an autumn wind

Is this not an idyllic autumn day, replete with that dullened autumn soul? The cold wind blows away everything, leaves nothing. I should resume "Lightening and the Dragon." Will this thing ever be done? How should I occupy this Saturday night? Maybe I should pray. (And maybe I should—but how often do I feel there is no ear complementing my voice and without that how silly I feel?) I want to escape the bounds of this small loneliness, maybe float high off on the cold autumn wind, float free from myself, and not shackled to the edge of something BIGGER but defining what it IS. This I hope, even as I crawl beneath it, battered by the fierce, the cold autumn wind. You have all of the things you are remembering, like thoughts of loving someone, maybe her love 4 u 2. But only then—only now—do you consider maybe it wasn't fair to lose it, because, you know, you are something BIGGER (thought you were sometimes smaller) and having it is in your nature. Who doesn't? What you want is to get back (or crawl back) to something where—no, it can't be said—but getting back is all that—now—is important to you. Getting back. Getting. Back. Love. Finding. Keeping it. Loving. Getting back to it. That is all there is. Just get it back; and then hold on like hell to it.

Do you get it?

John.

Kristin

Kristin was at the bank. And I have got to say now, she is so very beautiful, one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I wasn't confident enough to ask her for any more than some financial transaction, much as my subconscious kept palming the back of my skull, come on and do it, you know you've got to, come on, do it now. I will. That's all I can say.

But I am skeptical that I ever could completely forget about Kate and what, for a brief time, she had meant to me. I don't want to leave her. I don't want to move past the thought that I could have enjoyed a long and happy life with her. There was so much in her for which I yearned and ached and had suffered long and unhappy years. But this becomes not about her now, but about all that is necessary to make my life not something for which I've toiled and regretted.

At this moment, I want only to find enough courage to ask Kristin on a date. But part of me believes I will wait too long, if I ever can do it at all. This is what is so advantageous about online dating. I can write out my solicitations, as that is what I excel at as a writer. But the online recipient will not know what it is like to be near my person. She will not embrace my laughing charm nor my attractive smile nor my gentle eyes that are sharp and not crafty nor my body that knows it is the enclosure for a beautiful heart. These and many things will be opaque to the online recipient. She will see only pretty words.

Nonetheless, with faith in some impossible task and belief in a fate I cannot yet see, I will ask Kristin. She deserves that. Perhaps she has waited as long as me.

John.

moments of fay

I am reading the blog by Twisted Heart, Endless Endeavor. "No Matter How Hard I Try, It All Stays The Same." I can't help notice similarities to Kate. She is a young woman named Fay. She breathes in a place that seems decided upon by other people. She is young and trapped and silently yearning for a self-propelled direction. She is seventeen and I am wondering if Kate was once her, searching and holding on to every small measure of security, depressed over lack of substance, which these capricious loves beget. I am curious where this young woman, Fay, will go, and to what post will she find herself, cornered by confusion as to how this rough draft that is her life never seems to be polished.

my friend Jean

This is my friend, Jean, who lives in California.

So she tells me she was talking to her friend one day and he speculates: what if while she was walking along the beach she should stop and talk with a future John Steinbeck. So she tells this friend: "I think I already have." Thank you, my friend Jean.

composing my life

So I sent this woman this email, see, and so she turned me down, see, and so now I am not so optimistic about that, see, and I still can't seem to find my glasses. Anyway, I got my beautiful smile and something charm. I am looking for my humor, though, because I am starting to be unfunny. I got my cold feet in the morning and got my cold hands in the evening. And I got my good body that doesn't slouch like a question but exclaims with a dot at the end. I've got some kind of vision in my head and friends listening to whatever I've said. I got style and I got spontaneity. I got eyes that are always looking and seeing ... I got ears that may not always hear. I got imperfections and I got determination. I got my voice and I got my soul, and with those two, I got everything I need.

What will Kristin say?

I am getting it. Now.

John.

happiness is warm water flowing over my soul

I sent this woman this email, see, and so now I have to wait, see, breathing short and shallow, see, because this woman is gorgeous and maybe I am handsome, see, but just not that handsome and maybe I am a poet but just not that poetic and maybe I love romance but I am just not that romantic. Maybe I think she is perfect, but I am just so imperfect. Maybe I am grasping far beyond my grasp, see.

