10-1
I backed the van into a parked car today.
The New Orleans morning met us warmly with coffee, cigarettes, and sweet Greek biscuits. We spent the day wandering around dirty business districts, reinvigorated post-Katrina. While browsing a guitar store, we were witness to a car wreck as a burgundy pick-up sailed through a red light and smashed into a yellow Volkswagen. For the next few moments, the scene was pure spectacle; people hugging and crying, gasoline pouring from the Bug and collecting against the curb, smoke and shattered glass and confusion. All the while, an older man sat outside the guitar shop, spraypainting several PA speakers and trying his best to remain impatiently oblivious to the drama about him, framed in metal and splintered fiberglass and noise.
The afternoon was spent lazily at Jason's house. Jason, an old acquaintance of Harry's, resembled a hip, gracious Danzig. He gave us espresso and red wine, and we smoked marijuana out of a leopard-print pipe.
I worked door at the bar, arguing with drunks and a persistent little asshole from Holland. Afterwards, fortified with several free beers, we headed carefully back to Harry's parents' house, where we ate turkey sandwiches and drunkenly discussed exactly what was wrong in that farcical world of smoke and mirrors known as American politics, a world where the bottom line is the infallible dollar, and the price too often paid for with the blood and sweat of the caste of ignorance. Rights, as we perceive them, as "free citizens", are just solid lines drawn through and around the godlike potential we've been blessed with since our privileged births. Ignorance is our greatest obstacle, save perhaps fear, though any enlightened individual can surely see that fear and ignorance are hand-in-hand, disguised as silver bangles, wards against those who would dare threaten our vague notions of liberty and security, and that ultimately serve solely as shackles.
Houston tomorrow. We leave early. I hate Texas.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Rainclouds and Cigarettes: Prologue
9-30
It was a long drive through Mississippi today. The van is enormous. I've never drove such a beast before, though I of course lied and said that I had. By the end of this month, I will have become one with the machine. I am the American Dream.
I enjoy reading aloud the names of towns, rivers, bridges as we pass the title-bearing signs. Some are so peculiar without the softening lens of familiarity, and they dance and roll off my tongue, bounce against my teeth.
listened to: Zen Arcade, Hank Williams, the Pogues, the Clash, Nick Cave
We are staying with Harry's parents in New Orleans tonight. His father is an old Greek man who speaks English in a thick, elegantly clumsy accent. He served us steaming bowls of gumbo, and Harry's gracious mother presented us with her homemade bread, warmed in the microwave. Afterwards, we ate beignets and drank hot chocolate. I am satiated to the point of idle, glorious contentment, but plagued with mild heartburn. I will sleep well tonight, stomach full, in a clean bed with soft sheets. It is important to cherish these small moments of domestic comfort and bliss, as approaching there is a month of the complete opposite. The comfort and satiation are a waning moon, and tonight I sleep in its warm glow.
Maybe I'll try to quit smoking on this trip. It's certainly not economically feasible, considering I can't even afford to feed myself. Ian owes me money, but that's in Ohio, which is weeks away, and it's uncertain that our arrangement will even be carried out, relying on checks mailed across several states, and various letters explaining positions and arrivals, or that he'll even be able to respond to my demands.
Get in shape. I need to get in shape. Tonight I did forty-five push-ups, went outside for a cigarette, and then did forty-five more. One step at a time. I wish my cell phone worked better.
We listened to Link Wray as we drove over swamps and Lake Ponchartrain. The roads in Louisiana are hellishly uneven and bumpy. Link Wray was the perfect soundtrack, crusing along the highways and causeways and bridges, the smell of mud thick in the air, the view to our left, southward, dark and desolate, what was surely the delta and the Gulf and beyond.
9-29
Woke up strung out. Not much sleep the night before, as I stayed up late packing and re-packing, deciding which books to bring (I settled on Henry Miller, Vine Deloria Jr, Rimbaud, The Shining, and a couple by Prabhupada), and writing last-minute letters. Writing, always writing.
