Charting the Space Between Stars

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. . .Something Must Be Wrong With One of Us.

You throw me the rope & I give you my hand. This is for holding on. This time. & I’m not afraid that you’re waiting at the top. With a knife in hand for the one I love. You’ll never take my son. ‘Cause you’ve got something better.


& this fire you’re starting. All inside my head. Is burning through the files I kept. So what I thought was you and me and everyone is going up. Something better built in place of this series of dank, dim-lit rooms. Ivory palaces with gold foundations. Colonnades open to the gardens and courtyards open to a perfect sky. Let me take it all apart so I can make it better. You promise. & the match is lit. This is the sound of me saying yes.


So terrified and so ashamed. You tickle me on the inside of my shell. All I can see is how ugly I’ve failed you. All you can say is how pretty I am. Even the inside, you say, even the inside of this is coated with pearl. Come on look around and marvel at the inside of your cell. You secrete beauty from pain because I made you, and this is what I make.

I blow you an upward kiss and you rain back a confetti of hearts. We are made for each other.

Every night and every day I'll bossa nova with you.

Moved back to Georgia. This time I did it for the right guy.

I'll wax poetic eventually. Right now it's a gorgeous Sunday, the windows are open and Ryan's playing our joint favorite Nine Inch Nails song on his guitar, the same one that was playing (incidentally) on his car stereo in the five or so minutes when I finally decided not to leave again.

I was so worried about doing this, and then I realized I am not Arthur Dent. I'm Trillian. So.

I'm quitting my jobs and clicking my heels together and deciding there's no place like home. Which is exactly where you are.

Wish me luck. Wish me magic.

Through the fire and into all this color and free, safe, comforting warmth, plenty of water around and a boundless garden, if gardens, by definition, can be boundless -- otherwise it's something else. Through hardship and into the stars, rolling around on my back in the sky and laughing. I didn't know I could ever be this happy again, without drugs, this in love with life and people and God, without religion.

How is this possible? I don't know. But I know it is, I know it's real, I'm so in love I would not be surprised to discover I could see new colors.

I gave up on being afraid. It feels amazing.

For a second there, just now, writing about it, I saw a glimpse and intimation of heaven, of the next world, that I never had or would've guessed, quite. It's good. Better than we could've known. --Different. We build cathedrals, the Church, when we should be gardening the earth to bring out all it's natural splendor. And then building cathedrals that, at their best, remind us of the glory of the outside world. We've gone for artificial, we've gone for rules and fear and fake, constructed culture, we've done our best, sometimes, doing that, but there's more.

There's this guy, see, and He came to give us something bigger and different from anything we could hold in our hands. He came to give us freedom. We have made a fossil collection out of the living Word and loved the bones like curators, dusted and labeled and cautioned the viewers to be quiet so the vibration of voices and rushed, happy footsteps don't disturb anything, we have theorized and written papers and grown quite satisfied with ourselves in our theories, grown comfortable and old, and He's here, peering through the windows, knocking at the door, head wet with dew, come out or at least, at least, let me come in. I can't believe you would not want to run with me, once you know my love. If you could see the way I see you. And that the apple trees are in bloom. See everything.

Come, let's run. I love You, show me everything.

. . .You have restored my soul.

Why choose Ryan Yates to help with it? Well, why not? His heart's amazing -- good, diamond-like, prismatic place to shine light through. --Which is to say, Ryan, thank you for loving me. You're good at it.

Woke up with a completely new story idea (or a story mundane egg -- just a title and vague flashes of color and light and potential).

Reading Song of Solomon again and hearing God speak through it for me and other people. It's been a long time since I could read about lovers and take it to heart. Not trying to be bitter, just honest. I think last year I died and no-one knew, not even me, really.

