(Phaysis)

Reflecting on my life and where it is now. Turned 35 a week ago; I’m almost at the statistical halfway point until death. Sometimes I feel halfway dead already, and that’s unsettling. Starting to see further signs of growing older.

As I sat down to write this entry, I cued up some music, logged in, and sat with a blank form; the words didn’t come, and the music was keeping them away. I’m now seeing what our parents went through, that mental focus gets harder and harder. I’ve said before that I can’t get any work done at a coffee shop unless I have relative isolation; the same is true when writing journals. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t. I had to turn the music off so I could think. Nothing but the drone of my computers’ fans; no distracting sonic impulses, no melody to carry my thoughts off like so many children behind their pied piper. I don’t want to be this way, but it’s a progression that’s been occurring for a few years. I guess I’m finally starting to recognize it.

I had an old flame come into town for my birthday weekend; not that she came in specifically for that, but she was travelling and stopped over for a few days on a coincidence. It was a true pleasure to see and spend time with her.

I had settled it within myself that I would be over and done after pining for her, holding a candle for her, for many, many years. And yes, I was done, resolute to move on. She has her life, her love, her choice; though we had a brief, jubilant shout of greatness years ago (with a few echos), her life was her life, mine was mine, and that was that. I sighed as I watched her drive away out of my life for the third time, but after being on a high from the greatest birthday weekend ever, I didn’t mind so much. I felt 29 again. I could conquer the world. I could date around. I could move on.

The nirvana didn’t last long; I foresaw that the depressive crash to my intense manic phase was imminent, and like a self-fulfilling prophecy it happened. Midweek. She and I are on the phone; I’m keeping her company as she was driving through Mississippi on to her home. She said she missed me. There was something in her tone that made me doubt my own resolve to move on. It cracked my foundation.

By the weekend, she made it home at last and got settled in with her new life and new love, and I was here aching and debating with myself. I felt withdrawal; cold, lonely, hungry. I knew what a heroin addict feels when he needs a fix. It’s that hunger, the desire to feel warm, loved, whole again. It hurt. She had nothing to do with my state but to say she missed me; that pebble started the avalanche that revealed the mountain of physical, mental, and social loneliness and longing that’s been hidden underneath years of snowy denial and distractions.

Enough time has passed since this revelation; my neurochemicals are somewhat leveled again. Still a little pensive, but that’s my nature. I don’t feel so bad about the whole thing, but I’m still left with the knowledge that I need someone in my life. It’s a bad, vulnerable place to be, sexual politics being what they are. I guess my best move is to keep my guard up and try to be the awesome guy I know I can be. Beyond that, it’s anybody’s guess.

Back in November, I got a call from my ex-girlfriend MaRanda. She had decided on moving to Los Angeles from North Carolina, and had requested to stay with me in Austin for a few days on her drive across the country. With having not seen her since 1998, I jumped on the opportunity and opened my door for her eventual trip two months later.

Her visit this week was nothing short of incredible. She arrived late Tuesday night after eleven hours on the road and was ready for a drink, a laugh, and some rest. Wednesday, we went around town; I tried to show her stuff that was “uniquely Austin”, and mostly succeeded. Had breakfast at Starseeds. Gave her a tour of my workplace (I luckily had enough time to request the day off). Drove her down 2222 and down 360. Showed her the dotcom where I used to work. Gave her a brief overview of Zilker, Restaurant Row, Lamar through Pease Park, and across to Tazza Fresca where she went nutso for the Groovy Lube sign. Heh. She got to meet several of my longtime friends and felt right at home.

She decided to extend her stay another day. So on Thursday we had brunch at Magnolia Cafe, went to the boat ramp at the end of Lake Austin Blvd., took pictures. Went to the Capitol Building (she did visit the state’s capitol, after all). Got pictures of her doing obscene gestures in the Senate and Representatives chambers. Then we went to Spiderhouse and hung out enjoying the vibe. She met more friends.

It took every ounce of her will to stay to her plan of driving the rest of the way to L.A. She has obligations. She has people waiting on her. But I told her, everyone told her, that if the L.A. experience should be a failure, then she has safe haven here. It was nice to have her around, and it would be nice if she stayed, but I would never wish for her to betray her plans.

In seeing her again, in speaking face to face, I remembered what it was that attracted me to her back in ’97. Even after these years part of that is still there. It’s that we work out well. We fit. There is chemistry, history. I feel comfortable around her to an extent greater than usual around others. That counts for a lot.

Her visit was great. We had fun; reconnected. I’m still trying to digest and remember all that we did and said. It was a heady two and a half days; we went nonstop, and slept little. No time for sleeping in. And we barely scratched the surface of what it’s like here, how well we’d fit as roomates or neighbors. Trying to cram years of this-is-who-I-am into 58 hours. A Sisyphean task. A bittersweet time; fun with the knowledge of the end. I guess that’s what made the visit more heady.

A little is not enough.

