An Ongoing Process About Money
Other title ideas for this post include:
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A Milipede's Message
Paladin Shows His Love With Service
The Significance Of Turning Twenty-Seven
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September sixteenth I woke at nine. The leaves of my peace lily were just above me. A sound of continual hissing gave me the impression that someone was running water in my kitchen, which was further confirmed by occasional splashing sounds.
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The previous morning I had woken up repeatedly being confused about my location. Why am I not in Hibiscus's bed? Where am I? I kept thinking.
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This morning I was not confused about my location.
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"Paladin?" I called. No reply. I frowned. Then I realized the hissing and splashing noises were coming from the humidifier a foot away from my head, not from the kitchen at all. I felt a little sheepish that after a day and a half being back I still kept mistaking the sound of the humidifiers for other things.
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Originally I had thought the humidifier's hiss was that of a pressure cooker, but that turned out to be impossible. The pressure cooker had been removed from our kitchen. Paladin had moved all the cooking-related things up into the attic. I finally had my raw food kitchen at last. No microwave, oven, stove-top, toaster or pressure cooker. Just my two juicers, my dehydrator, my food processor, fridge, freezer, cutting boards, knives, and so forth.
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While I had stayed at Silverstag Eco Village and Paladin had stayed in Snowland, he had worshiped me with his efforts. Our Snowland apartment had undergone many dramatic transitions, and each one spoke of Paladin's devotion to me.
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In the kitchen...
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He had built shelves for our spice jars, some of which were made of cedar wood. He had removed a space-inefficient shelf that was an eye-sore. He'd added a mirror that made the kitchen seem larger.
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He'd taken a closet-shaped area that'd been out of use for a couple years and carefully made use of the space with drawers that had been in the attic. He'd installed a hidden light source that illuminated the top of the closet-shaped area and suspended a lovely wooden clock in the center, giving depth to the area as well as providing a night light that shown on a traditional "handed" clock.
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Paladin had reorganized the kitchen shelves entirely. There was now a shelf specifically for fermenting loaded up with jars clean enough to be ready to ferment at any time. He'd taken a high-up out-of-the-way shelf and organized the gardening pots and seeds there. He'd moved the plates into one of our extra drying racks, where they stood up, easily accessible and looking attractive. He'd found a place for the large bowls on top of the fridge within a basket that allowed them to be stored there up-side-down.
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The large trash bin which we usually took months to fill had been replaced by a smaller one that fit under the sink instead of having it visibly under the kitchen counter. He'd found new, more accessible homes for the canvas shopping bags, tea supplies, dish towels, and so much more.
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Each and every change was made with conscious thought. I could imagine him saying to himself, "What would make Nuria even more comfortable? What would make her happier?" It was evident in all the changes I was surrounded with.
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The living room had become my bedroom in truth. He'd reorganized the plants to take best advantage of the window light while simultaneously having all of them right at the head of my bed where I could breathe their oxygen as I slept and see their leaves first thing when I awoke.
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Paladin had removed his video game supplies from the furniture and moved in my drawers and clothes in their place. He'd set up my favorite lampshade and two humidifiers that we hadn't had before.
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I liked that the sounds of my home were different. I liked having to re-figure out where all of my possessions were. While it made me feel less safe, it also prevented me from falling into my old patterns so easily. It forced me to rethink everything, just as if I'd arrived at a new person's home while traveling. It made it so that my travels were not coming to an end, but rather beginning again in a new way.
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I rolled over in bed to look toward the humidifier and lo-and-behold, a millipede was crawling a few inches away from my face along the ridge of the terracotta saucer holding my peace lily's pot. My fear of bugs had mostly died away while Paladin and I had been on the island in the summer of 2013, but the fact that my day's tone was set with a millipede gave me cause for concern.
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I have been awake less than a minute and I'm watching a millipede crawl in front of my face. What does this mean? My first interpretation was, I really, really need to stop putting off work for White Whale. I have to make money.
