I like being a miserable writer.
I don't view writing as a pleasure. I don't attain a fleeting sense of ecstasy from the conclusion of an inspired thought, as I feel has become expected of we the artists existing in this time of spiritual evolution. We the Indigo Children acknowledge our lack of regard for the social structure imposed upon us, our disdain for the monetary system which invades our true freedom, the overhead music and billboard advertisement and radio announcement screaming "CONFORM! CONFORM!" Some of us have evolved beyond the permissible pre-packaged life, some of us are still trying to break the mold or at the very least, rearrange the furniture of our lives. Regardless, I was grandfathered into a privileged inner circle of writers who stood on the front lines of protests, in the deep jungles of war-torn countries, the writer's who wrote about being down and out while spending their last shillings on a fifth of Bourbon, writers who tore recklessly across South America on mopeds, writers who pummeled down the treacherous hills of San Francisco high on hallucinogens. I belong to the company of players who exercise their demons by Howling at the institution "FUCK YOU! I'll sleep on the sidewalk if I dare and I'll kiss men and women in the same evening. I'll wake up regretful only that I didn't smash every storefront window of the shopping district on my way home last night."
Writing centers me, it takes the hype and the spectrum of emotional extremes out of the my head and onto paper. It depletes me like a gentle orgasm, after which I feel happily void of all expectations and aspirations. I just am, existing outside the confines of discernible time and space. My perception is neither focused nor distracted. Writing is my meditation, my sabbatical from responsibility, my retreat from the hundred year war waging inside of me between the voice in my head and the song in my heart.
Ryan recently said he felt defeated that Truman Capote had his first work published at 23 and as far as Ryan could tell, Capote never had another job other than writing. I couldn't provide any form of eloquent encouragement to lift the despair on his heart. At one time I felt a connection to an endless tap of sagely wisdom. I drew from the well of benevolence in hope of keeping everyone's head above water but that supply has long since dried up as I have reached an age of realizing that my philosophies are fallible in the face of life. All I could think to say to him was "Do what makes sense to you. Don't get detoured by the bullshit anymore. When you focus on your passion, everything else ceases to matter."
I know his struggle. It is my own. Foremost we are soul mates and secondly, writers cut from the same bolt of fabric. I have looked around me time and again, nauseatingly intimidated by the possibility that there are better writers than me, or worse, that there are writers with more drive and less talent whom will achieve the level of success I desire. (See "Twilight" for a prime example) It's never about the money, but the notoriety, the acknowledgement from friends, family, community that I've MADE IT! I AM A LITERARY GENIUS! I have produced a piece of work sanctioned by the common reader! For some emotionally complex reason, an endorsement by the mundane means nothing and everything to either of us.
Bukowski once wrote in response to a woman who threw herself on stage demanding that he fuck her, "Where were you when I was living on one candy bar a day... and sending short stories to the Atlantic Monthly?" That's how I feel about retail work and Ryan comparing himself to Capote's youthful acclaim and the discouraging audiences made up of our most beloveds and being a "happy" writer. Fuck that.
Happy is the writer who wakes up to smoke a cigarette, takes a long shit, a long shower, a long walk without interruption, absorbs the grimy Westport streets under the brooding grey overcast and makes note of the thin line between themselves and the aimlessly wandering homeless. Happy is the writer who bargains for another day, another smoke, another warm meal and stares at the sidewalk while smoking that cigarette hoping the blustery day will entangle a lost $20 bill in their shoelaces. Happy is the writer who has convention to nestle up with when the last adventure was as depleting as all those before, meaning it encompassed coast to coast absurdity and thankfully, ended with a spell of domestic tranquility. Everyone needs to recharge, even the willingly insane. Happy is the writer who counts the number of ceramic burro's on the porches of little Mexico residents. Happy is the writer who voyeurs a screaming match between dope fiends with pants too short and hair too tall.
Happy is this writer kept alive by the guilt of never completing the masterpiece. If you ever think you're good enough to stop, you weren't good enough to begin with. You must keep experiencing, which will in turn keep you working. Nothing else matters because....nothing else matters. I don't know what sort of internal struggles Capote faced because I never had the chance to ask him. But I assume they are struggles similar to what we all face or he wouldn't have drank himself into oblivion. Thompson and Hemingway and all the others...masking the insecurity of losing their coveted titles because they wanted both safari's and a house in the Hampton's. It's hard to make peace with who you are when the building blocks of your self are from every era, culture and civilization. Sometimes brick and mortar crushes buffalo skin and wooden poles...the Underwood doesn't fit in the laptop case and Moleskin doesn't allow the immediate posting of genius thoughts to a limitless social network and sometimes creative writing courses can be suffocating.