I hope things work out well for her in L.A. I do. Sure, I’ll miss her, but I hope for the best for her, for me.

Some weeks ago I was asking for some kind of sea change in my outlook, looking for some kind of change in my life, something to make life less stale, more inspired.

I got what I was asking.

Last week I got curious and spent a few evenings looking through the boxes of photographs I’ve taken, all of them from 1993 to the present. This encompasses several eras of my life, from the latter half of my time at OBU to my first post-college residence in Texarkana, to my time in Greensboro, to my time back in Texarkana, and then the 5 years here in Austin, so reviewing these pictures was a flood of memories. The exercise gave me a more level perspective on my current life and I drew renewed ideas as I looked at those pictures. The people, the places, the memories. The ex girlfriends.

I found the pictures of a girl whom I consider the best girlfriend I’ve ever had, the girl from North Carolina. Our relationship in ’97 was incredibly brief and bright, interrupted by my sudden but necessary move back home. Things were starting to warm up between us and then *foop* it was cut short. We kept in touch in the early part of ’98, and she spent her spring break in Texarkana visiting me for a wonderful week before she returned to North Carolina. Some bad stuff went down in her life shortly thereafter and during the following summer we lost touch.

A few months after I moved here in 2000, I was in my bedroom cleaning out my wallet of all the crap that had accumulated. Pulled cards out, slips of paper, receipts. I found her old number and froze. All I had to do was call, but the uncertainty and trepidation took over and I put the number to the side. I drummed up the courage some weeks later and called only to find that the number was dead. So I made the determination to find her; but each time I searched online and found fresh leads, I felt creepy about digging for an old flame and put the information to the side, to never act on it. And I’ve been doing that dance for 5 years.

Well, the pictures I found of her Wednesday night enboldened me. Enough. Enough of the waffling, of the creepiness, of the uncertainty. If she is with someone else, then I will know. If she is still alive, then I will know. If she still thinks of me, then I will know. So I did a new search for her, combined it with the old searches and followed those leads. I sent out emails to people who had websites that referenced her asking if they knew her and could do the contact info forwarding thing. Done. That was easy enough.

Friday morning I awoke to an email from her in my inbox. Elated, I wrote her back before I left for work and after work called the number she provided me. We talked for an hour and it was good. Gave truncated, annotated histories; tried to compress 7 years of the past into a phonecall. She’s had a rough rollercoaster ride since ’98, the troughs and peaks fiercely overshadowing my own thrillride. But there’s still so much more to catch up on, much more to explore. We’re back in touch, and it is good that we’re talking again.

So. These new developments have me rethinking my own lifestyle, about my future, about my state in life. Without going into much detail, I’m looking for a renewal in my income, in my goals, in my motivations. I’m at a heavy time and I have heavy concerns now. It’s time to put the unnecessary parts of trepidation aside and take some responsibility instead of floating along on hopes and comfort zones. I’m taking the little steps to examine the way I think, the thought processes, the emotions, trying to understand them and, finally, to control them for my own betterment, like a watered-down method of zen buddhist meditation. If I can help myself in any way to take things into my own hands, I won’t find myself irrelevant at 40 and hungry at 58.

And so there it is. There is my sea change. These are heavy, pregnant times.

It’s interesting, the breadth and depth of the people we lose contact with. Amongst recent days full of recollections of days gone past, it’s unsettling to bring back those memories of places, atmospheres, and people, close people, and then to look around and find nothing, no one, like it was. The best you can hope for is to see glimpses, taints, of the people you knew in the people you know now.

It’s approaching mid-summer now, and I’m looking back into time. Only one time period can be seen; it’s the summer of 1995, my last summer in college. Halcyon days they were. I was living on campus that summer, as I had for the previous three, only during this particular summer I had no classes, no courses; only my dayjob at the campus printshop, my newborn adult mind, and my handfull of close, close friends. I stayed in the dorm just to the west of Francis Crawford dorm, top floor (which oddly was the ground floor on one end). Communal showers. No running water in the room. Shared ventilation. Low ceilings. Small closets. Really odd, odd accomodations, but my roomate and long-time friend Stephen Gent and I made the best of it. Had a hell of a time there.

Stephen, earlier in the spring semester, introduced me to his friend and classmate Donna Crochet. Over the spring semester, as I had a part-time security job in the Francis Crawford dorm lobby, I got to spend some time with Donna, helping her to heal from that night’s damage inflicted on her by her then-boyfriend Richard who treated her badly. Every night she’d come in either laughing or crying, and we’d sit and talk in the lobby as I tended to my arduous door-watching duties.

A few weeks from semester’s end, Donna gave up on her boyfriend; it was forthcoming to say the least. Stephen and I were both cheering her on towards that goal. By summer, Donna was a free woman and ready for another try with another guy.

