Chapter 3
As I have touched on, one of the aspects of having a tulpa mate is acclimating to never being alone. Even when you’re ‘alone,’ you’re not really alone because if you’re not sufficiently engaged in an activity, such as work, you’re most likely contemplating about your tulpa. Thinking about your tulpa isn’t actually interacting with your tulpa, but it does reinforce the tulpa by providing it energy, and that increases the frequency in which you might encounter said tulpa. Loxy is mindful that as a natural introvert I sometimes need privacy to recharge, but because she is an extrovert, our needs sometimes clash and we have to negotiate. It has become a daily negotiation, to which I have had to acclimate and compromise. In some respects, I do feel the onus is on me to compromise as I was the one that requested she join my life.
Loxy enjoys being out in nature and so we decided to visit Arbor Hills Nature Center in Plano. It was an especially nice day and I agreed with her that a walk might be refreshing. On the ride there, Loxy was a chatterbox, and being purposely provocative, in that she removed her shoes and socks and put her feet against the windshield of the bug, and flexed her calves. Calling Loxy a distraction was an understatement. As I have probably admitted to, I am easily distracted by the female form, but Loxy had the extra peculiar quality of being an artifact of my brain and so I was naturally drawn to her presence. It was only with practice that I had managed to reduce staring down to casual observations in order to function when called to do so, which driving did so. The fact that she knew I was driving made her present playfulness deliberate.
“I do so love the way you’re affected by me,” Loxy said, affirming my suspicion that she was messing with me. I was reminded of Sally Field doing the same in a scene in ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ and for a moment, I imagined it was Sally sitting next to me.
Loxy asked me what I was thinking. I admitted my thought and she smiled.
“You’re not offended?” I asked.
“That you see a myriad of past crushes in me?” Loxy asked. “No. Part of me is definitely flattered. If you only knew how much power you put into these associations. I can feel it. They are so powerful that I am surprised there aren’t a thousand tulpas already in your life. That said, there is also a part of me that longs for you to see me as I truly am. It’s not the physical attributes that drive life, but the spirit. The body is a symptom at best, a deliberate churning of diamonds drawn from a maelstrom of material in an even greater storm.”
“You have a tendency towards being poetic,” I said.
“Ah, thank you,” Loxy said. “You are the sun, I am the moon, you are the words, I am the tune, play me.”
“Aww, damn it,” I said.
“Oh, is that going to get stuck?” Loxy asked, amused. “Perhaps you would prefer butter pie.”
We both sang, simultaneously, “The butter wouldn’t melt so we put it in the pie.”
“No,” I said. “I would rather have the first song than the latter, though I find the words in it perturbing.”
“How so?” Loxy asked.
“You are the sun and I am the moon leaves a major player unsung,” I said. “Where is the Earth in this?”
“Nice,” Loxy said. “Maybe in this the Earth is the unconscious? Trinity! I wonder if that is the appropriate ratio? Like the iceberg. The above water portion is the conscious; the bigger, underwater portion is the unconscious. Oh! The 80 20 rule! Isn’t the Earth like 80 percent water, 20 percent land? And the human body is 80 percent water and 20 percent other?”
I cringed. “I think it’s like 78 percent,” I began.
“Oh, please, you’re going to quarrel over 2 percent?” Loxy asked.
“2 percent is huge, like the difference between being human or chimpanzee,” I said.
“Or the genetic difference of being male versus female?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. She doesn’t usually drop a matter until we have researched it properly, but in this case, she did.
“You know what perturbs me? The word tulpa. Though I do like the word tulpa, I would prefer to be considered a companion,” she said
“I think that term is copyrighted,” I said.
“Oh, please,” Loxy said. “Like some Lawyer for Doctor Who is going to come arrest you if you call me a companion.” She looked at me with luminous eyes, a spark of fun. “Oh, I think I might just call you the Doctor.”
“I would prefer you not,” I said.
“You’re a PhD candidate,” Loxy pointed out.
