One night in the cabin I got up to use the bathroom -- very, very quiet, despite the deep silence of the wilderness and the creaky old wooden floors.

By chance, this woman I loved got up to use the bathroom, too -- very, very quiet as well.

Of course, I heard her anyway. I notice everything.

In the morning, the spiritual prodigy friend of my friend's said that we were both very sneaky and quiet in the night, but that he'd heard each of us getting up, anyway.

I don't mean to imply we were in the bathroom together, by the way.

What I'm saying is, sometimes you're not as sneaky as you think.

And what I'm also saying is, this woman wasn't as sneaky as she thought she was: she said she didn't love me, but I knew, and know, better.

What am I getting at?

Under lidded eyes, so to say, during that short time in Kauai, I saw that woman looking at me, considering me, weighing me, and projecting me into her future.

Once, driving around with me on a beautiful road canopied with tropical trees, she asked, "Could you see yourself biking here?"

Everyone who knows me knows I bike a lot, and I think she was also weighing a move back to Kauai; so, the simple question was rich with meaning.

Later, she was weighing me again as the three of us sat up one night, hanging out, talking, listening to music. Again on the subject of possibly moving to Kauai, she asked something like, "Don't you think you should at least get a part-time job?"

Because in the preceding year or two during which she'd come to know me, it didn't seem I did much at all: slept late, often on her couch or others'; rode my bike; smoked strong jungle tobacco from a pipe; went hiking; or just thought a lot.

Her spiritual prodigy friend seemed to agree, as he looked at me silently, waiting for my answer.

What did I say?

Whether I've got a job or not, I'm always working.

It seemed to me she was weighing whether to "hang her hat" on such a loserly peg as mine; but our host had to agree I was correct.

He had a good eye, and ear, for truth. Most people don't. Most people love lies.

In fact, he said that to me later, on my last night in Kauai -- something like, "People say they want to hear the truth, but they really don't -- they want you to lie to them."

I'm not like that. He wasn't like that. But the woman I loved was like that, at least at that point.

I did my best to excise, or exorcise, that; maybe those efforts had some effect, though not the one I wished for.

In healing, it's a deep lesson to learn, and I seem to need to keep learning it: if you help someone to heal, you really don't control the outcome. Your job is only to share your love. That alone, you can control -- whether or not to share your love.

I don't know why I'm writing this. So much water has passed under that bridge, and yet -- I can never forget that time.

What I'm really trying to say is, there's inner work, and there's outer work.

Not many people understand inner work.

So much of inner work is waiting, watching, and allowing yourself to be submitted -- ground down, if like me you're hard-headed, prideful, and stupid.

There's a season to everything, and as I've learned with finding wild mushrooms -- which I took to immediately not so long ago, so well in fact that, to the astonishment of friends "longer in the game" than me, I seemed to find them every time I went hunting, at every turn -- so much of finding them has to do with not wanting to find them and letting yourself be guided by feelings, thoughts, and sensations you don't understand.

This can be humbling, or it can be magical.

So, to the Reader-Who-Isn't, who has followed the thread and chronology of this writing, first to last, I say: I have been silent, but not idle, and in so doing, I've been listening to the dictates of a greater mind than mine.

It's leading me to wild mushrooms beyond my heart's imagining, which my eyes have never seen.

A few times, it held my head under water, and it cast a cold light on me, so that I shuddered to see myself, but -- sure as dawn and day, I feel summer is here, and my slow seeds have begun to sprout.

I'm not sure they need tending, but they do need attention, and so... out of the shuttered house I come again.

And, in the interest of honesty -- since here we are, baring our hearts and communing, -- I'll even tell you a little more.

And it seems doubly right, having talked today about loves lost and past.

What do I mean?

I had to take a deep breath just now, though you didn't hear it.

I really don't like sharing this stuff, because -- though I say here again and again, I show you who I am, I don't hide anything, blah, blah, blah -- this exposes more of my insecurity, perhaps, than I care to show.

But -- we're friends here, right?

I've actually gone on a few dates recently.

haha.

I don't know why I've been scared to share this, but -- now that I said it, I had to laugh. I mean, isn't that something normal people do?

If you don't know -- I didn't know when I moved out here, certainly -- I live in a Very Fancy Town.

I myself don't live in a Fancy Part of this Very Fancy Town, but -- all around me are people who have Plenty of Money. What I've learned about that is -- and, hey, no judgments -- that it seems to attract, and produce, a lot of beautiful women.

Note to self: money produces beautiful women. Who knew?

I remember when I first moved to Minnesota, I was just stunned. Like, everywhere I turned, beautiful woman after beautiful woman. I was like, "Wow -- nobody told me!"

Anyway, after about five years I've finally dived into the ocean.

Yeah, yeah -- this site says "no toe-dipping," but another secret I've kept from you is that... I'm an inveterate and unreformable toe-dipper.

Toe-dipping is, in fact, quite wise; it's just that, at some point, you actually have to get in and swim.

I'm toe-dipping again -- can you tell?

The thing is, I did go on a few dates, but they were more of the category of "double-dates"; I've been "out of the game" a while, and -- well, I needed crutches to hobble my way back onto the court.

