michael, may you now be at peace: a reflection (no. 75)

when i got home, the pains subsided... i couldn't tell if it was the food i ate, or gas, or something else. as i got ready to get into bed to rest off the pain, i felt most of it subside. it was here i attributed everything to nerves.




i know this may appear monotonous, but at this moment i realized how much my connection with you does affect my relationships. this is not saying that you prevent me from forming relationships with others; from that moment we formally met (back in february) though, i became extremely sensitive to the energy around me. i am working through a lot again, in terms of finding comfort within myself to deal with others. i go through periods where i want to withdraw from the world around me... lately, i have a need to connect with others.

i always wonder if those i connect with will grasp my dedication to you. or if my dedication to you is a hindrance. because of the person you are and the absence of your physical state it may be interpreted that my sense of 'reality' has diminished. of course, your teachings are eternal; but since we are conditioned to focus on the physical form the concept of me having a relationship with you could be deemed 'nonsensical'.



at times, this leads to the core of my recent sadness. i have moments where i find great difficulty in dealing with 'the outside world'. but my relationship with you consists of different dynamics. because we are now dealing with vibrations. this is something i don't always know how to vocalize; therefore i feel isolated even from those who say they love you. much of our relationship requires little to no words. it is these moments where i just feel you, and i know you're there, observing this plane in which you were violently taken away from.



i still do feel bouts of great sorrow when i see you; not necessarily because your brilliant spirit, which perpetuated sowing the seeds of positive global transformation was expunged from our immediate physical consciousness- this is nothing new; this consistently happens to our brightest spirits. it's not even necessarily because we've never met when you were physically here.

it's because when i speak these words to you, i do not know what words you speak in response. i cannot hear your screams, your tears, your laughter. all which physically manifests itself is the past. i do my best to look towards the future, but all i do is stare at your many images, to get a sense of the possibility of what i imagine to be a corresponding set of declarations.

all i can do is tell you every day that i love you, and hope you don't find my own declaration to be insincere. all i can do to do my best to present to the world what you have taught me.



as i write this i spend a significant amount of time observing your looks over the years... despite the changes your facial structure has not altered much. whether or not you choose to admit it, your genes are distinct. even though, like many of us in this country you come from mixed heritage; your beautiful african features have remained... these features define more than physicality. you can hear it in your cadence, you can detect this in your actions. you represent the universal nature of us.

most of all, you are able to witness all this in your eyes, bearing lifetimes of our struggles and joys. through those eyes you have connected generations. this is one of the reasons i know i mustn't focus on you not being here, to the point where i am unable to live... you have been a lifetime of grandparents, friends, lovers- teachers.







i feel the same way about your hands... i love to look at them. i find them to be more interesting than my own (i suppose i can say that a lot about myself, as i find a lot of things about you more interesting than myself). to see them is to see a narrative in not just how you lived in this life; but it's also a narrative, again, of other lives. i see a man, hardened by life on the road (be it the railroad, construction or even the stage), rarely having a chance to sit down to a hearty meal. i see the hangnails and the brittleness, and it makes me think of my stepfather's father. he was so kind to me, amongst everyone else's cruelty. he was the one who, whenever i burnt the toast (and i did it a lot) told me that burnt toast was good for you. he was the one who let me watch him build things in the house, as he patiently answered my questions.

those large, brittle hands of yours are comforting to me. the age spots and the puffiness are comforting to me. i recognize that how your hands looked may have been a symbol of poor health. but i also enjoyed the contradiction in them- just like your shoes. there were times you dressed regally, when the shoes you wore were worn down. this is important to note, as you always wanted people to watch your feet as you danced. your hands were a symbol, that you were just as vulnerable as the rest of us; if anyone were to truly believe you were immortal, they'd be forced to confront the inevitable cycle (which escapes no one) by looking at those great palms.

i find comfort in the magnitude and the coarseness of your hands. these are hands which built a landscape of possibilities. when i hear your hands being used rhythmically in a piece of music i know that you are in tune with the spirits. with your elders, your ancestors.

i knew upon reading your autopsy, they would never do justice to those hands. i cannot say if anyone ever did.




