Make new friends...

Okay, I'm an idiot savant.

(The idiot was implied.)

Seriously, an idiot. And unfortunately, I didn't realize it until after the very incident occurred.

I tell myself lies. Everyone does, but this is an important one. I tell myself I'm like Abraham -- that I keep my tent open to receive visitors.

I'm the biggest liar of them all.

My tent is so closed up that I cannot begin to imagine letting new people in. It's hard, because I'm hard. The problem is that people think I'm hard like glass.

But I'm really hard like that chocolate dip you get when you order ice cream at the drive-in off that back road somewhere in the summer.

One bite and I'm just all cracked.

I got an invitation from someone I did not know on Facebook. I did go into this person's profile to see how he knew me -- a friend of a friend. I hadn't spoken to this friend in a while --she's very different and we've become distant.

To make a long story short, I ignored this person's request.

It bugs me.

I didn't feel bad at the time -- something just felt off. I also thought that if I ignored this person's request that I'd be able to go back into it at another time. But unfortunately, that's not how it works on Facebook (FB execs, take note -- this should happen, it's an inutitive reaction. Change your program.)

But you know what? What's the worst that could've happened? Maybe this person would've seen something about me. Maybe this person would've gotten to know me. Maybe this person would've stalked me (my biggest fear, that someone would actually come to my house and see my dirty laundry) but honestly, I'm listed in the phone book under a couple of different names. Anyone who wants me can find me with just a bit of effort.

So I went looking, oh, a couple of weeks later, after I felt just a bit bad about being such a hypocrite. I used to be different. I used to be willing to meet new people. As I get older, it's an effort to make new friends. I fight against it. I tell myself I'm stuck and I need to meet new people -- I'm afraid I'll end up with the same 10 friends from high school.

I apologize. I don't know if this person will read this, but this is the most public place I can think to put this. I do remember your name, and I did go looking but I couldn't find you.

I keep thinking that if I could only clear out my closet of old clothes I can make way for new experiences. I toss out sacred cows but I don't make the burgers.

Anyone want to make a new friend?

--Naomi

Random Fact #2

"Roll The Bones" -- Rush

Well, you can stake that claim
Good work is the key to good fortune
Winners take that praise
Losers seldom take that blame
If they don't take that game
And sometimes the winner takes nothing
We draw our own designs
But fortune has to make that frame

We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That's the way that lady luck dances
Roll the bones

Why are we here?
Because we're here
Roll the bones
Why does it happen?
Because it happens
Roll the bones

Random Fact #2: I like to drive. But not too far.

Okay, you're probably wondering where I've been. Truth? Everywhere, nowhere and in between. Mostly carrying the weight of the world inside my head. Sometimes crying (okay, well lots of crying) sometimes agonizing (okay, lots of that too.)

But yesterday, I started laughing.

I finally started to see the funny side of my life. I started writing it out, and I could not stop typing OR laughing. I laughed so hard I almost split my side. Don't worry, it'll be in my memoirs.

I got a job as a part-time reporter (read stringer) for a couple of dailies out here in the River Styx (pun intended, I like my eye coins silver, not copper.) Work finally picked up, my life is starting to calm down and be profoundly misperceived at the same time.

Sometimes I just have to stand on my head and whistle Dixie. It was a custom, when I was about 10 years old, to put a throw pillow on the floor from my mother's over-priced couch, and bang my feet up onto the too-clean wall in my fruitless attempts to become upside down. Unlike the eggs or pineapple surprise,

I never made it.

But I made damn sure I could whistle in the dark.

So now I'm here. And I wonder -- what would happen if we all just accept that this is it? That we're just here. I want so badly to find more out in the world, but no matter how much I drive, I keep coming back to the same place.

At least on the outside.

Sometimes the synapses that connect us on the inside change direction -- electrical flow reverses with the changing of the automatic gears. I drive in one direction, float the energy outward, and then pull a quick U-ie and speed through the leftover stream of thought.

It's a rush.

So enjoy the song above. I like songs about failure. Not because failure is a goal, but sometimes it's the only option and we have to make the best of it. Failure is not about getting less, it's about getting nothing. It happens because it happens.

The trick is seeing the emptiness for what it truly is. There's a passage in the Torah about tohu-vavohu -- chaos in the deep, just in the first paragraph in Genesis. It's about how the world was empty before God filled it.

But what if the emptiness, the failure, is simply the potential to be full?

