a letter to the jupiter girl

jupiter girl, jupiter girl....jupiter girl over the ocean and above the 
sea...jupiter girl with the heart of gold and cheshire and the ebony curls 
that you can barely-just barely-tint red...jupiter girl with her blue 
braids and marshmallows and jupiter girl blowing bubbles at the 
stars...and look, there's something from jupiter right now, something just 
for you, i am sure of it...how are things with you? are you feeling 
better? indeed, i know that the aftermath of wisdom teeth are the scariest 
and most uncomfortable things in the entire universe, uncomfortable of 
course being a tremendous understatement...i miss you so much...i had a 
dream of you the other night, that you had come to visit me (and you had a 
sister with you but i don't think she was really your sister) and it was 
so vivid, so real, and i was sobbing so hard, so happy that you had come 
back...my dreams have been rather interesting of late, one where i 
befriended a copperhead snake and he decided to live in my shirt, and one 
where i could make my shadow dance with me and levitate objects, and on 
and on...so much, so much in my head, in my heart...all of this love. 
sometimes i wonder what i am going to do with it all, those moments when i 
feel so much for everyone and everything and i want to embrace the entire 
universe and hold it close and listen to its heartbeat...alive, and here. 
on this earth, and this planet--listen to me, jupiter girl, that's enough 
magic for anyone. you may think that your magic has been left somewhere 
here in the mountains, much as i was afraid i had lost so much of myself 
at home when i came to college...but it's not lost, only sleeping. you 
need only to open your eyes to reawaken your faith, to look--really look 
at colours and touch and taste and know, forever, what complete miracles 
these are, how wonderous it is, for my fingertips to press against these 
hard keys right now, for the sound "click click click" to move in waves 
and vibrations and swirl up into the cochlea of my ear, for simple 
electrical messages and synapses clicking and firing away throughout my 
body to cause this hand to move, these eyes to blink, all without thought, 
all somewhere controlled by the mere third of the human brain we use (as 
the rest rents out the rooms and hangs up the "vacancy" signs and flips 
through playboy magazines waiting for a customer...) so much, this mesh of 
flesh and bone moving, in motion, able to stand on two feet, able to fall 
down, able to feel the earth pulling and pulling and screaming "mine! 
mine" to the stars, and not letting go...all of these things, this magic 
and mystery that scientists attempt to explain away with facts and figures 
and equations and theorums...but they don't know. not anything, not for 
sure. they're just as baffled as the rest of us, and all they do with 
their biology books and dissections is create another mythology for the 
universe to be explained by...but here we are, jupiter girl. here, in this 
world. and wherever we are, it's still the same universe,the same place, 
the same three dimensions and the same type of blood pulsing and pouring 
through veins in similarly shaped hearts...go outside, right now, or as 
soon as it's dark, go look at the stars, or the clouds, or the 
colours...find something to marvel in, to find amazement in. you are not 
alone, not ever, not really, not as long as i am living somewhere in your 
head and not as long as you are still visiting my dreams at night...yes, 
it was a year ago, and it seems impossible to believe so much time has 
passed between these two points, that we stretched and weeks slipped 
through are fingers and spilled themselves like overstrewn confetti on the 
floors...everything that we are we owe to everyone we have ever met, this 
interconnectedness of single phrases pushing apart lifelines...the 
butterfly flaps its wings in florida and there's a hurricane in 
tokoyo...oh jupiter girl, there's so much here, and it doesn't matter 
where you are--it's still the same universe. and somewhere in it, there 
you are. and you have to know that the moon is still in the same phase no 
matter what side of the ocean you are wishing from...

