And now I'm confused...

DISCLAIMER: I realize that the way I have been/will be going about looking at and recording my goings-on here is over-the-top, WAY overly mystified, a little corny, and maybe even a bit juvenile. That being said: I LOVE USING MY IMAGINATION. It makes for better writing and a more exciting life. I'm going to assume that this disclaimer has now given me free reign to be as fanciful and/or whimsical as I like. So there, self-consciousness.

And now some quotes:

"I need another place
Will there be peace?
I need another world
This one's nearly gone

Still have too many dreams
Never seen the light
I need another world
A place where I can go..."

-Antony and the Johnsons, "Another World"

"Think what Another World means - you might meet anything."

-C. S. Lewis, "The Magician's Nephew"

"And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made."

-Wallace Stevens, "The Idea of Order at Key West"

Hooray for quotes!

So here's the way it usually seems to work for me ("it" being the universe unfolding one baby step at a time). In the beginning of The Waste Land, a spiritually dead quack of a fortune-teller lays out a bunch of tarot cards for her client without offering much interpretation except the cryptic "Fear death by water." As that poem and those following it go on, the symbols first revealed in the cards recur, gain significance, become more real. In the end they finally reach a culminating point and are put to rest, one by one. The result is that the physical symbols themselves never meant much themselves at all. It's what we're left with, after the death of water, fire, earth, and air, that truly is our experience. I've found this to be completely true in my life so far, even if not in the divine way Eliot seems to have intended it. In other words: after all the things that come up again and again in my life have resolved themselves, what I'm inevitably left with is the meaning that lay behind them the whole time, the meaning they were pointing to, something I created myself and took so much time to become aware of.

This is the true purpose and meaning of a symbol.

My friend Kate and I have been talking about crystals lately, and I think this is a good explanation of the role they may end up playing in our lives...maybe.

Anyway......... :)

As I was saying before I got off on a tangent, this seems to be the way things play out for me. A set of symbols reveal themselves, I develop them in my head as I notice them again and again in difference contexts, and eventually they leave me with something important. I can already feel this happening as I start my time living in Charlotte, which makes me really, really happy. While 95% of me knows that this is just how my brain works and will always happen, there's that nagging 5% that wonders, "Is NOTHING going to happen during this time?" But I don't think spiritual journeys really work that way; even when it seems like nothing's happening, something's happening. Nothing is something. But nothing's not happening now anyway.

Here are the things coming up a lot right now.

There are the doors, and the whole idea of another world. That makes sense, given the whole "I'm going to move ten hours from everything I've ever known" thing. Check. I just started reading the Chronicles of Narnia, and just finished the first book. In that book there's something called the Wood Between Worlds. It's a forest full of pools, and each pool leads to a different world. Forests have been sprouting up a lot lately, and I feel there's some interesting connection between the forest and the ocean, which I feel a HUGE spiritual connection to. Some connection beside the obvious one that they're both large parts of the planet and remind one of infinity. Though maybe related to that... Recently I've started to wonder if the periods in my life were going to correspond to the four elements in some way, but I think it'll end up being more complicated than that.

Then there start to be less clear things. The book I just read deals a lot with an evil Queen and a city she's destroyed, the city being one of the worlds the main characters end up in after jumping into a puddle. "Hmph," I thought, "That's kind of cool." Then I remembered that I've just moved to a city for the first time, a city that happens to be affectionately called by ALL its residents "The Queen's City." Hmm. I see, said the blind man... Well it'll be interesting to see if this queen thing comes up again (and I have a feeling it will). Queen Charlotte herself was far from evil; she was actually the first anti-war monarch in Europe, she introduced the Christmas Tree to England, and she had a crapload of kids. I know this because the people of the city LOVE to talk about her, and there are various creepy cardboard cutouts of her in random places. Plus the tallest skyscraper has a crown-shaped collection of spikes at the top and every street sign and garbage can has a little crown on it, the symbol of the city. Seriously. I wonder how this is all going to unfold.

Then there are the crystals. It started when Kate told me about her friends' crystal hunt in New Hope, and from there they've been gaining steam. I was hiking in the nearby huge awesome nature preserve near my house yesterday, and as I was walking I found some shiny stones on the ground that I think ended up being calcite. I took one home with me. Tomorrow I think I'm gonna go hunting for Rainbow Obsidian (my crystal, according to the Book of Destiny Kate and I found in New Hope) in the city.

Yes, I'm going to not live ENTIRELY in Adam-dream-land and go find a job and hopefully do some volunteer work very soon, but hey, it's only my fourth day here and I'm getting used to things and coming to terms with being far away, and what better way to do that than to immerse myself in some imaginative fun and questing? Plus, even though I'm writing mostly about this stuff here, I've been attending to practical matters as well...got a new bank account (one of the bank attendants seems to want to hang out with me, first friend maybe?), new car insurance, figuring out where everything is, and such. I trust myself to not get so lost in thoughts as to forget that I've got a life to get on with. I think things are going just fine at the moment. :)

So we've got the doors, new worlds, forests, Queens, and crystals...at least it's not too fanciful. Pssshh. There's the latest set of symbols...I can't wait to see where it all goes.

