Such A Sweet Embrace

“Such a sweet caress that you were

Experience I lacked made

Evil Eye strong

You Know Who You were

You know why You Came

And the only thing you regret is

That you must keep

Going

After

All your foibles

You must find out why

And then change course

Only the masters

Lead;

Only those that bring together

Succeed

This piece of randical assemblage became altar for the death of my creative flow. I sacrificed all the most beautiful possessions that I was clinging to while trying to live and get on my feet in the southwest. My hopes of domesticating and devoting my time to a specific task in order to carry out acts of beauty and priestesshood seemed contingent upon this vision of a beautiful, expansive structure that factions of artists could rotate through and visit, adding and taking away whatever bits of inspiration and delight were available for sharing at their appropriate time- these hopes were embedded in these items. The sacrifice of which they consisted was a tragic liberation. As I carried them to the wall, caulbearing my own fantasized destiny, I saw the moments that their arrangement could have facilitated had I succeeded at my goal. I gave it up and in a way, I was telling Creatrix that I was smaller than the sum of the whole. I don’t know better. And I relinquished the iron grip my own belongings had had upon me. I watched my superego judge myself for being so materialistic and stubborn, and reminded the ego that I created this reality to fail.

This was a turning point day. Every few years or so, I go through a period of intense wandering. Not a single trip was taken without inadvertently taking the long way or even getting lost for weeks at a time. I found myself staring at pavement for the most part. Mostly I think that I couldn’t stand to look at the shuffle and subtle lies that were required to exist within a babylonian empire. I still struggle with this.

In this altar, there is a pewter goblet that says “Stan 1977” in delicate etching. It was one of two wedding goblets that my parents shared when they consecrated their attraction to one another almost 40 years ago. I inherited a lot of ‘old crap’ around 2010 that was collateral junk from my parents’ divorce and moves. From what I understand, a former partner of mine ended up with this at some point and used it to fling flaming rags around at Burning Man in 2013.

In lak’ech, thank you.

A lot of the other items were relics of a brief life with the same partner. We both had strong addictions to things that you wouldn’t necessarily think of. He had a job with a company in Seattle making “fuck you” money and we moved in with 2 of our friends who were engaged and decided to make a mess. For about two weeks, that we tried to stretch into 6 months, we pretended that we were invincible and more pretentious than anything you could expect to see on the planet.

We attended “parties” at a local weirdo’s (really groovy) house and did a lot of drugs, and people, and wore ridiculous outfits and pretended we had all the answers to life. It was really marvelous.

Until our eldest roommate, we’ll call him Burt, invited his friends up from Merced, California, who were having a hard time. One of them was clinically diagnosed with schizophrenia- though we all agree that it’s a load of crap to get government benefits. Whatever. He made a habit of displacing any and all objects that he could find- literally forcing his reality into submission from a place of cognition that was determined to only see chaos. I don’t know that I knew anyone else up to this point who was so phobic of order. I will find out the name for this condition, and we shall see if we can’t redirect that original prognosis, hm?

The other is a woman who I actually admired for her artistic ability, but did I not know the proper physiology of the human form, I would swear to god she was born without a spine. I mean, really, I had no idea how this woman kept herself upright half the time: every day, at least a couple of times, there would be some urgent, empty matter that had an obvious solution that was somehow inaccessible for lack of weed, or love, or “I need a threeeesommme” or alcohol. We knew she was out of control- her young daughter had been taken and ordered full custody to the father. I didn’t know whether her aggressive substance consumption was a vice to cope with the loss or the cause of it in the first place. It is much easier for me now to see that it doesn’t really matter, and the limits of our love were what they needed to be.

The house dissected into every possible arrangement of friendship-foe/ enemy-alliance you could possibly think of. Everyone wanted to fuck one another, and nobody had the patience or courage to say exactly how or what their fears were. People were coerced into having group sex and then later punished by the same party for withholding affection.

