The map room

Satu and I have an unusual home. It's unusual because both she and I are unusual people and we magnify each other rather than cast shadows. We shine our strange lights into each other's corners and discover what hidden worlds dwell there. I think that curious people always love maps and the artifacts of work that is beyond their own personal knowledge. I am pretty sure that is why we have a map room.

Most people who live in a two bedroom apartment would prefer a guest room, or an office, but we prefer worlds in our world.

The room is like us. It's happy. There are a lot of things that don't seem to belong, but actually do belong. Old tools. A doll that lives in a box, oars and artifacts.

With Satu, nothing ever seems out of place. There is no corner that she won't shine light into and look un-blinking with curiosity, amazement and openness. I think if I am completely honest, Satu's curiosity was the first thing that drew me to her. She didn't fit a mold of all of the parts you expect in a person. She didn't have simple taste in music, books, or interests that fit what you think of when you try to label someone as an artist, or lesbian or intellectual. She is all of the things that fit her and then worlds and worlds more.

Satu is just as likely to be drawn to an interesting bug as she is to a piece of fine jewelry and this is the complexity that keeps me surprised and happy with her. She is not some thing that I think she is or that the world thinks that she is, she is an infinite world of unique beauty and imagination. She is the only one of her kind. Though I know she will never be fully domesticated and could not thrive in captivity, we nest happily together. I can no longer imagine my own world without her in it, whistling and crouching in the doorways as this strange little animal does.

Why I read books about death

When I was younger and I first realized that I was an animal, I realized that death would come for me too one day. It was a dizzying thought and terrifying. I coped with that fear by telling myself that youth would protect me. My parents would protect me. My fragility, though it may be reality, was a reality that I did not have to acknowledge, so I just put it away.

I found a lot of comfort in my military career because it was full of life affirming physical experiences. One day I couldn't run up the mountain and in another week I could. Then a week later I could run it faster. I felt strong and invincible and lonely in a way that felt distant. All of the tender passages within me were completely unknown to anyone else. I also felt that I might die young, but if I did, it would be sudden and even if it was tragic mistake, it would be seen as a death for a cause. There was no need to fear it because it was completely unknowable and would likely come while I was strong and fully alive. There would be no long journey between alive and dead, just the flip of a coin.

I have never felt called to a career or a purpose. I have always felt that whatever I did was simply the next thing that I had to do with purpose. I never searched for meaning or felt like I was building up to rewards in the future. That doesn't mean that I haven't sought meaning, understanding and fulfillment, just that I have never been one of those people who feels like they are always climbing a ladder. Wherever I find myself I will stand fast and engage the world from there.

When I fell in love with Satu, meaning changed for me. Though I am a very loving person and have felt love in my life before, there was a richness to it that I had never experienced. I had never really looked into someone's eyes and seen that they were risking something too. With Satu, just feeling her heart beating as we embrace is a reminder of how fragile these bodies are and how much hope and life and meaning is beating just below the surface.

With all of the passages within me finally known, I feel loved, understood, happy and truly at home for the first time in my life, but I also feel fragile. I feel worried about protecting our place in the world. I feel like a dangling toy waiting to be pounced by age and chance and all the while feeling complete and happy for the first time.

I often wonder if Satu feels overwhelmed by these feelings too. When you don't know what you are, or feel all of the parts of you, there is no reason to fear the future. In fact, it holds nothing but possibility. Now, I know that I am loved and seen, not just by my family, which I have had all of my life to feel and grow comfortable with, but also by my wife. There is no hiding from her. There is no amount of acting strong that will make me feel strong. I am trying to adjust to feeling this much meaning in my life and finally knowing what my purpose is while knowing what I have known since I was a child. Life is temporary. We are animals. If it were infinite, I suppose there would be nothing at stake. Losing the element of time would drain the meaning from everything.

Still, I wish for infinity. Every animal twinge in my gut or ache in my body that is not the kind that you feel while getting stronger reminds me that I am a temporary thing. I want a place for this fear where I can keep it from stealing away these good times. These are the best times in my life and when I look at all that I have, I see all that I could lose. I think that that is why some of the best days, when I feel most alive end in the most overwhelming fear.

As I read my books about death and love and meaning, I am looking for the right way to think about the things that I already know. I don't want to feel young again or alone. I just want to feel all of this love and fragility without also feeling the acute awareness of time. Time is the element that I was never aware of before. I hope it will be like the buzzing of power lines; something that you become used to and stop noticing after a while. Until then though, I am just listening.

through better and gross

Lately I feel like it must be hard for Satu, who is a very tidy, good smelling, aware of her surroundings person, to stay so even keeled in this house. Our beautiful, but weird cat likes to throw up in doorways. She usually does this in the wee hours of the morning so that Satu can find it when she wakes up. Maybe this is why Satu never sleeps well, her mind is always somewhat alert listening for puking cats and axe murderers.

