It's a strange, but budding, forest I'm walking in these days.

The morning is early, and I've awakened with the energy to connect - frustrated and dissatisfied - and I need to write it out. Perhaps that will help.

I've been hanging out a bit with Walt, and I'm struck by the irony of the interaction, and the feelings that have been stirred by his style of being. I thought you would appreciate the fact that I am:

1) Feeling frustrated at having conversations and times we share constantly interrupted by a cell phone that he doesn't turn off.

2) Watching a man so "on the go", whose life is a constant spin of tug and call - a call that he lives for and loves and feels needed in - try to be present with me, and *need* to be present - somatically, psychically, emotionally, soulfully - but is unable to be present unless I do a lot of work to gain attention and insist on that presence. And even then, it's partial, and only a wandering ghost of his heart's unvoiced desire.

I'm struck by the irony of this, for you two seem to have parallel lives in this energetic regard. I can only project, but I imagine you are (or at least, have been and are, perhaps, even contemplating an adjustment) much the same.

I think it is interesting that Spirit has gifted me with the opportunity to experience this quality first hand, and come to terms with what it means for and about me, and lets me practice how to meet it.

I must say that I'm not too graceful with it all the time. I've been a little grumpy with the choppy attention.

You've apologized for the same. You've thanked me for being persistent. Back in January, you asked me to remind you about connecting (I demurred, saying I'd rather see your energy go out toward making the f2f with me, rather than having to do all the work - perhaps dooming another meeting for us, but there you have it in a nutshell, eh?).

OTOH, I realize that I'm a woman On The Way Out. Unavailable. Flirting with Death. On a Big Mission.

Sometimes that's hard to remember. I can get so hungry for touch and comfort, for someone who just says "Hi. How are you, really? Can I just hold you for awhile? Could you let me love you a bit? Come here..."

But I shake myself and remember that I'm on a Mission.

My patient heart waits.

***********

Walt's a very bright man, working in a relatively small sphere and manifesting a lot of compassion for nice kids "on the street". He's one of those folk who are picking up the pieces after the distracted middle-class boomer parents who have become lost themselves in some coping mechanism - alcohol, drugs, job, divorce, politics, society - to the detriment of their high school children who need, but do not have, their attention, either.

The kids are sweet. Clean, for the most part. Struggling to finish high school. The girls are often very pretty. The boys aren't toughs. They come from good homes, and they're easy to exploit. The street and corporate predators are all over the place. But Walt's there for them, at the drop of a hat - with a ride, a phone call, encouragement, rules, rewards.

He helps them put together a scene that they can all belong to. He's their "rave daddy", and he does this at great personal and social expense, because it is very not-ok for adult men to hang out, period - much less to hang out with the youngers. He's brave and committed in this world he finds himself in, and about all the reward he gets is the love of the kids, and an occasional note from a parent (I read one last night) thanking him for making a breakthrough with their child, and asking to be told if anything "serious" happens.

Their world pulls me in. The kids love the fact that Walt has a woman friend to dance with. ("Finally", the girls say, "someone old enough", for it's always the "mature" 25 year olds that are trying to hang out with Walt, and the 16 year olds see this, and they disapprove...) They know me, because they know the Red Barn, and they hug me when I come by, and they kiss me when I leave, and they are kind and respectful and reaching out for/with love, any love at all.

It's compelling for me. I become involved. This afternoon I'm meeting with Walt and two young twenty-something friends and we're going to plan a meal we're preparing for a party next weekend. It should be quite the talk, since we're all foodies and we believe in making food with love.

Tonight we're going to hear John Trudell. He's appearing at a benefit for the high school kids' radio station that I support - I underwrite a show called "Indian Time" and Trudell's here for this. Walt and I will be meeting with the Program Director there and talking about the Tekno Radio Show - "Closer to Light" - that I proposed and that the station has agreed to.

I don't remember if I mentioned this, but the inspired solution we came up with for having the kids' Friday Night poetry/music/dance jam closed down at the New Odyssey coffee house was for the kids to have their own Tekno radio show. I used my tiny bit of clout at the station to push the idea, and it looks like we'll be getting the show off the ground. I'll be an instigator, but Walt and the kids will do the bulk of it, and I'll just cheer them on, though I *am* going to learn how to DJ.

Walt's brought me out of my shell a bit, and I feel a lot of personal healing in the warmth of people who care for me. The bitterness toward some of my experiences here is being balanced by these good feelings, and I know this is a very important thing for me, so I persist. I've alluded to having my store set on fire a couple of times, and being attacked for unpopular opinions - that affected me, and it's good to watch the residual emotions I was holding change.

I work at being more graceful, at not asking for "more". I work at letting myself finish the tasks here that let me move onward, to another world if need be. I get pulled into the warm puppy-pile of it all. I guard against the self-protective recoil of my self back into myself, and force myself to connect - always dropping agenda, always re-gathering my self-possession.

It's an effort.

*************

I know that what I have to offer the men I care for is good, and I'm in no danger of thinking I'm not worthwhile any longer (though I take little comfort when the men I love tell me that I'll "find someone someday").

I realize that I have that odd mix of extreme vulnerability and firm boundary definition that makes for a very good (if high intensity) male/female interaction - short or long term. I have a strong level of need for solitude, and alone time to do my work, and so I offer the room for that with others.

I'm capable of deep connection, and I reach out until it's made - or until I'm so firmly rejected that there can be no mistake on either his or my part that he's categorically refusing the connection, and I do this because I know it's what I want, and I take care of myself.

I only reach out to men who I sense want it, too, and so I hesitate to push the point too far when the circuit doesn't close and the wire overheats. When I get frustrated, that's the little warning light on my dash.

It's hard to voice these things - the tangle of frustration and need and desire and expression and work - to others. The people who care about me want to relieve the discomfort, and I don't consider that either their job, nor their responsibility.

And I suppose don't want the responsibility of having inspired/apparently asked for a change and then find myself suddenly involved in some implied transaction. Better to keep my frustrations quiet, and I would if I didn't know the other indirect costs.

I suppose speak them to you because I've developed this channel of expression, and you haven't disabled the alerts on this software yet, so I don't think you (or I) are in any danger of making any personal changes on my/our behalf.

As you can imagine, the last thing I want to do is ask a friend to change anything for me. I like to think it would be different if there were a deep and committed love that grew from that sort of willingness to sacrifice - but that's also the kind of circumstance where the willingness is often more important than the sacrifice, and where the sacrifice is a demonstration of commitment, and that's more about process than the end result of any change.

I don't feel that sort of commitment to Walt, and am unwilling to give signals that I do. Asking someone to change for me is one of those signals.

I've been tempted to feel that sort of potential with you, but I also accept that your own world engagement, so much more enmeshed in the gears of the global machina than Walt's, precludes any overt effort in that direction - other than the possibility for short (intense) bursts, that I will welcome whenever you get it together to do your part to bridge your half (eighth) of the gap.

So I don't ask either of you to change. And I just sit with the frustration of it all, and mope around a little bit, feel blue, write this note, and get on with the work of being present and effective in another Tuesday...

love,

your Blue Girl.

PLUR. Remember PLUR

Peace
Love
Unity
Respect

Peace
Love
-- Anonymous, March 19, 2002