brass tacks

SO it has come to this – waiting in the dining room at the Green Tortoise for the inevitable, my flight back to New York, the end of this adventure.  Honestly, because that’s all I feel capable of right now, I thought I would have more to say.  It’s hard to describe how I’m feeling – tired, for sure, but not excessively.  I do not feel anything excessively, as though there is quiet in my being that is listening without judgment or desire.  I am excited to return to New York, eager to make peace with the wilderness from which I am born.  There are things that I have missed about The City, but none of them for a moment made me feel like returning.

ALAS, the time has come and found me again, so long spent in its eternity, to return now to the man-made minutia of hours and minutes seems as though I am about to be buried alive, but I am as calm as I’ve ever been.  Seattle is a wonderful place, I could tell from the moment I got off the train, and when I get on the plane, I will know that Seattle was not my destination, not the end of my journey, but a place in which I was able to feel the love I’ve experienced on my own, to know the universe that is my soul.

AS with most of the things I’ve written on here, this is all another way of helping me understand the things I’ve found, learned.  If you have been along for the ride, I admire you.  This is not easy to understand, even for me, but that you were willing to wade through the incoherence and the irrelevance to understand me and, by extension, my truth, is a sign that you are ready to receive.  Or perhaps you work a shitty job that necessitates your zoning out and surfing the internets for hours.  Or perhaps you’re weird.  Either way, you tried, and you are better for it.  I hope you have become inspired to open up to the universe, to talk to strangers, to listen, to love, to eat sea urchin.

I will continue to post – even though the trip is over, my journey has begun.  The format may have to be modified slightly to make this record more interesting, however, it will be here and I hope you will be too.

THAT is all for now, two and a half hours before I must leave for the airport.  Time to breathe, to feel, not to think.

i’ll decide… take the dive

take my time… not my life

wait for signs… believe in lies

to get by… it’s divine… whoa

oh, you know what it’s like…

One day, things will start to make sense. You will see the universe as it is, as infinite expressions of one truth. It is as ineffable as existence because it is. Psychology, for example, is the explanation of existence as the input of experience on a spectrum of Fear and Love. Both are undefinable except generally as the inhibitory and excitatory forces that govern the one existential constant, interaction. It is only a system that incorporates a few dimensions of the boundless whole, in order to make a metaphor readily accessible to those who understand the language. And on it goes.

Systems circumscribe our understanding, preventing the simplest expressions – manifestations of being in the most physical or spiritual form – from being received as they are, without interruption, the transmission uncorrupted by lesser truths. That, I believe, is the intention of meditation, to quiet the systems that shout for supremacy in the mind and drown out the truth that is always present. Meditation is not the only way, and is itself a system, but it is a way. There are many, but the point is that you must be willing to leave behind the anxious noise, the comforting sound of habit, to believe that love is the force leading to truth, and that the path of least resistance, in the existential sense, will bring you there.

I started reading The Alchemist after a long bout of wavering between other people’s reviews and irrelevant thoughts about its popularity. Coming into it now, at the end of this huge, but short journey – just one of many, one of all – allows me a hindsight perspective of my path, uncorrupted by reading too much into fiction and fad, but one experienced for myself, and amazingly, one that led to the same feeling, however differently worded our explanations. The book was given to me by Satya, my love, upon my departure from San Francisco, and has brought me out of the irons in which I had found my ship stuck. I had begun to doubt my experience, to discount the signs and the lies that led to truth, but now I am reconfirmed, my faith strong as the day I found it.

Tomorrow is to be a singular day in my life, but until then I shall live this one as it will be different from every other. Today’s repose was very necessary, and now it is time to venture out.

… little secrets, tremors… turned to quake

the smallest oceans still get big, big waves…

I haven’t slept in a bunk bed in years. The heat is still, hovering high, the fan funneling air aortically as birdshot, it won’t kill me. It’s still hot.

There is a thin, seemingly load-bearing pipe that cuts through the room about two feet over my bed. The act of rising provides a perfect trajectory for slamming my head into it. I don’t feel like interacting with anyone right now. The dense static energy of downtown Seattle on a Sunday in the summer is too much for me. The sprawling waterfront was the destination, not a stop on the way, and when people got where they were going, they tended to stay clumped together, sandal-stepping unapologetic and aloof like the cargo barges steaming in from China. I tried in vain to eat something, but there was nowhere to enjoy it. Approximately every eighty four seconds, a man in khaki shorts and a baseball cap would find some way to make sure that I knew I was not comfortable. I didn’t spent more than twenty minutes walking around as the probabilities were gathering darkly like grey clouds on a bright blue day.

