One. Two. Three.
Jun. 3rd, 2006 06:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormBarenaked Ladies - Lovers In A Dangerous Time, of course:
Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by
We never get to stop and open our eyes
One minute you're waiting for the sky to fall
The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This fragrant skin, this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes youre made to feel as if your love's a crime
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
When I was young, everything I did, I did by myself. I lived in Mission, well actually in Silverdale, which wasn't within walking distance of anyone and I never wanted anyone at my house. My family was too fucked up, and my dad too abusive. You don't want to drag people into that sort of thing. That started when I was eight. I know I've written these words before recently.
When I met Kynnin and we got together, everything I did, I did with him. We were one thing, Kynnin'n'Erin, the kind of couple where you can interchangeably speak with one or the other if you want something. I was fourteen when that started.
When Kynnin and I met Mouse and Juggler-Chris, we were more or less always together, or two out of four at least. Every once in awhile I could be found wandering by myself while they attended a Magic: The Gathering tournament together, or at a volunteer event for VanDusen, but our time was pretty interwoven. That's when I was twenty-one or twenty-two.
I moved out from Kynnin's place the summer I turned 23, and that's when my life started to be my own rather than someone else's. The weekend I moved out, I went to the Mission Folk Music Festival, which I go to every year (buy your tickets now and come with me), by myself. I went to the poly retreat by myself about that time, too. I'd never really been anywhere by myself at that point, not a trip for pleasure under my own power. I'd been shipped off places and wanted to stay longer, but the thing itself was not mine. I probably wouldn't have been able to do it at all without Ellen basically playing friend-who-goes-with and lending me stuff and helping me set up. I'm still very grateful for that.
This summer I'm turning 25. Today I'm leaving for my permaculture course, again with the help of people driving me up and borrowed equipment, but the lean on others is not so extreme. Later this summer, I'm going with a bunch of people I love (though possibly no one I'm fucking) to Shambhala in August. I keep talking about road trips with Graham and Juggler-Chris, but they never happen. I've lived with friends; I've lived with strangers; I've lived with loved ones.
My ducks, as they say, are pretty much all in a row. The things that are important to me are the things I have -- community, loved ones, people which is the thing I didn't have when I was growing up, but also autonomy which I gave up without even thinking to avoid lonliness all those years ago. I'm self-supporting financially, my old interests bubble up like springwater through sandstone now that I don't channel my energy and enthusiasm into the things the people around me like doing but instead let it fuel my own desires, and I am on track with my future. My feet are automatically pointing in the right direction.
And here's the thing I'd never understood when I was fourteen, or twenty-one. I can go away, and love going away, and miss being here terribly at the same time. I'm going somewhere where every ten minutes there's gonna be a revelation-- it's a friggin' permaculture I'm going to learn in, I could learn for a month just by walking around looking at things! Listening to Gregoire talk in that link, those sorts of ideas have been in my head most of my life but I have never heard a human voice shape the concepts (don't just do something, sit and watch; gardening like a forest, no one fertilises and prunes there; inner zones and outer zones where you plant your garden for convenience of use; plant for your site and climate; diversity in crops and in planting to prevent both too many bugs and catastrophic crop failure; some plamnts just grow better together; disease as a way of saying, not spray but maybe you should grow something else instead) like that. Sometimes, once in awhile, I've found them in books.
It is going to be devastating to not be able to talk to Juggler-Chris or CrazyChris at the end of the day and say ohmygodohmygodyouwouldn'tbelievethatthisthatandtheotherohmygod. There may be people there who I'm camping with (shared meals are encouraged!) but they're strangers, the kind of people who will be more similar to me in some ways than anyone except maybe Ellen ever has been but who I'm not in love with and who aren't part of the rest of my life. It is going to be wonderful to be away from the maze of community for a little while, to have all the ropes that connect the centre of my chest to the people that I love backed off for a bit. I don't have to live up to anything, for a bit, or to be careful of anything. It is going to be amazing to do this thing I've always wanted to do. So I'm going to go away, and love going away. I'm going to go away, and I'll miss you guys so much.