Ryan, the statistical probability that most of us will drop off the scene once we buy houses or have children or find full time jobs is the creation of technological dunces with nothing better to do than calculate who didn't have the gusto to do much more than write a sci-fi short story. The drop-out's weren't writers from the soul, they were writers who learned a simulated craft in the classroom of some community college and had neither the talent nor the patience to find and explore and share their voice. Writers are writers before they are humans, lovers, parents, siblings, children, employees. True writers never quit because it's as impossible to halt as blinking.
I hope you never numb out the voice that urges us to drop acid right before a funeral or a baby shower, because that voice is your voice, that voice is my voice and when that voice dies, we will have lost our senses of self. Don't just pray it never comes to that. Don't let it come to that. Be as miserable as is required to create something beautiful.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Let the games...end.
Bankruptcy.
I've said that word aloud to my 4 life confidants and they've all shuddered with fear of repercussions.
Understandably so. Bankruptcy is synonymous with public shame, poverty and being confined a lower class of citizens who lack trustworthy attributes.
I disagree and so I am filing bankruptcy, with an enormous smile on my face and relief in my heart. I won't play the game any longer.
My life has consisted of navigating the treacherous waters of what is expected of me which has ultimately compromised who I am. I have worked in the corporate cubicles and the dimly lit warehouses. I have heaved alfalfa bales from the backs of semi's and panhandled for change on San Francisco piers. I've had 401K's and savings accounts, been approved for new cars with no down payments, I've worked 3 jobs while attending 4 classes a week. I've given money to charity, paid for dinner and drinks, bought gifts, pawned DVD's, traded, bartered, sacrificed, done without, starved, exceeded, depleted...I've played this game long enough.
And it is a game. A game of control. A slave trade. Your life for their luxuries. Observe the honorary doctorates schools literally HAND OUT to public officials and alumni's turned celebrity who "make a difference" in the world. You can buy a bachelors, a masters, a doctorate. It's the American way. I'm still buying my bachelor's and I will be for the next 40 years. I paid them for the opportunity to prove my worthiness. I paid them to teach me that a 10-page Psychology paper can be written on a laptop strategically positioned between a Corona and my next hand of poker. I paid them for the validation that comes with a new paint job and higher fuel efficiency. I paid my captors, and I won't do so any longer. I won't play their game anymore.
People say this is your 20's, you pay your dues, you make the right choices and sometime in your 40's you might have a second to breathe easy before you begin physically waning. As Americans we're bred with a sense of entitlement that at some point it will get easier, we've earned it, it MUST! But it's all part of a great big complex lie, the societal stigma of finally reaching the pentacle of success. It's like the first time your parents split the dinner check with you, or even more surprising, to you tonight was your treat....it never gets easier, it never gets more rewarding. This game is a parasite and once you're infected you do everything you can to stay alive.
Now don't get me wrong, my life is incredible. I'm filing bankruptcy knowing that I have a roof over my head eternally. I have everything a person could want and for that I am filled with gratitude so tremendous it has and will continue to change the voice of my writing. The anger that once fueled every line on every page has softened. The voice that speaks now is low and subtle. She is less focused on how she's being perceived and more so focused on clarity. She doesn't have the time for the bullshit, for the struggle. That voice is fearless knowing that when it all falls apart, what remains is the indestructible driving force of your soul.
And I have been stripped bare. I have been so naked and raw in the past year that I thought I'd never recover. I have lost everything I have worked for including my sense of entitlement and expectation about how my life would look at this age, in 10 years, in 20. I have split directly down the middle and what I've always known to be true is the only thing that remains. I'm going to die. You're going to die. Life is terminal. You're wasting your time focusing on anything that doesn't give you complete and total fulfillment. Do what you have to do only to get exactly where you want to be, lose it all. Ask for help, ban together, release the expectations of what makes you whole from the outside in. Have goals, ambitions, and the ability to recognize when you've reached your destination and then REDEFINE, so that you don't become stagnant....without that mindset, you're still going to die, but unfulfilled.
I won't live that life. I won't be that person. I won't play their game any longer. I have a choice and I choose to live.
I've said that word aloud to my 4 life confidants and they've all shuddered with fear of repercussions.
Understandably so. Bankruptcy is synonymous with public shame, poverty and being confined a lower class of citizens who lack trustworthy attributes.
I disagree and so I am filing bankruptcy, with an enormous smile on my face and relief in my heart. I won't play the game any longer.
My life has consisted of navigating the treacherous waters of what is expected of me which has ultimately compromised who I am. I have worked in the corporate cubicles and the dimly lit warehouses. I have heaved alfalfa bales from the backs of semi's and panhandled for change on San Francisco piers. I've had 401K's and savings accounts, been approved for new cars with no down payments, I've worked 3 jobs while attending 4 classes a week. I've given money to charity, paid for dinner and drinks, bought gifts, pawned DVD's, traded, bartered, sacrificed, done without, starved, exceeded, depleted...I've played this game long enough.