I had discovered that Stephen would be staying on campus during the summer to take two classes, and we sought each other out for a rooming arrangement. Our partnership then would have vast effects on the future of that summer. We had discovered that Donna would be staying that summer as well, taking a class. Stephen and Donna decided they could make some extra cash by working at Magic Springs Amusement Park 30-minutes away in Hot Springs, with Stephen working sound at the stage shows and Donna working tickets. Proved to be a good arrangement. I would work my dayjob, come back to my room at 4:45pm, chill out for a bit, make some dinner, listen to some loud music, and around 8 or 9pm, Stephen and Donna would come home from Hot Springs, usually with some ongoing conversation and a plan for the evening.

Now, there’s something you have to understand about Ouachita Baptist University: since the charter of the university is Baptist in nature, and a large portion of the funding for the place came from Baptist dollars, you’re damn-right they upheld Baptist principles. So, not even during the summer was inter-sexual visitation allowed. Each sex could visit the other sex’s dorms only in the lobby, and during limited hours at that. Well, during the summer of 1995, I had been there for 5 years, poured tons of money (and vaporbucks) into the school, I was a senior, and I would be damned if my dorm’s Resident Assistant (a fellow schoolmate) was going to say anything about Stephen and I having girls in our room. Seeing that it was easier to get women into our room that to get us into theirs, mine and Stephen’s room was the hangout for most of our friends.

Ok. So Donna grew up as one-half of a pair of twins. She was always accustomed to having someone sleeping in the same room where she slept. In that situation, she slept better, more at ease; couldn’t sleep well without a roomate. Stephen understood this, and asked me if I had any problem with Donna staying the night while her summer roomate was gone to Little Rock for the evening or the weekend. I had no problem with that, and we made her a nice, thick pallet on the floor. A few more sleepover evenings later, and the sleeping on the floor became a shared bed with Stephen (seperate covers, of course). I will admit I felt a little guilty about making her sleep on the floor. She deserved some mattressed, covered real-estate in the sky with us, right? So, there she was, sharing his bed. No biggie, no problemo. We all said good night Johnboy, giggled, and nodded off to sleep.

By next weekend, the Donna-Stephen sleeping arrangement was getting old: apparently they both move around a good bit when asleep, and on those twin-size beds, that’s not a good thing. So I suggested she sleep with me, seperate covers, head-to-foot, etc., etc. That was rough sleeping, I will say that much. A girl, close to my age, in my virgin bed. Sheesh. I didn’t get much sleep that night. The next time around, I got even less; I told her she could sleep head-to-head. At this time, it was all still quite plutonic, but the tension was there. A few more evenings, and I get brave enough to allow her to share my covers; it’s less she has to sneak in, less to crowd our tiny bed.

Later that night, something happened. In the twilight of the Arkadelphia night, under glow of stars, moon, and campus streetlights, we made out. Snoozy, half-asleep, with slumbering Stephen in the next bed, we made out. The relationship between Donna and I was redefined that night. The next day we sat outside on one of the stone benches and just talked, trying to sort out what happened. Up until that point, Donna had been talking with me to see if we’d like to date, to be an item, and I was generally reticent on the idea. But that night changed it all. Throw hormones into the mix, and you can expect drastic changes.

So, over the course of the next days we continually changed our definitions. It had been 5 years since I last dated someone, and I was taking it as slowly as I could while still embracing the hope, the prospects, in something new. It was a new energy to me, a stranger inside whom I had to meet again. That friday night, Donna offered to have me stay in her room for the night. It was there and then that we gave ourselves up to each other for the first time. As humbling as the fumbling was, we had found peace in her bed, in her quiet room, in each other’s arms.

That summer sticks strong in my mind as I remember this season’s past. I can’t help but to remember the look of Verser Theatre, at the intersection of Pine Street and Ouachita Avenue, just in front of our summer dorms. I can’t help but remember the sun’s glare from those buildings; the breezes; the heat from the asphalt, concrete, brick and stone; the well-maintained grass; the thick shade of old trees; the parking lot to the side were Donna and I rediscovered the openness of communication and garnered the heady resolve that got us through the rough, unsteady days of our early courtship; the cool nights at Lake DeGray, at the picnic table by the crooked tree, where Stephen, Donna and I, and a few other friends would congregate with wine coolers after closing hours and night-swim; the gazebo by the Ouachita river where Donna and I would play and press into each other for hours, damning all the mosquitos and the glare of the student center at the top of the cliff above.

And it’s funny how eight years can change and tear away everything. The last time I heard from Donna was just after our breakup in the fall of ’95. Last time I heard about her was in 1998, through Stephen. And the last time I heard from Stephen was two years ago in a brief email. Our time together was sweet, and it’s sad that our trio came to an end.

I was eating out tonight, after work, and I saw a woman who came in as my meal was nearly finished. I looked her over, and I saw a faint hint of Donna. She wasn’t her, but it was enough to spark the memories.

My time has passed on, and all I hear are echoes, praying for sounds to be born again.

Ping?