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You see, there were further changes for my benefit even since we'd gotten back on Monday afternoon. Tuesday evening Paladin had set up a brand-new air filter. I was rather taken aback when he showed up with it and started pulling it out of the box.
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"What's this?" I asked.
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"An air-filter."
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"It's huge," I said.
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"It needs to be huge to filter your bedroom, the kitchen and the stairwell," Paladin replied.
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"You found this at a thrift shop?" I asked. He had told me he was going to a thrift store. The humidifiers had each come from thrift stores. He'd found them for less than ten dollars each.
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"No. I bought it new," he said, sounding stiff.
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"Oh. How much was it?"
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"It was expensive," he said.
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He didn't tell me exactly how much at first, and I didn't pry. I wasn't sure I wanted to know, and I was already running late. I expected Knotweed to arrive any minute to take me to Ficus's house where we were having a little mini raw potluck Tuesday night.
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Paladin didn't come to the potluck. He went to Dungeons and Dragons with my mother. I was astonished. He'd had prior plans I hadn't known about. This had never happened before in our five years together. While sometimes one of us attended something and the other stayed home, this was the very first time we both went to something different on the same night. This seemed loaded in significance to me.
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Knotweed dropped me off home again about ten minutes before Paladin came home. Paladin was surprised to see me home before him.
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"It was a short potluck," I explained when he asked. "Knotweed and her boyfriend needed to do other things tonight, and Ficus and Thistledown both have to work early tomorrow morning."
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Later, I asked, "So how much was this air filter?" I was appreciating it already. The sooty, toxic smell of the house was absent in a six feet perimeter around the machine.
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Paladin took a deep breath. "It was two-hundred and fifty dollars."
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"Oh," I said. I had been afraid it would be over a hundred, but not too afraid. I figured up to $300 was fairly reasonable for a very good filter. Still, I didn't think he had the guts to just go out and spend that much of my money without consulting me first. I wasn't sure if I felt cherished or betrayed.
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"How did you know which one to buy?" I asked.
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"I have been reading about them. When I wasn't making my smoothie or working on that task you gave me earlier, I was researching air-filters."
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The feeling of betrayal gained a little strength. He had planned on it, but hadn't told me about it. Well, that's not true, I argued back with myself. We've talked about getting air filters before. And he did say he was going to look at a thrift store for an air filter. And he did try to ask for permission to get a new one if he didn't find one at a thrift store. And besides, he bought it for me, because he loves me.
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Despite all those arguments, I still felt torn. I tried to rationalize with myself further; Mermaid did just pay me $400 for rent for the time she lived in our apartment while we were traveling. That more than covers the air-filtering machine.
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"This one won't be terribly expensive to maintain. The replacement filters are reasonable."
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I took another breath of surprise. I forgot that these machines also need replacement filters, just like our reverse osmosis water filter and our shopvac vacuuming machine. I felt a familiar sinking feeling.
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Car insurance. Filters. Groceries. Probiotics. Clothes. Construction materials. Light bulbs. Replacement computer equipment.
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So many ongoing expenses. They made me feel terribly uncomfortable. It made me feel like my future life was being eaten away by the present decisions.
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"It is different for you," Hare had told me while we were staying with her on her boyfriend's homestead in early August. "You actually have control of how many hours you work. If you spend more money, you have to work more that very same month. It is different for someone like Rooster, who works on salary. He has to work the same amount of time, regardless of what he buys that month. And he's going to make the same amount of money, regardless of how much work he does in the amount of time. For him, supporting Oryx's and I's groceries for a year wasn't a big deal. He wanted to do it, and it added to his life. There was no detraction for him."
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I felt appreciation for Hare's observation. If only I could have someone who wanted to pay my expenses for a year, I had thought, who would just feel like I was adding to their life like that. I've seen what Oryx and Hare were able to accomplish in a year despite all the drama with Oryx's illness. Imagine what I could do if I set my mind to my writing, to the things I want to create.