And it is a game. A game of control. A slave trade. Your life for their luxuries. Observe the honorary doctorates schools literally HAND OUT to public officials and alumni's turned celebrity who "make a difference" in the world. You can buy a bachelors, a masters, a doctorate. It's the American way. I'm still buying my bachelor's and I will be for the next 40 years. I paid them for the opportunity to prove my worthiness. I paid them to teach me that a 10-page Psychology paper can be written on a laptop strategically positioned between a Corona and my next hand of poker. I paid them for the validation that comes with a new paint job and higher fuel efficiency. I paid my captors, and I won't do so any longer. I won't play their game anymore.
People say this is your 20's, you pay your dues, you make the right choices and sometime in your 40's you might have a second to breathe easy before you begin physically waning. As Americans we're bred with a sense of entitlement that at some point it will get easier, we've earned it, it MUST! But it's all part of a great big complex lie, the societal stigma of finally reaching the pentacle of success. It's like the first time your parents split the dinner check with you, or even more surprising, to you tonight was your treat....it never gets easier, it never gets more rewarding. This game is a parasite and once you're infected you do everything you can to stay alive.
Now don't get me wrong, my life is incredible. I'm filing bankruptcy knowing that I have a roof over my head eternally. I have everything a person could want and for that I am filled with gratitude so tremendous it has and will continue to change the voice of my writing. The anger that once fueled every line on every page has softened. The voice that speaks now is low and subtle. She is less focused on how she's being perceived and more so focused on clarity. She doesn't have the time for the bullshit, for the struggle. That voice is fearless knowing that when it all falls apart, what remains is the indestructible driving force of your soul.
And I have been stripped bare. I have been so naked and raw in the past year that I thought I'd never recover. I have lost everything I have worked for including my sense of entitlement and expectation about how my life would look at this age, in 10 years, in 20. I have split directly down the middle and what I've always known to be true is the only thing that remains. I'm going to die. You're going to die. Life is terminal. You're wasting your time focusing on anything that doesn't give you complete and total fulfillment. Do what you have to do only to get exactly where you want to be, lose it all. Ask for help, ban together, release the expectations of what makes you whole from the outside in. Have goals, ambitions, and the ability to recognize when you've reached your destination and then REDEFINE, so that you don't become stagnant....without that mindset, you're still going to die, but unfulfilled.
I won't live that life. I won't be that person. I won't play their game any longer. I have a choice and I choose to live.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Dream a dream
Does it make me weak in spirit that I am defeated by a lack of culturally accepted employment?
My beloved said to me yesterday, "Stop telling people you are unemployed. You are a writer who is working on a novel and freelance opportunities."
Sometimes it is the simplest statements that change my entire perspective.
And so I woke up this morning, drove to Lawrence to attend a Zen ceremony which I reached too late to participate in and thus found myself in an underground coffee shop doodling on tables and wondering if the afternoon job interview I have will go well. I should be working on my book. I will. I will. The biggest obstacle is still my own fear of failure, of loving something so hard and wanting something so much that the material success has nothing to do with it but ensuring that every detail is included does...what are the repercussions of forgetting a single eyelash, a chip in the paint on the park bench, the dimness of a bar bathroom light bulb? Only a writer wonders these things.
People call me brave. They say "I want your life. I would've never driven across the country alone, much less afforded to live in California." You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when there's nothing left to look at in your rear view mirror. I didn't go to California to be brave or extraordinary or even to escape. I went to California to fall apart. To lock myself away in a 12x12 studio apartment and spent nights on end writing out everything I didn't have the courage to say in the face of people I loved too much to hurt.
Traveling isn't brave. Relocating isn't brave. Forgiveness is brave.
A few nights ago Rachel read the prologue and first chapter of my book. I don't know what I expected in regards to a reaction. When Ryan first heard my prologue his jaw dropped. I'd compiled a year of writing into 10 pages in the 6 weeks we didn't speak to one another. Ten pages is an eternity when every syllable possesses the ability to change or end a life. His hoots and hollers of "hallelujah" and "holy shit" were the reactions I've come to expect from one writer to another, specifically when the work is astounding; and I know the work is astounding. It is my soul turned inside out for the word to touch and taste and dissect. Rachel, however, stopped breathing a little bit....then took a very deep breath, one after the other until tears began to flow. The synopsis of her reaction was that she had no idea.