Sensing His good feelings for other people when I pray, and I'm praying for them more. Maybe just because when I think of Ryan I want good things for him, and then it reminds me to want good things for other people, as well. I know it's never one thing -- it's also Kim being such an inspiration, and wanting good things for her, and Rochelle calling the other week and praying for me over the phone and just bathing me in kindness and insight and love. It's never just one thing, but God, I'm grateful, and these sweet people you've given me are all helping me remember to give back.

It's so scary, it's so new, and it's so beautiful. It's bewildering how this could possibly to happening to me, for me. Love; this fresh beginning. I want more than anything to be in it; sometimes I passionately want to run away, because what if I lose me, what if it turns out to be wrong, what if . . .?

But that's not living, and I have to live. I have to pursue freedom and what Sam would call "authentic life" (and there's a reason for putting it that way even if Sam's phraseology does tend to get buzzword-ish -- there are a lot of zombie-shambling ways to "live" that aren't the real thing at all)(short story corollary there would be Neil Gaiman's "Bitter Grounds"). It'll be worth it, because it already is.

And God keeps telling me I have the ruby slippers. Which if I had to guess means not to be afraid; means that I'm free, and walking around with something more precious than I know, something that can't be taken from me. Sometimes I think I have to avoid other people to avoid being hurt by them, to avoid being compromised. And there's something to be said for who you let in close. But Ryan belongs here, I think. At least this close to me.

I don't have to put on a show for him, or feel I have to put my life or passions or interests on hold. I feel safe and warm. I can feel God's sunshine on me when Ryan's giving me his. Only thing I could wish is to have him nearer, and that'll come, I think.

--Right. 2p.m. Breakfast time.

(Watched and listened to this for the first time today and re-experienced the way art moves your emotional furniture around.)


He liked sad things and I wouldn’t have minded except I was sick inside and thought we had to try hard to stay happy, that sun-scrubbed smiles were the only holy things.

He liked sad songs and stories and I was starting to see it, but he was sick inside and the things he said to me were making me drown, I couldn’t stand anymore voluntary water in my lungs, so much already burning and choking me all out of my head and out of myself, he was the worst storm in six years.

I like sad songs now, he got that one thing right. They pull me in and it’s into something, I see more light this way, but I’m not sick, this time it's safe. I’m not afraid to tell you something good about yourself. I’m not afraid you’ll leave me for something pretty. I’m not afraid you secretly hate me. I’m not trying to drown anything.

I want more Ryan.

Met Ryan in Columbus late Friday night and spent the next 21 hours having as much fun as possible. Which was a lot.

I saw one of those photos on the internet tonight, a snapshot of a piece of homemade, graphic-text art that read: "I'm Scared Because There's Only One of You."

I've worried about that sort of thing before, other times, with other people. With Ryan, I'm not scared. I forgot to be.

He called to ask what my favorite color is, so when I got to him there were purple flowers waiting for me, and all the yellow ones removed,cut-up, and still visible thrown away in the trash (yellow is my least favorite color, but I don't think he knew that. I think he's just magic). There was pizza and conversation and both of us stone-tired, or close to, and neither of us sleeping, much.

Waking up in the middle of the night to work on a poem, when I haven't felt like writing poetry (non-spoken-word) for the past year, really. It's easier when I'm near him. It's easier to remember I'm made right -- my skin feels like it fits.

Hotel coffee, followed by an hour of driving around looking for real coffee, finding it, listening to really loud music in Ryan's car, followed by a fair being in town and riding his and my favorite carnival rides, which involve spinning fast and or turning upside down fast -- the drop in the pit of my stomach makes me feel dreamy and peaceful, like I spent the first nine months of my life in a centrifuge instead of a womb, or maybe got born in a helicopter, and no one ever told me. The rides have never felt better, a fair has never been better, Ryan's arms around me.

Zombieland, because I wanted to see it, and movie theater food for lunch, because Ryan did -- nachos, popcorn, Coca-Cola, and Butterfinger pieces. Stadium seats you could lounge in and a guy who puts his head in my lap when he's tired. Who is always near, in such a good way, when we're together.