--Naomi

Random Fact #1

I liked this post so much in another blog (Thoughts of a Small Town Girl) that I thought I'd try it.

Random Fact #1 about Naomi: I AM BLINDED BY SCIENCE.

What the hell does that mean? It means I let concrete information get in the way of a good idea. I've been having a good idea for months, but I let my own superstitions (read five senses) come between my spirituality and myself.

Science is great. I love it. I've been a science and science-fiction fan for almost 35 years. As soon as I could read beyond the little joined words (and, is, the) and got beyond the Cinderella tales, I started on a path toward the future.

I realized I was finally living the dream back in 2001. I stood on a street corner in downtown Chicago one hot summer evening and saw the newspaper box -- the headline read that the human genome had finally been decoded, years earlier than planned.

My heart stopped. The traffic, human and otherwise, swirled around me in a colorful fog that had no meaning and no symbols other than my own destiny.

I'd made it. I'd lived to see the future, and this was it.

Until it wasn't.

At some point, the future we aspire to live in becomes the present tense, and it's up to us to decide if we can accept it and stop waiting. Once you live in the future, you live here.

I keep waiting for more science. It wasn't so long ago that we laughed at Don Adam's shoe phone, and gave our best guess on when we'd finally explore Mars. Both gone and done and part of the lifestyle.

I need to open my eyes. Look beyond the chemistry of my baking mixes and see the destiny beyond the tree branches.

Amazing Grace
how sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
but now am found
was blind
but now

I see.

--Naomi

A nice cup of tea.

Look, I may live in a country that swears it won't do something for all the tea in China, and even still dumped all its tea into the Boston harbor over two centuries ago.

But I still love a nice, hot cup of properly brewed tea.

You can only imagine how hard it is to find one, living in the land of coffee and Coke.

Believe it or not, there's a fabulous little coffee shop that makes pots of tea just like I used to have in Canada. It opened last year, with its sage green and putty beige walls, light GenX soft-rock music, pot lighting and expensive paintings hanging on the walls that you too can have if your checkbook is full enough.

So I went there today for a cuppa. Just a nice pot of English Breakfast brewed just right with the tea leaves, NOT THE TEA BAG AND A CUP OF LUKEWARM WATER. (Yankees, take note.) Don't even need sugar or milk when it's served this way.

I lingered over that cup of tea for almost two hours (well, with several boiling-hot water refills in the pot)and found my own inner strength. That and the strength of a long-term friendship.

Maybe the windows weren't steamed-over like the winter walls of my Chinatown hangout back in Toronto. Maybe the signs were all in English, and the people were all from one small area.

But I still felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Felt almost good enough to be a different day of the week -- Saturdays are normally for shopping and wandering about, not sitting in the lap of leisure dripping jokes and light banter with friends while the cloudy day passes.

Highly recommended. Do visit this nice little shop sometime on State St. in Saginaw -- you won't grow a beanstalk to heaven, but you might just find the goose with the golden egg. (The name of the place is the Magic Bean.)

--Naomi

Running on Empty.

Sooooo, in case you haven't yet noticed, I'm linking myself to a new blog.

Let's just say that some of the more interesting stories in my life deserve justification in their own way. Fiction? Yes. But interesting fiction. YES.

I'm still writing for pay -- working on technical stuff, journalism. But everyone needs a hobby.

I set up the blog last night (you'll know it's me) and accidentally confused some people who thought I was legally changing my name. Legally changing my hair color is more like it.

Sometimes I feel like more is happening inside than out. Sometimes it's worth it to get it all on "paper" (digital paper, that is) and express it into (and I mean like a cow) one bottle.

A hundred million bottles, washed up on the shore....

I'm pulling out the stops and checking for messages inside. But the only bottle I have right now is on my kitchen windowsill. It's from Israel -- a Coke bottle with Hebrew script. Why mention it?

If you found a bottle from somewhere else, perhaps somewhen else, wouldn't you rip off the top and read what's inside?

--Naomi

Just Seth?

So sometimes, in the corner of my mind, I come across strange thoughts. I have strange dreams where I'm flying or falling or wandering long halls. And I meet people. Maybe these little visits are just trips into the astral plane.


One of the people I meet in my dreams is called Just Seth. He's been pretty nice. Amazingly, I'm such a good dreamer that I've met several new friends on the edge of sleep. Allison. Rob. Some guy in Virginia. A strange raven. A man who signs. A beautiful blond boy I used to know in high school.


