He was one in a series of Scorpios – that series being an extended event I can never really think of singularly despite, at least in my memories, there never appearing much of a break between any them. It wasn’t entirely conscious serial monogamy – there was no way I could have ever handled any of them more than one at a time, though I had a Cancer and an Aquarius on the side They were safe and predictable when the endorphin high wore off, when a little agony began to kick in. sweet, comfortable, boring little snuggles after the scorpion sting.

Yes, my chain of scorpions, each one so emotionally intense and nimble-fingered, each with its own delicious little torture to inflict…

There’s only one I lost track of. We had a pretty epic little minute together. I knew the second I saw him that he’d come to keep my mind off of the unbelievably intense little psychodrama I found myself amidst, living out of my car, sleeping on someone’s floor, spending the next couple of months taking care of a garden most people would never see the likes of before heading off to god knows where else. The thing that was really awesome was that I could see the same thing on his face, too. He’d just come out of an intense and codependent relationship.

It was so obviously meant to be for the next three months. There were some amazing breakthroughs in sexual satisfaction, motorcycle rides through Sonoma and Mendocino counties, and a really fun time at an afterparty in Marin for a convention of worldchangers. We would share a dance floor for the first time that night, and I was a little nervous. Like kissing, or how hugging someone who makes our electrical circuit flash feels, dancing can make or break a deal for me. Oh my god he could dance, and he had so much fun doing it, and we had a lot of fun doing it together, just like everything else we’d done. It wasn’t a reason to want anything deeper, but it was a reason, for me anyway, to just keep wanting more of the same.

He got me a really cool ring right before he kind of dumped me over the phone. i cried a little before a friend pointed out that it was okay since I was already another county away and ambiguous about whether I would go back where I’d been, but the fact of the matter was I probably would have, had I been asked, and I would have been happy to do it for another week – I would have taken anything it was all so good, but I had to accept that as the end.

I wouldn’t speak to him for a second but our last encounter, that I remember anyway, was a heartfelt hug in the middle of my work place kitchen, but it was enough… Enough that he would remain sweet and not bitter on my tongue – and I, hopefully, to him. I felt, implicitly, through that hug, that we were both grateful for who and what we’d been for each other, escape and rebound.

I love a little, low level tragedy, and i had been extremely fond of the ring, part of a collection of northwest native silverwork for sale in a little coastal town antique store – so several years later I still wear that ring. I haven’t taken it off my right middle finger, and so i often wonder what the hell ever happened to him, and I think of all the yum we shared, and then of course, every single time, I start thinking about the rest of the scorpios that fell into that chain, and the mind wanders again to every little deliciousness stored in my memory bank, and nostalgia can just be so delightful sometimes.

I either have some lovely karmic ties with an astrological sign or this is all bullshit and I am simply selecting a set of criteria I am attracted to, repeatedly. I like to say that one thing I have discovered after moving to the west coast is that astrology is often used as justification for being what we’d simply refer to back east as an asshole. “Spirit told me to fuck you over” in other words. I didn’t believe it until I encountered it, but encounter it I did. That shit just would not fly where I’d come from. I felt as misunderstood as some people here did when they were presented with sarcasm or a sense of irony. We did not understand each other in the slightest.

So it has been many years later and I have been here on the west coast for a lot of those years, and I am still sort of looking for the middle path. Mostly I am standing in the middle of a seesaw with my legs spread, sometimes leaning a little one way and sometimes a little more the other, depending on the mood or medicines ingested. Sometimes I fall off and want nothing to do with people at all, and those times can last a while now that I took my Scorpionic duties even further and made a baby with one.

She is beautiful and awesome all-consuming and it means that now I am even more judicious about who I choose to love intimately – it doesn’t happen that often, but it is generally joyous and present when it does, because that moment is really all I can guarantee. I will dive 1000% into that moment, swim to its depths and find the treasure there, and then I will surface and find a way to integrate it into my life, and then I will let its juice fuel me until life and serendipity find each other once again. It’s how it has to be.