Tender Daytona

It is very, very late or very, very early depending on how you look at it.

I'm not really sure how to describe the past 48 hours.  They are sublime in their details. Both beauty and decay.

D telling me about his trip back to Vietnam and being able to meet family of his he has never met. Us having conversations about love, friendship, life and the conversation we had about the suicide zine he was working on, years ago.  He drove 40 minutes to come see me and it makes me feel loved. When he texted me afterwards to tell me that I am a valuable part of his life, it made me feel loved even more so. He is one of those friends who means so much to me but one can never really articulate the anatomy of how/where/why.  It simply just is.

B told me of a conversation he and I had lifetimes ago on the porch of a domestic violence shelter and how/why it impacted his life in a positive way. He told me of a book he has been writing and how one of the main characters is based off of me. There were a lot of tears in the conversation. The good kind.

N, I am not sure how to encompass this. How is it that a gay bear and a gender weirdo could have the luck of connecting so deeply so long ago and still feel the same golden connection of friendship? Old souls. Deep friendship.

Casey and I walked and walked and had so many conversations about so many things.  All the while under a sky I have forgotten the expanse of. I don't know if there is something I enjoy more deeply than walking for hours without a destination in the summer evening in Ohio.

I'm listing these things and leaving so much out. Sometimes it is overwhelming to know that the people you love and admire love and admire you back.  It seems like such a basic or obvious thing.  It's  not.  It's not something I would ever take for granted.

(pause)

These things and stories and sentiments are of a foundation made of years and, in some cases, decades of knowing each other.  They are the people who do or do not know each other yet still have the same, consistent story of who I am and what I am like. This foundation is what alerts me to something undeserved. This foundation is what shines a light on the contrast of some things that have happened in the course of the same 48 hours with a person I have known for a relatively short period of time, but have cared for very deeply.

(pause)

Blame doesn't really compute with me. With the exception of situations involving force, systemic oppression, or captivity:  I get into situations through my own agency. I get out of these same situations through my own agency as well.

This is true of everyone.

The details can be lengthy or short, but it all comes down to decisions. I set limits as I need to. They are set for me. They don't imply blame. I don't blame you. I never have.

Blaming the other person:  I just don't think in those terms.

(pause)

There is always a point when you let go of a loyalty you wish was earned. It is slow. It is gradual. Letting go of a loyalty I wanted to give might always be hard.

Last night I felt it loosen to fall away.

I won't throw it down, nor will I throw it in a face: There is nothing admirable in shaming love or belittling feelings.


I will simply watch it dissolve 
and feel the heft of its weight

slip from my fingers.


May the endings in our lives, of all kinds, occur with a presence of profound love. 



be well; be loved,

k.

(Lisa and Anne Bosveld, by westografie via genetic-freak tumblr)

I'm not sure how this fits, but Paulo Freire's ideas of love being an act of courage, not of fear and thus love being a commitment to others and to liberation influences something of this.  Here, when he speaks of liberation, I am thinking more in terms of the liberation of oneself and each other from trauma, from history, and from hurt. Keep trying; keep fighting; keep knowing that the compassion you have for yourself becomes the compassion you show for others becomes how you continue to cultivate compassion for yourself. And on and on in love and courage.