my gal, Scarlett

Temple Tattoo, Oakland - April 24, 2012

This is Scarlett. We've known each other since last August. She's a young woman that lives nearby and I am extremely fond of her. If you are a long time reader of this blog, you'll recall that I've yearned for companionship with someone like this for quite awhile. There have been a couple of touch and go attempts with other local girls (Monica, Rachel, and Kacey, if you recall the stories) and other online friendships but none of them took root like this one has started to.

My friendship with Scarlett is strictly platonic, professional, and ethereal. We have explored through discussions the depths of intimacy we are both safe and comfortable with so that we can keep our friendship intact and strong and have established parameters for behavior when we are out together. There are no imaginations going on of ever escalating our relationship to anything more intimate. Professionally we are very strongly affiliated with interests in writing, music and photography. We first met on a photo assignment, then later discovered that we both had  fervent desires to become published authors. We have been reading each other's writings and writing together since November. In the realm of photography, well, she could be the one model that I'll give up working with any other model for, if she'll let me. Musically, this is her most unique calling and she is on her way to developing a professional career as a singer/songwriter and I want to help her find her way as well as I can. When I say that our friendship is ethereal I refer to manners in which we have a strong sense of awareness of each other's spirits. Maybe esoteric is another term that could be inserted there.

We are both bipolar, sufferers of bipolar disorder, and have witnessed each other go through cycles of mania and depression, and have been close by to offer comfort and assistance as requested. This is not to say that our friendship has been completely "kittens and cookies". It has not. We've been through some extremely rough waters where I thought she hated me and that I'd never hear from her again... but I persisted in waiting out her storms, patiently because I knew from the imprint her character, her soul made on me that she was someone unlike anyone I had met, maybe ever, and that I if I did not finally learn how to be careful with the people I meet and learn how to fully respect the chances I have when given an opportunity to be invited into someone's trust, I may damn well end up dying completely alone, hated, and forgotten. 

This girl is so special to me. I don't ever want to do anything that would cause her grief or disappoint her, in myself or in the potential of humankind to stand up and do things right.

Thank you Scarlett, for your graces <3

Sideboard Cafe, Danville (our regular hangout)