Intro to Forrest, Part II

This is not part of Soul and Meat, but aren’t there days when you feel like trying to define yourself. It’s fun to find out what comes out of your brain. I usually get the urge right around my birthday time every year. This year, it’s been kicked into gear a little early because of our Soul and Meat assignment.

• I had, relatively recently, an attack of cystic acne out of nowhere that I know of. The guy whose book I read about changing my skin suggested taking pictures of my face every week from the same angle. I did for a long time. I erased most of them. They are not very nice to look at and most pictures showed only the downward spiral. If the moon looked in the mirror, she might have seen a face very similar to mine, only less pink, green, yellow, and red. A few weeks into this experience, when my acne was probably at its worst most infected peak (in January), I was too embarrassed to come out of my bedroom and face my roommates of two years; it took me about two months to feel comfortable going out of the house by myself shopping or just walking without the protective distraction of another person’s presence. I never wore my hair down before this attack of the acne bacteria, now I never wear my hear up (which, incidentally, from far away must make me look like a porn star potential or something because the hoots and howls from cars that I secretly longed for in moments of self doubt or jealousy during my life pop up on me pretty often now—luscious long blond hair must mean luscious lips, both up above and down below the skirts. Eh). It’s been a strange experience, I guess, these few months of incredibly distracting and massive acne—severely painful and itchy. I put myself through all sorts of physical cleanses—fasts and liver flushes and enemas and salt baths. I’m done with most of that now, but I certainly pulled some understanding and some grounding out of it all. I’m left with acne worse than pre-cyst but much better than my cyst days. I’m left with scars all over my face that will probably take years and several operations to fix. But I got ah-hah on a lot of ideas I’d only ever preached before. So that’s good. Experience teaches better than any words ever will.
• Love hurts. A friend of mine once sent me a CD in which was a song in which the singer mentioned that in catholic school a nun told him, “fear is the heart of love.” He turned and never went back to that school. But the statement irks me. Fear is the duality of love. Without love there is no fear, without fear there is no love. That, I think, may be true. I’ve found that the deeper is my love for an individual (family first, lovers too and friends) the more their pain hurts me, the more I am afraid of failing them, of not being there when I need to be there, of hurting them because I am weak, or even worse, selfish. It sounds ridick and head-in-the-clouds, but it’s how I feel especially at night lying in bed on a nervous end-of-day or in especially quiet times when I’ve been alone for too long or when someone I love tells me of something they don’t understand and that hurts and I have no words of response, no quick fixes or relevant advice, when I know their itch, know that I feel some of the same shit and haven’t fixed it in me, but I know, at least, that I’m ok with it, that I’ve figured out how to live with it, even if I haven’t figured out how to change it in me. God, how love hurts some days. And makes me feel deep fear. But then, if you don’t live inside of life’s duality, maybe you jip yourself. Right?
• Lover love is like flying to the moon and back in a space shuttle and floating in zero gravity out there, it’s like traveling around the world having the best craziest adventures and meeting the coolest people on every continent in every country, it’s like an incredibly good book that only comes around once or twice in ten years, it’s like helping someone without motive and making them feel like a hundred bucks, it’s like eating your favorite food—a whole table-full of it—and not being physically affected, it’s like finding intimacy or forgiveness with those you can’t seem to breach that emotion with in real life or reach that point with, it’s like standing on the edge of a cliff on the edge of the world with the wind whipping your hair and a blue sunny could-flecked sky above you, its’ like the first smell of fall, it’s like the height of fall in all its full-leaved golden-crimson-opal-evergreened New England rolling hills glory with the smell of apple cider and crackling fires warming hearths wafting on the evening breeze while you sit outside on the stoop alone and exhilarated and just then a bald eagle flies over head of you and you just catch a clear glimpse of it through the earthy trees as a squirrel throws an acorn on your head and a bear rumbles by in the brush and your kitty sits at your ankles talking love talk and giving you sweet eyes. Lover love is actually better than any of that. It can’t be compared, can it.
• Good music comes pretty close, and especially enjoying it with someone who can explain it to you, describe the details of the musician(s)’s life, tell you exactly why it should be enjoyed and how, even though, of course, you will enjoy it only how you will enjoy it. Doing something that makes you feel good about yourself also comes close, like doing the laundry when you don’t feel like or making a kick-ass dinner of baked garlic chicken that your lover loves even though you think you’re a shitty cook, especially when he tells you you’re not, and you believe him because he’s the most honest person you’ve ever met. But then, that’s cheating because your lover is involved in the comparison and it can’t count.
• I keep smoking because I’m afraid if I quit I’ll gain weight. I’m ashamed of it but wish I wouldn’t feel that way or worry so much about my body.
• The best feelings in the world: completely forgetting yourself in a moment; dancing without fear; great sex; a cigarette after a couple beers; flying in your dreams when it’s just for fun; swimming in perfectly clear and very deep water (pool or ocean); stepping out of a sauna or hot tub into cool fall-fresh air; looking out the window in the morning from a warm cozy winter house after a big snow fall; the physical let down after very difficult and constant physical exertion; the thrill of a violent destructive storm; being lost in a crowd at a concert when the music steals the room and the band is good people; a gentle bear hug when you’re sad; seeing a momma or a dad taking care of their child gently and with love when they think no one is watching; witnessing integrity; climbing a really steep mountain all the way to the top and then seeing the view; lying under the Christmas tree watching the rainbow tree lights and the flickering lights of candles throw their dances on the white walls feeling family around you listening to Mrs. G’s Christmas story and then listening to the Drummer Boy song; being taken care of when you can’t take care of yourself; taking care of someone you love when they can’t take care of themselves; knowing you are not alone; the rare vista of this life you have when you know very simply and completely that you love yourself.

Anyway, I'm getting tired. It's nearly midnight and I'm nearly done with my hormone balancing tea. I must sleep.