i am wonderously glad to hear things are better with you and and your 
prince...i must admit i was a bit worried...what exactly happened between 
the two of you, anyway? things between tam and i are wonderful, the 
doubts, the fears, for the most part, have flown, and now i only live the 
days in this happy kind of delirium snuggled up and cursing that time is 
so short for me to be with him before i must return to my mountains (as he 
is staying here over the summer)...i guess ever since puck i've been so 
worried about taking anything for granted at all, any moment of any bit of 
life, because even the things you are the most sure about could possibly 
be twisted around and on their heads tomorrow...i mean, nothing in the 
world could have separated us, and everyone who knew us expected us to be 
married within the next couple of years--you were there, you know how it 
was. and then suddenly, overnight, everything was different, and i was no 
longer his moon-dust queen...so now, with the coming of summer, i attach 
myself to every moment i spend with tam and savour every breath there is, 
and try so hard to always be there and i love him so much...i guess there 
is just this fear, somewhere, that i will leave him this summer and come 
back and everything will be changed with him, as well...but i do know 
better. he is so much to me, so much that i have always dreamed...and all 
i needed to do, really, to rid myself of my doubts and fears was to simply 
talk to him about it, just sit down and finally say "you know, i may not 
be here tomorrow" and "i'm not sure i'm in love with you" even though i 
KNOW i am now...it was just one of those nagging doubts, one of those 
things i told myself from the beginning in order to save myself from 
getting hurt since i didn't believe the feelings were reciprocated: 
"you're not in love with him, alice. you're not in love with him. you're 
not you're not!!!" i actually remember having this conversation with 
myself, walking around campus one day. not as if i could fool myself much 
from the glowing happiness which surrounded me and filled my every 
pour...plus when you basically LIVE with someone, i think you have more 
time for doubting, and wondering, and thinking maybe this isn't right, and 
stuff such as that. when you spend every moment you can with someone, 
spend the night with them every night, wake up with them every morning, go 
wherever they wish and follow them to eternity and back, you notice 
imperfections and annoyances and you can't really ignore them, you know, 
like you can in high school when you don't see the person every day...so 
it is nice, very nice, now, just because i've finally given up trying to 
protect myself and let loose and accepted how i feel about him...and it's 
so funny how much i understand him sometimes compared to the times i don't 
understand him at all...like right now, i can understand completely what 
he meant when he said that he loved everyone, that he always wanted to 
give people whatever they needed, mostly because i feel the same way...for 
example, tam will be, in many respects, a "savior" for young women in 
need, who need sleep, or love, or someone to care for them--which is why 
so many girls fall so hard for him. if his ex-girlfriend called him from 
afganastan and needed him for something, he would hijack a plane if he had 
to to get there...and i just spent an hour with jezebel's lover listening 
to him mutter and mumble and shake and use short frightened stutters when 
speaking about how he felt about this certain girl and he was too afraid 
to say anything to her, and i held him and hugged him and played with his 
hair and read to him and gave him advice and talked to him and slowly, his 
eyes got brighter, his hands became calmer, his voice more confident and 
more sure, and he automatically put himself in a much better mood. which 
was neat, and i know this is what tam does with many of his female 
friends. however, it doesn't stop me from being jealous. i can understand 
completely and still be jealous. that's part of existing in this universe 
and choosing to be human..if i didn't care, i think that would be a sure 
sign that i didn't love him...and he is too, though he controls it better 
than i. and he won't admit it for the world. but anyway...and i know the 
love i have for tam and the love i have for my male friends, such as 
jezebel's lover, is a completely different thing, and because of that i 
know that it is the same for tam...love is love, but there's only one 
person you want to share your soul with. because that person completes 
you, has your missing piece, is what you have been searching for. and that 
is what he is to me. everything that he is completes me in ways i never 
thought possible. i never thought or imagined in a million years i could 
be so strong, and it's all because i am with him. the other night, i 
realized what it was humans searched so frantically for, why so many 
people search through so many other people and share themselves with so 
many,this emptiness inside most people searching, looking out, for that 
missing piece, for something to complete it. and i understood completeness 
that night, and why words weren't important, and what it means to be 
totally and completely "with" someone, when you share every millimeter of 
your soul with that person...and i can't explain it any better than that. 
but it was wonderful, one of the most amazing experiences of my life. and 
one of the most profound revelations and what will perhaps, in fact, 
completely heal my usually disjointed way of looking at relationships.

so, in other words, yeah things are good. :)

and this too ties in with what i was saying before--all of this is a 
miracle, and here we are standing smack dab in the middle of it...although 
most of us are simply too blind to understand what it is exactly we are 
looking at. but take off the sunglasses, jupiter girl. and look for me in 
the wind. for even in a desert of asphalt dandelions still push through 
the cracks. it can't be winter forever. although it is always christmas.

i love you sooo much and miss you more than my little piecemeal words 
could ever explain...please visit me in my dreams again, or mail a little 
bit of heaven to me...

-dancing on jupiter's rings-
alice (himmel)