soapboxdiner

Sundays are for reflection

I used to go to Waverley beach late at night, listen to Midnight Love on the B210's 4 inch speaker. I'd drive down the impossibly curvey, hilly lakeside road beneath all the (nearly) million dollar homes with walls of glass and landscaped lawns - small as they may have been - in my grungy worked-a-day-plus-some-by-the-smell polyester Jack-in-the-Box uniform.

I'd drive down the unlit save for the stars hill and round out into the parking lot overlooking the lake and over to Queen Anne. Off would go the engine and out would come a dime bag (back in the day when a dime bag meant the Jane and consisted of a good inch across the bottom of the Glad Sandwich Bag). A copious pinch rolled and set gently atop a bong-ified Sprite can and I was all set.

Most of the time I would look out across the lake and lift my chin and tell myself, "Yup. All that shit that's happened, I've survived it. I've made it through. Strong - that's what I am. I'm a survivor, fuckers. I'm still here."

Which is kind of a funny story, seeing as I was sitting in a beat up Datsun getting high all by myself at midnight and crying and stuff. But it was beautiful there. It was my place to be at peace.

Growing up, one of my favorite books was Catherine the Great - the Russian empress's biography. Now there was a woman worthy of heroine status, praise, admiration, and attempted emulation. Married to a weak, cruel homosexual prince out of her mother's greed to re-acquaint their family name to money. Imprisioned by her mother-in-law the Queen until she produced an heir with a man who never once came to her bed. Yadda yadda and all that stuff. She got herself some confidantes and got the good prince drunk one night and took care of that pesky rumor-turned-true business about his foreskin-constriction that pre-empted his ability to procreate, and got herself a lover - several, actually. Ended up ruling the country long after the Good Prince was gone.

Strong woman - incredibly brave and smart. A woman who knew how to take control of a woman's life when being a woman mostly meant being someone else's breeder only.

But then again, I think I've always liked the tragic... the gritty... the defining moments that put on display fortitudes that happiness and good fortune disinherit.

That was the purpose of my first tattoo - the one happily situated slightly (now) below my heart on my breast. A modified eye of Horus, to remind me I'm strong and between the eye and my heart, I could see the intentions of those who claimed to want access into my world. Crazy as that sounds - but true in it's own tragic, self-encapsulating way.

Now I'm presented with a situation where that defense is barrier against something potentially really fucking positive. To leave the wall up keeps me safe and untouched, to lower it means to allow myself to become vulnerable. And vulnerability in itself isn't bad, if it is a trust between two people. The question is, how do you know... save for a good dose of faith and gut instinct? And who the hell ever promised that this life had to be roses to be good in the most part?

I seek balance... and maybe someday soon, if I loose my grip just a bit on my expectations and let it just happen, I will acquire it.

Here is something different I've not felt in far too long. We shall see.

10:26 pm - 07.13.03
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