created: spring 1997 (i)
UTTER CONFUSION speckled with little or NO DOUBT…
There is so little that needs to be said. Yet, there is a mountain of memories to go over in order to make sense of it… not that it has to make sense, mind you. But, notwithstanding you leaving the message and the subsequent e.mail, I was alone at sea on this one. SHAMAN sailing solo, wind ripping at the sails, rain stinging as a shout from the quarter-deck: WHAT? I’m trying, to the best that my foggy recollection will take me, to remember the conversations that I had with you. The conversations that I had with Lindi. Sitting in a smoky room just watching the two of you. Or listening to you bicker about some damn cafe and then just laughing at each other for you both, at least right then, realized that feuding is, by definition, futile. A whole host of subjects. You and I would talk about the whole spectrum. Lindi and I would, among a great many things, talk about you. I would attempt to figger out just what was going on with the two of you. For all intents and purposes, y’all were straight up girlfriend and boyfriend. Even a cursory view of you two by a relative stranger could reveal that. But then there was the reaction that either one of you would give when accused of being the latter. You BOTH would spout about how the two of you were something different…if not more than that. Something about what y’all shared meant that you were above the petty pricking bullshit that usually ripens or rots a girlfriend/boyfriend-type relationship. Not that you two didn’t fling that bullshit at each other. But, as far as I can remember, the two of you told me of the same feelings for each other…separately from each other. Need I ask if either one of you remember having a conversation with me some damn Fryday at the Firehouse… talking about the other, bouncing your ideas off of me, threatening me with life and limb if I ever told the other what was being said? The two of you did this with me separately from the other…and y’all said the same damn thing. You both threw curves: Jubal would… well, be Jubal and Lindi would say that it doesn’t really matter for she alone knew the score. There is no nutshell. There is no summary. There is no rehashing NOW what I think the two of you were about THEN. That would be straight off the desk of the Department of Redundancy Department. But what I WILL allow myself to recollect with some degree of accuracy…which will help me explain SHAMANs initial “silence,” is the similar views on the institution of marriage.
Wether it was I who offered my overtly pessimistic view on the institution of marriage, or the conversation just drifted that way is irrelevant. I do not think I need to remind either of you about the way I feel about the Western marriage. But what I recall fairly clearly is that when expressed, my views on the whole subject were resounded by agreeing comments from the two of you… once again separately. No detail need be given here…it wasn’t THAT meaningful a topic. SHAMAN spitting bile about that which he most likely fears…as you say: denial of inevitability directly precedes realization of imbecility… read that twice, okay? But, if there was a request for me to describe either one of you two with a series of phrases, there would be something said concerning what I thought were your views here. In my minds eye, with lack of direct input, I was comfortable in my prognostication of the way you two would “end up.” It differs little from the way I feel towards Anna. The two of you loved each other… intrinsically; as if counterparts to one grand encompassing theory…. two defining points to an engaging argument, for the lack of a better word. Regardless of eithers attempts to apply your lives’ wayward spirituality and sense of vagabond to the relationship, you fooled only an unnamed few… the message was clear. Despite the way the two of you fought… I realized that it only looked that way from the outside. Most of those looking in were duped into thinking that two “in love” just didn’t have to do that. I had little or no doubt that the two of you would spend the rest of your lives together. And, knowing how the two of you felt about the institution of marriage, I was resided in the fact that you may never get married… at least not in the terms described by Westernism and Catholicism. There may be an “exchanging of rings” and there may not be a crowd, but the two of you, AS I KNEW YOU, would breath your last breath into each other. My only variable was just how far distant the two of you would allow the two of yourselves to get before the circle worked and weaved itself together again. When Jubal moved to SantaFe, and Lindi didn’t, well… that was a mere formality. Honestly, I was more concerned about what leaving the Venice lease did to y’all’s credit… and, of course the condition of my PetSun. To me, there was just an unconscious request by one of you for a wee bit more water under the bridge. No speculation was given for how things would go. I do not do that. I have a passion for letting other peoples’ lives progress at their natural cadence…regardless of how close those people are to me.
