Basically I'm a tired, naked spider. Or dirt.

Just at the moment I was putting my first post up, the neighbors from whom I've been stealing my internet access moved out, and now I'm internetless. This morning I am at one of the miniscule cafes in this city--I came here with the intention of applying to two jobs and grading lessons for my distance students. Instead I'm doing this while listening to the man next to me make some of the most horrific eating and drinking noises I've ever heard. I admit that loud chewing, smacking, and slurping is kind of a pet peeve of mine, but this guy is taking it to a whole new level. It reminds me of how happy I am that I live alone and I don't have to listen to someone else being human all the time. It also reminds me that I've never noticed any of these kinds of sounds emanating from R., and if I did I might find them sort of cute, and how, with the exception of one or two little things, he really does absolutely nothing that bothers me, and how unexpected and unfamiliar this is. Of course, he lives on a different continent, which makes hearing any sounds he makes difficult. (I think this guy next to me may actually be sucking on his scone.)

There are so many things I want to write about, but I don't know where to start. I think this blog is going to be a kind of way for me to sort out all of this stuff that's been unearthed during this giant physical and spirtual upheaval I'm going through. (Oh, I will be earnest in this blog. Just wait. I will be earnest as hell.) Two metaphors come to mind: one is a plant growing via speeded up film--all of that dirt underneath coming up quickly and haphazardly. If gravity didn't exist it would be a tumbling upward. I'm the dirt in that metaphor. The other is a new one I'm sort of sinking into this morning, as R. just gave it to me last night. When he was little he had a pet tarantula who shed its skin once a year. He said watching it get rid of its skin was scary and painful, and when the skin was gone, sitting like a little spider suit next its nude former owner, the naked spider looked like it was dead. It didn't move or eat for a couple of days. In this metaphor I'm a naked, dead-looking spider. Because my life span is longer than a spider's it might take me a few years to get my new skin, rather than a few weeks. It seems to be taking a very long time, and sometimes it hurts very very badly. To my family, it looks like I have a terrible, horrible life that has been horrible for two years. Sometimes it looks like this to me also. But sometimes it just looks like a life that is trying to become something completely other than what it was, and by definition this can't be easy. I don't want my life to be easy though, I guess. At least I have to keep telling myself this.

I promise that at some point I will discuss actual events that are taking place, but I have to say that one of my new symptoms is that I prefer to live via metaphor. I love Jung's autobiography because he hardly mentions anything physical that he does, other than rituals. In the chapter "Travels," he writes about going to India, but mostly discusses conversations he had with a guru and visions he had. I had a vision (that's right, I said "vision"--more on this later) nearly a month ago that has given me very valuable information about what is happening to my soul right now. It makes sense to me that in the midst of this internal change that my external world is still shifting--my job going away, my boyfriend away and staying away. There is literally a big question mark over my face right now (not my physical face). But this isn't a bad thing. It's not really a good thing either. It's just a thing.

I'm still really self-conscious about my spirtuality--I grew up in a fundamentalist household, where hell is real and the devil is a mean guy with a pitchfork who wants to tempt you and make you his slave. So I spent my twenties either completely ignoring this by being secular and earthly, thinking that my poetry came from my brain, or feeling horribly guilty and begging God to forgive my horrible dirty pasttimes and maybe, just maybe save me from eternal poo-shoveling in some sweaty underworld. What is happening now is not ignorable though, because it comes totally from me. I'm creating my own "religion" not because I decided to, but because I'm just doing it. I have had several guides in both book and human form, but basically I'm making this up as I go. And it's really the only thing that's ever made sense to me. But I'm still going to make fun of myself for it periodically. And then give myself a backrub and some tea and a nice warm sleepy dog to cuddle with, because I'm just really, really tired.