Coffee gets me through the day. I enjoy my coffee with cream now, though the notion once disgusted me. Left for Memphis at half-past two, eating at a Mexican restaurant along the way. Listened to Gram Parsons, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Billy Bragg, and Nirvana. Wandered around truck stops, buying bottles of water and more coffee. Smoked cigarettes and admired Megan's profile as she drove.
Memphis now, gorged on catfish and a root beer float. We are staying in the guest bedroom at Harry's house. Harry is the frontman and driving force behind the Angel Sluts. His house is idiosyncratically decorated, with fine collections of music and books, and towering stacks of recording and engineering magazines. Somewhere unseen is his home studio.
Tomorrow we drive to New Orleans. Harry's mother has promised us gumbo.
I have bills and obligations looming somewhere in the distance, but in the distance is where they shall remain. This month will be a time of thoughtful liberation in the guise of an inebriated shotgun blast, riding the currents of gunpowder and wanderlust, caving to adolescent impulse. I have sixty dollars in my wallet, and a supreme doubt that this meager sum will last even a week or two on the road, let alone an entire month. Death to doubt. I hedge my bets and err on the side of righteous indifference and the blind, grasping Hope and Faith that I share with a blessed few.
I need be reminded that I chose this life for a reason. Fear and anxiety have turned my muscles to jelly. A new spine is to be forged.
Writers: Sherwood Anderson, Kenneth Patchen
John Stuart Mill?
It was a long drive through Mississippi today. The van is enormous. I've never drove such a beast before, though I of course lied and said that I had. By the end of this month, I will have become one with the machine. I am the American Dream.
I enjoy reading aloud the names of towns, rivers, bridges as we pass the title-bearing signs. Some are so peculiar without the softening lens of familiarity, and they dance and roll off my tongue, bounce against my teeth.
listened to: Zen Arcade, Hank Williams, the Pogues, the Clash, Nick Cave
We are staying with Harry's parents in New Orleans tonight. His father is an old Greek man who speaks English in a thick, elegantly clumsy accent. He served us steaming bowls of gumbo, and Harry's gracious mother presented us with her homemade bread, warmed in the microwave. Afterwards, we ate beignets and drank hot chocolate. I am satiated to the point of idle, glorious contentment, but plagued with mild heartburn. I will sleep well tonight, stomach full, in a clean bed with soft sheets. It is important to cherish these small moments of domestic comfort and bliss, as approaching there is a month of the complete opposite. The comfort and satiation are a waning moon, and tonight I sleep in its warm glow.
Maybe I'll try to quit smoking on this trip. It's certainly not economically feasible, considering I can't even afford to feed myself. Ian owes me money, but that's in Ohio, which is weeks away, and it's uncertain that our arrangement will even be carried out, relying on checks mailed across several states, and various letters explaining positions and arrivals, or that he'll even be able to respond to my demands.
Get in shape. I need to get in shape. Tonight I did forty-five push-ups, went outside for a cigarette, and then did forty-five more. One step at a time. I wish my cell phone worked better.
We listened to Link Wray as we drove over swamps and Lake Ponchartrain. The roads in Louisiana are hellishly uneven and bumpy. Link Wray was the perfect soundtrack, crusing along the highways and causeways and bridges, the smell of mud thick in the air, the view to our left, southward, dark and desolate, what was surely the delta and the Gulf and beyond.
9-29
Woke up strung out. Not much sleep the night before, as I stayed up late packing and re-packing, deciding which books to bring (I settled on Henry Miller, Vine Deloria Jr, Rimbaud, The Shining, and a couple by Prabhupada), and writing last-minute letters. Writing, always writing.
Coffee gets me through the day. I enjoy my coffee with cream now, though the notion once disgusted me. Left for Memphis at half-past two, eating at a Mexican restaurant along the way. Listened to Gram Parsons, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Billy Bragg, and Nirvana. Wandered around truck stops, buying bottles of water and more coffee. Smoked cigarettes and admired Megan's profile as she drove.
Memphis now, gorged on catfish and a root beer float. We are staying in the guest bedroom at Harry's house. Harry is the frontman and driving force behind the Angel Sluts. His house is idiosyncratically decorated, with fine collections of music and books, and towering stacks of recording and engineering magazines. Somewhere unseen is his home studio.