Gimmie no longer smells like a skunk, but I really don't bath him because he hates it so much. He smells a little like a wild animal. (if wild animals wore dirty gym socks)

For my part, I recently had a little stomach bug and was actually surprised to wake up and find sweet notes for me by the coffee pot instead of empty closets. I thought for sure Satu would need a long, solitary vacation after that. Maybe in the desert.

Winter in Ohio is how you know your people love you. They will be trapped inside with you for months doing puzzles if they want to survive the weather. They will be putting their bare, frozen feet on your softest, squirmiest parts to stay warm and if you love them you will only put up a small fuss. Trapped inside for the winter, the oxe will break a lot of things, Hopefully just mundane, replaceable things, but occasionally something more. There are broken wine glasses and spilled soup in our past and probably future. Even still, she writes little hearts on the notes that she leaves.

My wife looks like a rockstar

My wife and I have a standing date to do holiday things together. One of my favorite holidays is Halloween which we spend watching moderately dark movies or shows and jumping up to hand out candy to a parade of neighborhood children.

I would rather do this with her than go to any party or watch a parade of black cats in costumes, or whatever weird shit the young people are into these days.

Trick or treating had already started when I got home from work. Neighbors were out grilling and helping little goblins and butterflies cross the street. Sugar buzzed laughter and the click clatter of running children was background to everything in our usually quiet neighborhood.

When I got home, my wife met me at the door looking like a rockstar, and by that, I mean looking like she always does... a total bad ass. She is has such a confident walk and demeanor that there is always a little oh my god element when I first see her. She was wearing orange pants and a black tee shirt which only enhanced the whole rockstar thing. She always seems a little flirty and mysterious. Apart from being too nice and too polite to actually be a rock star, there is virtually no difference between Satu and anyone you might see on tour. I imagine young girls everywhere following her around like groupies. I am not sure why they don't. but probably because she has never made eye contact with them. When Satu looks you in the eyes, your heart forgets what its job is. It just stands there all loose and warm in your chest for a second before picking up the beat and marching on.

I have never gotten used to this. In fact, I have recently realized that Satu and I don't make a lot of eye contact for this reason. Yes, we look at each other, but she is careful to keep her eyes moving about slowly as we talk. If they linger or if I catch her gaze full on when I am not ready, I still have the sensation of falling for a moment.

I hope that I always feel that way when she looks at me. I think that only part of it is the way that I feel. I think that the other half of what is so electric is how I know that she feels when she looks at me.

My rockstar may be unknown to the world at large, but she could take the stage by storm any moment that she chooses.

Take a chance girlfrang, TAKE IT!

Satu,

In this life, the best thing anyone gets out of it is happiness and purpose. Even people who build giant businesses and look successful to their parents aren't always happy with the work that they do and where it takes them. You deserve better than that. You deserve the joy that comes with feeling productive and appreciated.

You are a person with vision, you see things differently and because of the unique way that you learn and investigate, you mind is full of vision. You know things about things, but more than that, when you are inspired, you are brilliant. You are undeniably happy. When you are making a blue monster wreath or a string of pictures for us, don't you feel better to be expressing some unique inner vision? I know that you resist being too proud, but that book that you made me is really the most beautiful gift I have ever gotten and if there was one thing in my life that I would save in a fire (besides you, shitty wok and pantaloons) that would be it.

I don't know how it feels to be you when you allow yourself the freedom to imagine those things and then plan them and do it. I know that sometimes the precision work is not as fun as the idea, but I imagine that you feel like I do when I get into my brain about some new invention or plan. I feel inspired and purposeful.

Fuck what your mom thinks. You deserve to be happy. Fuck what the world thinks. You deserve to feel like the beautiful person you are. Fuck what the unwashed masses think. THEY ARE NOT YOUR PEOPLE!!! I am your people and you are your people. You can choose to weed out the things that do not matter to you, including the assholes who keep putting you down because you have the audacity to walk tall and to keep your chin up even though you are a woman. Seriously. FUCK THEM! You know that is what is going on. You are not in the right place because you can no longer find a way to take pride in the work that you do there. It is not the place, it is not the mission there or the lack of mission, it is that dealing with those people that you do not choose erodes the joy that you naturally have in your heart.