By the third month, second, official if you count from the lease signing, I was ready to pack up my things and leave this torrid situation. My voice was lost on the wind of other lungs urging needs unto the air, and my body just felt like a floppy flesh bag in a matrix not designed to support my subsistence. I decided that I didn’t care any more, and I prepared my mind and body for the abruptness that the reality of the situation would cause once all the cats were spilled.

Somehow, some way, the black fabric upon which all else in the scene rests, made its way from the foy of my ridiculous and overly-utopian dream house in the Lake City neighborhood of Seattle in 2012 to the backseat of my Nissan Sentra on loan from my father, in the middle of the Mojave desert four years later.

Since this time, there have been many roads...and many people, many chases, many thrills and much mundanity. Too much to recount in this simple chapter but I could count about 6 or 8 major moves or attempts at moves, including the purchase of a bus and preparation to embark in it to lands unknown… This fabric, which draped ahead my head as I slept during these delusional and wholly narcissistic times, miraculously and absurdly became some of my most valuable ware amidst my travels and exploits. Broken fingers. Hearts. This sheer, black cloth endured. An objective speculation might purport that it represents a need to have the appearance of mystique, intrigue, suspense.

WHY?

I lay thee down, and thank…

The fur:

Some woman with a lot of skill and ambition and stuff gave this to me when I helped her move and watch her kid one time. I like second-hand fur.

In the summer of 2015, I did a fair amount of trimming in the Santa Cruz mountains. I gave a ride to a girl who travels and makes jewelry, and she and I became friends who helped one another. Well, she mostly helps me but I think it’s ok because she’s a fair amount older than me.

It isn’t strange that the older we get, the less significant stretches of time become. Eight years is an entire lifetime as an infant; as a kid it’s half your school career until high school graduation; in your 20s, it’s still half a generation; in your 30s it’s some arm fat and a few hair folicles; in your 40s eight years is less than the distance between your kids, or…? I have no idea what eight years in your 40s would be like. I suppose it’s always been a very mysterious age period to me. My dad was nearly 40 when I was born. I assumed that your 40s and 50s were young when I was a kid. I couldn’t fathom the idea that I was so young and helpless and my parents could potentially be on the decline. No, no, no.

No, I rather felt as if I were in my 40s at this point but the long, strange list of events goes as follows: I had found myself working for the Community Conservation Corps and also preparing to quit. I went to the Oregon Country Fair during my last weekend in Eugene, Oregon, and found a woman named Mandi who needed a ride to Arcata after the festival. I definitely was not about to go up to Washington State again. So I’d go as far south as my little vessel would take me.

Miraculously, everything that I needed came in time. I didn’t have a car the entire time I was in Eugene. I quit my job there because I had to have a complicated hand surgery and I could no longer afford to live there without getting another job. Well, I’d seen some shit there and I decided that there were too many dark forces to contend with all by myself- even as quickly as friends seemed to show up in my life- the roots of trust were still shallow in this forest. I’m going to Los Angeles to help keep bees. Wealthy- I was not. But filling in the places where positive numbers and zeros would be in my bank account, I’d replace with faith. Someone would show up...and if they didn’t know that we were supposed to meet, or that they were capable of collaborating with me, we’d find out. Or, if I couldn’t find anyone to work with...then the universe would do away with me, as it cleanses itself naturally.

I found her, and then I found a young man in Arcata going to San Diego, who taught surf lessons there and liked to go rock climbing. I tried out the beekeeping, and after the first day in tears, I decided that maybe the task was right but the business partnership, not. I moved to Santa Cruz, and worked on a very small pot farm for about a month and a half. The man who owned the property lived in a log cabin in the redwood forests, overlooking a creek and within gargantuan, lively trees that seemed to sprinkle everyone beneath with a magic pollen that opened the lungs and made your eyesight more keen. I got way, way more high the very first day than I probably ever should...the skill with the vape pens wasn’t quite acquired yet and I allowed an indulgence beyond what I could think or cognate.