I do not blame her for being unaware of what California felt like in its most despairing moments, or for not really understanding why I abandoned Kansas. No one really knew, including me, and it is still an abstract concept that I am deciphering...like a philosophy or an acid trip or a coma. Despite how alone and miserable I was for majority of my time there, California still feels magical, like the inside of a fort tent or the idea of a unicorn. Berkeley in particular will always hold a very dear place in my heart, as will City Lights Books and Jack Kerouac Alley, and the women I loved there and the moment I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time with Ryan and Johanna by my sides...exactly as it should have been.
I have returned to Kansas, moved into a home as beautiful as New Mexico at sunrise...a house, a home I don't have to sacrifice in a year's time when the lease is up, a home that I can attach to. A place I can paint and stain the hardwood and put the Bukowski's on the shelf and know they are safe. I have moved in with my love, lover, partner-- a reliable, dependable, supportive, nurturing anomaly of a human being who leaves no room in my heart for anyone else. She has been my forever since our first interaction and now that emotion has become reality. I am happy. I am safe. I am loved. I am home.
So what then of this book? What then of paying bills? I keep asking the Universe just that..."how is it that you want me to pay my bills?" And I hear nothing. Just the silence of my own indecision. Just the clockwork motor of my fear ticking, racing me from point A to point B like a wind-up toy. Until I stand still and am appreciative of this talent, of this very apparent purpose, the peace of mind to work as I so choose will not come. So what then of this car? Of these credit cards and utilities and student loan repayments? What about those? I pull three oracle cards...they say "Let it go," "Focus on your passion's priorities" and the final card, "Write." So here I am...doing what Ryan always tells me to do....telling the truth. If I were to watch my car get repossessed, let my credit fall to shit and live my life on cash earned only when I feel inclined to participate on Capitalism...it sounds like a dream, like a life too good to be true, and significantly too good for me. This entire experience feels too good for me.Perhaps that's what it all boils down to- I've set the bar high enough for other people to fail but not high enough to risk personal failure. It's time to raise my bar, take a hold of my life and let go of the fear. I want for nothing. I have everything I need and I truly need very little. A life without money as the main focus and purpose, a life with only literature and writing and desert wandering...and love, an abundance of love....a dream forming into a reality piece by piece.
My beloved said to me yesterday, "Stop telling people you are unemployed. You are a writer who is working on a novel and freelance opportunities."
Sometimes it is the simplest statements that change my entire perspective.
And so I woke up this morning, drove to Lawrence to attend a Zen ceremony which I reached too late to participate in and thus found myself in an underground coffee shop doodling on tables and wondering if the afternoon job interview I have will go well. I should be working on my book. I will. I will. The biggest obstacle is still my own fear of failure, of loving something so hard and wanting something so much that the material success has nothing to do with it but ensuring that every detail is included does...what are the repercussions of forgetting a single eyelash, a chip in the paint on the park bench, the dimness of a bar bathroom light bulb? Only a writer wonders these things.
People call me brave. They say "I want your life. I would've never driven across the country alone, much less afforded to live in California." You'd be surprised what you can accomplish when there's nothing left to look at in your rear view mirror. I didn't go to California to be brave or extraordinary or even to escape. I went to California to fall apart. To lock myself away in a 12x12 studio apartment and spent nights on end writing out everything I didn't have the courage to say in the face of people I loved too much to hurt.
Traveling isn't brave. Relocating isn't brave. Forgiveness is brave.
A few nights ago Rachel read the prologue and first chapter of my book. I don't know what I expected in regards to a reaction. When Ryan first heard my prologue his jaw dropped. I'd compiled a year of writing into 10 pages in the 6 weeks we didn't speak to one another. Ten pages is an eternity when every syllable possesses the ability to change or end a life. His hoots and hollers of "hallelujah" and "holy shit" were the reactions I've come to expect from one writer to another, specifically when the work is astounding; and I know the work is astounding. It is my soul turned inside out for the word to touch and taste and dissect. Rachel, however, stopped breathing a little bit....then took a very deep breath, one after the other until tears began to flow. The synopsis of her reaction was that she had no idea.
I do not blame her for being unaware of what California felt like in its most despairing moments, or for not really understanding why I abandoned Kansas. No one really knew, including me, and it is still an abstract concept that I am deciphering...like a philosophy or an acid trip or a coma. Despite how alone and miserable I was for majority of my time there, California still feels magical, like the inside of a fort tent or the idea of a unicorn. Berkeley in particular will always hold a very dear place in my heart, as will City Lights Books and Jack Kerouac Alley, and the women I loved there and the moment I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time with Ryan and Johanna by my sides...exactly as it should have been.