Tomorrow we drive to New Orleans. Harry's mother has promised us gumbo.
I have bills and obligations looming somewhere in the distance, but in the distance is where they shall remain. This month will be a time of thoughtful liberation in the guise of an inebriated shotgun blast, riding the currents of gunpowder and wanderlust, caving to adolescent impulse. I have sixty dollars in my wallet, and a supreme doubt that this meager sum will last even a week or two on the road, let alone an entire month. Death to doubt. I hedge my bets and err on the side of righteous indifference and the blind, grasping Hope and Faith that I share with a blessed few.
I need be reminded that I chose this life for a reason. Fear and anxiety have turned my muscles to jelly. A new spine is to be forged.
Writers: Sherwood Anderson, Kenneth Patchen
John Stuart Mill?
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
FARMER
We have busted knuckles and sliced fingertips, blood shed on limestone and offered back to the earth. Those summer days baked our skin into scales and leather. I used to daydream about railroad tracks plowing through the sky, and raise my eyes to watch that train roar by. At night, there was a boxfan in the window to soothe our burns and aches.
Oh, I learned so much about myself. I feel older now, but none the wiser. The choices I've made have offered little solace. I find inspiration in my father, and I pray to Gawd that he never feels defeated, for then I too will feel only defeat. He is my barometer, and that farm will always be my home. I can never fall too far, too hard, knowing what waits at the end of old Slate Road.
I've woken up shaking and sweating on bathroom floors, and I didn't think I was going to survive this summer. But I can't bring myself to throw away what I don't need. Maybe it'll prove useful someday, like chicken shit and tablescraps. What else did I learn on the farm?
I want to say so many things to you, but so many pairs of ears would hear it, and believe it meant for them alone. They'd all be wrong. This is for no one anymore, no one but myself. I'll keep my head down, humbled but not broken, and keep tilling and sowing and reaping, baking in the sun. Someday I'll pull the scales from my eyes and change my name, like Saul on the road to Damascus.
I just want to spend my days like dreams, and save my abstractions and selfless hope for my father and his farm. There is no hope for me, the way I've been carrying on. Oh, look at my father. My back's just as bad, and my heart's just as sore, and I'm not sure I want to be a farmer anymore.
Oh, I learned so much about myself. I feel older now, but none the wiser. The choices I've made have offered little solace. I find inspiration in my father, and I pray to Gawd that he never feels defeated, for then I too will feel only defeat. He is my barometer, and that farm will always be my home. I can never fall too far, too hard, knowing what waits at the end of old Slate Road.
I've woken up shaking and sweating on bathroom floors, and I didn't think I was going to survive this summer. But I can't bring myself to throw away what I don't need. Maybe it'll prove useful someday, like chicken shit and tablescraps. What else did I learn on the farm?
I want to say so many things to you, but so many pairs of ears would hear it, and believe it meant for them alone. They'd all be wrong. This is for no one anymore, no one but myself. I'll keep my head down, humbled but not broken, and keep tilling and sowing and reaping, baking in the sun. Someday I'll pull the scales from my eyes and change my name, like Saul on the road to Damascus.
I just want to spend my days like dreams, and save my abstractions and selfless hope for my father and his farm. There is no hope for me, the way I've been carrying on. Oh, look at my father. My back's just as bad, and my heart's just as sore, and I'm not sure I want to be a farmer anymore.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Creatures of Note.
Slept in late today, but not as late as I have been. Yesterday, I didn't emerge from the blankets until well after four in the afternoon. This is not conducive to productivity, as if such a thing concerned me.
And yet it should concern me. I've been a Tennessee resident for nearly half a month, with no real progress or gain to show. As it should be, I tell myself. What did I expect? This is a land of milk and honey. The sun is warm on my shoulders. I feel content in my monetary poverty, and proud of my inner riches. I am in the constant company of friends. I am well-fed and well-read. We are the Lost Boys. I catch toads and throw up behind bushes.
There are always fires going, like a refugee camp. Sometimes we eat the smoke, and sometimes the smoke eats us. It peels our flesh from our bones, and we dance in the Expanse, mad skeletons. We laugh, and the world shrieks with us.
