q6.w7

Is there a panic button somewhere? Here we are at week seven, still taking bets on where we will end up: Seattle? San Francisco? Los Angeles? San Diego? Chicago? New York? Milwaukee?

I am having serious flashbacks about getting to graduation sans job offer. You see the first time I officially met B's parents^* was at his undergraduate graduation. I got to sit next to them on the stone seats in the coliseum in near total silence for the duration. Then we had dinner at Chez Panisse. And then they kidnapped him.

I know that doesn't sound possible, but essentially that is what happened. To hide the fact that we had been living together, I rented a room and moved all my stuff there. After dinner I returned to said room and waited all weekend for B to call me and let me know what was happening.

Meanwhile, despite that he insisted he wasn't going back to his native land, his parents had other plans. Their reasoning was that since he didn't have a job, he was at their mercy and financial control. They packed up his things that weekend, and he was gone by Tuesday morning. At one point his father broke down in tears. Apparently the only other time B had seen his Dad cry was at his mother's funeral. I suspect that we didn't exactly pull off the 'we don't live together' thing.

They went to LA first to drop off some of his things, and by the week's end were on their way. What he left I either stored at my place for the duration or sold/chucked. He ended up in Manila for nearly four months. It was hell. Our phone bills were scary. There was no instant messaging, and email wasn't anything like it is today. I was working graveyard, and spent my down time writing long letters that I sent most everyday much to his mother's chagrin.

Logically, I know it won't happen like that again. But my head is having a hard time letting it go. I need to remind myself it will be okay. I found this today on SuperHero's Journal. It rings so very true:

Zero Circle
by Rumi

Be helpless, dumbfounded
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we're lying.
If we say No, we don't see it,
that No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.

-------------------------------------
^*The first time we were in the same space together, I was hiding in the closet. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

currently reading :: Digging to America by Anne Tyler