Memory and the Underworld

It's like encountering shades, ghosts, spirits, the way strong memories of events emerge. Nothing and no one is actually there (except your mind, of course)-- and yet sometimes these encounters are palpable. If unbidden or nostalgic, extremely painful at times, and definitely with a cascading and triggering effect.

In this way a pleasant getaway to Santa Barbara for a botany conference can turn into a whole series of grief-triggering memories. You are in places or traveling through places that you used to travel through with someone else, but the other person is no longer alive in your life, not in your time.

I passed a strangely sentimental spot where the ex and I had stopped along I-10 on the way back to Phoenix after our first trip to Los Angeles in October of 2011 and I had a strange fantasy: if I could pull off the road I could go back in time and I would be able to tell myself-- you know, about 6 years from now, you'll be passing here feeling intense sorrow because this partnership will be over, against your will. Do you still want to do this? Resoundingly, my 2011 self told me of course, of course, no question. In our rage at someone who takes away something valuable to us, we think of what it would have been like never to have known them. But my reality is always that I would dive right back in again, with a whole heart and no reservations, if given the choice to "go back" and do it over, which of course we do not have.

I also briefly went through Joshua Tree National Park, but all campgrounds were full. Triggering memories of the last time I was able to get there, Thanksgiving 2015, with the ex and her son. One of our family holiday trips. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the Denny's in Twentynine Palms, because nothing else was open. The boy and I made up a little song called "Restaurant Manners."

On the road to other resonances, over and over again. California travels with the ex were good times, without exception. When I moved out of the house, I left a note that said "I will miss you at every turn," and it often feels like this has been absolutely the case. I had thought we were going to adventure together until my heart stopped. You'll have to forgive me if you're tired of hearing about it.

Astrology talks about Jupiter being square (90 degrees separated in reference to one's birth chart) right now from the Moon/Pluto conjunction.

"Beginning of December 2016 until mid-August 2017: This is usually a very favorable influence. It gives your emotions a great deal of power, so that you feel them much more emphatically and are more in touch with them. At the same time you want to establish empathetic relationships with others, to hear their problems, to help out and play a protective role toward them if possible. This influence may make you feel very sentimental about and attached to your surroundings and to familiar objects. Your past is very important to you now, and if there are events in your past that you find uncomfortable, they are likely to come up. There is often a need to confront the unconscious areas of the psyche during this time, but you should regard this as an opportunity to be healed of the wounds made by these energies from the past."

So my unrelenting nostalgia and sentimentality is because of Jupiter. I should have known. 

There are so many other aspects of these travels through the underworld than simply the obsession with this indigestible breakup. I realize the entries here have reflected the obsessive nature of my thoughts in regard to the ex. I hereby declare a moratorium and make the commitment to write entirely about other things for a week or two. 

Like impermanence. Before sleep last night I read Pema's chapter in When Things Fall Apart titled Curious About Existence. 

"Impermanence is the goodness of reality. Just as the four seasons are continuously in flux...in the same way, everything is constantly evolving. Impermanence is the essence of everything...People have no respect for impermanence. We take no delight in it; in fact, we despair of it. We regard it as pain...Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don't struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality."

This reminds me of William Blake's 

“Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness/ Which is the swiftest of all things: all were eternal torment.”

 So much so that I had a very strange moment in the motel parking lot at 4:45 am, while brewing up some coffee with my Jet Boil camping stove. After you heat the water and add 4-6 scoops of coffee, you stir it in and then place the French press lightly on top and wait. For the best coffee, waiting at least 3 minutes is good. So I started the stopwatch feature on my Fitbit. Some time went by. I stood still in the dark in the parking lot next to my car, with the JetBoil there. Birds. Breeze. Cars going by. Then I looked at the stopwatch. Only 1' 33" had passed, but I could see the tenths of seconds racing by, rushing this moment this moment this moment this moment this moment headlong into no more no more no more never again never again, and I felt suddenly, deeply relieved. This too shall pass. Far, far more quickly than you think. Blink your eyes and I'll be gone. And the reassuring thought also: in a relative nanosecond, you'll be dead, and you won't have to put up with all this fucking shit anymore. It was not a suicidal thought, it was not even a longing for death in any way at all, in spite of how it sounds-- it was just an insight into the truth. 

It's weird when you're in Hades, the experiences that bring relief.