How can you know someone just in a dream? Repeating dreams, repeating daydreams. And one small phrase that can mean something really, really good, or really, really bad.


Yes indeed-y-doooooo.


Why that phrase? Who knows? It sticks with me. My dreams stay with me like cobwebs on a woooden post. I find myself saying things I've only learned in those flights of fancy. I "indeed" myself. I make myself laugh. One of these days, I'll be the old cat lady with 26 cats in the yard, feeding them leftover Alpo and tying the fringes of my apron in knots.


I wish I could find the people I dream about. I see so many -- I give out my phone number in my laughing way, singing it the way I do to my children. Just find the area code and you're done. Then again, I give out my e-mail address, too, and it's strangely quiet on the mid-Western front.


So if anyone sees a guy named Just Seth, let me know. He looks like a curtain of dark red light -- fluttering and waving against a dark, starry sky. I should know -- I look up at the sky and wish sometimes, hoping against hope that the moon will look down on me and wave back.



--Naomi

Brand New Day

I took this down. I'm republishing it. Why? Because I'm chicken. Because I'm afraid of the woo-woo. The big bad wolf of self-respect. But y'know what? It's a good post. It's honest. It's true to me. And that's what counts. More soon. xoxoxo --Naomi

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of fire
Those dreams that tied to a horse that will never tire
And near the flames
The shadows play in the shape of the man's desire

This desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

And now she turns
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams
This fire burns
I realize that nothings as it seems

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

I dream of rain
I lift my gaze to empty skies above
I close my eyes
The rare perfume is the sweet intoxication of love

I dream of rain
I dream of gardens in the desert sand
I wake in vain
I dream of love as time runs through my hand

Sweet desert rose
Whose shadow bears the secret promise
This desert flower
No sweet perfume that would torture you more than this

Sweet desert rose
This memory of hidden hearts and souls
This desert flower
This rare perfurme is the sweet intoxication of love

--Sting

Dear Rabi:

(This is a letter to the ghost I've been channeling. I'm not sure it's his real name, because it's Hebrew and how many people do you meet who have such a beautiful name?)

One of the ghosts, angels or spirits I talk to has been following me for several months. This is my letter to him. Why? Because he's been nudging me to write him, care of all of you, and tell you all what the hell I want to do with my life.

Rabi has been nudging, cajoling, teasing and manipulating me into thinking for myself. I have cried and screamed. I have begged and pleaded. But the thing is, he doesn't go away. He doesn't leave, no matter how far I expel him. (And I am pretty good at expeling.)

Rabi says I discontinue and continue without purpose. That I lack structure, reason and dedication to one specific thing.

He's right.

The one specific thing I lack is purpose for myself. So, Rabi, here's what I want to do.

The skills I've learned through my little (and by that I mean long and involved) conversations with this Otherword mafia king (he's not really, but this will piss him off as I'm sure he's watching while I type) are much different than the skill sets I've been using. He forced me to disclose my intelligence, my perserverence and my dedication to serve and protect others.

I'm way too smart to sit alone and just think all day. I want to help others. I have an enormous gift -- I am a tactical, strategic thinker. I also think on tangents. Think of me as an enormous visual thesaurus. I think of a strategy and work my way outward on different angles. I don't work on a problem directly -- I come and go at will and think of other things.

I think of trees, Rabi. Why? Because a tree is a living being, interconnected both to the ground and itself through a network of trunk, branches and leaves. I am the trunk. I'm a small tree now, but I've grown.

I want to help others develop these psychic abilities. I've been able to measure some of my own and they're pretty strong. (I'm fairly modest, but you can ask me to go on in person.) I want to show other people that it's okay to be psychic. I want to help people develop these possibilities within themselves, because what I've found is that psychic abilitiy is really quantum mechanics -- we're vibrating strings of energy within ourselves and others from a distance through sub-atomic science. Go figure.

Energy can be manipulated with the mind. There are machines currently available to help people with disabilities -- these can be enhanced by people who understand how to use them intuitively. I can also help by showing others how to move outside themselves -- known as remote viewing, to see the world around them in a different way.

I find my way through a series of feelings known as clairsentience. I know how to use a map, but I've got more than a map in my head. I've got feelings and colors and sounds and light that guide me no matter where I am (except Lily Dale, NY, where the compass just spins. Damn ghosts and magnetic field.)