I live in a little monklike den, very simple. A mattress on the ground, a metal shelf with some folded pairs of blue jeans and a few shirts. A nighstand made from an overturned milkcrate, upon it resting some weak sleep-aid pills for the anxious insomnia I've recently fallen victim to, wrapped in cellophane. A green ashtray. Next to the mattress, stacks of books. At the foot of my bed, a turntable. A small stack of records. A lifelike human skull. A portrait of Johnny Cash. This is my room, a tiny wooden box at the top of the stairs, swelteringly hot if one does not rise before noon, when the Tennessee sun turns it into an incubator. Kevin compared it to Henry Haller's little room, at the top of a different flight. But I have no room to pace, no tome in which to inscribe anything remotely profound.
Tonight, I will pace across town, across property lines. I feel like wandering, as I always have. And now I have no obligations to stop me. Not yet, anyhow. Responsibility is a gorgon over the horizon, but I have no fear. I will find a job soon enough. I have been putting forth the necessary effort. No need to help the gorgon along her dismal, pragmatic path. She'll be upon me soon enough, and I refuse to have any regrets about the vacation I spent in her absence. Keep your bitch talons out of me, at least for the time being, and I will pretend not to feel contempt when you crunch my bones and suck my marrow. But I will not pretend forever.
And yet it should concern me. I've been a Tennessee resident for nearly half a month, with no real progress or gain to show. As it should be, I tell myself. What did I expect? This is a land of milk and honey. The sun is warm on my shoulders. I feel content in my monetary poverty, and proud of my inner riches. I am in the constant company of friends. I am well-fed and well-read. We are the Lost Boys. I catch toads and throw up behind bushes.
There are always fires going, like a refugee camp. Sometimes we eat the smoke, and sometimes the smoke eats us. It peels our flesh from our bones, and we dance in the Expanse, mad skeletons. We laugh, and the world shrieks with us.
I live in a little monklike den, very simple. A mattress on the ground, a metal shelf with some folded pairs of blue jeans and a few shirts. A nighstand made from an overturned milkcrate, upon it resting some weak sleep-aid pills for the anxious insomnia I've recently fallen victim to, wrapped in cellophane. A green ashtray. Next to the mattress, stacks of books. At the foot of my bed, a turntable. A small stack of records. A lifelike human skull. A portrait of Johnny Cash. This is my room, a tiny wooden box at the top of the stairs, swelteringly hot if one does not rise before noon, when the Tennessee sun turns it into an incubator. Kevin compared it to Henry Haller's little room, at the top of a different flight. But I have no room to pace, no tome in which to inscribe anything remotely profound.
Tonight, I will pace across town, across property lines. I feel like wandering, as I always have. And now I have no obligations to stop me. Not yet, anyhow. Responsibility is a gorgon over the horizon, but I have no fear. I will find a job soon enough. I have been putting forth the necessary effort. No need to help the gorgon along her dismal, pragmatic path. She'll be upon me soon enough, and I refuse to have any regrets about the vacation I spent in her absence. Keep your bitch talons out of me, at least for the time being, and I will pretend not to feel contempt when you crunch my bones and suck my marrow. But I will not pretend forever.
Monday, December 22, 2008
I Broke My Hand.
On the night of my twenty-third birthday, I drank a fifth of vodka and punched a wall, breaking my hand. I was in a cast all summer, and am now permanently disfigured and disabled in my right hand, and I thank Gawd daily that I can still play music. There was no catalyst for this, I was just drunk and ignorant. I have no excuse, no apology. It happened, I suffered and learned.
I feel this is a perfect metaphor for so much of my life, unfortunately. Rash decisions, total disregard for consequence. Attention-seeking self-destruction. And then, after it happens, denial. Playing innocent. Cracking jokes. No, it was foolish. It was awful. I was a jackass, and I deserved what happened. I am not going to apologize now for things I've done in the past, but I am coming clean about them. I have been a piece of shit for far too long, and now it's time I projected truth and humility.