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Now I found myself thinking of Hibiscus. I wish I knew better how he felt about these things. Money really is a subject more taboo than sex. He's told me things about his sexuality that he's never shared with Otter, who calls Hibiscus his very best friend. And yet, I have little idea about how much money he earns and how he really feels about the money he earns.
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It seemed to be an ongoing theme that year for me. There was the book I had published in April which was all about money and its meaning, and then the articles I had written since. There was the book that Cuttlefish had lent me while I stayed at Redbud Community: The Heart of Money, which was all about how money factored into relationships. The thing was that money was taboo for me personally in a big way.
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Several times I had almost cried when the subject of money and taking me shopping had come up with Hibiscus. I couldn't tell him how much it meant to me without crying, and thereby I didn't tell him much at all, which left me feeling guilty for not showing appreciation. Nobody has shown me love this way in years... Not unless you count Paladin's parents.
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It had dawned on me while Paladin drove me from Silverstag Eco Village back to Snowland that Paladin's parents really had bought my love. I said as much to Paladin, with wonder in my voice.
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He blew out some air, "That actually makes a lot of sense."
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"They welcomed me into the family more with their money than with anything else they did. The way they took us shopping and got me my food processor which I love so much, and the dishes in our kitchen which I still love so much. They spent a thousand dollars on us that day. Nobody has ever done that for me, except, of course, my own parents on rare occasion. But never like that. I felt special, cherished and loved. And you were buying my food besides. For the first time in my life I could pick out as many berries and fruits as I liked without worrying about the expense."
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My heart clenched whenever I remembered the year Paladin and I spent in Sunnyland. It had been the happiest year of my life, and I had brought it all to an end with my own ideas for expansion and growth. It was true that I would no longer take it back, but my heart still hurt with nostalgia when I remembered how peaceful I'd felt.
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What does it mean that love really can be bought? I wondered. And why is it so taboo that society denies this so ardently?
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My fantasies of Hibiscus paying me for sex had changed. I was no longer daydreaming about him taking me by surprise and throwing down a few hundred dollar bills beside me to force me to take it. My fantasies had grown and expanded. I wanted so much more than that. I wanted his time, his affection, his words, his energy and his life itself. I wanted to live it with him. Feeling safe in the knowledge that he could afford to buy me things was only part of the picture - it just happened to be a part of the picture that confused me and caused me shame. I shouldn't care so much about that, I kept trying to tell myself. But it was useless, because I did care. I cared a lot.
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And so, looking at the millipede on Wednesday morning, I immediately felt fear about finances. I went up to the attic to use my little bathroom up there. Paladin was in his bed, and he immediately roused. I wasn't sure I'd ever seen him rouse himself so quickly. He's so determined to impress me, to show me his love and his passion. He's never been like this before. Gods, is there really hope for us after all?
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I began thinking of all the things millipedes could mean to me. They're entirely safe to touch. They don't bite. Yet their blood can be highly toxic to touch if you squish them. They're really kind of friendly and sweet in a way, but oh, how creepy their legs look at they move. I contemplated their many legs and thought about the multifaceted changes in my life.
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"I'm finding comfort in reading my own writing," I told Paladin. "It helps ground me within myself. Everything keeps changing so fast that I don't how else to gain my own perspective back, to figure out why I'm bringing about so much change in my life. It is like a whirlwind."
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Because by the time I'm twenty-seven this chapter in my life will have closed. I had felt there was some serious significance to the age twenty-seven ever since I'd been eighteen. I was in mom's car after having an abortion of Porcupine's child. I was feeling disoriented and oddly psychically tapped in. I wanted to know when or if I'd ever have a baby.
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Wait until you're at least twenty-four, some part of me said. Another part of me said, when you're twenty-two it could happen. I mused over these numbers, feeling detached. I felt unsure of whether I was just making stuff up or if some intuition was really communicating with me. Then, suddenly, I had this feeling that I would finally have or meet someone special when I was twenty-seven.
