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Diaryland
The House on Ruby Hill 2004-04-15 @ 10:19 p.m.
I think I'm going to go back to the East Bay this weekend. I feel like I really didn't get to spend any time there during Sprin Break. The family is going down to Monterrey, so it looks like I'll have the place to myself. That will be really nice though. Did I ever tell you about my folks' place? Gorgeous house - very expensive neighborhood. Its in a gated community called Ruby Hill on Vineyard Avenue between Livermore and Pleasanton. A lot of big wigs live there - there's a big golfcourse that charges enough per person to feed a small country. My parents live in one of the smaller homes, but even so I always feel a little guilty when I'm around there.
Still, the place is beautiful. The roses are blooming right now in the front yard. The back yard has a beautiful Meditteranean look to it - there's junipers and olive and citrus trees, and a beautiful terracotta fountain on top of a stone pathway. Hawks glide in seeemingly effortless circles outside the fence, which faces out onto Isabel Avenue and past that, a vineyard. In the evening, its divine. And it'll be so nice and quiet there - I could get some good meditation in if I can get my inside to be as calm as that setting.
I lived in that house for about a year. I call it my sophomore year of college, but in reality I was stuck in transition. My family and I had both determined that I would be miserable if I went back to Oregon State, and I had decided that my personal problems aside, it wasn't fair to my parents to be paying for an out-of-state education at a mediocre school I didn't really like. I applied to UC and CSU but came up short several times - I didn't have a writing class, or a C was required when I had a C-, and so on. In the meantime, I worked as a delivery boy for Pizza Hut and became confirmed in my conviction that I would never eat pork again. I took classes through UC Berkeley's Extension program, which is really designed for adult continuing education, but through which I found some classes I could take for credit. I fell terrible behind for a couple months, but for all but one class, I was able to pull things together at the end. The double edged sword of online classes is that they are self-paced. You have 6 months to get though them - sink or swim. And I spent far too much time wallowing in electronic games, confusion and self doubt. I mourned the loss of a church I had given my soul to, and became terrified in the face of losing seemingly the only religious group I had ever known that would accept me as a gay man. Yet, the corner bedroom I had was a beautiful blessing. I healed through sleeping on a large bed, having a beautiful view of hawks and golden leafed vines, and a sanctum where I began to really study the arcane and search for the soul of Judaism and Christianity. Beauty got me through my pain, as it always has. Perhaps I could share that with you as advice, that when the ugly things within and around you contrive to sink your soul into suffering, seek Beauty and let it heal you. Evil only appears to have the upper hand on the surface.
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
Not So Quick Questions - April 6, 2009
The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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