I have been selfish and childish for years, playing it off as roguish wanderlust or some sort of "drunken artist" stereotype. Enough. I got drunk, punched a wall, and I broke my hand. I have a hard time with meeting people. As any who know me well can attest, there's a lot of horseshit under the surface, a lot of baggage that I try to keep stuffed in a closet. I have an awful temper, fierce jealousy, mood swings, tendencies towards addiction and destruction, and I easily let frustration and self-pity ferment into hate and resentment. But I do an excellent job at hiding all of this. Anxiety enables me to keep my faults and imbalances hidden, panic that I'll be found out for the over-sensitive self-pitying loser I truly am.
In the past, I can imagine how I must have appeared to interested parties. A tattooed paladin, blowing back from the desert like a dervish, or up from the South like a hurricane, throwing any prudence to the wind, living on couches and in bus stations. I appeared well-read, sentimental, a true self-styled romantic individualist. Or at least, that's what I tried to come across as. All too soon, a young lady gets to know me and realizes it's all bullshit. Some of it may be true, as there's always a thread of truth in most fiction, but that little spark was buried beneath my faults that become evident as soon as I feel that an outburst won't jeopardize a burgeoning relationship.
No longer. It's time to put my money where my mouth is and "be myself", something stupidly obvious, though I'm not surprised that it took me drying out and losing out on a meaningful relationship, and the subsequent re-appraisal of priorities, to realize it.
There's only so much patting myself on the back I can do before I nullify my claim towards humility, but I feel that now, at this point, I can finally present an honest portrayal of who I am. My priorities and passions are hand-in-hand at last. I've worked through so much shit that I finally have the room and the time for the things that I feel accurately represent who I want to be as an adult. No more seething beast under the surface. It's just me, now. I broke my hand, but it wasn't enough to remind me that I'm only human. Not until now.
I'm trying. It's getting better. It's been a long year, and it's gonna be a long winter. Come over and listen to records with me. I'll show you my busted hand.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Ready to Die.
Anyone who knows me well enough knows that I've harbored a deep love and respect for hip-hop and rap for a long time. It's only been recently, though, that I realized that I couldn't think of a single hip-hop or rap record that moved me emotionally. Don't get me wrong, some of my favorite albums of all time are hip-hop and rap records (2001, Nigga Please, Six Feet Deep, Tical, License to Ill, etc), and I've been moved to tears by a single song or verse before, but no album in its entirety has become an emotional monument to me (though a few have admittedly close). At the end of a record like Dear You, I See a Darkness, or Songs for a Blue Guitar, I feel truly moved, as if I've been ran through a gambit of all the emotions of a single day. They become nostalgiac milestones to very particular times of my life, and grow with me as time goes on. I began to wonder if I didn't perceive rap or hip-hop in the same way as I did music in an "Anglo" context, such as rock or country. I thought perhaps I didn't have as profound an understanding of the genre as I thought I had.
That all changed recently when I realized, shortly after listening to Ready to Die, by Notorious B.I.G., that this record had in fact touched me. Biggie's narratives are so realistic, emotional, and human that even though the subject matter often pertains to things that I shall never know about, such as slangin' crack or shooting people, it affects me in the way that only truly great records do.
It's at turns lewd, violent, and chauvinistic, as most quality gangsta rap tends to be, but that doesn't for a moment take away from the album's genius. Recorded when Biggie was twenty-two and twenty-three, it honestly lays out his fears and concerns about life and, more often, death. The question of whether he was killed as a result of the persona he created around himself as the violent gangsta pimp, or was eerily predicting his own death three short years later, is an interesting, and unanswered, one.
Not mention, there are some serious ass-shakers on this record. It's good with hazy rooms, low lighting, and malt liquor.
Free download (I didn't upload this, I just found the link): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VAFJGB15
Friday, December 5, 2008
Disjointed Ruminations Concerning a Twentieth Birthday.
For Meredith.
Having been born on the Northern Pacific coast of California, it's tempting to claim romantically that my earliest memory is that of the Pacific Ocean. In reality, my first memory is the birth of my sister; my father chasing me through stacks of new tires in the automotive department of a store, the smell of clean rubber heavy in the air, while my mother was in the hospital.