I have returned to Kansas, moved into a home as beautiful as New Mexico at sunrise...a house, a home I don't have to sacrifice in a year's time when the lease is up, a home that I can attach to. A place I can paint and stain the hardwood and put the Bukowski's on the shelf and know they are safe. I have moved in with my love, lover, partner-- a reliable, dependable, supportive, nurturing anomaly of a human being who leaves no room in my heart for anyone else. She has been my forever since our first interaction and now that emotion has become reality. I am happy. I am safe. I am loved. I am home.
So what then of this book? What then of paying bills? I keep asking the Universe just that..."how is it that you want me to pay my bills?" And I hear nothing. Just the silence of my own indecision. Just the clockwork motor of my fear ticking, racing me from point A to point B like a wind-up toy. Until I stand still and am appreciative of this talent, of this very apparent purpose, the peace of mind to work as I so choose will not come. So what then of this car? Of these credit cards and utilities and student loan repayments? What about those? I pull three oracle cards...they say "Let it go," "Focus on your passion's priorities" and the final card, "Write." So here I am...doing what Ryan always tells me to do....telling the truth. If I were to watch my car get repossessed, let my credit fall to shit and live my life on cash earned only when I feel inclined to participate on Capitalism...it sounds like a dream, like a life too good to be true, and significantly too good for me. This entire experience feels too good for me.Perhaps that's what it all boils down to- I've set the bar high enough for other people to fail but not high enough to risk personal failure. It's time to raise my bar, take a hold of my life and let go of the fear. I want for nothing. I have everything I need and I truly need very little. A life without money as the main focus and purpose, a life with only literature and writing and desert wandering...and love, an abundance of love....a dream forming into a reality piece by piece.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Garden of Eden
I can tell you the exact moment in which I changed from the "me" I was to the "me" I am. It was at the height of my downward spiral.
California meant changing everything about myself, everything I was too afraid to change in Kansas City. California meant shedding suffocating relationships and forgiving myself for being human.California meant accepting that there are some things that can't be changed and many things that can.
Arriving in California is my happiest memory because I was free to be anything my imagination could conjure. I chose from the best lot of options initially. I chose to be the free spirit. I chose to be the leader. I chose to be what I was convinced for years I was incapable of being- self sufficient.
And then I chose to be a drug addict.
And a liar.
And a cheater.
There was a moment when I was sitting on the patio of a local coffee shop and I felt myself completely die inside and I equate it now to the way Adam & Eve must've felt when God banished them from the Garden of Eden. Absolute terrifying uncertainty.
I was strung out and devastated by a series of bad decisions. My relationship with Bri had ended because, like all relationships built upon false pretenses, it was only a matter of time. I was convinced I was in love until I realized I was in fear.
I was in fear of being alone.
I was in fear because despite only carrying 3 suitcases cross-country, Ryan brought with him a lifetime of baggage; both his and mine, and I didn't want anything to do with the past. I was in fear because I wasn't on speaking terms with the love of my life, and the final blow to the relationship had been my heavy-handed judgment on how things between us "ought to be."
I was in fear because it was easy to fake connections and relationships with day to day people when they were within reach, but so far away from everyone I'd ever depended upon, it occurred to me that they didn't really need me and suddenly, I very much needed them.
I was just sitting there on that patio...cross-legged, high as ever, waiting for a beautiful surfer who teased me with the potential of a relationship, made love to my mind, fucked my soul, and acted as if she didn't know me in the morning.
I was sitting there waiting for her to get off work, to confuse my mind even more so with her trecherous self-misunderstandings projected onto me as my own.
I was sitting there when Ryan demanded via text message that I travel to the city and experience San Francisco Pride at its fullest.
But my response was, in summary, that I could not go because I didn't believe in love anymore.
I couldn't celebrate being a twisted bundle of broken promises. There was no pride in the way I'd loved for years. My love had been selfish in every way possible. Relationship after relationship had failed because I had heaped massive expectations upon one lover and then the next- I needed them to fix me. To make me into what they saw when they looked at me. I wanted to believe their words: that I am brave, talented, beautiful, intelligent. I wanted them to make me believe because I didn't have the strength to do it myself.
But just as I was incapable of fixing them, they too were incapable of fixing me.
Sitting there on that patio...the surfer emerged for a momentary break, veins full of heroin, her mind in a constant battle to be sober and gay and happy as she is in her truest form- or to continue lying to everyone, especially herself.
She demanded that I go to Pride with her once her shift ended and I hoped for just a moment that what she really meant to say was "I believe love is possible." But I knew better.
And once I realized I knew better, my soul broke apart as deeply at the first continent-shattering earthquake.
Who I was until that moment separated from the woman I am right now.
The woman I became in that desolate moment of pitch black emotional despair is a woman who will never again look for definitions outside her own skin. No matter your religion or spiritual beliefs, each of us knows that our species is connected by an unseen energy that radiates the emotions of the beholder.