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At the time I suddenly remember Wolf saying he didn't believe he would live past twenty-seven. He had, since he was still alive, but it was interesting how that number had come up again for me as I sat in the car, bleeding internally.
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And then there had been that meditation when I was sixteen where a silver locket had floated to me while I was underwater. The silver locket represented the love I would have. And then a huge metallic chain spanning the size of several school buses put together floated down around me. This represented the home I would have and what it would mean to me. When I asked when I would have these things, I'd heard twenty-seven.
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And was it coincidence that Porcupine was twenty-seven when I left him? Was it serendipity that Paladin had been twenty-seven when I met him?
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After all the consciousness alchemy that had occurred within me in my year being twenty-six, I had no more doubts about the significance of turning twenty-seven. I was becoming something more authentic, something more aligned with my full self, something burnished into brilliance. I was finding my home in my body, in Snowland, at Silverstag, in my car, on the road, and in my own heart.
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I found my home happily divided between the misty, pillared energies in Paladin and the sheltering compassion in Hibiscus. It made me feel complete in a way I hadn't felt since I was under the age of four.
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"It fits now," Paladin said to me Tuesday night. "You remember when we watched the Teal video about the narcissist and decided that you were the narcissist?"
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"Vaguely," I said. "When was this?"
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"It was when we stayed at Brenda and Chad's place in July. We were confused though, because it didn't quite fit. The cliff notes I took from it were that the narcissist in the one in the relationship who is more repressed. They're the ones who have decided that no part of themselves is okay whatsoever. Everything about you fit the narcissist, and our dynamic fit the relationship that Teal described, and yet we were confused because we thought I was more repressed."
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"Right," I said, thinking, yes, of course Paladin is the more repressed of the two of us. We've seen this time and time again, have we not?
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"But it does fit. Think about it. It was never okay for you to be you as a child..."
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Suddenly I got chills from head to toe and I finished his sentence, "...because it wasn't okay for me to be a child. I could only ever be an adult!"
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"Yes," Paladin said, tears in his eyes. "Yes." And then he cried in my arms.
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"Thank you," I said, grateful he could cry for me when I couldn't feel a thing. I knew he was right, and goosebumps covered my entire body, and yet the only emotion I could perceive was gratitude that he could cry for me when I couldn't cry for myself. Many times this scene had been reversed, where I cried for the trials of his childhood while he just held me and felt blessed to have me.
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Paladin had finally been able to see this because of what I had done Monday night. By Wednesday morning I still hadn't been able to write about what had happened. I was still too wounded from the rejection I received. I kept thinking that I needed to, yet everything else always seemed more pressing.
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I should be preparing for the convention I'm demoing my board game at this weekend, I thought. And I should be working for White Whale. I have not done much work for him in nearly two weeks now. The millipede kept crossing my mind and I decided I would get to work.
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I ate a nectarine and a few spoonfuls of bee pollen and then sat down before my laptop to work. I noticed a few texts from Hibiscus.
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Hibiscus wrote, "Well, dinner is over and I'm on the bus back to the hotel. Pondering hitting on the cute redhead who has been giving me looks all day, but I would rather have more time to connect with you. I finally had the space to read your email. I so much want to respond but can barely type texts on this bouncing bus."
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I smiled, imagining how hard it would be to text on a bus. I had enough trouble with thumb-typing even while firmly planted on the ground.
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"Time. That is one answer," Hibiscus said. "And I plan to give you that if you will return the favor. I want to know you. Even if there are a hundred of you in there, and I've only met half a dozen so far. I want to know you."
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My heart fluttered in my chest as I read those words. Suddenly the millipede didn't seem very important and neither did work.
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At first I didn't know how to respond to that, so I just wrote, "Good morning. Paladin made what I call an "executive decision" - which is where you decide that you're right and take action, fearless of consequences. He bought a fancy, fantastic air filter in response to my physical pains."
