broken window.

In the Taoist tradition one is never supposed to talk about their past, speak of their age, or any of that. But, I feel like telling stories is always good. (I'm not feeling very eloquent right now b/c I have a killer headache and one of my fingers is out of commission).

Today... not right now, but earlier today, I experienced a couple of incredibly striking moments, those kind of moments that just shock you into the present, and sorta wake you up to the way things are, and the way they might be going.

Um, Katie and I are having prahlems. What else to say? What details? I just don't know if our relationship be workin out. I don't know if it's healthy anymore. I'm not sure that we are creating ground in which to grow, together.

So, back to the title of this blog. The background is a nice peaceful morning. Katie and I just moved our bed into the sunny shrine room, a little nook for our sleepy time adventures. And in the midst of this moving, she tells me to move my shit so we can move a dresser, I throw my shit out of the path of the dresser, with a definate attitude, I also throw so of her stuff, also with a definate attitude, and she gets mad. She gives me the finger, and somehow we end up playfully fighting... which actually wasn't playful at all. We were fuckin angry. She gives me a slap to the face, slap boxing stylie, and I give her a dirty broom to the mouth. Next thing we know, Katie has a half-full (half-empty?) Nalgene in her hand and it's flying in my direction, missing me, and flying into the window.

And it was there... everything was there in that moment.... A perfect image of our relationship. And somehow, it was beautiful, and relieving to get all of our frustration out of our bodies and into the physical world. Right there, in the middle of the window was a perfect hole where the bottle had hit, with cracks going out on all sides, and shards of glass littered on the bed. None of our conversations to that point had been so honest.

And it really cut through... everything. Katie and I have had to work with this relationship, as we are working with ourselves so much these days. I think, we are both happy with our personal progression, but the relationship remains a constant source of frustration. It's not like, incredibly BAD or incredibly GOOD, it's just like.... my sore fingernail....

The other moment of the day worth mentioning came after lunch. I could feel emotion building up from that broken window, it was such a potent image. And that anger and frustration that changed the window from a single piece of glass to shards and cracks began to change me too... And as I walked into my house, my mind running around with these emotions, I slammed my finger in the door. Ouch, right on the fingernail. And again, I experienced a shock of pain that forced me to be present. When that type of shit happens, you're right there with it. And pain seems to have the powerful effect of bringing you back to the moment... b/c fuck it hurts so goddam much, how could you be thinking of anything else. My fingernail will eventually fall off and a brand new one will replace it. But there will be a time when the tip of the fourth finger of my right hand will be completely naked, unprotected, that soft tissue that normally lies comfortably under the nail completely exposed. And until that event, I am left with a dull pain, not so much to incapacitate me, or make me scream, but just enough to make me notice that my body isn't fully right.

It's not clear if Katie and I will part as I will part with my nail, but it does seem like, lately, there has been this kind of dull pain. And it's exposed now, more than ever.

So it's sad, to think that being with the person you love may not be healthy anymore. But that's life, I guess. And we live it to learn about these kinds of things. I love Katie. I Always will.... deeply. But, will we stick it out? That remains to be seen.

Either way, life is showing me how to be brave, how to be honest, and be more of myself.

Pain is the word of the day. Good, pungent, dull, cutting, old-fashioned pain. And today, I am grateful for it.

I'm In a Relationship

"The problem is that we don't really want to relate with the actuality of things as they are." --Chogyam Trungpa

Relationship. Hmmm, two people relating to each other. That's all that is. Two human beans, just relating with each other. And that somehow makes ALL the difference in the world. It can mean life or death for the most romantic, it can mean happiness or sadness, for many, and it can mean wholeness or searching searching searching for so so many. WHY?

I just had my three year, (kind of) anniversary with Katie. I say kind of because we were not together for like six months or so. Regardless of this silly detail, (which seemed like such a huge deal to me a couple days ago), on February 5th, 2003, Katie Day and I liked each other. We saw something in the other, that maybe filled that part of ourselves that was waiting to be ignited, maybe we had just enough millet beer to let our guard down, just long enough to actually let another person in, or maybe we were just so open from meditating and being in a new country that we could have fallen in love with anybody. Or maybe it was fate, or luck, or, as they say round these parts, "auspicious coincidence." For whatever reason, Katie and I got together, began to relate with each other, and ourselves in this new way, new yet incredibly familiar, and soon enough we loved each other.

Three years later....

Katie and I were out celebrating our Anniversary with a simple dinner. It was generally pretty fun, as it's always nice to escape the commune and go do regular people stuff. But, towards the end of the meal, after I was gettin pretty psched about things, Katie gets this look of... just being unsure, and she's terrified. Three years... two and a half years, whatever... is a LONG time to relate with someone. Unless they're your friend, or sister or mother or uncle or dog. And the feel of the night flips... holy shit, what the hell are we doing still together? I got hurt, and proceeded to drive us to the nearest bowling alley where I shared a pitcher of Coors Light with myself and got my ass kicked throwing balls down the alley. Katie was hittin strikes and I was just hitting myself, right in the crotchal region. And we fought, and Katie cried, and this continued for hours, till we went to sleep. And we've kinda been tense and fighting ever since...

Yet, we are still together. This is the first time I've been in a relationship where there's been really intense fighting and confusion and sadness, and we actually still stay together. In all of my previous relationships (excluding the ones with friends, sisters, mothers, uncles and dogs) there's a fight, then we break up. And that's that. With Katie, it's like, holy shit, we really are FIGHTING right now... hm, okay, let's work with it. Let's learn from this. Let's realize that we can't fulfill ALL of each other's needs, like creative expression, and meditation, and that kind of open attitude towards living, but we can actually wake up through all this heavy stuff.

And isn't that kinda what we do with so many of our other relationships? I mean not in the same way, but with my friends, if we disagree on something, or just have a run in of some sort it's not like, "Okay, that's it man. I'm totally breaking up with you. We're not friends anymore. Dick." No, absolutley not. There's no way I'd do that kinda thing. My friends are my friends. We may lose touch, we may get into some diagreements, but our friendship is truly never in question. And that's how it is... at least with guys. Girls might be a little different sometimes. By the way, why are you girls so fuckin' mean to each other? I think girlfriends break up with each other all the time.

I'm not trying to say that guys are better friends to each other than girls, I'm just noticing the difference in how we relate. Anyways, it's crazy, being with Katie, fighting, but somehow realizing that we have a relationship that is just as strong as the relationship I have with my friends, dogs too. What a freakin concept. This is not to say that Katie and I are going to live happily ever after and pop out fifteen babies in the next couple of years. But, I think, that no matter what happens, it'll be...

two people relating.