old poem

absence
is to love
what wind
is to fire
it extinguishes
the small
it enkindles
the great

I found this poem when I was in high school and I wrote it out in calligraphy and painted a picture near it of a daffodil. Over the many years I have revisited it and felt that it was an important poem in my life. Now I wonder, does the poem fit my circumstances or did my circumstances come to life from the thoughts of the poem.

How many long distance relationships can one have? I find it rather amusing. In high school, I met Bill. I moved to Bremerton and he lived basically 3 hours away in Mill Creek (I think). This caused turmoil and drama. I meet my son's father, he lives in MN, we don't have a long distance relationship, but our son certainly does with each of us! Next was Justin ~ he was in Portland, I was in Seattle, and then to complicate things, I moved to MN and he moved to CO, after that we were doomed. Zoom ahead several years to Dan, now I am in Portland and he is in Seattle. WTF?

When I went to NZ I never imagined I would meet someone. Sometimes I think it was a rebound from Dan. Sometimes I think it was just some fucked up joke I was playing on my own subconscious to get me to get something that I haven't figured out yet. But in any case when I was there I thought about this poem. I thought, wow, maybe it has been my destiny my whole life to learn to deal with distance so that I would be capable of handling it across hemispheres!

But I have a hard time believing that. I think that I read that poem and it in turn has influenced how I have created my reality. I think I saw something magical about distance and love and what that means about love and I have been inviting it into my life ever since.

But now I expel that belief. I believe in love right here. In my living room please. In my city. I am so afraid of someone else "coming" to me, moving where I am. I want to know someone who lives here. Now I just want to know myself. But I want my future with someone who lives in and loves Portland.

I know that absence can make the heart grow fonder. But I don't want absence in my love affairs any more. I want presence. I want consciousness. I know I will have it.