I know people who have read me for awhile, 3 or 5 years or something, and they have a real feel for the pieces I throw up here which seem random at first eventually morph into belonging to the whole. In fact Avery seems to have caught on to this in 4 months judging from her response to my question, What Do You Like About This Blog?
Avery wrote:
“The humor, unpretentiousness, richness and depth of applied astrology, the community of personalities who gravitate here, the continuity and cohesiveness. I’ve only been reading your blog for about four months…”
But sometimes I like to lay it out.
This is from a conversation I had with the soldier in 2003. We had been chatting for about a month, just sort of random stuff about our lives. Where were you in 1984? Stuff like that.
We were comparing notes and he was apparently putting together a time line, I suppose because of his personality. Pluto was station in aspect to my Sun which indicates a deep transformation of the ego and vital life energy.
He had also started telling me his Special Forces stories which I admit were stunning to me. I was just eyes wide over the thing as a whole. I could barely process the fact he was not dead, never mind he was talking to me. Beyond that there was the content of the conversation which would have had anyone’s jaw on the floor. Then one day he came up with this:
“Let me ask you something,” he said. ‘Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Are you are afraid of me?” he asked.
“No.”
“You’re not?”
“No.”
“You’re not the least bit afraid of me?”
“Uh uh.”
“You are not at all afraid of me? Not one bit, not in the slightest?”
Feeling fidgety, I stopped to think before exhaling into an exasperated snort. “NO. No, I am not afraid of you. Why are you asking me this? How many times are you going to ask this? I don’t need to be asked something 17 times. Am I supposed to be afraid of you? Do you want me to be afraid of you? Because you’re making me nervous asking me this over and over. I said I was not afraid of you so what do you want to do? Do you want to make me afraid?”
“No I don’t want you to be afraid. I don’t want you to be nervous either. And I didn’t think you were afraid of me and that’s why I was asking.”
“Why? Why are you asking?”
“Well I didn’t think you were afraid of me but I wanted to make sure because if it’s true I think you are the only one who feels that way.”
“What way?”
“I think you may be the only person in this world who knows me who is not afraid of me at least a little.”
I laughed. “Really? You’ve got to be kidding me.” I was shocked. I just didn’t get what he was getting at.
“No. No, I think everybody is. Everyone who knows me is either afraid of me or they have been at one time,” he said.
“Why? Why is that? Why are they scared?” I asked in challenge. You know. If he can ask questions, by God I can ask them right back.
“Because I am dangerous I guess. I’m a dangerous person so they are afraid. Can I ask you something else?”
“What?”
“If you’re not afraid of me now, have you ever been afraid of me? Ever? We you afraid when we were kids for example? Did I ever scare you back then? Have you ever once in your life ever felt afraid of me, ever?”
Understanding now, I stopped to think. I racked my brain but nothing.
“Um… no. No I don’t recall ever being afraid of you. Afraid you would hurt me? Do something to me, you mean? Hurt me in some way?”
“Yeah.”
“No. No I was never afraid like that, that I can recall and I think I would recall it if it had happened. I would remember and I don’t remember anything like that.”
“So you’re telling me you’ve never been afraid of me? You have never felt fear around me then or now?”
“Right. That’s right but could you quit asking me this now? Because it’s beginning to piss me off. I have answered this question enough times I am sure. I said I am not afraid so ask the next question because I am tired of answering this one as if I am some kind of freak.”
On that he laughed and I had the feeling I was standing on the edge of a huge gaping hole. It was as if I could fall in but I wasn’t going to due some phenomenon or quirk in the universe.
Have you ever looked into the night and had it look back at you? It was like that.
To be continued.
well, this convo was in 2003. When I was 19 I was merely stupid. Now I am stupid/smart sort of like my son is 8/9 years old. 😉
Looked in there and JUMPED in. Took me ten years to get back out again. I was not nearly as smart as you were when I was 19.
(Hurts, don’t it? Won’t be doing that again, willya? Is what my brain is saying right now.)
Oh, I know… but, when you were 19, it just sounds like you kinda knew what you could and could not deal with and really… laid down the law.
I met this guy, fell in love, and decided, “Well, the hell with ME! Wheeee!” And down I went. 🙂 I didn’t have the faintest idea that’s what I was doing at the time. I’m just saying. Your way… kinda sounded better. Like you had a pretty firm grip on who you were going to be, even back then.
And it sounds like you kinda need to be who you are in order to be with the soldier.
“Right. That’s right but could you quit asking me this now? Because it’s beginning to piss me off. I have answered this question enough times I am sure. I said I am not afraid so ask the next question because I am tired of answering this one as if I am some kind of freak.”
When you walk around and people get nervous around you, and you can tell that they’re nervous around you, that tends to affect your POV, because they aren’t wrong, exactly, to be nervous.
I want to some bar in 1993 (the year is important) to meet some people, and I was wearing my leather trenchcoat and my big black leather boots and I walked in and someone who was sitting near the people I was supposed to be meet did an obvious double-take. Well, he spoke to me when I got over. In his words: ‘Dude, you walked and for a minute I thought Terminators were real.’ That being 1993, T-2 had come out fairly recently. I questioned him to make sure he was not pulling my leg and no; for a moment he really thought I was a terminator. Probably the coolest compliment I ever got.
Those sort of things tend to cause me to hold back a bit.
max
[Because people get all freaked out for no reason.’]