Dharma on a sunday afternoon

Last week was a long one, riddled with quirks and undertows. Speckled with tears and long hours of sleep. I lost about seven pounds, my self respect, a bottle of wine and my will to live. In the end, I drug myself to work every day, I even entertained people and fooled them into thinking I was okay at some point.

Thursday I had a fashion show in which I was supposed to arrive, show my collection and appear well adjusted and network. Im horrible at networking, I always arrive focus on the collection and getting the models dressed and when it comes to the time when the networking is supposed to be happening, I lose interest. I know I supposed to puppet myself around the room posing for pics with all the models and handing out fake hellos and hugs like business cards...but for some reason I cant ever seem to make this stick. Instead I want to vomit violently.

This show was no exception. The people were vapid the room was too well lit, and the "vampires" were out in full force. I hadn't eaten in days at this point, four bananas and two apples was no exaggeration of my food intake total in the week up to that point. Needless to say I was not drinking...no one wants to watch me go from barely holding it together to crying mess on the floor in five seconds. I got to watch the whole show unfold completely sober and as if I was detached from my body. Floating around a shell person.

The dressing room or lack there of, was stank. Even from the beginning a hallway in front of the venues bathroom was never a good spot for dressing and fitting models. The stench of bathroom was in the air, combine with the 20 or so models all trying to scamper in and out of changes. Soon body odor and that strange vagina smell permeated the air. Sweat was trickling down our backs, foreheads and ankles. A beer was spilled and the whole area became a swamp, further adding to the cornucopia of smells and sights in the backstage area.

I watch the lights flash, as the models walk one after another. Stark blasting white light, flash after flash, cataloging this night, these people and the whole strange event. Posted later on every social networking sight for everyone to judge and mis judge and opinion form on.

The heat is making me dizzy, or maybe that was the lack of food? My broken heart poking at my insides? All of these combine? Who will ever know. I puppet myself up to the front of the room and plaster on the best "I'm totally awesome" smile I can muster. Smile for the cameras and escape from stage as soon as possible.
Back into the side rooms and back space to collect up my art and whats left of myself and make my escape from this hot cramped smelly area back into my life.

The night air is cool, and the smells are muted by a sea breeze blowing fog and damp out over the city. All I can think of is let the ocean wash me off, and take these empty insides with it. Would I even feel the cold sting of the sub zero ocean at this point? Would anyone even care, I feel so alone. Floating.

Friday goes and comes, Im still numb. Waiting to get home to sleep it off....wondering how much longer I will be here waiting and pacing in my own head. Unable to stir myself out of this. The phone does not ring, there is no sign of life from the outside world. The fog sets in and takes hold of my rotting brain and body. Time has stopped for me. I curl up in a ball and watch Hunter S Thompson on the TV screen and try to get excited. For some reason I always find myself reading, watching or otherwise listening to him in low times in my life. Its like a phenomenon I have no control over. Like the world is trying to show me there are people, out there just as depraved and strange... you cant be the only lone fucked up tiger in this box. Get weird and get outta here.

Saturday dawns, and a strange foreign thought pops into my head. Like a long lost message in a bottle. It floats to the shore of my mind, dusty and covered in sludge. A few weeks ago I had been in such a good place I wanted to seek out a more structured mediation practice for myself. I had already gone through the trouble of looking up the times and dates for introduction and had nothing left to do but arrive. Coincidentally Saturday morning at 830am was the time to arrive. I woke up at 730 with just enough time to pull it together and walk the two blocks to the Center.

I have no idea what to expect, I'm lost and alone and lets be honest on the verge of suicide at this point. I haven't eaten, I have slept to much, Ive been crying on my bathroom floor as an after work hobbie for the last four days. To say the least I was up for anything at this point that just wasn't any of those activities.