I followed the readily recognizable crowd of dope smokers down the road to Myrtle Edwards Park, home of Hempfest 2008. Tie-dyed, tongue-tied zombies of all ages, all sizes gathered to celebrate the spiritual herb in the company of burned-out brothers and sisters to the sound of live music and the shadows of ships passing in the warm afternoon. The attendance was huge, and I was in no condition to make a reasonable estimate, but the amount of garbage created was staggering. How much of it ended up in the water, on the ground, was dispiriting as the propaganda blared from amps and flyer stands, urging awareness. It didn’t help that the music was particularly ungood. In fact, it was laughable, the lyrics trite and irrecyclable. That this concatenation of causes can pass for the counterculture of the times is tragic on many levels. Yeah, fight the power, but pick up your fucking trash. Even the police aren’t threatened by this group. I was surprised by the high numbers of young people, mostly girls, some of whom didn’t appear old enough to drive a car. Braces and shirtless children were not uncommon, and it made me wonder what in hell is going on. I appreciate the attempt to liberate the substance from political injustice, as harmful as it is, but often it seems that the trivialization of the Herb’s power, equating its usage with other dimensions of freedom, obscures both its intention and its potential syntheses. It appears to be a way out, when it should really be seen as a way in.

I’ll post pictures of the day later or tomorrow.

City with Roses; Dragonfly Eating at the Market; Tamale; Andrew; A Cena (Pappardelle w. braised rabbit, olives, Pecorino); Pok Pok (Green Papaya Salad; Fresh Curry Chicken Noodle Soup; Tamarind Whiskey Sour); Soup; Fresh; Green

And no time to sit around thanks to a two pm wake up.  Thanks brain, really.  I had planned on getting brunch and walking around Pikes Place Market for a while before heading over to Hempfest, but now, who knows.  All I know is that I have to get out of the hostel – it’s too hot and my time is dwindling, a sensation I haven’t felt so far on the journey, and one that has turned my last few days into an anxious counting of hours.

This is by far the most beautiful part of the country I have seen pass by through the window of a train.  Green hills and jagged shorelines jut out into the shimmering water, the shadows of larger mountains looming behind the elemental scene.  Soccer games go on over in grassy fields, bathers wave from the beach.  The Mobile Manor just outside of Tacoma looks like a good place to park a trailer, the sign almost welcoming enough for a family.  The Pacific Northwest is exactly as I pictured it, only with more sun and fewer beards.

I can see Seattle now, just beyond, as we roll through a freight yard, the last I will have to see for a while, and praise the baby Jesus for that.  Giant shipping cranes remind me of those Imperial walking destroyers the ice planet of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back. Just saying.

The horn is blaring, we are here, I must go.  It’s actually a shame to get off this train, the nicest so far – the Cascade line.  Safeco Field is bumpin right now, the cheers audible through the window glass; I guess the Seahawks are playing… weird.

One thing I’ve noticed while writing about food is that there is an inverse relationship between eating and writing.  Perhaps it’s a bit more complicated, that the kind of food, or any other substance, I put in my body will have an attenuating effect on my productive output.  Whatever the equation may be, it has resulted in a vague weariness on my part to relate the minutia of my meals, though they have been the best part of my experience here.  Portland is truly a city for learning about and eating food.  Beer, wine, cheese, greens – it seems that anything worth eating can be found here in a state of purity.

Downtown Portland was kinetic in the August heat, the buildings themselves seemed alive behind the signs of commercialization; there is an awareness here, the west coast in general, that mitigates the emptiness of consumerism and the masochistic political question it poses to the mass population.  Bicycling, recycling, composting – ways of life beyond fickle fads and the feel-good delusions of New Age soul depletion.  People seem genuinely curious about their attachment to matter and motion.

I see glass condo towers rising to the fore against the green hilly backdrop, my heart drops, this is America.  Well-intentioned individuals who act without regard for the reality of consequences.  No, there won’t be any blood in the streets, everything will appear in the image intended, projected from a purified, partially discovered psyche, but for fuck’s sake, I can’t take the commoditization of peace.

Like I said, I can’t write about what I’ve done here in the last thirty-six hours, as it has mostly revolved around food.  Generally, I eat and I read, walk and talk, see and breathe.  This trip is almost over.  I leave town tomorrow on a high noon train for Seattle, the End.  In truth, I probably won’t make it up to Vancouver, so unwilling to deal with the Border Patrol and their intrusiveness.  A recent trend in DHS thuggery involves the unwarranted copying of the hard drive of a citizen’s personal computer, which, for a writer, poses myriad problems… this aggression will not stand, man.

