. His lover danced with him. His lover danced alone. He danced alone. She danced alone. She danced with him. She danced alone. He danced with his lover. He danced alone. His lover danced with another. She danced with him. He danced with her. She danced alone. She came up to me, "I'm leaving." She smiled. "Bye," I said.

Love is a contract. It's a feeling. It's an agreement. It can be put into writing. Sometimes I want to put it into writing. Put all the words down. All the mess of words. Made up words. Real words. Maybe some words sit between asterisks because they are movements. Maybe it can all be explained in movements.

She was free, that was their agreement. She was free and he was free. They gave this to each other, the freedom to love other people. To be with other people. It was a very important agreement. But it wasn't always easy. It was very tricky. A thing that probably can't be put into words.

I remember being in bed with B and K. He had played a show the night before. I knew they were being cute, a term I use that means kissing/fucking without clear definitions.
Being cute is a contract, an agreement. I think using diminutive terms is important in these labels. Girlfriend/Boyfriend. Kissing friend.
I had wanted to be cute too, so we had all slept in my bed. Nothing happened, just sleeping I mean. In the morning I made coffee. Because they were in a place of being cute it wasn't my time to be cute.

It's tricky. B had been careful about that balance. I knew he had been in a weird position. We all played our cards close. We didn't need words.

I danced around some pang. I wanted to be distracted by E working through her questions. But in my own cyclone of movement, I had my own questions to answer. The questions were basically the same. 

We exist in relation to one another. I read that our sense of self has been defined beyond our body. Our sense of self is in our space, direct and distant. I think of dusty copies of my zine existing in strange corners of the world. I think of the cooling tea on the kitchen counter. All humming with a semblance of self. The way the dust parts as I walk through it, the vacuum behind me. All transient. All in various stages of entropy. Possible growth. We exist so we shape. It's like that Octavia Butler bit,
"All the you touch
You change.
All that you Change
Changes you.
The only lasting truth is Change.
God is Change."

The light cuts in sideways, revealing every choice. Every nuanced crumb on the countertop.
Maybe it's cold so we move like molasses.
We can't move quickly. We must be methodical. There's also an element of survival in our movement. Be careful. It is winter. We walk carefully on ice. We move carefully with one another's feelings.
"Are you ok?"
"Yes."
"Stay calm."

Everyone is necessary. Staying warm is necessary. Keep the burrow safe. Insulated.

Even though it gets dark so early the way of seeing things is magnified. The sharp degree of light cast through between the power-lines and the fence sharper than the gaudy generous summer sun.

I just had a deja vu. I was writing my blog. You were fifteen minutes away, headed my direction. In fifteen minutes you are going to knock on my door. I thought about texting you. "Are you coming over?" And in the deja vu, you texted back "No, I'm home. I passed your house but knew you were working." In the deja vu you are coming over and at the time I know you are home. But I can't test any of these theories. And I was in two time-lines at once. This one and another

Everyone is exactly where they need to be right now. Everyone's place in this timeline is determined.
I'm watching it all play itself out. The movement between bodies. Bodies alone. Bodies in burrows. Bodies nervous of their survival. Bodies together. Bodies separate.
I disassociate and play the part of the watcher. 
But my body tells me it's a lie. I'm a mover.
A changer. A shaper.
I move carefully.
"Stay calm."

None of it came true. I waited the fifteen minutes.
I'm in this timeline, not the other.
I made it back here. I'm exactly where I need to be.