And Woody Harrelson was magnificent. I hate zombies, and I've never seen them murdered with such joie de vivre. Oh yes.

More coffee.

No place else to go but too soon to drive home, so Ryan drove us around until we found a park to talk and swing in a little before sunset.

Music all the time we're moving, the same way I like to live. Someone to sing along to NIN's "We're In This Together," with, and who can still sing along to Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar, and I used to have the entire album memorized. Who plays songs sometimes because they remind him of me.

Who calls me when I'm done driving home and stays on the phone with me for hours. Who tells me his secrets, who asks after mine and then convinces me to throw my sins in a river and let them fucking go.

He's not me, which is good, because similar as we are in deep, valuable ways, I need and enjoy his difference. He's not perfect, either, which is good to see, because no one really is. But he is a lot of good things, and I do not want to list them here because I do not want to make other people vomit, but I am so grateful for Ryan, and I don't remember the last time I was with this much of a friend, and felt loved, and felt on equal footing, when we were dating. There were a few things, years ago, that came close, but the drugs tore us up, individually and together, and all the collateral damage from our private wars made us ruined before we began, with the secret that we just didn't know it yet. And had no life or hope or faithfulness in our hearts strong enough to overcome it.

Part of what I'm thinking is that I shouldn't bother talking about this:

--because people are deluded regularly, so why should I think this would be any different?

--because this is ordinary, it happens everyday, and why would anyone want to hear about it? Why document it?

I have to hope in something, trust someone, sometime. And Ryan may not always see it, but he has a heart so magnificent it easily, regularly, blows the edges off my ability to perceive its contents and expansive potential and shape. I know him, I know my friend, he's always been good to me and kind, for ten years. When I'm with him I feel like I'm home, and I don't know the last time I really had a home, in someone else. Never like I do now. He's intense and sweet and loyal and so smart and fascinated by things I know nothing about and loves things I love, loves music, God, his friends, makes me laugh and dazzlingly exceeds my expectations, is honest and brave and easy to talk to. We believe in each other, and it's good. And he's easy on the eyes and warm to the touch.

Been happy all day and only now, late at night, does it start to hurt that he's almost six hours, and an unknown amount of actual time, away. Still not pleasant, but best unpleasant pain I can think of. And it'll resolve.

Tutored. Worked out (this is the second week of working out -- trying to go for a whole month and then some). Wished for cake, but could not locate any. Watched Dollhouse: "A Spy in the House of Love" and "Haunted" -- both amazing in different ways.

I've heard people call Dollhouse the least impressive of Joss' shows, but I'd say based on production quality and performances given that's incorrect. --Haven't seen last two seasons of Buffy or most of Angel, or quite finished Firefly (trying to savor each episode there, since I'm probably not getting any more of it) so I won't attempt a ranking, but then I'm not sure they should be ranked. They're all pretty awesome. And they're all different shows.

Looked at pretty pictures of Allegra Kent and Charis Wilson. Yawned.

There are so many things I want to know. Like how to completely love someone with every fiber and paper-scrap of your being and let it flow through you like gold and sing on the inside and how to love God and everyone else, do more instead of less, embrace it all. Some weird Looking-Glass logic to it, how to do that. You just do, maybe, instead of trying to define it?

How and why sometimes being a friend also means being a pastor and when I forget about everything and just love you I feel so good, how is it that giving love is an additive process? Not only that, but an hour later someone else comes and does the same for me, words that mean more than I can express thanks for (but Frank, thank you). These things are connected.

How it is I can have so many things tenuous and uncertain but I am surrounded by fabulous music, find more of it almost every day, and on the days I think all the good songs are gone and anything I hear hurts my head and I feel so dry I never believe this rain will come again. This applies to more than songs but I mean music literally.

