Reckoning

"First we admit our mistakes
Then we open our eyes"

It's been a very interesting beginning week to a year which is bound to be, well, very interesting. There are the things I ask the universe for, specifically, clearly, and then there are the results I receive. A modicum example would be personal ads, which I have been loosely playing with lately, to the result of winking at or hotlisting (on Onion listings) people who don't respond the same to me, and folk who wink or hotlist me about whom I have absolutely no interest. It reminds me a lot of when I edited a poetry journal: folks would read our journal and love it, absolutely love it, then send their work, and it would be absolutely nothing like our journal at all, not even fitting enough to consider. I am sure I have submitted to many a journal who has thought the same thing: sure she likes our stuff, but what makes her think she fits it in the slightest?

How it is that we love what we cannot have, that we are pulled to that which is, at different levels, repulsed from us? I was shocked in the end of the week to see that the most predictable results - playing "hard to get" - brought in responsive results. In romance, at least.

So in the face of a couple of failed budding romances, I pulled back this week and refocused on work and friends. The results are, of course, gorgeous. Friendships are this rich, deep place of equanimity, where there need not be doubt about trading time and energies, where support can be found in Scrabble or time sewing together, listening to Ani DiFranco and talking of everything but sex. Tonight, holed up against a Friday night, my housemate and I received call after call from all over the world; people who hadn't called us in months checked in, lined up on our voicemail, and all we could figure is that our collective energy called them in to us. Berlin, London, Portland, San Francisco; we sang with them all, with each other, and the universe sang back. I had told my housemate I wanted to do something tonight I had never done; I had had fantasies of going out dancing in a racy outfit, something to break the monotony of a week of stressful computer work at the store. But it turned out what I hadn't done in so long, so long, was lay back and be loved like that.

Reading both bell hooks' Communion: a Female Search for Love and Joan Didion's latest memoir, the Year of Magical Thinking, I have had love on the brain. And loss. I am finishing my application to school, recounting how my life so far has shaped my ability to love what I do now: teach. My nephew is coming to visit this weekend. I feel rich to the point of bursting. There were many discouraging moments in the week, many times when I begged for the something-to-look-forward-to feeling that being in love, or thinking I am, can give me. And yet, this was it. A quiet Friday night. Phone calls. Music. Sewing. Beer and laughter. I can't say I'm not sad. But I reckon I am closer to opening my eyes by now, than making mistakes. Just now, for now, that cycle has come from reconciling to reckoning, and I am grateful for that.

Thank you.