I am tired, happy, full.  So many images stacked up in so many days, different places.  Pull a memory from the pile, like Jenga, the others might fall into incomprehensibility, the realm of the unconscious.  So hard is it to dig up those feelings, I am slowing down for fear that they will be lost.  Fear.  Now that’s an ugly word.  It looks better when it is spelled like this

I miss science, I miss my woman.  Whatever happens from here on out, I cannot help but feel fulfilled, found, free.

Just finished eating dinner, my first self-sufficient domestic meal, courtesy of the farmers’ market I wandered through on my way to Philadelphia’s, a place for cheese steaks.  Last night, I had a late dinner at Gino’s, a neighborhood haunt serving exquisitely simple Italian food, the way it should be.  I had a caprese salad with organic heirloom tomatoes, cardinal and crimson, that would have been perfect (there was a profusion of fresh, beautiful basil) had it not been so heavily salted.  The food usually speaks for itself, especially when it is something so essential as caprese.  I was famished and eager for good food after the fine dining on the Amtrak, which was tolerable in only a few dimensions, and the salad was well received, though no match for the greens pasta that followed.  Tagliatelle, which had the texture and density of fresh pasta, was dressed up in a simple garlicky tomato sauce with crushed red pepper, sauteed organic swiss chard, and finished with pecorino.  It was excellent, both inspiring and satisfying, the hallmark of a good meal.  It really played to my strengths of simplicity and good taste.  Three glasses of wine didn’t hurt, though the nebbiolo was far superior to a sour, boring barbera d’alba.

I woke up late today, both a symptom of psychoactives and an incredibly comfortable bed.  It wasn’t hard to stay horizontal for so long, but the sun seemed so friendly, beckoning through Venetian blinds, I had to abide its call.  I spent an hour or two at The Ugly Mug coffee house over an iced cappuccino and the dusty yellow pages of Carl Jung’s inner life, which never fails to forge connections with various unconventional psychic states.  Sipping, reading, and writing, I soon became absolutely wired but within myself, and I decided to get some food.  My destination was a local bar and grill specializing in cheese steaks and their own brews, however, I happened upon a bustling farmers’ market along the way, replete with a band and a tamale stand.  I haven’t really come across anything like it in my travels, though I fully expected to, so from first sight, I decided to abandon my cheese steak plan and immerse myself in the local culture of friendliness and fresh food.  My bounty included a couple of heirloom tomatoes, a small wedge of slightly aged sheep’s milk cheese, a little baguette, a jar of homemade kimchi (which I had to talk the gentleman into parting with because it is so fucking incredible, authentic), and some homemade curry hummus and Za’atar crisps.  I also picked up a bottle of rose made by some groovy chicks in the southwest part of town, of which I am halfway through as I type this to you.  Before leaving, after talking to myriad locals about whatnot and whathaveyou, I picked up an asparagus tamale that was smothered in spicy salsa and a bit of sour cream.  It was my first tamale, and if it is indicative of the genre, it will not be my last.

Dinner was simple; a tomato drizzled with a bit of olive oil, sea salt and fresh pepper, a nice hunk of bread, and half of the cheese.  Perfectly light, a meal very much of this peaceful place in which I find myself.  Nothing is going on and I like it that way.  Writing is becoming tedious at the moment, my spirit urging me back to the porch with a full glass and my guitar.  It will take a lot of time, energy, or both to digest the past forty two days, and right now, I embrace this newfound serenity with open arms.

We’re almost there, but there’s more to come.

A strange fairy tale, indeed.  Among the tall pines, a bath of green, a different kind of peace here in Portland.  Contrary to what the Eagles have said, it seems that we are programmed not to receive, but to reflect.  I feel more like Pearl Jam, today I’m Open, accepting with open arms the whims of the universe, understanding struggle is within us all, and when the universe says yes, it doesn’t matter to what, only that we listen to its answer.  When I realized that the choices I have made were merely choices, not mistakes, possibility reveals itself to be more elastic and infinite than it readily seems.