I've decided that I'm glad I'm using this blog as an outlet for this sort of thing, because I want my next creative writing project to be less autobiographical. I'll probably end up incorporating a lot of these themes, but I definitely want it to be less explicitly about ME. Time to write something a little less self-centered...and using this as a journal will let me do that without exploding, since I love writing all this down.

All that being said, here's some other stuff that's been happening here lately. I went to that club, the Dharma Lounge, the other night. It was mad awkward. I tried talking to the hand-stamper at the entrance and the bartender, but it didn't amount to much, I think they just thought that I was odd. I definitely felt like That Guy, the weirdo who gets a beer and sits in the corner drinking it by himself, and then leaves. Wow.

I left for a bit and walked into the city, since it was 11 and the bartender said the place didn't get exciting until 12:30. I couldn't believe how hopping the place was even at midnight; I'm still getting used to the idea that I live in a legit city now. It really sunk in as I was walking across a bridge with the lit-up skyline in front of me, a highway below me, and a biker gang speeding past the side of me. It looked like there were a lot of awesome things to do. The only down side is that they were all things that you kind of need to do WITH someone...I hope I manage to make some friends soon. Although the time with myself is definitely good for me. Still.

The highlight of the night was probably what happened when I went back to the club. I was sweating my BALLS off, since it's like 90 degrees here even at night. I went to wait on the entrance line, looked over my shoulder, and jumped. Because there was a guy in a gorilla suit behind me. He gave me a thumbs up. In my desperation for companionship I immediately started thinking, "Maybe I could be friends with the Gorilla...maybe I should start talking up the gorilla. Maybe the gorilla also doesn't have any friends here. It must be hard to be in a gorilla suit and have any sort of casual friendships." But I ruled out that idea pretty quickly.

The gorilla went into the club and started dancing with random people. Then the dance floor cleared to make room for a fight between the gorilla and a guy dressed as a lizard. The lizard fell first, then made a comeback and triumphed (to the Rocky theme, of course). As all this was going on there were godzilla movies being played on big TV screens near the ceiling. Watching the fight was fun, but standing awkwardly alone in the club full of people who knew each other wasn't, so I left when it was over.

Not wanting to throw in the towel yet, I drove to NoDa, that awesome area with all the live music and stuff. When I say drove, I really mean hurtled, since my gps took me in every wrong way possible and on every highway possible, and I strangely found the whole thing kind of fun even though half the time I had no idea where I was going or what the speed limit was and felt a little like I was going to die. But whatever, I got there. And even though it was 1 AM, a live funk band called "In Ur Pocket" was just finishing a set outside the Salvador Deli. There were all sorts of people dancing. There was also a dog, and a bunch of people clapping at the dog and trying to get the dog to dance. Overall I really liked this group and actually made myself dance a bit with them despite being nervous and shy. It's amazing how much fun you can have with people even if no words are exchanged at all (and never have been). I did end up talking with two guys there, Josh and Tom, who were really friendly and wanted me to come back again.

When that band finished another started across the street at the Revolution pizza and ale house (which is amazingly delicious). I walked over there and some girl my age shouted out a greeting. I looked over my shoulder three (yes, THREE) times to see if she was talking to someone else, but it was me. I think she thought I was kinda goofy, and she put out her fist for me to pound, which I did. She then resumed her evening. I probably should have tried talking to her more, but I was tired and kind of confused and nervous, so I just left instead. Lame, but next time I'll try harder to put myself out there. At least I danced a little!

So that night was quite the excellent adventure.

In other news, I found a new bunker!! (If anyone's reading who's familiar with the graffiti-filled bunker under TCNJ's smaller lake). I saw one sticking up out of a lake in the park near my house, walked to the other side of the ridge, and sure enough found a pipe to walk into, straddling the water like in ours. There was no graffiti in this one, but it was still cool. I'd like to pop my head out of the surface of the water and surprise some hikers sometime, maybe... :p

Now I'm getting ready to go to bed, listening to the train go by outside. It's kind of calming to hear it every night.

I'll keep posting my latest adventures here. Despite how happy all this sounds, I was kind of down a little today and yesterday, just the general feelings that are to be expected when making this kind of change and grieving for the world left behind. But I know I'll see my friends again soon enough, and I've already been talking to some of you, for which I am extremely grateful :) The people meant to stay in my life will be there despite any physical distance, and those that aren't meant to stay will always have added something to my life. I've dealt with plenty of loss before and at this point I know how to handle it; it'll hurt for a while but I'll certainly move past it. I guess I just feel a little like one of the souls in Dante's world: I hope people remember that I exist.

Don't be shy about hitting me up and saying hi though :) I miss everyone.

Crystal-hunting tomorrow...probably the DMV the next day...sweet.