There are other ways to live

and I hid a box full of treasures and trash at this location in Los Angeles, let me know if you're the one to find it

I’ve been going to bed late and waking up late when I don’t have the child. By waking up late I mean 8am. In my dream, this catfish only wanted to bite me and I wanted something that might turn me on. It was small, about the size of a shoe, and had many little muscular parts and white, snapping human teeth. Also, two little “arms” that snapped at me. I was like “Just hold still for a second, don’t try to bite me, so I can ask you this question, which is Are you capable of turning me on?” I texted my girlfriend the dream when I woke up, 8am, and she replied, Well, we are open. Also, this catfish was living in a puddle of city water.

One thing you do in a limbo is go through every single item you own and decide if you really need it

The day before yesterday, I was guided by a rabbi at a very, very sad shiva and I wondered Am I about to go to rabbinical school?? I’m not, but just to give you a sense of where I’m at right now, how wide open. I thought I was just getting divorced or going back to lesbianism or ending monogamy, but actually, more than anything, it was my own, private, internal structure that was changing. My way of existing in time and processing the world. My values, a reset.

Every once in a while, I ask my girlfriend if she can remember how I was before and see how dramatic the change is and she says Yes, of course, but not a lot more than that, because what can you really say about someone else’s private, internal experience? When someone says“I’m cumming!” they really only want to be witnessed. Certainly, it’s great to hold the person through their experience if they want that (this is what the rabbi taught), but there is not much more you can do than stick with them, which is a helpless, sidecar feeling. It’s a shocking change, right?, I say to my girlfriend. Yes, it’s shocking, she says.

I see my life now as a limbo, an important purgatory between selves that I have to commit to the way I commit to, submit to, the mystery of creative work. I submitted almost immediately, to be honest. The second it descended on me, last year, I thought Oh, it’s you. I’ve feared you my whole life, but now I think I will just…let you. Plus, I had very little choice in the matter. (I know I’m speaking vaguely…I need to post about less personal things so I can be more concrete and specific, any reader deserves that!)

Last night Marissa texted that an old crush of mine is on Raya and I texted back: I can’t believe how long and consuming my thing with him was (and it was not even really a thing.) I think I thought this was just how one lived. And she replied in a voice message:

“About the last sentence — I think I thought this was just how one lived— that was the thought that I had first towards, like, my family, my mom. You know, like This is just how people live, like how she is, how she copes — and then I developed my own coping mechanisms that also made me think this is just how one lives. But now it's like: there are other ways to live. There are other ways to live.”

So true. She really finished the thought I had begun this morning with the catfish. Because the terribleness of the catfish kept changing — it was a nuisance, then it terrifyingly had my whole arm clamped in its mouth (I think I got that from the novel James) and then it was just frustrating because I couldn’t communicate clearly with it — but ultimately none of this deterred my curiosity. That is to say: this new body/mind (cat/fish) has been a nuisance, it has scared me, it has frustrated me, but none of that has stopped me from wondering if it might “turn me on” (erotic energy in dreams is spiritual energy, I’ve decided).

Romance is one of the only dramatic changes that comes with a rush of feel-good energy; we ignore red flags because this new way feels so good. Whereas most other kinds of change are just red flag, red flag, yikes yikes yikes. Your body and mind don’t work how they used to — that’s not romantic! That’s not the delightful change I’m looking for!

But looking back, I see that it’s really only pain that has reliably delivered. Not pain on its own, but that process of transformation that comes with releasing your grip on something you thought was solid. So by mid-life, you have good reason to be slightly curious, even hopeful, while wrestling a monstrous snapping fish.

In closing: I have left a giant box of vintage collage supplies and interesting objects in a specific location in Los Angeles. It’s a fairly personal box, some of these things I’ve saved for decades, so the address is behind a paywall (you already paid for access to this box!) You’ll know it’s the box because there’s a red paper heart taped on the top. Let me know when you’ve found it (send a pict) so I can let the others know that this particular summer scavenger hunt is over. (There will be future boxes with CLOTHES in them.) If you have time, let me know also what you enjoy most in the box, so I can feel reassured that letting go was the right thing to do. It almost always is, except in the case of pee and the hand of someone who is dangling off a tall building. The address is: