A reader of the newsletter posted this on Instagram, which was my greeting to Valentine’s Day, as I checked my phone when I first woke up:
It really resonated with me and my new post-manic episode/spiritually awakened mindset, reminding me of another quote by Graham Greene, who said:
“I’ve fallen into belief like I fell into love.”
"Plains" by Deerhunter
I was listening to the trains
I was up all night
That said, I will admit that, in between reading A Course In Miracles from midnight until 3:30 AM, I also found myself…
And this is NSFW and sexual…
So skip ahead to the non-bolded parts if you don’t want to read about it!
Anyway, in between reading parts of A Course In Miracles, I found myself masturbating to pornography.
So I must have been somewhat lonely in the early hours of Valentine’s Day.
And something glistened
In the strange blood-diffused light
My friend was missing
And I was ghost
I was flame, I was bright
I was listening to the trains
I was up all night
An hour before the A Course In Miracles reading and masturbation sessions, I was talking to a friend who had just taken the Myers-Briggs and Autism Spectrum tests and she was looking to take other tests.
So we also took the Kinsey scale test and both scored a 2.
Oh, James
You've got no reason to stay in these plains
In my reading last night, A Course In Miracles said, “God is praised whenever any mind learns to be wholly helpful…the truly helpful are invulnerable because they are not protecting their egos and so nothing can hurt them.”
So I will not protect my ego and say that when I shuffled to this song and heard the phrase “Oh, James” I thought of what I had masturbated to last night, which was to a trans woman.
The Kinsey scale is not wrong!
Maybe that will help other Straightish men, or maybe it’s embarrassing, or both!
But I was apparently wrong about the “Oh James” line.
Rolling Stone says of it, “The song is a double tribute to two fallen idols. On one level, it’s dedicated to James Dean, who filmed his final screen role in Marfa, Texas, in 1955, just days before his death in a California car crash. Sixty-three years later, Deerhunter began work on Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? in the same West Texas town. ‘Oh, James,’ Bradford Cox sings, as if he’s consoling a friend. He feels out of place here — ‘These plains/Are barren and hateful terrain’ — and he finds a kind of comfort in imagining that Dean did, too.”
I was racing against time
With this friend of mine
Collapsing just before
We reach the end of the line
He was lifted, diamond straight
Straight was cold, cold was black
And black was glistening
All the night, the sound remained
Oh, James
You've got no reason to stay in these plains
These plains
Are barren and hateful terrain
And what remains
Is the sound of trains
And “there’s a second, subtler tribute in ‘Plains,’ a coded love note written into its sprightly syncopation and synthesized burble. Cox went through a major Whitney Houston phase during the recording of Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?, listening nonstop to her 1985 classic ‘How Will I Know’ and decorating the Atlanta studio where Deerhunter finished the album with photos of the late star. Co-producer Ben Etter noted that the instrumental arrangement for ‘Plains’ was created with Houston in mind. Listen again and you’ll hear it, particularly in the verses.”
“How Will I Know” by Whitney Houston
This Whitney Houston song is more of what Valentine’s Day is traditionally about.
There's a boy I know, he's the one I dream of
Looks into my eyes, takes me to the clouds above, mmm-hmm
Oh, I lose control, can't seem to get enough, uh-huh
When I wake from dreaming, tell me is it really love
And it reminds me of Valentine’s Days in high school.
The not knowing if someone you like likes you or not.
Ooh, how will I know (don't trust your feelings)
How will I know
How will I know (love can be deceiving)
How will I know
And particularly the joy of finding out that my first significant high school girlfriend liked me back.
How will I know if he really loves me?
I say a prayer with every heartbeat
I fall in love whenever we meet
I'm asking you what you know about these things
This couplet of lines also especially resonates.
How will I know if he's thinking of me
I try to phone but I'm too shy (can't speak)
Reminding me how even after finding out that we both liked each other, I was still almost too shy back then to talk to her very long on the phone.
Falling in love is so bittersweet
This love is strong, why do I feel weak?
The recent Whitney Houston documentary: Whitney: Can I Be Me alleges that Houston was somewhat bisexual and that her downfall was partly connected to the fact that she was forced to hide her romantic relationship with a woman, Robyn Crawford.
If he loves me
If he loves me not
If he loves me
Ooh, if he loves me not
Hey, if he loves me
If he loves me not
I recently reconnected with that high school girlfriend. We hadn’t talked in many years.
I always felt ashamed that I mishandled the end of that relationship. And we spent a bit of our time reconnecting on that, and how it was neither of our’s fault.
But we also recalled more how much fun we had together.
She’s even become a reader of the newsletter/blog.
I think of Richard Rohr’s description of Enneagram Fours.
“FOURs are converted when they realize that their identity is not composed of the worst things that have happened to them.”
Oh, how will I know, how will I know
How will I know
Hey, how will I know
Rohr also says in the description, “FOURS often tend to be pan-erotic, androgynous, and seldom have any trouble understanding LGBTQ people. They are much more natural at non-dual thinking.”
How will I know (how will I know)
How will I know
How will I know (I say a prayer)
How will I know
Ooh, how will I know (I fall in love)
How will I love, hey, how will I know?
Anyway, so that’s been my Valentine’s Day, a lot of Christian/awakened agape love for everything, a bit of loneliness/sexual repression worked through, and some memories of high school romance past.
What about you all?
Okay, that’s the forty-third Shuffle Synchronicities.