I see and I hear and I feel God. But not just God. I see and hear and feel things that others must feel, even though I've yet to meet them in person.

I want to be part of a community of people, my dear friend, who are like me. I saw a movie when I was but eight years old that had two children, twins, on a journey back to Witch Mountain. They went to find their people. This is what I'm saying.

I've subjected myself to my own pain, through the development of physcial conditions. When you're psychic, your own pain is translated into your body. Ever have a stomach ache because you're stressed? Try killer headaches and chest pain when you're expressing your own dissatisfaction.

I've got a Greek chorus in my head that agrees with me. Apparently, when you're this profound, God shows up with a team of yes-men that say, "That is JUST IT!" whenever you've found your own inner truth.

Below is a message from the ghost who haunts me.

This is the channel. This is the voice of Rabi Ben Hasheveynu. That is indeed how you spell my name. This is what Naomi Rebecca Gumprich-Munn has become. She channels others. She channels others but does not channel herself. I want her to become herself. This is why I contacted her though a variety of entities that I myself chose to emit. I indeed want Naomi Rebecca Gumprich-Munn to become something other than what she is. I need Naomi Rebecca Gumprich Munn to stop channelling me and find her own voice. I need Naomi Rebecca Gumprich to write ME a letter, in her own words, that will be published in this blog, about why she needs a new life. I need to understand why Naomi Rebecca Gumprich Munn does not wish to make this public and why she feels she needs me to channel this mother f*cking blog and to see just how fast she can type as a channel. This is pretty good. These are HER words. These are her words.

Funny. Strange. Invigorating. Inner Truth. These are my words.

--Naomi

What if?

So, lately I've been thinking about strange things.

There's been a lot in the news lately about global warming -- how our planet is in danger, how the oceans will rise, then fall, leaving devastation in our wake.

Read that last sentence again and think about it. I'm not talking about the oceans. I'm talking about us.

What would happen, this crazy-ass sci-fi-writer in training asks, if all the people died?

What would happen, and please, get out a box of salt because this thought is very, very odd, if there were no more people on Earth?

Except there were?

Where do we go when we die? Ask 10 people and you'll find 10 different answers. Some will just say Heaven. Some might say hell. Some might say that we just decompose in the ground and live on in the memories of others.

But what, what might happen, if we just stayed here?

It's a strange thought for a strange day. Hey, I hate Sundays. Always have. So to keep myself busy I've repurposed some pop cans and liberated a bag of cat food (legally!) from the store. And now, just for fun, I'm considering what would happen if heaven really was just a place on earth.

How would all the souls get around, hanging out, flying on the wind? Would God just sit around and watch the polar ice caps melt? Would all the saints put up shiny-glass castles made out of dreams and air?

I mean, if earth is depopulated, heaven could get crowded. Someone would want to come back, but if there were no people anymore, would we just choose to deconstruct and choose the next best option? Dolphins are nice. They like water, and they even have a language of sorts. Whales do, too.

Better learn to swim, people. And grow some gills. Because otherwise we're all in for some angel wings and no where to fly.

--Naomi

Breaking up is hard to do.

I broke up with my spirit guide today.

Let me tell you about him. Once upon a time, when I was about 15 years old, I stood at the bottom of my driveway on a relatively warm summer Windsor day and closed my eyes. The darkness turned red as I turned and turned. I did a little happy dance and the sun, or at least a little yellow piece of it, pierced the red.

I called myself Amiera. I didn't know what the word was -- I've written about that before. But what I didn't write about, and I'm going to now, is about the really cute, sarcastic and funny imaginary friend that I called Jonathan.

Jonathan was my best friend. Made up of air and dreams and laughter. I loved him, because he laughed at my jokes. He had the best smile. I took him with me almost everywhere. He made sarcastic comments, of which I don't remember. It's possible that it was just my imagination, but sometimes I thought his words just popped out of my mouth. Attitude with a big grin.

I needed Jonathan. I needed someone, because I didn't find the real stuff in my real life. I'm a writer. I like being alone. Being alone necessitates having imaginary friends because real friends mean you have to make an effort. They can't be perfect, because no one can be perfect. But Jonathan was perfect. Perfectly accessible every time I needed him.

I used to pile up pillows on one side of my bed at night, so I could pretend to cuddle him as I fell asleep. God forbid my mother knew -- I never told a soul. Who would believe me?

