cheese/sentimentality/thinkin' about stuff

we carry so much baggage with us, the weight of our parents' stories and their parents' stories...traumas and past lives and expectations and pressures.  we change and shift and shrug.  we become stronger and we break open.

yes. ten years ago i was--not a different person--a different version of myself: the ghost of a stone sculpture not yet articulated in sensuous curves and sharp-edged hollows.  i was a dream and a spark of what i am now...and right now, i am a spark of what i will become.

do we ever really get to reach our highest form?  yes.  maybe not while we are alive, but we are born with this perfection, this blazing joyful soul that becomes veiled as we age and learn and become burdened with knowledge and avoidance--and we return to that state in death.  i suppose select few make that transition while in human form: these are the Buddhas and Jesus Christs and Mohammeds and Mother Theresas, the anonymous ones who drag dying brothers to safety and who spend their days feeding and bathing the sick.  But most of us are trying to flip the Rubix cube while we are half-blind and roaring for affection and recognition.

i am no expert in love, though i know that i crave it and need it as much as i need water to keep my body running smoothly, as i crave pieces of dark chocolate on a select few days out of every month.  i know that love has many masks...and that love unmasked is more powerful than the weapons our government spends billions on every week.  i know that i can convince myself that i have it, that i am in it--or that i don't have it and won't ever know it, not truly.

the truth is that i am looking for the freedom that comes from pairing with a person who can look me in the eye as i lay down my burden of stories.  i need a best friend who will cherish me and call me out on my shit.  someone who is imperfect and adept like a chameleon, shifting to fit a mood, a mode of communication, a moment when i am glorious and frightening.  i need a lover who can undress me, and a confidante who can hold me when my mother dies--a partner who will have my back when i'm faced with a gang of demons ready to bludgeon me to death with their stinking fear, and a companion who will play Twister with me while Tom Waits, followed by Radiohead, followed by BB King, followed by Mozart plays on and on and on...

in return, i will offer every bit of who i am.  i will be lovely and sexy and honest and jealous.  i will cry and kiss and soothe with my fingertips.  i will complain and apologize and praise and bless.  i will be there, even when i am not.  i, too will be imperfect, and i will try so hard.  and i will back off and run away, but i will always come back.  and when our paths part, i will still love you.  and when we meet up again, i will not love you less. 

date rape, robert garza

going back through my journals, i realize how lost and scared and confused i was.  the perfect prey.

robert...what the fuck was your last name? garcia?  you worked at the Thousand Oaks Healing Arts Institute in Reseda in 2005, i know that for sure.  Garza.  Robert Garza.  you work at the Hands On Healing Institute in Tujunga, as well.

looking back, i can't believe i didn't recognize how creepy you were.  what was i thinking?  probably rationalizing, while my intuition, straitjacketed in starvation and malnutrition and depression, was feebly begging me to run the other way.  you were 41; i was 24.

i went with you on a road trip to San Francisco and Lake Tahoe during Christmas of 2005--my first Christmas away from my family.  i had already told you i did not want any romantic relationship.  i was willing to travel with you as a friend.  i could get out of Camarillo, see the snow, learn how it is in other families during the holidays.

i don't know if you planned it.  maybe it was just a spontaneous thought--you brought some for yourself and figured you'd see what my reaction might be.  either way, you gave me one magic pill before we left for the jazz clubs: Magic X.  i believe i was drinking martinis.  you gave me another one before we even got to the next club.  you would end up giving me 3 tablets of ecstasy within 3 hours.  thanks for the introduction to your favorite drug of choice.  and you're a professional in the health field?  scary.

i remember being back at the hotel room.  i remember getting undressed: i don't know if it was you or i who did it.  but we ended up in bed together.  eventually--probably sometime during the wee hours of the next morning--i made my way, vomiting, to the toilet.  you watched as i teetered in front of the bathroom mirror, as my legs buckled underneath me.  you told me later that you caught me just before my head hit the corner of the bathroom counter.  my hero.

i remember making it back to the hotel bed.  i remember drifting in and out of consciousness; at one point i heard the housekeeper banging on the door to be let it.  check out was at noon, but i couldn't regain full consciousness until at least 4pm.  you've must have been scared shitless, wondering if someone was going to find out that you had a semi-conscious young woman half-naked in your bed with a duffel bag full of pot and e and who knows what else.  i know we eventually made it out of there.  when i regained my strength, i vowed never to let you touch me again.

i tried to stay away from you while we were in Tahoe, sharing a room at your friend's house.  i engaged in playing with her three children, even had fun sledding down the hills near the neighborhood.  you attempted to apologize, giving me little trinkets and gifts.  i wanted nothing to do with you; i was only biding my time until i could go home.  you confronted me, saying i was being ungrateful and rude.  i was incredulous that you could accuse me as such, and asked what exactly it was you wanted from me.  "Affection," you said.  i told you that warmth was the last thing i felt for you and tried to leave the room, but you followed me upstairs and closed the door behind you.  this was when the little hairs all stood up on the back of my neck.  i was cornered like an animal, and like an animal whose life is threatened, i became all adrenaline and rage.  you got in my face and hissed again about me being ungrateful (for you overdosing me?!?) and i have never EVER been so close to punching a grown man in the face before.  i growled something like "get out of my way" and something in my eyes must have shown you that i meant it.  you stepped aside and i ran out the door, down the stairs, out of the house and into the snow.

our last confrontation came after we returned to Southern California.  we were both scheduled for work that day at the chiropractic office.  i avoided you: no eye contact, no words spoken.  after my last massage, you came into my room while i was stripping the bed of sheets and packing up to go home.  "I just want to talk," you said.  then you closed the door.  again, cornered.  again, adrenaline.  i tried to pack up as fast as i could so i could flee before you tried anything.  i was terrified.  i should have just left right then, or screamed bloody murder.  but i didn't.  "Don't touch me," i hissed.  "Get the fuck away from me."  i made it out with my things as you insisted that i was over-reacting and that you just wanted to talk.  i got in my car and sped off until i was out of sight...then i pulled into a parking lot, killed the engine and burst into tears, shaking uncontrollably.

i discussed what had happened later with a friend who happened to be a law school dropout.  "Write a letter," she advised me.  i did.  i made 3 copies: one for me, one for you and one for our supervisor.  it said that i had dated you and broken off the relationship, and that i wanted nothing more to do with you.  if you looked at me, touched me, spoke to me or in any way made me feel uncomfortable in my place of work, i would demand you be fired...and if you were not, i would sue the office.

i never heard from you again.

i feel sorry for you.  you are one sick bastard.  i hope you are no longer a massage therapist.  i hope you haven't had the chance to victimize any other girls or women; but if you have, i hope they've had the courage to press charges and incarcerate you.  i've held this secret for a very long time, letting it poison me.  it feels good to finally tell the truth.