I'm going to go away, and when I come back-- everyone will be here. You won't go away because I abandoned you. You won't forget about me and wander away. I'll come back with a crash, too loud and too big for my sunburnt skin, I'll come back with steps that make the concrete tremble after being somewhere like that for two weeks. I won't remember people, I won't remember soft edges and the dance of social interaction and for days I won't be able to see anything except comfrey growing next to dandelions growing under hazelnut trees mulched with 'sawdust, it's a local resource'. My eyes will take time to turn outward again. I'll forget; like speech, like coding, social interaction slides from my ability within hours of stopping for a little break.
And it won't really matter that I've forgotten.
And I will be so happy to be back. I'll come to KMM and the famous couch o' people and my soul will break apart into a million pieces because it won't be able to contain the magnitude of joy that I feel in being able to have everything that I want. Cause, you know, I do.
So here goes.
And, I love you. Naming names has power. Juggler, CrazyChris, Graham, Tillie, Tim, Piotr, Bevan, Trevor, Ellen, Beth, Meghan, Angus, Ziggy, I love you. More people creep in around the edges every day, blurring the edges of my soul and theirs. How can anyone encompass all this? Even without love being a circle entirely around another person, no longer a constraint on my actions or another's, how?
But that's not the question I'm asking you. I'm not asking you any question at all. I'm saying-- guys, be well. See ya soon. That's what I'm saying. All o' you, on that list or not.
Soon.
:)
*This post done in cyberpunk style, with links, for Tim's entertainment and ejimication. Someone tell him, cause he doesn't read this, I don't think
Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by
We never get to stop and open our eyes
One minute you're waiting for the sky to fall
The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all
These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This fragrant skin, this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes youre made to feel as if your love's a crime
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight
When you're lovers in a dangerous time
When I was young, everything I did, I did by myself. I lived in Mission, well actually in Silverdale, which wasn't within walking distance of anyone and I never wanted anyone at my house. My family was too fucked up, and my dad too abusive. You don't want to drag people into that sort of thing. That started when I was eight. I know I've written these words before recently.
When I met Kynnin and we got together, everything I did, I did with him. We were one thing, Kynnin'n'Erin, the kind of couple where you can interchangeably speak with one or the other if you want something. I was fourteen when that started.
When Kynnin and I met Mouse and Juggler-Chris, we were more or less always together, or two out of four at least. Every once in awhile I could be found wandering by myself while they attended a Magic: The Gathering tournament together, or at a volunteer event for VanDusen, but our time was pretty interwoven. That's when I was twenty-one or twenty-two.
I moved out from Kynnin's place the summer I turned 23, and that's when my life started to be my own rather than someone else's. The weekend I moved out, I went to the Mission Folk Music Festival, which I go to every year (buy your tickets now and come with me), by myself. I went to the poly retreat by myself about that time, too. I'd never really been anywhere by myself at that point, not a trip for pleasure under my own power. I'd been shipped off places and wanted to stay longer, but the thing itself was not mine. I probably wouldn't have been able to do it at all without Ellen basically playing friend-who-goes-with and lending me stuff and helping me set up. I'm still very grateful for that.
This summer I'm turning 25. Today I'm leaving for my permaculture course, again with the help of people driving me up and borrowed equipment, but the lean on others is not so extreme. Later this summer, I'm going with a bunch of people I love (though possibly no one I'm fucking) to Shambhala in August. I keep talking about road trips with Graham and Juggler-Chris, but they never happen. I've lived with friends; I've lived with strangers; I've lived with loved ones.
My ducks, as they say, are pretty much all in a row. The things that are important to me are the things I have -- community, loved ones, people which is the thing I didn't have when I was growing up, but also autonomy which I gave up without even thinking to avoid lonliness all those years ago. I'm self-supporting financially, my old interests bubble up like springwater through sandstone now that I don't channel my energy and enthusiasm into the things the people around me like doing but instead let it fuel my own desires, and I am on track with my future. My feet are automatically pointing in the right direction.