I feel super-charged with hope and joy and in the midst of it, in rainbows, Debs is still sick, I have no five-year plan, my skin breaks out, my belly’s not flat, my bank account has almost flatlined, I had a best friend that I likely will never speak to again and the truth is that it’s for the best (but I will never find another him – each of us fragile and irreplaceable sometimes I hate the human condition this fallen world and how the most beautiful crystal ornaments, once shattered, have the most violent edges). I love God. He loves me first and better. He asks nothing but the pleasure of casting his line out and maybe, happily, reeling in my heart at the end of the day.

If I could learn to grasp it, cross over, swim around in that truth – funny thing – He’d probably, regularly, reel me in more easily.

Here is one thing I’ve (re) figured out: the only way I know and have found to navigate and understand God and religion is in the context of a great and personal, warm and explosive romance: one that also cannot live without branching out and seeking to connect others into it. My wellspring. Je t'adore.

So spent Wednesday through Sunday, more or less, in Georgia, with Ryan. Where I have accidentally left parts of me. Anyway that's what it feels like.

He invited me up Tuesday but I couldn't come then, so drove up Wednesday, and once I spent three hours driving through Milton (chemical spill on I-10, huge traffic backup on alternate route -- better than last trip, when I got a flat tire partway there), the rest of the trip was smooth.

Good things (not an exhaustive list):

*Falling asleep to Ryan.

*Waking up to Ryan.

*Watching a gazillion movies (I think five start-to-finish, plus maybe two half-completed ones?)

*Eating an almost full English fry-up type breakfast (minus black pudding and mushrooms) that Ryan's stepdad made me one morning. He seemed doubtful that I was actually into it. Come on, fried everything plus hot tea? What could I possibly not like?

*Everyone ate all the brownies I made for them.

*Riding around Macon listening to really old Marilyn Manson.

*Going to the gym with Ryan and finding out I like working out a lot more when I have company
*Went to hear some band at a pub there and drank Guinness with Ryan and met (and re-met) several of his friends, and it was a cover band, and stage presence they did not have nailed down, but the covers were pretty decent, and I love going out and having beers with friends.

*Waffle House for dinner after that.

*Saturday morning spent listening to the National and praying in Ryan's room while he was at work and it had to be one of the best times hanging out with God that I've had in months -- maybe, honestly, in years.

*Hanging out at a museum with Ryan's family -- aviation, which isn't quite my thing, but there were a lot of neat WWII items of clothing and weaponry and I do like that sort of thing. Plus the swell company. Plus old planes are pretty, and I like museums.

*Grilled steak, perfect baked potatoes.

*Going to see Inglourious Basterds, which I've really wanted to see. I'd never seen a Tarantino in theaters before, and it was superb. I'd say sublime, but there was a lot of scalping, strangling, shooting, and maniacal laughter, which might rule out literal sublimity. (Although . . .although thinking about it makes me grin hugely, still, so maybe the phrase "the Sistine Chapel painted with a Gatling gun" (Neko Case, "Polar Nettles") would be an applicable defense/explication of a very precise type of sublimity only found when Hitler's being shot to death. A lot. In glorious color.) Not just the movie itself, but also that Ryan didn't care too much about us being late. I always go to movies to be with people, so I like it when the people aren't freaked out if we miss the previews. I've dated guys who couldn't handle that.

*Watching The Vicar of Dibley with Ryan's mom and there was this part where a group of bridesmaids were dressed up like David-Tennant Dr. Who and two Daleks. It made my afternoon.

Not so good things:
I had to leave.

Excellent things:
I am happier in the company of great friends. And I got a lot of that.

Love, when was the last time I remembered? Has it been months? Years? All I know is I’ve been longing and unsatisfied and confused and here in a minute You come, rush in, break through, tackle reality and make everything right, everything safe, everything true. The sun comes.

Been having a really rough time lately, in some respects rougher than I've been telling people. Went bar-hopping with friends Friday (that was not the plan, but is what happened) and giving a car-less friend a ride home ended up breaking down crying telling him what a mess my life is because I had to tell someone, and had to explain, I'm so sorry, it's not the beer, because I want to do this every time I go to church, too, I just don't know or trust anyone there that well.

