Seeing – Spirit of the Wolf

I was holding on to so much lately.

I wanted more. I looked around me and all I saw was Lisa’s stuff covering every surface. Nothing in here was mine except for the backpack that I carried with me It still held my tarot cards, my alarm clock that I had taken with me when I first ended up on the streets, what clothes I had, and my journals and pieces of paper covered in my writing. Although I had gathered a few more things such as necklaces and rings, Pagan books and worry stones that I carried in my pocket, I still wanted more.

I wanted more than what this life was offering me. I was struggling with this idea though. I had found myself on the streets and had built some kind of life for myself. Looking back at my past and the world I had lived in before, I couldn’t deny that it held some kind of appeal to me. I wanted something of my own. It felt like I was holding on to two halves of myself: the me from before and who I was now, and I was trying to make peace with both sides of me.

When I brought this up with Francis, he had a look of relief on his face. “I’m happy to hear you say that you want more out of life.” He pulled me into a hug and I breathed in his scent. He smelled like the woods after a rainfall, both musky and fresh. “This is amazing news.”

I shrugged and looked at his eyes. The storm was still calm within him. The seas within his eyes looked dead quiet. “It feels like I’m selling out.”

“Because you don’t want to spend the rest of your life on welfare?”

I shook my head. “Lisa says that true Pagans don’t value money. That if I remained true to my spirit, I would be content with what I have.”

Letting out a laugh, Francis pulled me closer. We lay on his bed, the television playing softly in the background. He ran his hands through my hair as he spoke and I could feel his voice reverberating through his chest. “Well, I like Lisa, but she’s full of crap. I work for a living and I pay rent. Being Pagan doesn’t mean you have to be poor and having money doesn’t mean that you have less of a connection to your spirit.” He said softly.

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t. It’s okay to want to have a different life, Jamieson. It’s okay to want more from the life that you’re currently living and find your way as your true self.”

I shrugged again. “I don’t know who that is anymore.”

“Of course you do. You’re the person that I love. You are kind to a fault; you give before you ask for anything from anyone. You are a light in the lives of so many others. You’re a brilliant writer, an incredible lover and you don’t value yourself enough.”

“Well, that’s you. You’re my boyfriend. You have to say that.”

“No, I don’t. Frankly, hearing you want more out of your life than living on welfare brings me so much relief.” He stroked my hair again. “It means that I don’t have to worry and that you’ll be okay.”

I sat up and looked at him. “What do you mean by that?”

When he looked at me, the storm in his eyes showed a momentary surge of waves and I could hear the water crashing into the rocks. I watched as Francis controlled the waves and the water grew still again with only the rings of ripples in the water to show me that the waves had even happened at all.

“I just worry about you. Spending all your time with Lisa and her friends. There are so many people in the world that you haven’t met yet and you are just at the beginning of your journey.” He leaned forward to kiss me softly. “You just have so much to discover. Don’t sell yourself short, Jamieson. You have a gift you have to give to the world. Don’t let Lisa or anyone else in the world tell you any different.”

We lay there, the television switching to a cop drama. Francis and I watched it, but I could hear the waves splashing against the rocks again. The sound lulled me to sleep and I felt the water lapping at my feet, the wind ruffling my hair and I wondered if I had ever been so happy as I was in this moment with my past behind me and my future waiting for me to claim it.

It was different living with other people.

I had chosen to cut myself off from everything I known by leaving home at sixteen and had everything taken from me a year later. I had thought I would have to do everything on my own. My brother had taught me that all you had on the streets was yourself and I had prepared myself for this. I hadn’t expected to be held up by so many others having been used to and ready to do everything for myself.

Dan and Mike didn’t say much, but they were kind to me in a detached sort of way. We would eat together in the mornings with Rainbow. I could hear the cockroaches scuttle away from us as we entered the kitchen and turned on the light in the morning.

“Scary fucking things,” Dan said as he looked at them click and clack away from us. Some mornings, it was like a small wave of them, fleeing from our step like a dark wave along the floors. “It’s like they just realized that it’s last call at the fucking bar and they don’t want to end up alone tonight.”

“It’ll be one hell of an orgy.” Mike said.

I let out a snort and Dan gave Mike a scowl. “Must you?” Dan said, making a gagging gesture. “Now I have to think about one nut Louie dancing at the bar, looking to get laid. I have to think about that often enough.”

They both seemed kind of exotic to me. It’s like they had this language between the two of them. According to Rainbow, one of them didn’t want to be out of the closet yet, but they seemed to be so comfortable with each other. Maybe that’s what it’s all about, I thought. Finding that one person that matched you, even for an instant. I looked at Mike and Dan and tried to imagine them as puzzle pieces; did they fit together? I tried to see if I could spot the lines between them, if they flowed together or if someone had forced the puzzle piece into the puzzle in the wrong place only to realize that it belonged somewhere else.

They had a cat. It was a sweet grey and white conk of a kitty, and she was a friend to everyone. I had never been able to have a cat of my own before and I loved cats. Thankfully, Squeak liked me a lot and I was so happy to have her company when Mike and Dan were around. She was like a mom to all of us boys and would help us chase away the cockroaches when she saw them.

It was hard for me to live with others. Even before I had found myself on the streets, I didn’t make friends with people very easily. I had been hurt so much in life, and I had to do everything myself anyways. I had known a few good friends, but that was it. It was easier than letting people in and I wanted to protect them from getting hurt. I was so used to thinking of others first and keeping myself away from them. It was what I had learned from my father. He had taught me to stay far away so that I could avoid a fist but to keep the peace if I could. I was taught to placate, soothe and provide calm so that I could step away and hide my wounds.

Words were my friends. If I read and kept to myself, I didn’t get hurt. Plus, I could become friends with the characters in books and lose myself in their worlds. In these worlds, good usually won over evil or those that caused harm got their comeuppance. I have written since I was young because I had to. It was as necessary as breathing to me. As much as I lost myself in the word of others, I have always found myself in the words that I write.

Now here I was living with three other men and we got along better than just Shades and I had been able to. I was being given a different perspective of living with others that wanted to know me and didn’t want to hurt me. I didn’t need to pull myself away from them to avoid getting hurt. I wasn’t used to that. I had been taught to hide myself and what I was, that being gay and disabled was shameful thing, and yet none of these people cared that I was either. I felt the walls start that I kept around myself start to go down.

I watched the smoke from my cigarette flow out of the window pictured the wall around me slip away one brick at a time, so that I could start letting people in. It would take time, that it would be difficult, but I finally knew a truth:

If I let go of the wall, maybe I could finally be able to breathe. I had been holding my breath in fear for so long. What if I didn’t have to?

Tag: Seeing

Chapter Fifty-One – 2 of Swords

Chapter Twelve – The Hanged Man