And here's the thing I'd never understood when I was fourteen, or twenty-one. I can go away, and love going away, and miss being here terribly at the same time. I'm going somewhere where every ten minutes there's gonna be a revelation-- it's a friggin' permaculture I'm going to learn in, I could learn for a month just by walking around looking at things! Listening to Gregoire talk in that link, those sorts of ideas have been in my head most of my life but I have never heard a human voice shape the concepts (don't just do something, sit and watch; gardening like a forest, no one fertilises and prunes there; inner zones and outer zones where you plant your garden for convenience of use; plant for your site and climate; diversity in crops and in planting to prevent both too many bugs and catastrophic crop failure; some plamnts just grow better together; disease as a way of saying, not spray but maybe you should grow something else instead) like that. Sometimes, once in awhile, I've found them in books.
It is going to be devastating to not be able to talk to Juggler-Chris or CrazyChris at the end of the day and say ohmygodohmygodyouwouldn'tbelievethatthisthatandtheotherohmygod. There may be people there who I'm camping with (shared meals are encouraged!) but they're strangers, the kind of people who will be more similar to me in some ways than anyone except maybe Ellen ever has been but who I'm not in love with and who aren't part of the rest of my life. It is going to be wonderful to be away from the maze of community for a little while, to have all the ropes that connect the centre of my chest to the people that I love backed off for a bit. I don't have to live up to anything, for a bit, or to be careful of anything. It is going to be amazing to do this thing I've always wanted to do. So I'm going to go away, and love going away. I'm going to go away, and I'll miss you guys so much.
I'm going to go away, and when I come back-- everyone will be here. You won't go away because I abandoned you. You won't forget about me and wander away. I'll come back with a crash, too loud and too big for my sunburnt skin, I'll come back with steps that make the concrete tremble after being somewhere like that for two weeks. I won't remember people, I won't remember soft edges and the dance of social interaction and for days I won't be able to see anything except comfrey growing next to dandelions growing under hazelnut trees mulched with 'sawdust, it's a local resource'. My eyes will take time to turn outward again. I'll forget; like speech, like coding, social interaction slides from my ability within hours of stopping for a little break.
And it won't really matter that I've forgotten.
And I will be so happy to be back. I'll come to KMM and the famous couch o' people and my soul will break apart into a million pieces because it won't be able to contain the magnitude of joy that I feel in being able to have everything that I want. Cause, you know, I do.
So here goes.
And, I love you. Naming names has power. Juggler, CrazyChris, Graham, Tillie, Tim, Piotr, Bevan, Trevor, Ellen, Beth, Meghan, Angus, Ziggy, I love you. More people creep in around the edges every day, blurring the edges of my soul and theirs. How can anyone encompass all this? Even without love being a circle entirely around another person, no longer a constraint on my actions or another's, how?
But that's not the question I'm asking you. I'm not asking you any question at all. I'm saying-- guys, be well. See ya soon. That's what I'm saying. All o' you, on that list or not.
Soon.
:)
*This post done in cyberpunk style, with links, for Tim's entertainment and ejimication. Someone tell him, cause he doesn't read this, I don't think
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-03 06:17 pm (UTC)pop music.
Have a fantastic time! Not that you need anyone to tell you to do so.
Several things:
Date: 2006-06-03 09:18 pm (UTC)-Loneliness can motivate us to do strange things that we look back on later and ask WTF?!?
-Friends are there to lean on. If they don't want to do something for you they shouldn't, though that isn't always the case in reality. I'm happy to have been there for you in the past - I'd be happy to take you up to Mission and lend you my tent and set you up again this year. Hopefully ThatGuy and I will take a day to come out and listen
-Some of the strangers you're about to meet may become important parts of the rest of your life - be open to possibilities.
-I'm psyched that you're going on this course, and will want to talk about permaculture with you - a lot - when you get home. Picking brains!
*Hugs*
no subject
Date: 2006-06-04 04:49 am (UTC)Synchronicity
Date: 2006-06-07 11:55 am (UTC)Funny how these things work, neh?
Re: Synchronicity
Date: 2006-06-19 02:14 pm (UTC)What day are you going up to Shambhala again?