Dodging God all day, wrote a song about it, dodged more, stayed so busy/excited/stressed I got a horrible, someone-put-out-the-lights-please-and-the-sun headache that went all afternoon and is still kicking around. Talked to Ryan again. Weird/good maybe. Always good to talk to him, I love him, always. That's how friendships go. But there's been all the other stuff, so . . .

Been alone a lot, do and don't mind, house-sitting while my mom, who I've been staying with, goes to stay the night (and the day at hospitals) with my aunt with cancer.

Right: Having a double whiskey, watching Dollhouse, feeling like a wreck of a human being. Too many disparate elements that feel completely disconnected and don't seem reconcilable. Somewhere through "Man on the Street" just paused the show and started telling God this. That I don't know how to be part of my church when they teach so many vital things but don't teach or care about or maybe even believe other things I know to be real and have been taught to care about. That I don't know how to be a Christian when my faith tells me things modern science and psychotherapy and compassionate social thought disagree with, that my own body disagrees with, sometimes. How I don't know how to be confessional with other believers. How I don't know how my writing can be improving so much when other parts of me feel like a complete shambles. How unsure I am of having any way, any hope, of making a difference in this world. How life, I don't know that I'm a good match for it, but I don't know how to want anything else. How it hurts, I don't know how to talk to Him, how to do things right, how He could love me or want me here. Really embrace me. And He just . . .He does. I turn Dollhouse back on and finish the episode and end up crying -- it's so weird and so imperfect all the things that happen in the show, and there's so much mystery, but there are these transcendent moments in the story, as it closes, that answer some of my questions, with gestures more than words, or words that serve as gestures since they answer questions not related to the show but to my prayer -- even unvoiced concerns.

Like when Victor says that Sierra makes him feel "better."
When DeWitt asks Echo if she wants the painting to be finished, and what comes after, regardless of DeWitt's why for doing it, there's something real and some kind of closure wrapped up in all that illusion, or seems to be.
--I don't know if that explains much. I find more than I can voice, sometimes, in stories.

But finishing it made me feel more. I mean, feel better. More cohesive. Like I was feeling fragmented only because I wasn't throwing myself into God's arms, sometimes I find it and then I forget and can it really be that easy? Do I just need to talk to Him?
I was just telling Ryan it's not fear of punishment that makes me want to avoid messing up, it's love and gratitude. But -- I am afraid. Not of hell, usually. I'm afraid of not being loved anymore. Isn't that fucking sad?
I tell everyone I love Jesus, and I'm terrified He doesn't love me, or I just don't understand it, and I hide and I hide and I hide, and hiding makes me feel crazy and makes things feel worse. Always.

Help. Help me feel You loving me, if I never get anything else, let me get that and learn to communicate it.

( While Crows Come I'll Cower Defenseless )

So did wake up and keep the aforementioned hangover all day, and, if I forgot to mention it I do not feel good about myself for drinking that much. Nor have I stopped shaking all day.

However -- I feel closer to God today than I have in weeks, maybe because there's a beautiful Lazarus-like moment when you wake up reeking of personal rot and the grave, and you're like, well, Dude, I'm here. Do You still love me? And He says, Yes. And He really does.

Then tonight Samantha and Beth's ordination was one of the most holy things I've seen ever. Since I came to the River there have been two perfectly luminous moments -- one was when Sam (I'd never known any churches to do this) invited everyone present, not just baptized Christians, to share holy communion, and my friend Hale and I got to serve it to our friend Will, who hates churches and mostly every form of hypocrisy and exclusion and pain that they've ever represented to him, but this time he was made a part of what we were doing, and it was beautiful, and he liked it. That was when I decided the River was my church, for as long as I was here, that I could foresee.

And then tonight, well -- I've never been part of a church that fully embraced female ordination.