and of course, i woke up today, with my right side in pain. i rested with stomach pains and greeted the next day with muscular pain. after running a few errands around the house i took a long nap, awaking to do even more errands. in the course of this i wondered what you thought i meant to you, and what i actually meant to you. and what you mean to me. can this sort of relationship we have last, in an environment like this? what do others actually think when they read these conversations here? do any of these questions actually matter?

still, i begin to feel like i am crazy sometimes, because i wonder how much of my current relationships with others happen to be guided by you. i wonder how much others tolerate my dedication to you. will there ever be someone in my life who fully accepts this?



having experienced panic attacks over several times in my life (they began in adulthood, as far as i know), i sense a lot of the current physical pain i am feeling to bear some sort of relation to anxiety. the funny thing is, with my emotions surrounding the desire for children as well, i think about the phenomena of pseudocyesis, which is, 'false pregnancy'. i don't think THAT is happening to me, but i feel myself changing in ways which make me think about it.

i'm feeling anxious about going out in the world and relating to people in this way. is it 'time' for me to find a 'mate' to raise children with? is that necessary? how is this even possible, when it's hard for me to even get close to people enough for that? the thought frightens me.



the idea of making myself totally available to someone is absolutely frightening. as i mentioned to you before, when this happens it usually ends up in rejection. i refuse to let that happen again. there is a certain point where i close myself off to people. i don't know who is going to make themselves totally available to me either.

am i really at a point in life where i have to make a decision? i'm still so young, but at the same time life is passing me by. as i said the other day, i am the same age you were when you began to openly discuss this moment in your life as well; namely, in the leaked telephone conversation you had with someone named glenda. unfortunately, the tapes were leaked. yes, i did hear them. but when i did hear them i felt i was not alone.

"I want to be with someone... I want to know what a relationship is all about before I die... I never had... I know, I have never had a real relationship, my brothers have been married... My brothers have had girlfriends I really haven't had that... I just ... wanna know what its like... to have a real relationship with someone who doesn't want me for me.... that I don't, I don't have to look over my shoulder all the time... that doesn't question me.. I mean... I don't... and, and.. like La Toya said in her book.. she said, either I am going to have to find somebody who doesn't know who the heck I am... or deal with somebody who's career is equally as important, or equally like mine..."



granted, i suppose i actually HAVE been in a 'real' relationship, with someone who actually DID want to marry me... and i admit that i did initiate that relationship because i was frightened that i would never know what it felt like to be in one (prior to this relationship the same things said about you were said about me- that i was gay, asexual, etc.; and frankly, even AFTER that relationship the same things are said). in the course of that relationship it became abusive- the cycle i saw with the rest of my family continued, so i decided to cease the experience. and so now, the fear i had in getting close to people prior to this specific relationship has returned, triple-fold. as i mentioned to you, i don't want to experience love as a form of domination.

and like you, i want to know what it feels like to feel 'real love'. we are encouraged in this society to find it in the arms of someone we don't know. this is where i choose not to be. as i said, in terms of people and relationships, i have very little knowledge. even if i HAVE been in a 'real' relationship at some point in my life, it's still a world i am not used to. because really, it didn't seem real to me.

but i feel trapped, because my desire to have children is killing me... and i do not want to raise a child alone. and yet i hold no true desire to find a 'mate'. it's like, if it happens it does. but really, even though it would be nice to know what 'real love' feels like, i realized that the fine line falls between you and that person who can fully accept my dedication to you. and i'm not sure if another person could accept that. i mean, it's not just you; it's a lot of things which color my reasoning which have absolutely nothing to do with you- some of this has to do with how i feel about myself, and my experiences. still, my dedication to you does drive a lot of this. "if you love me, you have to accept that michael will be there too."



i've accepted years ago (after this particular 'real' relationship) that i may never experience another. with that, i have chosen to focus my energies elsewhere (and i met a wonderful cat in the process). and i WAS doing that... of course, in the midst of all this i happened to meet YOU, in the incarnation i did. and my life took on a vastly different journey. the contrast in many ways was startling.

and with you, this is the journey i choose to continue to take. it's been a long road, and there's a whole lot of work which needs to be done (and a lot of loads which need to be lightened); but i am doing the best i can with what i have. i thank you for travelling with me and holding my hand (with your own beautiful, large, brittle, hangnailed ones).

love,
jamilah