Over at Andrew's he's talking about getting that itch. You should be somewhere else, but where? The first thing that came to my mind was that I wanna be lying down somewhere with my great-smelling guy. You know the one who's a gentleman on the street but a dirty whore in the bedroom? He's smart in some ways, thick in others? Yeah, that guy. Are you him? ::makes universal 'call me' gesture:: Anyway we're lying underneath a huge night sky....we might have a blanket and maybe the sound of surf. It might just be grass and crickets. But the sky is filled with a scary number of stars. We talk or don't talk. That's where I wanna be.I'm not meaning to bogart Andrew's post, so you could head over and let him know where you're supposed to be, if you haven't already.
Does it sound strange to talk about a scary amount of stars? I've seen skies like that only a few times in my life. Once I was walking along a beach in southern Spain (Andalusia...say it out loud, it's fun) on a cool night. I was with one of my best friends. We'd been drinking a bit and ended up lying down and stargazing. I get a catch in my throat even now thinking about that time and that sky. I wasn't so young even then, but I'd never seen so many stars. The sky was thick with them. Crazy with them. It was beautiful and frightening. Intoxicating and kinda perfect.
12 comments:
You know the one who's a gentleman on the street but a dirty whore in the bedroom? He's smart in some ways, thick in others? Yeah, that guy. Are you him? ::makes universal 'call me' gesture
Are you kiddin me? I should have that first line especially printed on some business cards. Soooo, in the immortal words of Abba:
I was sitting by the phone,
I was waiting all alone,
Baby by myself I sit and wait and wonder about you,
It's a dark and dreary night,
Seems like nothing's going right,
Won't you tell me honey how can I go on here without you?
Yes I'm down and feeling blue,
And I don't know what to do, oh-oh,
Ring ring, why don't you give me a call?
Ring ring, the happiest sound of them all
PS. I know 'zactly what you mean about the stars, Brotha.
One of the very few things that I miss livin' in a big city is that with all the collective light the city throw ups you never get that awesome spectacle of the stars. When I was livin' in the country though, it was a whole other matter. There have been nights spent alone and with others out in the bush, or even sittin on a beach, and the display of stars was almost enough to takes ones breath away. They seemed to fill the entire sky. Majestic. Dazzling. Awe-Inspiring. I like laying back and lookin up at 'em too.
That and the flickering flames and sparks of a bonfire or campfire. They also have the capacity to reduce me to the same kind of calm this-ness. Beautiful and meditative.
While I am happy to talk for a while in either case, I find that both esentially require silence. Nothing more needs to be said. Drinking it in is enough to fill my spirit with joy. Snuggling up or lying in somebodys arms and sharing the moment together is very nice, though :-)
I did an 8 day meditation retreat last year, and walking back from the meditation hall at the end of the day was a 20 minute walk through the nighttime bush. The meditation centre was in a National Park, surrounded by pretty much untouched bush.
I used to look up at the milky way, so very bright in the cold, clear night sky. 8 days of being alone with yourself, no distractions, and yet feeling together and connected with everyone. Then to look up at the spectacular display of bright stars, it was quite an intense experience. Your emotions can become quite raw on a retreat like that, and I remember shedding a few quiet tears. Happy ones mostly.
Gentleman/Whore...it's quite the dichotomy, yo. So they are you EMBOSSED, B?
I think you're right about the PLACE having a lot to do with the stars. Besides the Costa del Sol in Spain, it happened to me again in the mountains...Jackson Hole, Wyoming, again with my best friend. If I remember right, we were watching the Comet Hale-Bopp that night. It's more than that, though, isn't it? There's this overwhelming feeling of connectedness coupled with some tiny grasp on the infinite. OK, was that too far out? It's true, though. The closest thing I've felt to Maslow's "peak experience". And to get it with someone you can be comfortably silent with? Mmmmmm....bliss, no?
Andrew, I'm not having much success with meditation. By that I mean I'm not doing it. I know it's a practice and maybe a struggle. I feel like eventually it would lead me to being more open or accepting, plus it's gotta be healthy. I'm doing yoga, only 15 minutes/day, but I feel that it's starting to do the same thing. A path...
Oh, and thanks to Chuck that path also includes douching my nostri.
I'll be sure to let Chuck know he's changing the world, one douched nostril at a time.
I'm not having much success with meditation. By that I mean I'm not doing it.
I've had a meditation practise for well over a decade now, and its been a daily practise for quite some years. I have also done more than my fair share of 2 week retreats, led a meditation group at my Centre for two and a half years, and have taught others how to both formally and informally.
Just so ya know, Mikey, I'm your man if you ever wanna get into this a little more. Of course, we can just be comfortabely silent with each other. Or lack back in an embrace just watchin the stars. Oh yeah, that could work.
Yoga, huh? One word and one word only comes to mind.
Flexability.
This is a good thing, keep at it ;-)
Our beloved TOA does yoga, ya know.
Well, if you consider purving on and man-handling the cutie doing downward facing dog as yoga. You know, thinking about it, by that definition I might even be a Master without realising it :-)
PS. I'm thinking embossed, Helvetica in black on textured eggshell quality paper. Tasteful, refined, a little rough and yet still classic.
Bodes, sorry, but I think you're Comic Sans. *ouch*
I'm a pretty lousy, on again off again, meditator. Any effort is better than no effort though. I'm still going to class once a week, and attending other teachings at the centre, so I get in a minimum of a few sessions a week. Plus sometimes I just go and have a quiet session in our meditiation room at the centre. At home though, no so much lately.
Mmm, you remind me that I must go back to the yoga centre. Helping others to align their hips is rewarding on so many levels...
Bodes, sorry, but I think you're Comic Sans. *ouch*
You all see what I have to put up with, right?
Just as well I do meditate regularly. Despite comments like that, I remain unaffected and yet aware. Unrippled like a calm and clear pond. An ocean of stillnes, serenity and equanimity upon a ...
ok .... thats it .... stop laughing bitches.
You know the one who's a gentleman on the street but a dirty whore in the bedroom? He's smart in some ways, thick in others?
If you find him and he has a sister...you know where to aim her. (Although for me it's not the dichotomy so much as the idea of a woman who can play the whole range. Mmmm. I loved unfixed identities, plurality, multiplicity.)
The stars out here in the high desert mountains are stunning. First of all, we're over a mile high and that really does make quite a difference. But there's also practically no civilization in the immediate area, as well as a local light pollution ordinance that keeps all streetlights and nighttime lighting of a certain sort and under certain brightness such that you can see the sky. When I walk across the parking lot at night to take the trash to the dumpster, I am swimming in constellations. It's beautiful and I'm going to miss it very much.
But I saw one of my favorite night skies in rural North Carolina. This would have been the summer of 1986. I was on a trip with my best friend from high school (with whom I'd recently begun to fool around) at her family's vacation home. We pissed her step-father off by being Very Bad Girls, so he forbade us to go out on this one night that we'd planned to do some [more] partying with some of the locals. So we wound up talking/not-talking all night out in the neighbor's yard, which was more accurately described as Farmer John Brown's pasture, with a silk blanket, a bottle of scotch, a doobie, and a cheapy Kodak camera that I kept drunkenly trying to use to take pictures of the amazingly starry sky above us. That was one of the best nights of my life, then and still.
Oh, Jen. If only you were a guy. Or I was a girl, I guess. I mean you were a gay guy and I were a lesbian. Wait. Or I guess if we were both straight, but where's the fun in that?
I've actually had that thought myself, more or less, except that in my mind the question was directed at the universe and contained much cruder phrasing about our particular genital construction, lol. Even as a straight couple, I suspect we'd still be pretty queer. :)
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