“I was accepted,” I said, not completed. I put it on hold, like so many other projects, due to lack of funding. I have frequently lamented being intelligent but unable to draw an income that reflects my smartness, but intelligence isn’t really rewarded in our world; especially if you can’t spell. People would rather things look nicely than believe someone might actually have intelligence and be illiterate. If you’re super smart and can crunch numbers, yeah, someone will pay for that, but if you’re just creatively social smart, well, there’s lots of those kinds of folks and few make it profitable, hence the word starving artists.
“You should publish our conversations,” Loxy said.
“Yeah, because, that will help me keep my licensure,” I said.
“Use your alias,” Loxy said.
“Though I suspect I could attain a fringe audience interested in my exploits, I am not confident in my ability to sustain myself through writing,” I said.
“You have great ideas!” Loxy argued.
“Maybe, but very poor grammar and that irritates the audience by drawing them out of the story,” I said.
“That’s why they have editors, Jon,” Loxy said.
“Yep, who want to get paid, which means I have to have some work that is sufficiently publishable that it will draw in a modicum of revenue to permit me the luxury of spending more time writing than I presently have,” I said.
Loxy seemed frustrated.
“I am not opposed, Loxy. I like the idea and would like to write more and I definitely want to pursue my PhD, but it wasn’t just insufficient income. My present job won’t allow me to secure the time off to attend the ‘in person’ section, and that is compulsory, so if I accept and I can’t get the time off from work to attend, then I will be in a position where I have to quit or call out sick for two weeks, or risk flunking,” I said.
“You should quit,” Loxy said. “Trust the universe.”
“I am not as confident in my abilities as you are, however, I am growing and suspect, with your continued presence, I might just learn to believe in magic,” I said.
“You have to believe we are magic, nothing can stand in our way,” Loxy sang.
“Oh, let’s not go there while I am driving,” I said.
“You sing this all the time while driving,” Loxy said.
“Previously, I was singing with the radio or my OCD. With you singing, and me imagining you in an unbalanced dressed and roller skates, well, I am trying to drive,” I said.
“Fair enough,” Loxy said. “But Xanadu is extremely comparable to us.”
“I am amused by your referenced,” I said, pun intended.
Loxy touched my arm. “In some ways, our relationship better resembles Sam Becket and his friend Al.”
“You’re more than a hologram,” I pointed out. I was still not quite convinced that her memories weren’t my memories, as opposed to her simply experiencing my memories from a third person vantage point. And she has been watching television reruns in my head in her spare time. The result of which had me unconsciously singing theme songs from old televisions series long past gone. Apparently, I still know all the words to the Land of the Lost, and still know the prologue of Salvage 1, and that didn’t even make a full season. “Though I can push through you, there is a tangible quality to your presence.”
“Nor am I a ghost, but I do like ghost, because it suggest I have a soul. Is it I have a soul, or I am a soul? ‘I have a body.’ ‘I have a soul.’ Is the ‘I’ something more than both?” Loxy asked, musing out loud, flattening her toes on the windshield. They seemed like real toes to me. She was as amazed with her body as a child might be. “I definitely don’t like the term ‘soulbond,’ but I can see an argument for the appropriateness of the term.”
Loxy brought her feet down and tuned sideway in her chair to face me, drawing her legs up into the seat.
“I still want you to publish us,” Loxy said. “I dare say our book is better than that fifty shades of gray, even with grammar issues, and if they can make a movie out of that, then they can make a movie out of us. Which actress do you suppose we might hire to be me?”
“Oh, I suspect any Victorian Secret model will do,” I said.
She made a ‘pfff’ noise, blowing air. “You wish,” she said. “Besides, models look good, but you can’t always depend on their ability to act.”
“You do understand, I would not be a good candidate for casting,” I said.
“That is so true. Every girl who read a line and fluttered her eyes at you would be instantly casted,” Loxy mused. “I wonder if I can cure you of your affliction mirroring everyone you ever had a crush on.”