I wished I was back two weeks ago in happy health and clear mind. Wizzing from task to task happily singing love songs under my breathe, but I was where I was.. and I went.
The door was locked and the entrance was menacing. Red brick with opaque glass windows. Institution whitewashed wood and black rot iron handrails, I almost gave up and went home. When out of nowhere a surprisingly normal looking lady walked right past me and unlocked the door. "here for the meditation?" she asked. I was able to get the word "yes" some how over my suddenly parched lips. It sounded like I hadn't spoken in years.

Inside there was a table with the usual sign in book and flower arrangements. Stereotypical ZEN items placed in the corners. Buddah statue in the middle of the wall space. The greeter/door unlocker motioned for me to sit in the cozy window bench area, and then disappeared. As I sat people fluttered in, confused and disoriented. Or inquisitive and overbearing. Some in high priced yoga wear others in sweats. The room began to fill up. Two piping hot tea pots appeared in front of me with a perfectly lined row of cups.

I wandered into the outside courtyard as more people filled up the entry way. I watched in silence the goldfish in the fountain front and center of the courtyard. Marveled at the simple beauty of the water plants unaffected by me or anyone else. Bells were chiming from somewhere deep within this temple. Robed figures moved quietly down the halls and walkways. Somewhere pots and pans were being cleaned as every so often a bang or chang would break the peace and quiet.
Somewhere around this time a bald sprite of a woman in black robes made her way to the front entrance. I heard the commotion and moved back to the entry to listen. Apparently the introduction to meditation really didn't involve a whole lot of meditation at all.

Mostly we walked through the halls, learned that the bells we ring and why how to bring people to meditation and where to deposit your shoes before entering the meditation chamber. At the end we were led back upstairs for 10 minutes of meditation in the main room. Feet in lotus position, eyes open sitting, thoughtless and quiet. This is what I came for ....things settled.. and the energy wound around me and washed away all that confusion like a dry eraser on a white board. I stayed for a dharma lecture and kept the words in my heart for a month after. Let go of all the pain and thought I had been given the tools to move on. I wish my heart would listen and follow I wish it would stay in a center point and leave me alone with its fluttering.

Leaving....not caring and other refuges for the scared.

I found it impossible today to pry myself from the clammy grasp of my bed. My feet hit the floor with a resounding echoing thud, my usual pitter patter a clomp towards the bathroom. My body a million pounds of skin, hair and teeth all piled on top of my cold and empty insides.

I went through the motions today, pretending to be "okay" and happy because I know that's what the world requires. No ones a sour apple, or grape or sour anything otherwise. Always project your happiness onto others like a disease. Don't let them sense your weakness or your world will crumble around you as people flee in terror.

I made my way to work, feeling naked and so very alone. Thinking about how little this whole drama effects you miles away. Wondering if you pass by signs of me as I pass by a million of you. I answer the phone, and listen halfway...watching my screen for signs of you that never come. You really are quite heartless, pulling your love out from under me like a circus act, not spilling one precious piece of china from the elaborately set table we made.

Lunch time comes and the sun is blinding, I sit and attempt to read but thoughts of you creep into my stomach and rob me of any feelings of hunger. I sit in the baking sun, smelling the acrid stench of San Francisco and watching the trucks and bikes rush past. In a bubble...removed from the world around me waiting for something to smack me back into reality. Before I know it the hour is done, and my icee beverage has melted into a puddle in front of me. I clamber back to my desk and sit...helping, listening wondering. All the while a million miles away.

I take a long walk home, pathetically checking my phone. Hoping, wishing, but knowing I will never hear from you again. You will fade like so many things into a sun stained picture in an album I run across years from now. A bracelet, a necklace, a bottle of sand. Reminders of you still lurk, landmines now of pain and anguish. I think about the card I sent and the necklace in the mail...slowly inching ever closer to you even now. I can see you tossing them aside and scoffing at my penned I love you. So childish now and wasted on you.

You are a closed door, a sailing ghost ship...no one good enough to last on your crew. I remember the sunsets and the water, waking up in the trees with a humid sweat already formed on our bodies clasped together. Thinking back I can see you a million miles away as I try and real you in. I was just a passing piece of flesh, another person who didn't understand. How sad for you to never see the way others see you...standing there so proud as you are a man. So proud and stubborn...and stuck in your ways refusing to try, and make a change. Refusing to understand, and instead leaving running a lost soul on the lam.