I was supposed to be on a train to Portland on Saturday night, though in a fugue, I felt without agency, offering myself up to the waves of the existential sea.  A tremendous pressure manifested physically within that seemed to be holding me in San Francisco and all that I’ve found there, only my mind allowed for the possibility that I was ready to leave.  It was at the train station in Emeryville, unable to think, but sitting and strumming and waiting for a sign, that I met a dying old man, the personification of an oppressed soul, of suffering.  Looking into his muddled, bloodshot eyes that peered through a swollen and scarred face, a foam of vodka and death dripping from his chin, it was easy to be horrified by his presence, and many were.  But standing in the doorway, my own eyes unflinching from his gaze, I listened, open to his terrific being no matter how harsh his honesty, and there I found the pulse of the universe.  In suffering is both beauty and wisdom, and in the embrace of this beaten black angel, was love and trust.  Through him, I received the message, the feeling of oneness that precludes choice, but prescribes action – the universe was saying yes.  So I stayed, I loved, all because I listened.

The train that night was delayed, eight hours in the end, and somehow I ended up on a sold out train in a giant sleeper car with its own bathroom last night, on time and with the friendliest crew of attendants I’ve experienced thus far.  My sleep was restless and short, and I missed all of northern California, waking up in Klamath Falls, OR.  Jose, the attendant for my car, brought french toast and bacon to my room along with a local paper, which presciently explained the plumes of smoke I would later see rising up from the hills as a byproduct of a dry summer, the wild on fire.  I fell back into sleep until one pm, dreams of fog and floating.  There is an ornamented, plush parlor car on the Coast Starlight, serving more… upscale… appetizers and cocktails, which was also the venue for a regional wine and cheese tasting this afternoon.  Oh the places one will run into someone from Great Neck…  The wines were crap to decent, all from Columbia County, OR, the most pleasing being a sweet but smooth and balanced Riesling, which also happened to be the most expensive.  My great disappointment was the cheese selection, billed as a taste of four artisan cheeses from Oregon, a hotbed of artisanal cheesemaking, which turned out to be absolutely nothing more than six cubes of “cheese” the color of bland, only differentiated in hue by the common conception that cheddar is orange, gouda is tan, and havarti is kind of white.  I guess I’ll have to discover the wonder of local cheese on my own, a journey almost certain to be joyous – it’s been too long since I’ve had the pleasure of the smell of a cheese shop, a fish market.

The best part about being on time is that I am able to sit on the porch at the Bliquez’s beautiful home, rocking to the breeze on a wooden bench, enjoying the sun at the end of a miraculous afternoon.  Now if I can only find something to do (read: drink)….

The train rolls on, though there have been many moments in the past week in which I was not sure that it would.  The delirious coast called to me, waves vibrating violently, epileptic, psychic energies bringing inconceivable synergies that have created indelible changes to the structure of my being.  Nothing could have prepared me for the revelations toward which I’ve always been moving, but only on this journey have I been open to receive them.

I had planned on roaming the city for days, something of which I have become quite skilled, the resulting interactions always intriguing and enlightening, though challenging the soul to open up and spill forth its truth; I’ve noticed an extraordinary instinct in the social organism by which intruders are labeled and phonies unmasked.  I was intent on wandering across this vast land, catching glimpses of life rambling in all its directions, content to merely brush up against the real, my concatenation of probable particles bouncing off to encounter other possibilities.  No doubt I had been successful in this quest, though my underlying life – spirit – remained in a realm of longing, loveless and approaching the bitter ends of loneliness.

Something happened in San Francisco, though what it was I cannot describe; what it is, I can only call love.  A conspiracy of ineffable forces made plain, the cosmic design seemingly obvious to my eyes, my soul.  Seeing tears in the eyes of strangers, watching their lips tremble as their truth is revealed, and in turn, my own shared in an embrace between those who know the difference between justice and injustice, compassion and callousness in all its minute mutations.

I have been drunk on her smile since I saw it, but the truth is that I’ve never in my life met a human being so essential, so beautiful through the crystal lens of honesty, so real that she cannot possibly be, a goddess.  This week was mine, ours, and the proposition of communicating anything that occurred is, at the present moment, laughable.  On the train to Portland, I can only revel in my wakefulness, my awareness abounding, my spirit boundless.

I made the decision to continue on, to finish this thing, and I hope there are still some of you out there despite my hiatus.  From hence forth, I will resume regular posting, though I cannot help it if my mind wanders back to the clouds.  I am sorry for the abruptness with which my posting ceased, and I have missed hearing from all of you, however, I was not in this realm, having stepped into another dimension dragging the dead weight of my old soul to a place where it is reborn, free, connected.  I have been understood.

In the sleeping car, a giant private room with its own bathroom, complimentary champagne on ice, In Rainbows softly streaming from my computer speakers, in a new light though under the same moon – life has never been so beautiful, though there is always suffering in beauty, and beauty in suffering.