River's Blog

[River]

nycindie,

There are a few drawbacks to self-dating, however.

(a) No surprise gifts. I mean, what am I gonna do, buy myself a surprise rose or chocolates?

(b) I cannot kiss myself on the lips -- though I have tried!

(c) I look silly when I talk to myself out loud in restaraunts.

... and so forth.

One advantage of self-dating, however, is that I always laugh at my own jokes.

[Charlie]

...to have you come knocking on my door, concerned about us all.

Thank you.

[River]

Charlie,

I love the three of you like distant family, like tribe. Whether inscribed in clay tablets, parchment, paper or pixels, we of the poet tribe drink from the same ink well. You gotta look after your own. And love is inevitable.

[River]

What madness is this!?

Text! Lots of text, but text nontheless, emails mostly. A phone call will happen soon, when the time is right. And we've seen each other's photos.

Without any hint of teasing (it's no strip tease!), we're getting naked and real with each other in text, getting to know one another soulfully in text. She lives so far away! What else can we do?

I just wanted some of that metaphorical nakedness to spill over into this forum, 'cause (a) this is where we met and (b) I owe it to y'all, since you've watched me simultaniously reveal my innermost self AND wear wonderful, well-crafted, delectible masks.

How it feels -- and what madness it is! -- ... I wake up before dawn and the dim silver of pre-dawn gently caresses an awakening heart, a dimention of heart largely unknown as feeling-it-directly.

I get a message from her about her grief over the end of her marriage and I immediately go into spasming sobs and a rainbow of tears. For I cannot have distance with her. Distinction, yes. Autonomy, yes. Otherness, alterity, yes (check), but the empathy over her words of grief was a direct line, or no line at all -- just the solid certainty that I am with her in it, directly. Not caught in it, but grieving with her, because I -- the madness -- ... because I love her so.

Hearts like diamonds, like diamonds strung across an infinite sky.

[River]

Okay, now that's all I'm going to be saying about it for a long while. It's all very new and doesn't need to be publically graphed and charted. I just wanted to say that much, no more. We don't know what sort of relationship will develop. We do know we love each other; we can't help it. It may be an amazingly intimate, loving friendship. It may become romantic love. It will be what it will be, and it doesn't feel right to tell its unfolding story here.

[nycindie]

Ah, River. Maybe you and I could have some conversations... I am in a long-distance thang right now, and have been texting, emailing, and having phone conversations with this man for a month. It is scary and exhilarating, and I can't quite believe the feelings I'm experiencing. We have been in contact actively every day - more than the frequency I'm used to in relationships with local guys. We text each other a good morning and good night every single day. Sometimes I'm just beside myself trying to figure out how I could feel this much affection and passion for someone I haven't met in person yet.

We are meeting for the first time in a little over a week. He is coming to my city and we've planned a day and night together. Sometimes I think I must be crazy, or that I will suddenly wake up from a dream!

Wondering how you got there, how you handle it...

[River]

NYC,

I'll be in touch. Remind me if I forget. A whole lotta shakin' goin' on!

[Magdlyn]

Aah River... I once fell in love with a guy on the internet. It was delicious while it lasted, very nurturing, big period of growth and self-discovery for me. Mmmm... Good luck, best wishes.

[River]

Magdlyn,

But I have not fallen in love with a gal on the internet, I am rising together in love with a gal in Minnesota.

This is why I hope--blessed heart-of-the world, I hope ... nay, I vow--never to fall in love again. One who falls in love can lose it. Our rising in love together cannot be lost. We grow our love by not grasping after it.

[River]

Non-attachment.

I am a follower of the Way of Dharma, and non-attachment figures importantly in that. I am a beginner along the way, really. I've drawn inspiration from the Way all of my life, nearly, but only now am I really beginning to practice, really practice.

Or should I say the Dharma is practicing me?

Every now and then I have a true breath, the kind that opens and clears and liberates, that soothes and heals and opens. (I repeat, opens. Again, opens.)

A life truly lived, fully embraced, occurs moment by moment.
(This signals how to practice mindful breathing. Be here now, right?)

So, I'm thinking and feeling and wondering and contemplating non-attachment. It must mean non-grasping, non-clinging.... And any of us can see that a person can become attached to non-attachment, can avoid -- run screaming from -- his or her own desires, longings.... The more intense a longing the more some might want to avoid, in order not to have attachment. Running from attachment is silly. Running headlong into attachment is silly. So what is the middle way? This is what my heart is palpably wondering, opening to as a question -- what I am wondering with my whole heart.

What I'm realizing, bit by bit, is that this thing I'm wanting so much, longing for so much, I already have. Have always had. Can never lose. In its essence, that is. And this
felt insight is what allows me to be with my intense desire and longing in a soft and open way. I don't need to dampen the intensity of my longing. I only need to hold it in the space of openness, of gentleness, of tenderness, of love. And that's all I ever wanted.