So, what I'm saying is, if you know me in Real Life, at this point, you're probably like -- Jian went on a DATE -- more than ONE date? GTF out of here.

Well, it just so happens, having had friends with me on these dates -- friends with Smart Phones, no less, -- I have Photographic Evidence.

I hate having my picture taken, by the way, so here I'm baring more of myself, and my insecurities, than, perhaps, I ever have in one place.

But... hey, in the interest of full disclosure and in the spirit of intimacy with you, my friend from afar, I thought I'd share a few of those pictures.

I keep saying I'm a Writer.

Well, here's my attempt at a new genre (to me, anyway) -- the Autobiographical Photo Essay.

These things have titles, don't they? That seems appropriate.

Let's call it... "One Gallant; or, An Idiot on Broads."

"One Gallant; or, An Idiot on Broads"

As the aphorism of the illustrious Master Gurdjieff has it, "If you go on a spree, then go the whole hog, including the postage."

I don't know about you, but even though I've got a lot more gray in my hair than I used to, when summer hits, the sap starts coursing through my veins, and suddenly I'm looking at every woman I see longer than usual.

"I am in the universe, the universe is in my body," as another aphorism goes; who, then, am I to resist the energy of the season?

But, though a few weeks back, as it really started to heat up here, sap began to flow like a rain-swollen river, I retained enough of my wits to apply some reason.

I thought, "Well, let me go somewhere with lots of women, where it's kind of dark, so I can really shine, so to speak." Play the odds, dontcha know, and my "strong suit," if you follow.

Well, as it turns out, just about then the bar across the street (Very Fancy, I assure you), was holding a sort of masquerade party to welcome the start of summer, so -- I went.

Yeah, I know, it sounds lame, and it was, but -- what can I say? When you're thirsty, you go where the water is.

Here I am with three gorgeous women I met:

To be honest, they were all a bit "out of my league" there, so I felt more like a spectator than a participant.

Still, I called it a good night: it felt good to stretch, so to speak, before really getting back into the game.

That was a Friday night.

I figured, "You know what, it's not even the weekend yet. Why not try again tomorrow?"

Hope springs eternal.

I figured further, "Well, to be honest, I'm not a drinker, and I don't like the night-life, so no wonder I struck out tonight."

In fact, if I'm being really honest, I find the bar-scene pretentious, sad, and not a little disgusting, so -- though sap still coursed in a veritable torrent through my aging, though commodious, veins and was further hastened in its coursing by the excitement of a First Night Out, -- I still retained my wits, alluded to above, and further applied my reasoning to the endeavor envisioned and at hand.

I said -- "Well, I'm really more of a bookish type. I used to work in bookstores and coffee shops. There were plenty of pretty women there in those days, and more to my liking. Let me hit a couple coffee shops in town and see what happens. I know I'll really shine there."

As it turns out, I did see a few pretty women, but, well... I was a little too shy to approach them in broad daylight.

So -- I could only yearn from afar, so to speak:

I mean, speaking of photographic evidence, there you have it, plain as day. Look at her -- she loved me!

Still, for some reason, I was asked to leave -- none too politely, I might add. Is this that "Minnesota Nice" I keep hearing about?

Anyway, I'm not allowed back for a while.

Undeterred, that same day I stopped by another coffee shop nearby and talked to another beautiful young woman I met there.

Ok -- that's not exactly true.

Talk, as a descriptor, cheapens the level of discourse I brought to this stunning young woman; and speaking of stunning, I have to say -- I left her speechless.

What I didn't tell you is that, in preparation for my return to dating, I had actually memorized Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" and set it to the tune of a well-known Christmas carol.

My reasoning was, "How many lame-ass dudes come out to these coffee-shops and spit the same weak-ass unmetered game at these fancy Northern broads? Let me hit em with some rhyming couplets in iambic quadrameter one time and let em know what's good."

Anyway, this date made the Bloomington Herald-Times, and, apparently, I'm not allowed back at that coffee shop again, either.

Not sure what that's about; they say they like poetry there, but I guess too many White Boy Poetry Slams have dulled their ears' taste for the sweeter meter I was drizzlin on their domes like caramel on a cappucino.

After that, I had to lay low for a few days. Legally, I'm not sure how much more I can say right now.

Long story short, I was having a great night out just last weekend, too, till some lame-ass yuppie couple ratted me out at the wine bar downtown.

I have a friend who sweeps up there at night, and he emailed me this still-shot from the security footage -- this was right before I was asked to leave:

So, anyway -- there you go.

Undeterred, I said above.

Yes; though by the reckoning of some, this brief sortie back into the dating scene was a failure and a shame, I account it a success, and having moved beyond toe-dipping and dived into the proverbial sea of many fish, foresee many more such fruitful nights out in my future.

Before I go, the mention of the sea and diving puts me in mind of Kauai again.

I never told you!

When, towards the end of my time there, it was clear that that woman I loved wasn't having it, I took some time alone at the beach (the three of us had gone camping on the shore at Polihale Beach) for a bit of an impromptu date with some new friends:

Anyway, I'm not allowed back in Kauai, either.

Don't ask why; I don't get it, either.

22 June 2022