You never fooled me and I suspect you always knew...I could see right through you into the vast lost emptiness of you. I tried to fill you up with happy thoughts and laughter but you resisted at every turn. Clinging to your petty issues and arguments like the last remains of your sinking ship. You were no chameleon, no adaptation did not reside in you. With all the traveling you are still frightened of the new, and running like a cowardly soul from the past. I watched the sun set on us.....what a clouded mess it was. From beauty and potential to the vast unknown and empty.

As I rounded that corner and the sun hit my eyes...I realized I will be happy...moving into the sky. You will stay in your prison and keep searching for answers there. All the while we keep beckoning to reach out and be pulled to shore. There is no evil here on the shore, no lies or discontent. Just happiness and love which you were to proud to represent.

So Ill leave you there, another one I could not help repair. Ill hope you will find me here some day or out there in the world. I wont be in the same house and I wont be walking sad...maybe youll forget me? The life we never had.

Its never a good time to say goodbye, and its hard to pack it in. Life had so much beauty for us, and now we begin again.

I made it home today feeling like Id been through a war, clinging to each passerbyers smile for dear life. Treading water, hoping the tears did not win. Each day will get easier, I hope as your memory fades to gone.

Sentimental Time Warp Mock Three

A life less stressed. I'm tired of all this talk about stress, stress management, stress release, herbal stress remedies and everything else related to lowering your blood pressure and remaining calm. Lets all face it there unfortunately is a certain level of stress your going to have to deal with just being alive. Handling your day to day life, is at times going to be random, unexpected, upsetting and strange. Life will without a doubt throw you curve balls, sideways balls and underhand low blows when you least expect it. None of this can be avoided, all you can do is live in a positive way and do your best to prepare for the inevitable times you will be called apon to react in a mellow and controlled or not so controlled way to whatever you are manifesting at the time. Relationships while enjoyable fall into this endless void of confusion, a place where stress can easily dominate the landscape if two people are not in complete agreement at all times. (this notion of complete agreement by the way is absolutely insane and not logical at all) Relationships translate very simply into work. Another relm of potential failure and success. Of dice rolls and choices, situations and outcomes. While we may try and get along as much as possible the inevitable misunderstanding or tense moment is going to pop up. How then should we proceed? Are you an arguer? Taking every chance to escalate the issue to a screaming match in public for all to see. Are you a stubborn passive agressive....with little to contribute but alot to hold against people in the private corners of your mind. Scared of possible rejection and heart break, so you cautiously do your best to accommodate your partner and end up a door matt in the end...someone the other cannot stand to look at, and disrespected at every turn. Maybe you are the abuser in your relationships, taking all you can without a thought about the other person. It seems in this game the lovers are so clearly doomed, why would anyone try? The odds stacked high as the skyscrapers in opposition to your simple plan of happiness. How then is it possible to remove the stress factor from this dance of love? Love is a tightrope bellydance of compromise and continuous humility. Even the basics of relationships require you to spend a good majority of the time thinking outside of your bubble and doing for someone else. You have to be ready to test the waters and retreat to your safety zone for comfort if necessary, stand the judgements of another person into even your most personal of spaces and accommodate and acclimate your own views, beliefs and habits to mesh with another. Seamlessly. Stressfree, and at just the right time. A bit like a jigzaw puzzle, you test the pieces, you find a fit...then realize that piece while it looked right and it fit...actually belongs on the other side of the board. All the chances to fuck things up really put pressure on people, and then god knows how you will act. Adding pressure to anything will cause an explosion. So why then do people still have the unrealistic and completely unfounded belief that Mr. Right or Mrs. Right is simply going to fall out of the sky perfectly matched and synced with your life ready to rock and roll into forever without a hitch? The cinderella stories and sleeping beauty rif raff have infected us. Love is work, work is love, and in the end there is a fair amount of grief, strife, stress and embarrassment that comes along with merging yourself with another. No matter how well adjusted you may think yourself to be. If you happen to communicate, (which by the way men and women are known to have completely different ways of communicating their emotions to each other) your at least one foot down the right path. There is nothing worse than being in a relationship with someone who cant find the time to speak to you about their thoughts, dreams or ambitions. If you can manage at moments of trouble to calm down and see things from a different point of view you can also pat yourself on the back. You have a chance! If when a problem arises you can find it in yourself to just handle it, instead of placing blame. Your leaping ahead and avoiding the blame game prime time victim show with your partner. Apologize, take responsibility, and find a solution, instead of wasting time arguing about it or placing blame. Placing the blame only furthers the issue and nothing was ever solved by playing whos fault is it. Let it go...if you've argued over something more than once and you've come to a solution or a plan of action moving forward. Stick to it, remember you talked about this. Move on....don't go bringing that shit up again in a few months. There really is no point. You talked about it....your still together....you'll find a way...or your out. Either way...beating dead horses never brought them back to life. Get over it or get lost. Stress is unavoidable at times, and yes its unpleasant. No one wants it its unfortunately a bi product of living. You learn to manage it, and breathe, let things go and move on. Ebb with the tides and flow with the rivers, and hopefully let the little things go as to not effect the bigger picture. I don't cheat, I do my best to be honest and give supportive feedback and loving words. I wouldn't leave you, take your money or ask you to buy me things. I wouldn't bad mouth you to my friends or yours, I can communicate in a rational and adult manner. I hate to argue, and hold grudges.....so where.... and why do I keep running to so much opposition? Is it too much to ask universe? For a simple man? someone to pull out a chair and fix my sink when it needs it. To help me paint, and fix my car. To eat the food I cook, and sleep beside me in my bed. Someone who will let me do their laundry and wash their dishes after dinner.