“To the feelings I can’t even match”
So, when I heard the phrase last Monday… and requested it be repeated, then asked for another… there was a massive firing of synapse in the old brain. “WHY” was never considered, read above. “WHEN” was irrelevant. “WHO” was insulting. “WHERE”… well, I was curious… “how” kinda figgers into that. My questions were far too complex to grapple with. You’ll get blunt here: I was confused as to why there was no invitation. Not that spontaneity ISN’T the spice of life, but even the hint…a puzzle piece if you will…to such an event… I cannot say that I do not feel inquisitive as to why you did not at least inform prior to the even. Its not like the two of you were alone for the event. What WERE your criteria for making those last-minute phone calls? Later, this petty, jealous emotion was quelled by the realization that this was y’all’s day, and that nothing can ever touch that. If I wanted to have my wedding hanging upside-down from a tropical rainforest canopy, then crisson (sp?) it by humping in the offal of a decomposing rubber tree, well…thats me right, right? You two promised each other something LONG ago. How you consummate that legally is less than a formality. After that shit died down, I thirsted for information. In the same breath I wanted to congratulate the two of you, then to drill you for the questions that I cannot think of now to save me life. I wanted to hear not only WHAT you had to say, but HOW you said it. I was feeling like Nostrodamas: I was to listen to the inflection if both your voices, then deceiver what could never be said. At one point, I accused myself of wanting to hear how you sounded so that I could infer what was “really” going on, but that didn’t last. What was really going on was the sound of two keen friends growing up…making a giant leap forward. MAN, the clarity for the future the two of you must have right now. Make no mistake: I am inherently proud of you. If there was a way that I could admire the breadth of either of you more than now, then tell me for I am reeling. I’ve only been to one wedding in my entire life, and I was fully unprepared for how it would effect me. I learned more that day than in many since. My sister…my brother. I knew that to condemn marriage, as I had done so many times prior, was wrong. The conversations I had that night were profound. My spite was directly transferred from the institution OF marriage, to the institution that sought to “perfect” it. My hatred for the Cross would grow actual flames because of that day. But the day brought me an amazing calm…a lucidity. I knew then that there is simply a timing issue…an alignment in your life, if you will, that must occur FIRST before you can lock down the rest of your life with anothers…and that “act” is void of critique, is free from fear…and should be embraced…when the time is true. It scares me so much it fills me with astounding inspiration…how much I love Anna. As you said in not somany words: I would jump in front of a flying bullet for Anna. I would devoid my life in its entirety if it would spare hers. And, as I said somewhere above, I intend to spend the rest of my life with this woman…and my life is aligning beautifully without me even putting the Heat on it.
I’m tired. I’ve been writing since 9 and I want to go to bed. You can tell by the fact that the whole thing is coherent that I’m too fucking poor to afford my daily intake of IPA. But that’s a whole ‘nother 12 paragraphs. Lets just say that Anna got an internship at WIRED magazine and has had to take on a second job…and “may” still make rent. Everything else is up to me. I love that though. Isnt that the most mascultine thing you can think of? Supporting the woman you love while she learns a trand and skill and meets friends and makes contacts so that one day she’ll make more fucking money than any combination of Gods and then return the favor when we decide to tour the SouthWest? Well, thats just ONE of the things I fall asleep to at night. All is well. All is kind. You two must be the same frame of mind as THAT. And, incidentally, from here on out, you will be hitherto be called, The Thompsons. You will take everything that goes along with it. I know that the two of you saw that there isnt a damn thing that has changed, but there are some impending changes that you MUST consider: The fact that the two of you together are going to fare a whole shitload better with the IRS than each of you would seperately. How you can STILL rack up the wedding gifts. How, in accordance to the song: “Fist comes marraige, then comes the….”
SHAMAN
….Yet to be addressed….
You going back to school…
Your musical plans and how they’ve mutated, migrated, or masticized…
My plans to camp in the SouthEastern corner of Arizona on 5.15 – 5.16…
The fact that I’ve rented a ’97 Ford Expedition with which to execute the above…
The retroactive bachelor party you slippery mutha fuckah…
My Pet Sun and how he may finally allow me to cultivate the beauty of Zafo’s Freshest….
You impending visit up to the Bay Area….