sketches for my sweetheart from the north

i'm writing only on the righthand side of this notebook, i think it looks more aesthetic when people write on both sides of their notebook, but i despise writing on the lefthand side.it's uncomfortable to me. I wonder what you think? I think you're the type of person who would write on both sides, with your beautiful cursive handwriting. you would be so considerate of how your journals are viewed by others and making sure they look beautiful as well as contain beautiful things would be important to you. i think of these things too but my obsession with competency and maximising my personal comfort while writing sends me into an endless loop of frustration, which usually leads to me discarding my notebooks entirely. the trouble with competency is the more you think about it, the less you really are competent. that's what i love about you. you excel, naturally, at everything you do. you told me a couple of days ago that every sunday when you go to church you take a notebook and you write your critiques on what your pastor says. i can't think of anything more you. i imagined you sitting in the pews frantically scribbling your notes down, i couldn't focus on multiple things at once like that. you really are the king of multitasking.
i think that i may write the things you say, that i love, on the lefthand side of the page, so that i can remember them.
my shrine to our love.

we met just a couple of weeks ago and yet with you i feel more relaxed and more present than i have with anyone else in my life.i don't feel like dissecting us the way i normally would. i love being in this haze with you. i love when you read to me in the mornings before i go to work. i love our intimate conversations, the way when i have you in my ear it's just us. the world melts away and the only thing i hear is you, the only thing i think of is you. you say the most extreme things to me but i feel safe with you. i've come to love how you speak to me in the present tense, you don't say "i'd like to run my finger along your collarbone right now" you say you are doing it. you sweep me up into the moment, into the fantasy. at first it felt like i was on a rollercoaster, uncontained. like i couldn't control it and i felt afraid of it and of being vulnerable with you like that. but i realise now that i have to let myself be openhearted to be with you. you are so aggressively open. your heart is like a spade drillbit that bores directly into my heart, i am open and fleshy now and i wouldn't change a thing. i could never go back from this.

tonight i'm writing to you on my deck and thinking of the ocean. I had a long day at work and the construction site next door makes my heart heavy. I keep thinking about when you told me you wish you were working on it, next to me. i said i would wave at you from the balcony and you said you would wave back and then run over to me to give me a kiss and run back to work. when you speak you sound so solemn, so serious. the first time i made you laugh you seemed surprised, you told me that you don't laugh very often. but i think you are so whimsical with me. i think you are whimsical at heart, you are just so serious about your goals that you forget it sometimes. when we meet, finally, i want to do nothing but bring that sweet happy side out of you. I wonder what your novel is about? when you are done with college, you should take a year off to come visit me. finish writing it and let me type it up for you. let me take care of you while you write. it's peaceful here, you've worked so hard, you deserve a rest, to be less restless in your soul. you deserve time to be content, to be loved purely.

i think you would like writing at my house, it is very quiet here. with the doors open at night you can hear the ocean. i think this would be peaceful for you, i think peace is difficult for you. you are a man who cannot sit still deep in his soul. i love that about you, you are so different from me but we connect somehow, even still. like two halves of a soul that was meant to be reunited. I have been learning recently about the vedic mythology behind rahu and ketu, the moons north and south nodes. astrologically they have an 18 year orbit, they are in perfect opposition with one another, meaning your natal rahu is conjunct my natal ketu, due to our 9 year age gap
the story goes something like this:
once there was an asura named svarbhānu, a deity considered to be greater to the sun. one day svarbhānu decided to trick the gods after the gods churned the ocean of milk to extract it from the amrita, the elixir of immortality. the feminine avatar of vishnu, mohini started distributing this amrita amongst the gods, however svarbhānu was hiding amongst them and managed to take a drink of the amrita. before it was able to pass the threshold of his throat, the sun and the moon noticed him and cried out. mohini then beheaded svarbhānu, but he had already become immortal. now in two parts svarbhānu's head became known as rahu and his decapitated body known as ketu. the two were banished to either sides of the sky and given the status of shadow planets. rahu and ketu became bitter enemies with the sun and the moon for exposing his deception, for this rahu pursues them endlessly and attempts to consume the sun and moon. since rahu is only the head with no body he is unable to digest his accomplishment into spiritual progress and they exit from his throat when he tries to swallow them, as ketu is the part of the body that synthesises and digests his successes. this recurring cycle creates the eclipse of the sun and the moon, representing the temporary revenge of rahu.
a conjunction of rahu and ketu in a synastry chart represents a reunion of both parts of the body svarbhānu. without ketu, rahu is endless drive, an endless desire to consume. doomed to never parse or feel thesomething of its accomplishments.

i told you about this notebook today. you had a long day, your truck broke down on the way home from a long day of work. i missed you dreadfully but your beautiful words make everything okay.

there are things you write that i would edit or clean up if i were to be fussy or want to push you harder. but when i think about the context in which you say these things, typing them to me in the moment on your phone, dirty with car grease in your garage, exhausted from work, you write to me anyway and i melt. i have no criticism for you.  you say more beautiful things to me skimming the surface of your thoughts than most people ever say in their lives. i cherish even the worst of your metaphors. they are perfection. you are capable of profound beauty and i will be your battery if you ever slip. if you need inspiration, you can take it from my heart & soul. i think i was born to guide you in this way. my writing pales in comparison to even the simplest things you say and i have no right to edit for you.