It's that feeling of uniting after a national tragedy, or in the height of the Star Spangled Banner before a baseball game. It's the panic and anger in a shouting match. It's the way the man at market smiles at you as he hands you an extra bundle of dahlia's for free.
We are united in our unspoken elements and it is that force, and only that force, that defines each of us equally.
So when my soul splintered, it revealed me to a truth I'd been ignorant of prior.
It revealed to me that I am brave and talented, beautiful and intelligent. But more importantly, I am the sole provider of my happiness and to maintain happiness, a person has no choice but to make the hardest choices.
That's when I got sober.
You might be amazed at how painfully difficult it is to say goodbye to the comfort of misery, but I know most of you aren't surprised at all. Misery is masked by its smooth trails and open horizons, but it's a circular path, never leading anywhere.
I have since chosen to no longer excuse bad behavior, afflicted attitudes and indignation from myself or others. Our very existence's are statistical miracles. Our thriving or drowning- entirely our choice. Our mental, emotional and physical dispositions- solely our responsibilities. And I, as with us all, am entirely responsible for the way I treat others and the way I allow them to treat me.
This has forced me to apologize when I didn't want to, to forgive people I'd begrudged for years, and to end friendships and relationships with individuals who consciously choose toxicity.
That feeling I had of my soul opening up and releasing a new me...that was the metamorphosis of real change. Change brought on by no longer being able to maintain my sub-par status quo. Change brought on by accepting my tremendously powerful unseen energy and the affect it has.
When I radiate sincerity and goodness, my life is filled with such things and when I expel bitter discontentment with the world around me, such is my life.
I am what people see in me- so my main priority is to nurture the good and weed out the slow and silent killers as soon as I spot them.
I am a garden all my own and despite the pain of unavoidable choices and damage reversal, I am flourishing like never before.
I recognize that happiness is uniquely mailable to the beholder and love is possible when it emanates from the core of your being.
That's why I believe the Garden of Eden will never be found, because it was a representation of unity between the Creating Energy and the Human Species and when Adam and Eve found reasons to be discontent, Eden was dissolved and they were ejected into the disconnected reality of seeking happiness outside one's self.
The only reality is what's within you...the rest of this is an illusion.
So if you're looking for me, I'll be in my garden, writing Frances and learning to play the piano; taking long walks down the pier and sleeping til noon whenever I so choose. I'll be loving as sincerely as ever and guiltless in my own skin. It contains all the happiness I'll ever need and is only willing to be touched by the enriching energies of equally content souls.
Love.
is.
Possible.
California meant changing everything about myself, everything I was too afraid to change in Kansas City. California meant shedding suffocating relationships and forgiving myself for being human.California meant accepting that there are some things that can't be changed and many things that can.
Arriving in California is my happiest memory because I was free to be anything my imagination could conjure. I chose from the best lot of options initially. I chose to be the free spirit. I chose to be the leader. I chose to be what I was convinced for years I was incapable of being- self sufficient.
And then I chose to be a drug addict.
And a liar.
And a cheater.
There was a moment when I was sitting on the patio of a local coffee shop and I felt myself completely die inside and I equate it now to the way Adam & Eve must've felt when God banished them from the Garden of Eden. Absolute terrifying uncertainty.
I was strung out and devastated by a series of bad decisions. My relationship with Bri had ended because, like all relationships built upon false pretenses, it was only a matter of time. I was convinced I was in love until I realized I was in fear.
I was in fear of being alone.
I was in fear because despite only carrying 3 suitcases cross-country, Ryan brought with him a lifetime of baggage; both his and mine, and I didn't want anything to do with the past. I was in fear because I wasn't on speaking terms with the love of my life, and the final blow to the relationship had been my heavy-handed judgment on how things between us "ought to be."
I was in fear because it was easy to fake connections and relationships with day to day people when they were within reach, but so far away from everyone I'd ever depended upon, it occurred to me that they didn't really need me and suddenly, I very much needed them.
I was just sitting there on that patio...cross-legged, high as ever, waiting for a beautiful surfer who teased me with the potential of a relationship, made love to my mind, fucked my soul, and acted as if she didn't know me in the morning.
I was sitting there waiting for her to get off work, to confuse my mind even more so with her trecherous self-misunderstandings projected onto me as my own.
I was sitting there when Ryan demanded via text message that I travel to the city and experience San Francisco Pride at its fullest.
But my response was, in summary, that I could not go because I didn't believe in love anymore.
I couldn't celebrate being a twisted bundle of broken promises. There was no pride in the way I'd loved for years. My love had been selfish in every way possible. Relationship after relationship had failed because I had heaped massive expectations upon one lover and then the next- I needed them to fix me. To make me into what they saw when they looked at me. I wanted to believe their words: that I am brave, talented, beautiful, intelligent. I wanted them to make me believe because I didn't have the strength to do it myself.