If she wrote back, I think I could die with a grin on my face and be so ridiculously happy...but then I'd be sad, because I'd realize I was dead and dead men aren't dateable. It would be a mark-the-event-on-your-calender event to hear from her. My thoughts are exploding with pleasant dreams.

Ah...to write, to write. I am going to write about these things that inspire me. Now where are my glasses?

John.

reality shift

If you can imagine it, and if you can believe in it, it can really be; nothing is very far beyond your reach.

John.

wait till tuesday

This is what I've learned. You may be afraid of uncovering a truth that is upsetting to you, but if it ever was worth loving, then the risks are inevitable. Many of us carry the burden of not doing something more than of doing it, because not doing anything is less challenging, albeit more risky. To paraphrase the words of Novalee Nation, the character played by Natalie Portman in Where The Heart Is: "We've all got bad things in us, just as we've all got good, and the only thing worth living for is the good." If the focus is only on the bad, then all that is good escapes. How much will it cost to see the good? How much is love worth? So I've learned this this morning.

In summation: I am going to wait till Tuesday.

Be well, all who love me. And if you do not, why don't you?

John.

the bloggiest blog ever blogged, Blogger?

Last night, I wrote her an email. May she read it or may she not is definitely without my control; now it is with Fate to oversee.

I am moving, albeit slowly, out the door.

But sometimes I get the feeling she is sending me smoke signals. Crazy?

John has blogged/out.

hello

Kate,

It has been nearly two weeks since I last wrote. I hope everything has been well with you since then. I now need to write this email because I have been holding on to the hope that you might write me. I need to let you go and I need to let you know that I am. It is important to me that you know I am profoundly sorry for my actions. Please understand that I wasn't rejecting you as much as I was rejecting myself. I know that is very little comfort, but I do realize that I hurt us both and, as much as I am sorry for that, I have to forgive myself. You were so perfect and I was so intimidated.

When we talked on the phone, you made me to understand that I should not feel responsible for you. I want you to understand that you should never think that you'd have to be responsible for me. I am very much like you. I see the things in me that need improving. I can look at and know what is important. Like you, for instance. I will find a way to be unlike I have been, because there is so much that is good about me. This makes me different from most other people. I can examine myself. I never suggested that I was perfect. I never wanted you to think that. But you did. Or something like. You had this image of me that was unfairly imposed. I am much more than that. I am a man who is capable of tripping over his fears. This is all I mean to say with this: I very much deserve another chance. However, if you don't, please don't ever look over your shoulder and wonder what might have been if you had. I am a man deserving of another chance.

And you deserve to give yourself another chance.

There are other things I want to say, but in this email I won't. I will one day if we ever get that chance we both deserve. But I want you to know this anyway: I never wanted to die. No, Kate, I never wanted that—for so many reasons I never wanted that. It had only been a thought to hold onto, for lack of anything else, if that makes sense.

So if you are reading this, this is goodbye from your friend always.

All my love,
John.

there are spans i tremble to transit

And so I get colder in the area near the heart. My aura fades as I descend into something of vaporous shadow, something thin and translucent like dusk. Is this what waking from a dream is like? Is this the stark eye of reality, my feet like stones of ice from fear too heavy? I want again the dream where I thought her love into reality and myself into the dream I thought could never be real. Maybe dream and reality, here twisted like some knotted rope, are only states of mind and the physical presence is the only thing worth our certainty. Oh, love, if again you could possess me and make me dream you real again.

It has always been my regret that I gave you up because my grasp could not find a way to maintain you. Where are you now?

Love?

John.

read this tonite

Only to you, my dear, faithful, unresponsive Journal, only to you will I set my heart before and therefore rest my eyes easier into sleep. Only to you will I bring deep out of my heart these things I would like to place before the world's love. Only to you am I not able to be silent, because you are all that is left when I am not.

My confession is that honest love comes too few in life to be shrugged away and carries no guarantee of a return. I am a man who has shrugged often. I cannot say that I will never shrug again, but I can say that I will not be looking for love again. You read my thoughts, dear Journal, and you know who it is I want, to whom my heart has drifted. I will not find myself loving anyone who is not Kate, because my heart will never again be sane concerning Kate. Please, tender Journal, communicate my love and send out my heart to Kate and bring hers to me again. Perhaps this makes me a fool, but I am even more foolish to not try.

Love,
John.