On Internet Lurve

For Richard, and by a strange concatenation of circumstances, for Laurel

I used to think that falling in love, or being in love required a lot of time. That I should wait, and weigh, and consider, and perhaps make a list of someone's most wonderful (or most irritating) habits, before I committed myself, mentally, to believing that I love them.

I no longer believe that this is true.

I have men friends who claim they "fall in love with" the swish of a dress, sunlight on hair, the turn of an ankle perhaps. Altough I can't say that I experience this, I do find it easy to fall for someone. Perhaps one is visual, the other is mental. Molecular. I don't know.

Bother.

In order to make sense of this for you, I have to work both backwards and forwards.



I am reading a book called Blithe Tomatoes. It's for my book club, which tends to be Books with Wine once a month. But oddly enough, the author is the husband of the woman who sells flowers at the Davis farmer's market, right next to the booth where wertperch and I sell vegetables.

This evening, I couldn't concentrate on the book, much as I like it. My mind is wandering.



Sunday afternoon, two lovely young men came to interview me, grundoon, and wertperch, about how we met, and the strange and wondrous internet site where that took place. We sat for almost four hours, trying not to look self-concious in front of QXZ's big camera, while Walter asked us questions. How we met, when we actually first met "in person", why we think everything2 became a social network without obviously meaning to, how we've met other noders, whether pigs have wings. It was fascinating, emotional, and very hard work.

And the interview did me a big favor, which was to remind me of a number of things and people that I love, and that interest me. What makes people drawn to each other. What creates the impulse to read some anonymous someone's work, until they don't seem so anonymous, and you start to want to know the person behind the writing. Why creating, and creativity, and a creative community, means so much to me.



So as I was reading (-ish; mostly daydreaming), I was thinking about how I missed Laurel, and wished for more people around me who enjoy the making of things, whether that be writing or drawing, cooking or origami, or the building huge concrete earthworks or statues of women.

And I wondered why I had managed to forget, for most of this fall, that I love the making of things, and the process of the making of things with other people.



Which, in my completely convoluted and roundabout daydreaming sort of way, brought me to Richard.

I met Richard at the Strawberry Music Festival. I had travelled down a day and half early, to try and find a slightly more pleasant campsite amongst the other three thousand Strawberry visitors than the one we had the previous year. I thought I had found a fairly pleasant spot, but not long after starting to set up tents, I got booted out of my spot. I'd slopped over a boundary sign.

This kind fellow from across the road said, come down here! I have more than enough space set aside.

I waffled for a bit, never being very good at accepting favors from a stranger, and then decided it was okay. I moved my campsite, taking up a fairly teeny space on the edge of his site, and then joined him and two of his friends for a short chat.



That chat ended up going on for something around six hours.

Richard is lovely. Interesting, funny, and interested. His two friends were the same. They were also experienced strawberry campers, and had a camp with easily 14 tents, two three burner stoves, a keg - a KEG, people - of beer, and numerous luxuries. And they shared me in without even a blink. Every so often, I would get self-concious about taking up their shade, drinking their booze, eating their food, etc, but they managed to not just seem oblivious to the unevenness of contribution, but to make me feel like one of the family.

And I fell in love.

They asked me questions; and really, carefully, listened to the answers. This is one of the few conversations I really remember where anyone really wanted to know, in detail, what this whole metastatic cancer trip is like, and took the time to listen with total care. We shared stories; every so often we'd be drawn away for music, but in hindsight this was by far my favorite part of the festival, this wonderful person, and the wonderful group of people he had drawn around him.

Now, I know, I know, I have to qualify this. I'll try to separate, clearly, the difference between falling in love like this, and the impulse to possess someone. It's very clear to me that I love people, of many genders, and far too many of them to have any concept of possessing, (or shagging) even a few. This is much more about that feeling that this person is someone I want to keep, to continue to know. It's mostly about that internal recognition that I don't actually need to know this person's bad habits, dreams, values; that I can just love them, like that, without trying, and without expecting or demanding anything.

As soon as wertperch and the others arrived, I told him, I've fallen madly in love with our neighbor, I can't wait for you to meet him. At this point, the crowd was much larger, but they also hit it off, just as I expected.

We traded contact info, and promises to keep in touch.



Fast foward to the rest of the fall. The downside of having people tell you how brave you are facing cancer, and how well you are handling it, is that when you aren't brave, and aren't handling it well, it's harder to admit. This fall I was feeling very angry, extremely sorry for myself, and pitiful. And I could hardly stand to be in the room with me. With that said, not enjoying my own emotional state, I couldn't imagine that anyone else could possibly want to be in the same room as me. Depression and self-pity are two of my least favorite states, and I would like to pretend I never experience them. It's a lie.

And I haven't stayed in touch with Richard, because since I couldn't stand myself, why on earth would he be interested in talking with me? What a useless friend I must be.

But I've slowly been climbing out of that pit. Slowly, sloggingly, covered with mud, but climbing out none the less.

One of the other subjects that came up during the noder love interview, was why I thought that everything2, as a community, became such. What is it about these people that keeps me coming back, that keeps me in touch, as no other electronic "place" does?

And I talked about Laurel, and that feeling of love, that here was a person I could value, before I'd ever met her.

This post seems to have no conclusion. It was a strange thread of ideas that I was trying to get down, I may try to break it down into smaller bits as I think on it. More soon.

Love,
grundoon