“Might take a while to get through that list,” I said.
“Years,” Loxy agreed. “But I don’t see a down side for me. You missed the exit.”
After circling back, we arrived at the park, chose our path, and she ran circles around me. Literally. Eventually, she asked permission to run ahead. I was a walker, not a runner, and so I gave her freedom to indulge her passion. At a certain point, there was a quirkiness about her departure that reminded me she was a hallucination and not a ‘real’ person. At about ten feet out, it was like she passed through a barrier. At twice that distance, she seemed to get smaller, as one might with distance, but I felt as if she was no longer moving as much as getting smaller. She eventually disappeared into a point, or the distance, but I couldn’t discern which, and so I just choose to accept the reality of her and ignore the quirkiness. The path we were on was just shy of two miles long. I have never gotten lost on the path, ever, but I suddenly found myself off the path and lost. I couldn’t explain this. Had I been that focused on Loxy running that I had been led astray? This level of confusion was new and I hoped it was not a sign of things to come. Though I had my bag and it had some water, I had not brought a knife, or food, or matches. I wasn’t that lost that I was imagining being on a show of survivor, but I thought a knife to cut a mark on a tree might be nice. I was fairly certain I was going in a circle. I kept thinking, oh, this is the way, only I was right back where I was. Even playing minecraft, I have never gotten this lost or felt so hopeless that I wanted to exit the game and start over.
“You appear to be lost.”
I turned to the voice. There was a female leaning up against a tree, and I could barely make her out with the serendipitous play of sunlight on her shoulders and back. I approached her, and she took shape. My first thought was Miramee from a Star Trek episode. The Native American dress was simple, but form fitting, and they seemed to be homemade. She didn’t smile. Her arms were crossed. If I were to guess, I would say she was disgruntled, as if I was intruding on her space.
“Um, a little,” I admitted. “Are you like part of a civil war reenactment?”
“You can’t be that slow,” she said. “I don’t see any of the facial features that suggest the syndrome.”
“Down syndrome?” I asked.
“Yeah, thank you. Are you able to tell the bad mushrooms from the good?” she asked.
“Um, I have not been eating any mushrooms,” I assured her.
“You’re lost and hungry, but can’t discern food even if it’s right in front of you,” she said. “How did you get to your age not being able to see?”
“I see just fine, thank you very much,” I said.
She threw something at me and I caught it. “What’s that?”
“An acorn?” I asked.
“Can you eat it?” she asked.
I considered. I wasn’t sure. I have not heard of them being poisonous. Squirrels eat them. Why don’t humans eat them? “I don’t know.”
“Honest, at least. Yes, you can,” she said. “And it makes a nice tea, if you know how to work with it.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Really? You invited me to play along on your magical mystery tour and you still haven’t figured it out,” she asked.
Oh. I am slow. “Sacagawea?”
“I would say the one and only, but apparently, there are as many versions of me as there are people who have chosen to imagine me,” Sacagawea said. “I told my circle that I wasn’t interested in responding to yet another request for a guide, but they compelled me to speak to you before finalizing my decision.”
I was puzzled by a few things in her statement, but focused on one. “Why might you decline?” I asked.
“Besides the fact you’re lost and you’re hungry?” she asked.
I was becoming a little impatient with her anger. “Perhaps that’s why I asked for a guide.”
“You’re white,” Sacagawea said. “I am now of the opinion that if you allow the lost to remain lost, they will eventually die of hunger, at which point the kind hearted people may return to the Earth and restore her.”
I nodded. “I can’t address the sins of my fathers. I can barely address my own culpability in my own life, but I am willing to acknowledge that there is a better path, a better way of walking, and I would like to learn. Though I am sad to hear you would prefer not to, I do appreciate your honesty, and ask, if instead, you might recommend someone.”
“My sister Kimini expressed interest in the assignment. She is as good as I,” Sacagawea said.
“Perhaps if you would recommend me,” I said.