But just as I was incapable of fixing them, they too were incapable of fixing me.
Sitting there on that patio...the surfer emerged for a momentary break, veins full of heroin, her mind in a constant battle to be sober and gay and happy as she is in her truest form- or to continue lying to everyone, especially herself.
She demanded that I go to Pride with her once her shift ended and I hoped for just a moment that what she really meant to say was "I believe love is possible." But I knew better.
And once I realized I knew better, my soul broke apart as deeply at the first continent-shattering earthquake.
Who I was until that moment separated from the woman I am right now.
The woman I became in that desolate moment of pitch black emotional despair is a woman who will never again look for definitions outside her own skin. No matter your religion or spiritual beliefs, each of us knows that our species is connected by an unseen energy that radiates the emotions of the beholder.
It's that feeling of uniting after a national tragedy, or in the height of the Star Spangled Banner before a baseball game. It's the panic and anger in a shouting match. It's the way the man at market smiles at you as he hands you an extra bundle of dahlia's for free.
We are united in our unspoken elements and it is that force, and only that force, that defines each of us equally.
So when my soul splintered, it revealed me to a truth I'd been ignorant of prior.
It revealed to me that I am brave and talented, beautiful and intelligent. But more importantly, I am the sole provider of my happiness and to maintain happiness, a person has no choice but to make the hardest choices.
That's when I got sober.
You might be amazed at how painfully difficult it is to say goodbye to the comfort of misery, but I know most of you aren't surprised at all. Misery is masked by its smooth trails and open horizons, but it's a circular path, never leading anywhere.
I have since chosen to no longer excuse bad behavior, afflicted attitudes and indignation from myself or others. Our very existence's are statistical miracles. Our thriving or drowning- entirely our choice. Our mental, emotional and physical dispositions- solely our responsibilities. And I, as with us all, am entirely responsible for the way I treat others and the way I allow them to treat me.
This has forced me to apologize when I didn't want to, to forgive people I'd begrudged for years, and to end friendships and relationships with individuals who consciously choose toxicity.
That feeling I had of my soul opening up and releasing a new me...that was the metamorphosis of real change. Change brought on by no longer being able to maintain my sub-par status quo. Change brought on by accepting my tremendously powerful unseen energy and the affect it has.
When I radiate sincerity and goodness, my life is filled with such things and when I expel bitter discontentment with the world around me, such is my life.
I am what people see in me- so my main priority is to nurture the good and weed out the slow and silent killers as soon as I spot them.
I am a garden all my own and despite the pain of unavoidable choices and damage reversal, I am flourishing like never before.
I recognize that happiness is uniquely mailable to the beholder and love is possible when it emanates from the core of your being.
That's why I believe the Garden of Eden will never be found, because it was a representation of unity between the Creating Energy and the Human Species and when Adam and Eve found reasons to be discontent, Eden was dissolved and they were ejected into the disconnected reality of seeking happiness outside one's self.
The only reality is what's within you...the rest of this is an illusion.
So if you're looking for me, I'll be in my garden, writing Frances and learning to play the piano; taking long walks down the pier and sleeping til noon whenever I so choose. I'll be loving as sincerely as ever and guiltless in my own skin. It contains all the happiness I'll ever need and is only willing to be touched by the enriching energies of equally content souls.
Love.
is.
Possible.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Under my umbrella
I don't know if it's possible to describe just how lonely I've been these past 7 months. Even typing the words "I've been lonely" pinches me hard enough for guilt to pool at the surface of my pride, but the skin of my armor doesn't burst, the guilt doesn't overflow...it only lingers, coexisting with the tremendous sadness in my heart.
Since November I've been kissed by 4 lovers, buried a friend, moved across the country leaving all sense of comfort and familiarity on the horizon, seen Native American ritual dances, slept in mountains and valleys, in snowstorms and on sand, eaten the most amazing food, gotten fearlessly lost in a city where no one I knew or trusted would be able to rescue me, been adorned with a traditional India bindi and rescued by the cord of Vishnu, listened to a psychic tell me my aura is blotched & known she was right, gotten a little too comfortable with drug abuse, been made a business partner, received my best friend from his own cross-country expedition only to lose him to the canyon created by our own private evolutions, missed my niece's 4th birthday, learned to ride public transit and Northern California waves, (relearn) how to ride a bike, lost 17 lbs, been told I'm the most incredible woman in existence, been told I am the worst human being ever created, performed at poetry slams in front of an audience of genius writers and received raving praise afterwards, changed my cell phone number for the first time in 10 years, completed another college semester and subsequently dropped out and made more money than I ever have in my life. That is the snapshot synopsis.