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Hibiscus wrote back right away, saying, "Good morning! Tell him thank you for me!"
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It was ten in the morning for me in Snowland, which meant it was seven in the morning where Hibiscus was on his trip for work. I was anxious for him to get home from his work trip so I could read about or hear about his responses to the little surprises I had left for him.
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"I'm debating whether to let myself sink into the lovely world of reading your e-mails and feeling closer to you, or to actually get some gosh darned work done right now," I wrote, feeling my stomach turn over. It seemed hard to breathe in the room, despite the two humidifiers, air filter and plants. "I think, today, it may be a 'work first' day. I don't want to face the disappointment of White Whale. It is best to prevent it."
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I felt sad having written those words. I really didn't want to upset White Whale. He was like yet another father-figure in my life who I was always trying to please. A provider who didn't love me or even know me. It hurt to contemplate.
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Responding to Hibiscus's text I wrote, "I will. And I've said 'thank you' from me too. But I'm a little ruffled about having what I think of as 'my' money spent so abruptly without my say-so. I say 'my' in quotes, because technically his parents did send us a nice sum for no apparent reason about a month ago. I'm not sure which part of me is the ruffled, bitter, resentful part and which part of me is the thankful part. I knew I needed an air filter anyway, but . . . I get so hesitant about purchasing anything so expensive. But gosh, I can stand over it and breathe and the thing works pure magic!"
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I paused in my texting and let myself feel the gratitude for the miracle machine. It was really helping.
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"If I'm going to keep sending these texts back to back, I might as well be writing you an e-mail. So I'm either going to start writing you an e-mail, or I'm going to cut myself off and start working. Undecided. It makes me hungry to contemplate, but I already ate. I want to write a program to help people with cravings."
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I felt like eating puffed-rice rounds. Those came to mind because I'd seen them in the attic with Paladin's cooking supplies and I'd smelled them on his breath on Tuesday morning. It had made me very unhappy and I said, "You're torturing me!" I felt guilty at causing Paladin guilt by expressing my feelings so powerfully, but it was the truth of how I felt. How could he be safe to be him if I was too afraid to be me? Hurting each other and pressing each other's guilt-buttons was just part of the deal it seemed.
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I tried to muster up the courage to begin a real workday. My stomach hurt terribly. I laid down instead. After a while of rubbing my stomach I got up to get a kombucha. It was one of the passionberry bliss kombuchas that Hibiscus had bought for me. I took a gulp and it burned in my stomach. I felt dizzy and laid back down.
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I don't have time for this. I need to work, I thought. But that didn't help at all. After laying there for ten or so minutes contemplating the pain I felt extending from my ribs to my hips, I began to wonder if the pain was caused by my emotional pain about working. What if I decided I didn't have to work? I felt a little relief. What if I decided to write Hibiscus instead? I felt a little more relief. What if I finally began to write in my journal? I felt better.
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I sat up. The debilitating pain was gone. I shook my head in wonder. No matter how many times it happened, it still felt like magic every time. How can something that feel so incredibly be physical be entirely emotional like that?
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Before beginning to write I took a deep breath and thought back to Hibiscus's original text and then wrote, "Oh, I thought your answer was really romantic by the way. But my response came like this: Nuria smiles, looks down, and feels special. She hugs herself for a moment with a big grin on her face, feeling her cheeks grow warm and presumably pink."
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Hibiscus replied, "Now I'm trying to figure out if that is the text response or the email response that Nuria is blushing over. Either way you look lovely and sweet and I want to put my finger under your chin and lift up your shy eyes to see the love in mine."
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Butterflies traveled through my stomach and I felt distinctly better than I had felt all morning.
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I wrote back, "Nuria feels loved. I have not looked at your e-mails yet. I was responding to the texts you sent last night about Time and knowing all hundred selves."
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And then, I got a text message from my first love asking if I was home.