Eargasim....times ten...

There is music.....that you either love or hate.....but when you love it....its pretty amazing experience.

Shadow Dancer

why is it that I never seem to dance as well with anyone as I do myself. Shadow dancing in the moonlight, grass beneath my feet. My shadow dances alone, and I watch the blurring figures near me meld into one and other in the grass.

The moon illuminates us and the woods ebbing blackness creep in all around.

This Side.........

I made it to fashion week without a form fitting bodice, without a sponsor, without a pattern. No formal schooling, no measuring tape, no technical training, no logistics no human resources department.
I worked hard, I stayed in every night for years, I wondered what it was all for, I waited and I was disapointed. So many times.

But were there, were going, we were there and we are coming. You are in I am out...they are undecided. It all melds together, in one big colorful conglomeration of experiences.

The smell of warm skin after dark. The listing silence of day...and the bright stark generalizm of the railway. The squares in order, and senseless monotony. Green blue yellow red, morning phone calls from beyond. Yanking me out of sleep to discuss the loss of a shirt and a missed flight to Mexico.

Someones 24th birthday in the backyard, unexplected party appon my return from the north. Young faces, unknown places. The eager attitudes and opionions, the take the world by the hand approach. How I remember my spirit then... how I didnt care. How it was everyday for itself. Everything is possible, tonight.

My adjustable professional grade black felt toy. The sunshine swap meet in santa rosa... all afternoon Im still without groceries but I will live on love this week.

Rock Island

The long July 4th weekend is coming, and due to the horrific sunburn I encored last weekend. I think I will opt for completely garden variety household chores and possibly a yard sale for big plans.

Somehow the thought of a big hat a lawn chair and selling all my useless junk for cash to the highest bidder sounds like a grand idea. Plus with Octobers travel deadline lurking the more money I can hoard the better. Strange how making money takes on a whole different scene when you have set a date on the end.

I can see the end now and am over half way to my goal. Which is the best place to be...everything before half way is so transient. Your still spending your still not thinking you'll get there. Half way puts it all in prospective.

So rock island... I am on my way... half way to the middle of nowhere never felt so good. Now if I can just remember to call the Canadian Consulate about that dual citizenship.