I've had the most torrential downpour of loss and blessings.
I want to be grateful.
I don't want to focus on the enormity of my sadness when the days are long and rough and all I need in the world is to crawl in bed with Rach and a movie, or sit on the patio and drink whiskey with Johanna. I don't want to think about all the places I've been and all the places I am and all the places I've yet to see. I don't want to think about love's long gone in the Midwest every.single.time I turn on my iPod. I don't want to hold a flannel shirt of my mother's because it's the closest thing I have to hugging her right now. I don't want to think about how much I miss late nights with Sara Steele and early mornings with the brooding artists that fill the Half Price Books employee roster.
I want to be grateful.
So many doubts flooded my ears before I pointed my car West and threw my hands in the air, "Fuck it." I had to go. I had to know if all the roads between what I knew and what I wanted truly existed. They do. Every pothole, every cactus, every Evergreen, every grain of red desert silt that compacts to make each fire mountain exists and they all guided me to the Promise Land with gentle voices and soft caresses. At some point on those lonely highways between home and destiny God whispered to me through the landscape, conveying that no matter the beauty I was leaving behind, there would certainly be more to come.
I want to be grateful because beauty has come in every medium imaginable. I've not once been alone or in any way suffered the way so many suffer every day. I am at my best in every aspect of my life. My worries are inconsequential to the betterment of the world and yet, they are consuming. They are consuming because it is safer to hide underneath an umbrella than drift aimlessly in a hot air balloon. I've been experiencing and resisting my own evolution for months, years even and now, in my acknowledgement of loneliness, the umbrella has blown away and I have no choice but to accept the nudity of being revealed small in an enormous world.
Perhaps it's just one of those nights, one of those weeks, one of those times in life where everything culminates and compacts to build a directional fire mountain and the most I can do is be patient and listen for the whisper of God.
Since November I've been kissed by 4 lovers, buried a friend, moved across the country leaving all sense of comfort and familiarity on the horizon, seen Native American ritual dances, slept in mountains and valleys, in snowstorms and on sand, eaten the most amazing food, gotten fearlessly lost in a city where no one I knew or trusted would be able to rescue me, been adorned with a traditional India bindi and rescued by the cord of Vishnu, listened to a psychic tell me my aura is blotched & known she was right, gotten a little too comfortable with drug abuse, been made a business partner, received my best friend from his own cross-country expedition only to lose him to the canyon created by our own private evolutions, missed my niece's 4th birthday, learned to ride public transit and Northern California waves, (relearn) how to ride a bike, lost 17 lbs, been told I'm the most incredible woman in existence, been told I am the worst human being ever created, performed at poetry slams in front of an audience of genius writers and received raving praise afterwards, changed my cell phone number for the first time in 10 years, completed another college semester and subsequently dropped out and made more money than I ever have in my life. That is the snapshot synopsis.
I've had the most torrential downpour of loss and blessings.
I want to be grateful.
I don't want to focus on the enormity of my sadness when the days are long and rough and all I need in the world is to crawl in bed with Rach and a movie, or sit on the patio and drink whiskey with Johanna. I don't want to think about all the places I've been and all the places I am and all the places I've yet to see. I don't want to think about love's long gone in the Midwest every.single.time I turn on my iPod. I don't want to hold a flannel shirt of my mother's because it's the closest thing I have to hugging her right now. I don't want to think about how much I miss late nights with Sara Steele and early mornings with the brooding artists that fill the Half Price Books employee roster.
I want to be grateful.
So many doubts flooded my ears before I pointed my car West and threw my hands in the air, "Fuck it." I had to go. I had to know if all the roads between what I knew and what I wanted truly existed. They do. Every pothole, every cactus, every Evergreen, every grain of red desert silt that compacts to make each fire mountain exists and they all guided me to the Promise Land with gentle voices and soft caresses. At some point on those lonely highways between home and destiny God whispered to me through the landscape, conveying that no matter the beauty I was leaving behind, there would certainly be more to come.
I want to be grateful because beauty has come in every medium imaginable. I've not once been alone or in any way suffered the way so many suffer every day. I am at my best in every aspect of my life. My worries are inconsequential to the betterment of the world and yet, they are consuming. They are consuming because it is safer to hide underneath an umbrella than drift aimlessly in a hot air balloon. I've been experiencing and resisting my own evolution for months, years even and now, in my acknowledgement of loneliness, the umbrella has blown away and I have no choice but to accept the nudity of being revealed small in an enormous world.
Perhaps it's just one of those nights, one of those weeks, one of those times in life where everything culminates and compacts to build a directional fire mountain and the most I can do is be patient and listen for the whisper of God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)