This lasted a few years, believe it or not. I was way, way too old for this kind of activity, but every crackpot needs an outlet. Now it's my blog, but before there were blogs, there was imagination (you can find the rainbow arc by spreading your arms and thinking of one of my favorite shows.)

But one day, I went too far. I actually told someone. Someone very close to me. And he asked me to bring Jonathan into the room. Jonathan in all his sunny-yellow imaginary goodness appeared at the end of the couch. I could see him but not see him, the way all pretend people work.

And my friend asked me to have Jonathan move past him, to see if he could feel. So I did ask, and something happened.

What happened is that I realized that either a)I was seeing a ghost or b)I was going insane.

I got scared. I got lost. I left high school and went to Toronto and figured that somehow I'd managed to invent a piece of myself into a living, breathing, but not seen person. And I kept looking for that little laugh, that funny sense of humor, that cracking joke that bit me in the bum when I least suspected.

Sometimes I found it. Lots of times I found it. And a couple of times I actually thought I'd really met him -- that maybe it was just a sense of destiny that I only suspected.

But I didn't.

And then Jonathan became something else in my adulthood. Something more profound, something of a teacher.

But our own best teacher is right inside. Talking to us, that little small voice in our hearts. Hi, I'm God. I'm inside you and I'm your best friend. I'm your best teacher, I'm your instinct and truth is always dark and red and true. Because that's what your heart is made of. Muscle, blood and energy coursing through the chambers.

So I broke up with my spirit guide today. Because I realized that I've been listening on the outside, driving through random moments of God and using up fossil fuel when the only fuel I need is pumping inside my chest. Sometimes irregularly, because my heart skips a beat when I consider that I'm on my own and God can carry us -- God really does carry us, but we're heavy and made of matter and dreams and when we're carried on the currents of time --

you figure out the rest.

--Naomi

Happy little trees.

I'm thinking but not thinking.

Typical creative person that I am, I look for ideas from the strangest things. But when I'm stumped, I just stop.

Do something else unrelated and see what happens. Mostly what happens is that I go outside and look at the trees.

I'm totally into trees. Why? Because they're natural, they grow in patterns and sometimes the patterns lead to deeper insights about my own life.

For most of my life, I've wanted to swing from the tree branches. It's fun to imagine myself jumping up and grabbing hold.

But when you shake the branch you're hanging on, you shake the whole tree. The vibrations you create just by hanging on do something to the destiny of the bark and the leaves. Maybe you change the growth of something taller than yourself just by pulling one small green leaf off the stem.

Thinking but not thinking is a creative strategy. Many people expect that they can just sit down, come up with an idea, and work it through to completion. But that's not me. I stop and start and stop and start and go off on strange tangents just to see what's out there.

Red and gold and green and brown -- sky so blue it's terrifyingly heartstopping. Fall upward into white -- what happens when I let go of the idea? Does it float?

Better than thinking about lettuce sandwiches when there's no bread. Instead of trying to think of the second-best option, take a walk with me on the outside of your soul. Breathe in the world and see if that shakes up your latest opinion.

Just thinking.

--Naomi

Fried green tomah-toes.

Sorry I've been a bit remiss in posting. Hopefully I've got a collection of ideas that's been keeping y'all busy.

I've been angry.

Anger is bitter. Anger is something I keep inside. I don't normally express myself outwardly in public when I'm in a foul mood. Better to keep it in, Canadian style, and go someplace private to detonate the atom bomb. Even the federal government found an isolated area.

So I'm thinking about how to describe that feeling. And y'know what I came up with?

Fried green tomatoes.

I saw the movie, many years ago, of the same title. Strange movie about personal choices and spiritual growth. But what I like most about it now is the title.

Green tomatoes aren't ripe. They're somewhat bitter. But when you dip them in flour, and fry them in oil, they're quite palatable. At least I imagine they are. I'm a nice Jewish girl who just loves Chanukah -- you fry it, I'll eat it.

How do you make anger taste good?

Back to the metaphor. I'm the queen of metaphors -- helps to explain difficult concepts and bring people together who can relate. If you cook something that's bitter, you soften it. Oil makes it not only softer but tastier because it adds a layer of fat. Top it off with a nice crispy coating, perhaps a little salt (and salsa!) and you've got it made.

Where does that leave me? Trying to find a layer of fat -- soften the anger into something else by gradually creating a situation that makes it dissolve. Fat tastes good, but it's not nutritious.

