To Some Stranger I Met The Night Before My Birthday Part 2

This letter has taken me some time to write. Please trust that this is not because I have forgotten to write to you, but rather, that I find myself writing to you nearly every day in my head. I have to believe that this signifies the quality of our discourse or our imaginations.

You asked me what it’s like to be an Earth sign and I believe I’ve begun to answer that. You asked me what I want out of life and I’ve put so much pen on paper I can hardly believe it.

I’m writing to you now, my cherished stranger, at the end of a remarkable week of my life. I’ve moved to Ukiah, CA - a small, forgotten hippie town in the mountains. I’ve taken a job at the Natural Food Co-op as the Marketing Coordinator. I started on Monday just before moving into my very first one bedroom apartment I have all to myself. This period of transition has inspired so much reflection that it is absolutely inevitable that it has spilled onto the pages you are now holding.

Today is Saturday and this morning I woke on the floor of a furniture-less apartment, made myself some coffee, and drove 90km south in search of a bed and some plates and things for the kitchen. I’m writing to you now from the bed after a meal I ate on one of those newly purchased plates. At dusk, I took a walk and asked myself once again what should I be doing right now. Once again my thoughts turned to you and I wondered what you were doing with your evening and if you’re enjoying it and what we might be doing if were together on this Saturday evening. Then I thought about where we would be doing whatever that thing would be and I came up with an image of that, too. Eventually, I made it back to my dark empty apartment and thought:

So this is what I’m doing. Getting rid of the old feelings and ways of thinking and beginning a new way of life. I get to make that way of life with each day.. so I better not fuck this up. I’m making new habits now with whatever habits I have at my disposal. Rejecting cynicism, adopting a belief that the best is yet to come.

All of the sudden all of my loved ones are thousands of miles away and they’re all as close as the internet lets them. It’s revealed which people I’m actually close to in spirit. It’s revealed quite a bit about what is dream and what is reality. It’s been a lesson on keeping myself grounded and going. It’s been a lesson on who I can depend on.

What It’s Like to Be An Earth Sign

To stand beneath a waterfall, eyes watering

because you too

feel the pain of erosion.

To crumble with humility before a mountain

and then summit it anyway.

To know that trees not only

reach out for the sun

but also burrow deep into the soil

clutching on like a climber to cliff.

To scale a wall

because you need something real

to hold onto.

To stand before the Grand Canyon

and know that absence can be magnificent,

and that loss is necessary

to reveal what you’re made of.

To be as stubborn as clay

and salty as desert sand.

To walk deep into the shadows

of a forest and -

standing still -

become one of the trees.

To hold onto the flower’s fruit

yet be dependent on others

to bring them out of you.

I don’t know who you are, but I’ve climbed mountains and wandered through cloud forests and felt the air pressing itself against me and it just about took my breath away. Maybe you were just a passing visitor in my life like I am in yours or like I was in that cloud forest. Or maybe we were a piece of the medicine each other needed, passing it along in a kiss.

What I do know is this: I’ve got to live right here and now. I won’t be caught dreaming all my life or I’ll never live the dream.

All we’re doing is living the answers to the questions one moment at a time. It’s all revealed.

So now, I’m sitting on week later in the coffeeshop around the corner from my apartment while my computer installs Ubuntu. I’ve spent nearly the whole week by myself (except for at work) and I’ve realized this: I want to be part of a team of people who build something great. Great in the way that Eaux Claires felt great. Momentus. Transcending the mundane and giving the impression of meaning because it brings people together with masks down and makes them feel alive.

I don’t know what it looks like but I’m sure I’m on the way there.

What is it that you want, stranger?

I still think of you often, sometimes late at night while I lay in bed and sometimes in the middle of the afternoon.

I hope you’re well.

Take care,

Roman

P.S. The little word magnet you gave me is the only thing on my refrigerator right now: Possibility.