I have wanted a woman to be in church leadership (at a church I'm at) -- really in it -- for so long. Now I get two, here, and they're two that I love and trust, and I feel I just saw more of heaven come to earth. More balance restored and more of God's glory. A small and gem-like moment that helps wash away some of the blood of centuries of misogyny.

I am so in love with you, my River. Thank you for being a place I could love and contemplate trusting again. Maybe I will stay long enough to open my heart to you like a letter. Maybe not. But tonight I decided, for the first time since I started to come, that I will try.

Cheesecake, coffee, electrolytes, Paulette Wooten, more coffee, e.e. cummings. Drank too much the past two nights running and now feel like Denis Johnson but not in a literary way. No headache, but I'm shaky and feel unusually pale.
And have (& want) to make the drive out to the River for an ordination, music, and cake.
I showered and changed clothes but I still feel like I smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol. Stale after-skin.
Oh, right. This would be one of the reasons I don't usually have more drinks than I have fingers-per-hand.

Next: makeup, music, more coffee, mild groans of protest, driving.

(I am not actually having a bad Sunday. Just a slightly physically pained one.)

I love writing sex scenes. I'm sure there's a reason for that.
And I don't mean gratuitous slash-fic style sex scenes, or anything like that. I just have several stories that have intimacy, or the treatment and viewing of the body, or boundaries, as essential elements, and you know, sex comes into that.
It's weird to simultaneously be a Christian and be very pro-sex but within certain boundaries and write sensual stuff, and try to navigate all of that.
If I'm going to tell the best story I possibly can, though, there's going to be blood. And skin. And humans behaving badly. And drugs. And witches. I love fairy-tales, and fairy-tales are violent, vivid, lurid, lovely, evocative, immediate.
This is what I know, this is where I've been, this is what I'll dive into. I just want to do it well.

I don't really have a choice about doing it at all, because when I do write, what comes out tends to be fantastic and, occasionally, visceral. I went to the doctor of starlight but he couldn't remove this. Said maybe this means it's what I am.
I'd been wondering where I fit, and last night, while I was praying, I felt like God was saying I've been asking the wrong question. That he made me, so I fit with him. The question to ask is, where do I go?
--It's a better one, isn't it?

Woke up to the cats I was sitting being a little too musical, but, an hour later, got a pumpkin scone, a platter of assorted cheesecake slices, and a barely-cracked bottle of a previously untried brand of vodka (360) delivered to me. I love my family. And new vodka before breakfast -- yummy. I won't lie. It might be the sexy packaging, but I swear this is the best vodka I've had in years. And it's definitely proof that God loves me. --I only had a taste, but I think I'm going to have to prise it back open before sunset. Too delicious.

Also -- been ogling boots at Urban Outfitters. Every season it's the same story -- just $450 for new shoes and I'll be happy. Oh, shoooooessssss . . . .original 1960 design Doc Martens in cherry-red leather, Frye motorcycle boots, knee high black suede pull on wedge-heeled boots, elegant lace up gray suede peep-toe low-calf boots . ..and I'm half-a-step away from drooling on the computer. It's still sticky early-September outside. Anti-boot weather. But a girl can dream. I 'm dreaming of moving somewhere colder, just so I can justify exorbitant cold-weather footwear purchases. *Happy sigh*

I think I'm meant to be writing now. Supposed to meet up with James H tonight, which might actually happen, and that means write now, do hair later (it's being unruly again).

The blessing/curse axis of feeling things keenly means when I am happy, I am ride-a-unicorn-over-a-rainbow, sing-in-a-hurricane happy. When I'm miserable, I'm not even sure I'm human anymore. --I guess it's worth it for the ride-a-unicorn bits.

1,155 words on a short story I've been meaning to write but couldn't find any of my notes for. It's going swimmingly so far, maybe because my narrator is a complete asshole. --He's so fun to write with. And I'm so pleased with myself right now. Story!