plane postings, post PAX

I'm writing this on April 10th, 2012 at 34,000 feet above sea level.

Below me are perfect geometric squares of farm land as I pass over the "fly over" states of the US on a cross country flight back to Portland. The captain just announced that we are directly over Fargo, North Dakota. The irony of this is not lost on me. We also have just hit a patch of turbulence. Down below us the skies are clear and I can see two fires many thousand feet below. This past period of 6 days has been world changing to say the least. I do not use that loosely either.

This past weekend was PAX East, a gaming/geek convention in Boston that Sir is particularly fond of. Initially I went mostly for Sir, to see him, support him, and experience this part of his life I rarely got to experience. It wasn't that I didn't like gaming, the opposite actually. As a boy and teenager I loved certain computer games, my SNES, and playing my Nintendo 64. Granted, I played all of these systems and games many years out of date so my experience with them was not when most people experienced them. They were cheaper when I got them, and people were often "done" with that experience. But to me they were awesome. They personified an escape for me, something I was sometimes good at simply due to my lack of anything else to do, and sometimes out of pure skill. They were also a bastion of the things my parents would let me do. My biological father was/is a very religious man who had often…deviating ideas about the things "kids" were up to. Most of these ideas came from what he heard from the preacher and I, but connection, also heard these things and had their judgment cast upon my actions.

Things like D&D, Magic the Gathering, even non-Christian folk who proudly (or did it simply out of rebellion in the Bible Belt) practiced fell under the "no no" category that I was not allowed to experience. This weekend Sir taught me to play D&D, Pathfinder, Magic the Gathering, Zombie Dice and a few other games….and on top of all of it let me see the side of him I rarely get to see. That gaming/geeky element where he is really happy and doing things he loves.

I also did some personal exploration with myself with his silent guidance this weekend. Figuring out a little more who I am, what I want, and allowing myself to relax and be myself. This was not easy. I found myself quickly looking to him, asking if what I wanted, did or said was okay. Yet, I recieved loving validation. Even when I did some things I was worried about, I was praised for my honesty and trust in bringing those concerns to him. He also held me a lot as I worked through feelings and ideas that had long sense been condemned as bad. The Celts believed self exploration was the first step in restoring harmony and that no other person, no matter how powerful or what kind of magic they possessed, could fix ones disharmony. I feel like I have made great steps in working on mine. It is not complete, but I feel much closer to my goal than I did prior.