I spent the evening of my twentieth birthday knee-deep in the Pacific Ocean. It was a cool San Diego night, and as I cupped my hands and raised some water to my lips, it seemed as if I could hear the cosmic tumblers falling into place. The safe was being cracked, and I found myself bracing against the waves as a world of possibility was suddenly presented to me. It may not have been my first time seeing the Pacific, but it was certainly my first time to truly See it. That night, drinking Tecate and eating homemade mole poblano chicken, I wondered if I ever would go home again, or if I ever could go home. I did, but only in the literal sense, in the concrete sense. It was too late; the pilot lights had been lit, and I knew in the back of my head that the person returning to Kirbyville was not the same person that had left two weeks earlier.
The twentieth year of my life was perhaps the most extraordinarily productive. It was a time of some crucial self-discovery. I drank heavily from the Pacific, Atlantic, and the Gulf. Without sounding like some wiseacre New Age goat, I dare say that it was the first time I felt enlightened, that I could recognize my place in relation to the Universe and, instead of feeling resentment or fear at its immensity and my own insignificance, I felt contentment, peace, and absolution.
I didn't have nearly as much figured out as I thought I had, or, if I did, much of it has been clouded by time, addictions and obsessions, ephemeral distractions. I regret that in the four years since, I haven't shown much restraint. I've ignored limitations, and I've lived selfishly, for the moment, and with little regard to health or the strain put on my relationships with those around me. Thankfully, I have a few friends who have never shown doubt, never been condescending, and who have stood by me all the while, and for them I will be eternally grateful.
With the help of these comrades, and with a good deal of prudence on my part, I'm entering an entirely new phase of my life now; adulthood. I haven't had a drink in almost two months, I'm making plans to continue the education I abandoned six years ago, I am reading and exercising voraciously, and I've discovered new passions to which I devote my time. I have also begun to understand the burden that I have been on the shoulders of loved ones, and how much I truly owe to them for bearing me for so long. I am now my own responsibility.
In these past few weeks, waking each morning with a clear head, unfettered by the bullshit that plagued my sleep not so long ago, I have begun to feel more and more as I did Back Then, when I was twenty, a Greyhound bus pilgrim, calloused hands from bicycles and guitars, equally versed in Bane lyrics and Watts' Zen Buddhist essays. It's a feeling of the realization of the Potentials of Self, of being youthfully immortal, of being truly passionate. I realize now that my twentieth year was perhaps the most important in my life thus far, and as I go forward into this strange new world, a hungry hyena with sharpened claws*, even as I learn and progress and grow into these new shoes, it is my twentieth year I find myself reaching back to, dipping my cup into the well.
These are the things we need to remember. Dead or insane, we're no use to anyone, and the world is far too cold and immense to face alone. For these reasons, let us show prudence and patience in regards to our health, and the health of our interpersonal relationships. In all other ventures, though, show no mercy. Hold your passions with a lover's embrace. There is no reason to follow any pursuit that you don't believe in with all of your heart. How can we expect to find happiness if we willingly deny it at every turn?
All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet**, and we are but metal shavings shook from the whetstone used to sharpen the Great Cosmic Knife. We are not given many clues as to our duties during our short stay on Earth, and those few clues we are given can be so complex and disheartening that very few have the patience or capacity to translate them into digestible chunks of data. I think it should come as no surprise that a similar serenity and wisdom is seen in the eyes of both the very young and the very old. We can achieve this, no matter our age or situation, if we open ourselves to the possibilities offered to us, if we spread our sails and capture a bit of that quixotic wind coursing through our lives.
Oh, to be twenty forever. Maybe I will.
Much love to you on your twentieth birthday. Keep your eyes wide, your mind open, and your heart racing. We're young, we're strong, and we have all the time in the world to polish our scars for presentation. We are so dangerous, and don't they know it. Don't let 'em stop you.
*Graciously paraphrasing Henry Miller
**Graciously plagiarizing Hunter S. Thompson
Having been born on the Northern Pacific coast of California, it's tempting to claim romantically that my earliest memory is that of the Pacific Ocean. In reality, my first memory is the birth of my sister; my father chasing me through stacks of new tires in the automotive department of a store, the smell of clean rubber heavy in the air, while my mother was in the hospital.