Something more pleasurable. So I wander and I think -- somewhat better tasting ideas. Like eating sweet fruit after something bitter. But I struggle with how to cook it off.

Sometimes the resolution isn't in the ingredients but in the heat of the frying pan. When we place our anger in the heat, maybe it'll soften up and taste better -- just like eating your own words. Not quite as sweet, since anger is my "frankly" moment.

But it can still be tasty and good -- if it leads to something.

--Naomi

Running.

I went for a walk yesterday. I want to quote one of my own poems, and say that I ran through dappled fields of shadow and light.

But I was too out of breath and wearing the wrong bra. I'm quite afraid I made the wrong (but cute) impression as I walked an imaginary tightrope in fallen leaves and broken pavement.

It was fun.

Sunlight dappled shadow. Shadow dappled sunlight in pools of green and brown and orange as my sunglasses darkened my vision yet made it all more clear.

Walk straight. Cross. Walked crooked. Cross. Down and over and under and back. No ducking and covering -- try to stand straight and face the fact that I'm still here. Still here and working on it.

But I'm not.

I run two steps forward, turn in a circle and face the sky. I look up and see nothing but visions of imagination that don't get the dishes done or diapers changed or bills paid. Especially not bills paid. (Not unless they'll take a fist full of branches. Try mailing that FedEx.)

For now, it's enough to walk. Even in circles. Even in strange meandering patterns that bring me back to where I belong. It's enough to start slowly. It's enough to see in small doses -- being blind to my own joy for a while makes it hard to open my eyes in daylight.

It's hard to dig out. But it's rewarding to see that the world really waited for me while I hid behind myself.

About one more month before the switch in the great big sky shuts down and the snow falls on my tongue. I wonder if snowflakes taste as different as they look.

--Naomi

Back in Black!

Welcome to the dark side of life.

I have been precisely unable to write in my blog for the following three reasons:

I don't want to.
I do want to but I'm too tired.
I need to but the contents of my soul are far too churned to process bitter butter.

I'm listening to a song about frustration. It's also about something else, but that's the way I pictured it when I was too young to understand.

I went inside down a long, deep road and found that the only thing that entertained me were old home movies on a blank screen.

I tried to hold myself inside only to find that I fell upwards into my own head.

It's dark in there, very dark.

I fully intend to write here every day, and every day I find myself falling into an oblivion of my own making. I miss myself, yet I found myself, and I also found that what I thought I never wanted, never could have is exactly what I desire.

But I'm moving in the right direction. I started thinking for myself, screaming at God in my yard in several languages -- I'm sure God will understand. At least I hope so.

I'm beautiful and middle aged and tall and short and heavy and not. As I lighten my load I find the scale grows smaller. But just because I weigh less doesn't mean that I matter less.

Soft and pink.

My life is becoming redefined.

So, in order to challenge previous assumptions, I'd like to chat a bit about the book that I'm currently not writing. (Don't worry, I'm still working on a book -- just not this one right yet.)

I had an idea in the middle of a moment of grief this winter. I got this brilliant revelation in the darkness of a grey, stormy day and decided to make something out of the trench I'd been digging for myself.

What happens to friendship over time? What happens to relationships that falter? What happens when you suddenly discover an easy and convenient way to keep in touch with the people you left behind?

The Information Age has been kind to me. I like computers -- ever since my first computer class at St. Clair College in Windsor. We sat in the cold room with walls full of churning data and developed lines of commands to make a rocket ship fly up the screen. It took hours to write the code.

You could only run the program once.

Friendship can be like that. You meet, you discover, you play and you learn. And then you grow up and move on and the program is over. If you meet again, chances are you're different. Too hard to start over, too late to merge back.

How do you redefine a life interrupted? How do you change a relationship to something different when all you knew with another person was one way or another? How do you take the first step to finding a new, better way to be honest and true to yourself?

Sometimes, it works. Sometimes both friends are in similar places, or have grown in the same way. Sometimes it takes more effort -- revealing inner soft layers that grew hard with resentment decades ago.

I started peeling the onion of my soul this winter. I started shedding the layers, one by one and thought I'd found the center but then realized I was now in reverse -- not growing, but still shedding. Layers become larger the closer in I peel; longer and longer revelations show my soft, pink new skin.

Maybe enough time has passed that some old friends will come out to play.

--Naomi