Fiction Fridays- travelling. No novel, but random thoughts on Love, money, being wrong, what if we're wrong, thank God if we're wrong, wildflowers and coyotes.

Note:

I am traveling the next few weeks and left my external hard drive at home. "My Life as a Phone Psychic," the novel, lives on that external hard drive! So I won't be able to post chapters until the end of August. I will create a link and link it up HERE.

In the meantime I thought I would riff poetically in prose on:

Love, money, being wrong, what if we're wrong, thank God if we're wrong, wildflowers and coyotes.

Love is a weird thing. We never tire of reading about it and writing about it. We're obsessed with it. In the last few years I have finally separated out the difference between love and romance. I have both in spades, naturally, as a person. In fact, I have so much of both that I think I offer both to the world in giant waves without reserve. Maybe I'm wrong? That's my thinking, anyway. And I don't know why this is so. But the thing is, is that when it comes to relationships, it's like we as creatures are obsessed with romance and forget about love. And while I definitely want romance in my life, and being a romantic person, I give that without trying to- like tagging my fellah on a sonnet by Shelley yesterday because it was Percy Bysshe Shelley's birthday, or would have been, because I know he loves the romantic English poets and because Shelley lived in Naples where Carlo is from (albeit 200 years ago) and then I realized that it was also a very romantic gesture, and the poem was a sonnet about love and kissing. I mean, I *knew* it was all wrapped up in there, but I am sitting here typing this and wondering, oh geez, have I accidentally mislead anyone by tagging THEM in poems I merely thought were something they would enjoy but they saw the more obvious content that related to romance or sex or something? It might explain a lot about a certain number of failed friendships and business situations. And I WANT to be responsible without being codependent and I definitely want to be aware and have excellent boundaries but I am tired of losing myself and my ways to thought of "but what will they think?" So here is my relatively low stakes dilemma of the day.

Money is another weird thing. Honestly, it barely feels real to me. Almost every business transaction I do is connected via my phone, the computer, and this tiny little plastic card. The only time I really use hard cash is for laundry, because I don't have my own washer and dryer, and so I prize these stupid little quarters as if they were my diamonds and rubies and other royal jewels. Everything else is so abstract and yet, I read "The Divide" by Matt Taibi, I saw Lawrence Lessig's TED Talk about getting money out of politics, I am aware of white privilege, I have seen the Enron movie and studied Wall Street and protested with Occupiers and voted for Bernie in the primaries. But I don't hate wealth. I would never want to keep someone from creating their own incredible kingdom. It's only when so many are hurt (Lehman Brothers?) that I have issues with the "system" so to speak, but then again, I wonder if the "system" and all of these strange arms of it- racism, classicism, capitalism versus variations of reform on the theme versus socialism, sexism, old versus new, change... I think about how easy it is for me to sit and think about money as a philosophical pursuit, and trust me, I'm still paying off my college loan for a degree I love but never use, and separate myself out from any emotional ties to money as a real thing. This whole paragraph is probably so dumb, just a bunch of links to things I've read, and I don't mean that in a self deprecating way whatsoever but moreso as someone who is aware that she really just doesn't know a lot in this arena, that I'm not sure I should keep it, except that it's on my mind a lot lately, but most likely in a manner different than what others are dealing with. For example, I'm not worried about money. Maybe I should be. I definitely ask for help when I need it, and I give to charity when I probably shouldn't. But I just... barely care. It's like I'm living for some other reason than the almighty dollar [sic] and while in my heart and body that's amazing, in my mind I wonder if I am missing something.

On a final note about money, well, probably not final, but final for today, the other hard part about it, besides the fact that we're not all paying in gold coins or emerald tear drop earrings for things, is that I live and work amongst every class imaginable. Literally I have massaged Saudi royalty in their vast estates that most people don't even realize exist in the Hollywood Hills (seriously, who knew there was even that much land to plot upon?) I gave a private concert one afternoon for one of the wealthiest and most famous old Hollywood Tycoons who wasn't exactly hurting for money and while I cannot say much about it, I wish I could, because it's fascinating to see how the rest of the outfit (family, friends and company) are jockeying for position. I grew up pretty solid middle class, my neighborhood now is pretty middle and upper class (a place being gentrified as we speak) and yet has a few of the creative class left, and a LOT of homeless people. I know a number of my homeless neighbors by name and they ALL know my dog, Henry, and love to pet and play with him. What am I to do, ignore these people who live in my alley way and feed off my trash? Of course not. But I cannot solve their problems, I can only be human with them, and try to share what I can.

And I hunt for quarters like my homeless neighbors hunt for food that's safe enough to eat and some folks hunt for the next FOMO Venture Capital Entrepreneurial Opportunity. What the heck is up with this world?

On being wrong: I am wrong all the time. A close friend once told me that I always need to be right. That isn't true, and I would argue with her, although I didn't want to come off as someone who always needs to be right and so didn't want to argue with her in the moment hahahahahaha, that in fact, I just hate wasting time and so often this particular friend wastes time on things that just don't need to be wasted on. Does that make sense? You know what I mean. But I took it to heart, what she said, and really examined it for myself and saw that in deedy, there are areas where I just assert myself a lot. I really don't need to be right so much anymore and the older I get the more and more the fallacy of being right just falls away. One cannot be an artistic explorer and need to be right. It will lead to boring art. And I try to just let Carlo, my partner, be right all the time or whenever there is an argument if it's not a boundary thing, and a lot of times we agree to disagree because the truth, if there is such a thing, often just works its own way out later on down the line. Very consciously, in the past year or so then, I have practiced- not being wrong- but being okay with being wrong. It is incredibly liberating, eye opening, and actually fun. Like going down a roller coaster fun. It has also removed an incredible amount of stress and anger from my personal life. And it really opens me up to connecting to more possibility. I wish I could give a concrete example but the only one I can give is about politics. I have a lot of die hard Hillary fan-friends get mad at me for voting for Bernie (they asked! I did not bring it up. But I don't lie, well, not about Bernie, and I don't feel a need to "not discuss politics.") as well as I have a number of family and friends who are voting for Trump and by the way, none of them are stupid, although some of them may be living in fear of a certain religious order. What's amazing to me is, I don't need to be right about my political viewpoints. Politics "works" when many different opinions come together to work for the common good. I'm very use to being shockingly out of touch with "politics" and the opinions of people, and I don't mind it. So, I have had many people explain to me why my opinions are wrong, and guess what? Maybe they are. But they are mine. And I have thought things through for myself, and I extend that same courtesy to others....

So, what if we're wrong?

Well, of course we are.

Look. People used to cut a whole in your head and drain blood out of it as a treatment for headaches, and that was an accepted, scientific, medical practice. And people believed it would work. Were those people stupid?

Those people?

Were US.

So of course we are wrong about all kinds of things and the quicker I realize that the more I get to have all kinds of amazing discoveries.

This is not a recommendation to doubt every choice you ever made or live in worry that you were wrong about that relationship or this career choice or that note you sang or this money you gave.

It is a way to liberate yourself from the impossibility of being right all the time. It will connect you up to people because you might just start to look for common ground rather than where you're different and therefore dangerous.

And magic happens in that bridge from heart to heart.

Finally. I am in Colorado and I saw TWO coyotes at different spots here in the mountains where I am staying, and also, the wildflowers are gorgeous.

That is all.

You are loved.