I spent the evening of my twentieth birthday knee-deep in the Pacific Ocean. It was a cool San Diego night, and as I cupped my hands and raised some water to my lips, it seemed as if I could hear the cosmic tumblers falling into place. The safe was being cracked, and I found myself bracing against the waves as a world of possibility was suddenly presented to me. It may not have been my first time seeing the Pacific, but it was certainly my first time to truly See it. That night, drinking Tecate and eating homemade mole poblano chicken, I wondered if I ever would go home again, or if I ever could go home. I did, but only in the literal sense, in the concrete sense. It was too late; the pilot lights had been lit, and I knew in the back of my head that the person returning to Kirbyville was not the same person that had left two weeks earlier.
The twentieth year of my life was perhaps the most extraordinarily productive. It was a time of some crucial self-discovery. I drank heavily from the Pacific, Atlantic, and the Gulf. Without sounding like some wiseacre New Age goat, I dare say that it was the first time I felt enlightened, that I could recognize my place in relation to the Universe and, instead of feeling resentment or fear at its immensity and my own insignificance, I felt contentment, peace, and absolution.
I didn't have nearly as much figured out as I thought I had, or, if I did, much of it has been clouded by time, addictions and obsessions, ephemeral distractions. I regret that in the four years since, I haven't shown much restraint. I've ignored limitations, and I've lived selfishly, for the moment, and with little regard to health or the strain put on my relationships with those around me. Thankfully, I have a few friends who have never shown doubt, never been condescending, and who have stood by me all the while, and for them I will be eternally grateful.
With the help of these comrades, and with a good deal of prudence on my part, I'm entering an entirely new phase of my life now; adulthood. I haven't had a drink in almost two months, I'm making plans to continue the education I abandoned six years ago, I am reading and exercising voraciously, and I've discovered new passions to which I devote my time. I have also begun to understand the burden that I have been on the shoulders of loved ones, and how much I truly owe to them for bearing me for so long. I am now my own responsibility.
In these past few weeks, waking each morning with a clear head, unfettered by the bullshit that plagued my sleep not so long ago, I have begun to feel more and more as I did Back Then, when I was twenty, a Greyhound bus pilgrim, calloused hands from bicycles and guitars, equally versed in Bane lyrics and Watts' Zen Buddhist essays. It's a feeling of the realization of the Potentials of Self, of being youthfully immortal, of being truly passionate. I realize now that my twentieth year was perhaps the most important in my life thus far, and as I go forward into this strange new world, a hungry hyena with sharpened claws*, even as I learn and progress and grow into these new shoes, it is my twentieth year I find myself reaching back to, dipping my cup into the well.
These are the things we need to remember. Dead or insane, we're no use to anyone, and the world is far too cold and immense to face alone. For these reasons, let us show prudence and patience in regards to our health, and the health of our interpersonal relationships. In all other ventures, though, show no mercy. Hold your passions with a lover's embrace. There is no reason to follow any pursuit that you don't believe in with all of your heart. How can we expect to find happiness if we willingly deny it at every turn?
All energy flows according to the whims of the Great Magnet**, and we are but metal shavings shook from the whetstone used to sharpen the Great Cosmic Knife. We are not given many clues as to our duties during our short stay on Earth, and those few clues we are given can be so complex and disheartening that very few have the patience or capacity to translate them into digestible chunks of data. I think it should come as no surprise that a similar serenity and wisdom is seen in the eyes of both the very young and the very old. We can achieve this, no matter our age or situation, if we open ourselves to the possibilities offered to us, if we spread our sails and capture a bit of that quixotic wind coursing through our lives.
Oh, to be twenty forever. Maybe I will.
Much love to you on your twentieth birthday. Keep your eyes wide, your mind open, and your heart racing. We're young, we're strong, and we have all the time in the world to polish our scars for presentation. We are so dangerous, and don't they know it. Don't let 'em stop you.
*Graciously paraphrasing Henry Miller
**Graciously plagiarizing Hunter S. Thompson
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