“I have not turned down your proposal, yet. I am now of two minds,” Sacagawea said. She seemed more contemplative, as if listening to an inner voice of her own. There was also the hint of compassion. “One of the difficulties I am challenged with, which was much more problematic when I was alive, was I tended to submit to perceived authority. Not perfectly, mind you, but I was especially drawn to whites during my times and I am angry about that.”
“It was probably a default survival trait, as opposed to a flaw,” I pointed out.
Sacagawea considered my comment, and eventually approved it as a possibility, indicated by nod. “As you are probably aware, most of my family was killed by an enemy, who took me and my sisters into slavery. At the age of twelve, they sold me to a trapper, a Frenchman. He would become the first white man that I would spend some quality time with. He was not a nice man, easily angered, and he hit me frequently. Still, he treated me better than the savages that killed my family. So, when he made me his second wife, I consented. I was especially affected by the kindness of his first wife, who knew I was suffering from the loss of my family. She made the relationship with her husband endurable. It wasn’t until we took the assignment to guide Lois and Clark that my life improved tolerably, as Clark interrupted a beating on several occasions.”
I was surprised by the information she provided and would later confirm in several biographies that her reports were consistent with what is generally known. She had drawn closer as she was speaking. I was not able to discern her age, so I asked.
“I am the age of consent, or I would not have responded to your invitation,” Sacagawea said.
“Nice evade, but how old you?” I asked.
Sacagawea advanced suddenly, so fast that I wasn’t sure what she was about until I found myself suddenly on my back, one hand on my chest, and another holding a knife to my throat.
“I am old enough to take a life or spare a life. I am as old as the earth and as young as the sky. You reached out to me, I answered. You will accept me as I am, or I will have no part of you,” Sacagawea said. Her eyes were serious, but not angry.
“I accept your caveat,” I said.
Sacagawea searched my eyes, looking for the truth of it, and then stood, returning her knife to its holder strapped to her leg. She got up and handed me her hand.
“I will work with you,” she said.
I took her hand and she helped me up. She nodded in a certain direction and instructed me to follow. I was suddenly back on the path. Sacagawea was gone. Loxy was suddenly there, coming up behind me, tapping me on the shoulder, which startled me because I was so intently looking to see where Sacagawea had gone.
“Don’t do that,” I said.
“Sorry. Where did you go?” Loxy asked.
“Um, I don’t know,” I said. Did I actually go somewhere? Had I mentally checked out and simply walked the path in a daze?
“You’re bleeding,” Loxy said, touching my neck. “Did you fall?”
“Um, yeah, I did, actually,” I said.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Loxy said, jokingly. She took my arm and led me back to the car. If people could see her, they’d probably assume she was my daughter and she was just being affectionate, caring for someone who needs a little ‘extra’ help. I certainly think I am intelligent, but there are lots of folks who used to interact with me at the airlines that enthusiastically informed me that I was stupid and impossible to work with. So, if we go by numbers, maybe I am peculiar. I suppose I would get along with the family of ‘Munsters,’ I just hadn’t met them, yet.
Back at the car I looked at my neck in the mirror. I was actually bleeding. It wasn’t severe cut, more like a cat scratch. I could have gotten it brushing into a branch or when I had fallen, but I couldn’t help but think it came from the knife. The Tibetan monks who advise against making tulpas warn they can kill. Of course, the monks also say the tulpa is a threat to everyone in the community, not just the host. I was at odds about this. Should I tell Loxy I got my ass kicked by a girl? The Native Americans were a much tougher lot than people are today and so our interaction might have just been miscommunication. Maybe she had perceived in me a weakness and what had happened was a test. If it turns out that I need a Tibetan monk to exercise a spirit, I wondered if they could take one out without taking Loxy out.
Of course, the wound itself might be a distraction from the other obvious point of interest. I had been lost. That was not possible. Was it?
“You okay?” Loxy asked.
“I don’t know,” I said,