You should know that all of those people are probably good at times too. They love to see surprise bunnies and teach their kids to ride bikes, but spending life without meaningful work or hope shackles the soul. Their dark clouds rain on you every day. Leave that place for the sun.

I don't care if it is hard on our finances. Poor people who have hope and vision are happier than rich ones who don't really feel a part of anything. We have both lived on less before and been perfectly happy. If you don't know what's next, that's fine too. Just keep walking toward the sun and away from what makes you doubt yourself and crushes your tender soul. Any step in that direction is the right step. If we fail, we will fail together, but we probably won't fail. In fact any life that you can feel happy about, any days that you can spend pursuing something meaningful, talking about things that you think are important is not a failure. That is a successful life. Let's live one of those.

People let you down

People disappoint you. That is part of being the best person that you know how to be. Satu was raised by people who were always nice to strangers and who believed in diamonds in the rough. Her people were only ever mean to her or eachother, never ones to judge strangers and always quick to point out a stereotype.

My people sometimes let stereotypes go or silently agreed with some really fucked up stuff, but at their core there was always some common thread between us and the rest of the world. That gave us the security to call a black person an ass hole without feeling like it was a race thing. Maybe it is just an ass hole thing. We called white ass holes what they were without feeling like we were in some kind of group with them just because we shared a skin tone.

Maybe that is the difference between growing up lower or middle class. You know that a fancy shirt doesn't make you smart or nice and a hand me down dress doesn't either. You are what you are and you should be treated accordingly.

When I was growing up, I had lots of jobs in food service or retail. I remember trying to run the register at a health food store on my first day there and being dressed down in public by a lady with nose cancer because I didn't know what hippy dippy herb she was looking for. I still feel about an inch tall when I think about how paralyzed I felt and how all of the words backed up in my brain somewhere behind my hot, ringing heartbeat.

Satu is experiencing the same thing now, which she shouldn't be at this point in her life because she doesn't have to, Somehow instead of feeling more stable and established, she has started to doubt herself, so when people treat her like shit, the wall is a little lower than it was before.

Bad people treat you like shit, especially if you aren't. It makes them feel even stronger to take on someone who looks like Satu. She seems like a tank, wears an air of confidence and when she shows you kindness, sometimes you know it is just because she is a genuinely good and kind person.

Shitty people get under there and destroy from within. I wish that Satu could spend a second seeing herself the way that most people see her. She would understand why people who are disillusion and
angry will never trust her. They don't trust anyone, never had someone be kind for no reason and don't know how to treat strangers as if they have the same tender fragile souls that we all have somewhere.

I hope that as our lives go on Satu finds more people who will love her as much as I do. I want her to feel surrounded by people who realize how special she is. I want everyone to laugh when she surprises them of feel  their hearts break when she looks them in the eyes. It is the way people should connect.

I wish that I could keep her away from ass holes, but I think that one of the things I like best about Satu is that she will never assume that the next person will be as bad as they are, and the constant let down surprises her.

All of us deserve better than that. Being a person is hard enough without all of the other people that are trying to do it breaking you down.

The expert in things

When Satu gets interested in something, she studies it and learns it like it was her life's work. It is a constant exercise for her. She is an expert in many things because if she is going to do a thing, she will not do it half way.

Since I have been with her, I have seen her become an expert in plane crashes. She knows what went wrong in many crashes and is interested enough to follow up after the investigation is not in the news.

Satu is an expert in cigars and restored her own humidor which she populates with collections that interest her for various reasons. Usually she will find a theme and go with it.

Satu is an expert in cats. She speaks fluent cat and patiently studied our new cat and taught the scruffy stray how to play, chase and stalk her without viciously attacking like many cats do.

She is an expert in prop furniture for two different television shows and will carefully hunt down and catalog everything in the background from tables to books to drinkware.

My beautiful wife is now becoming an expert in pipes. She doesn't want to smoke, but she has her father's old pipe and wants to restore it. I think there must be something about this object that makes her feel connected to the owner.

I  think with the other pursuits there is something about learning about little sub-groups by finding one little niche to explore. It is a doorway to becoming a part of more and developing a bigger life.

Since we have been together, Satu has become an expert in me. It is one of the reasons that I know without a doubt that she loves me. She knows my body language when I don't realize my body is talking and she knows exactly the right weight to put into a caress or a hug. I am flattered that she can imitate me or speak my mind even when I don't think she could possibly know what I am thinking.

Satu will probably find a new interest to learn next week or next month, but she will always know me better than any other person could.