ed

Some cycles seem inevitable; the artistry I cannot avoid, no matter how I feel about anything else related to the matter.

This seems to be my lifelong dilemma--contrast of feelings and thoughts, of truth and true emotion, of understanding things all around. Life has been heavy, light, sweet, bitter, salty, bright, dark, soft, rough.

Last year I traveled across the continent; this year it is simply my life. There is beauty and wonder, things to be in awe of that I would never know otherwise. I am too cynical to find myself walking down the balance beam of a train track's steel rail or standing by the roadside for the sake of smashing the state; I do it for me, for what I would otherwise never taste or see. I could have avoided it, I could have been another person who would never need to deal with povertyhungerselfdestruction in myself or others, but I chose to face these aspects. Not because it seemed cool or revolutionary, but for the drive in me to keep finding, learning, knowing what I am and am not, what is true and real, to feel and know as much as possible.

It started with him, somehow in my life right after myself and a friend avoided tricking ourselves into believing that we should belong together. Perhaps perfect timing, the world I knew existed but never found reason to purposely immerse myself in came swirling around, both the beauty and the bitter. Tragedy and triumph together.

He asked me, once my eyes had finally opened wider, when it could be joked about, "How many needles do you think are lying around in this park?" It was funny and horrifying all at once, when once upon a time I would never wonder, or laugh at that thought, a question that now always enters my mind when I sit myself down in the grass.

I learned what it felt like to be unwanted by everyone around me for how they wanted to perceive me, because I smelled funny, dirt-tanned. To be pitied by people I pitied and didn't respect, to receive without a question, to come face to face with the tragedy of others whose suffering may never be alleviated by anything more than the idea that what they're doing is making a difference--whether it be true or not.

I talk to people I used to relate to on nearly all levels, and now find myself inwardly fighting over how I feel about them. People who are good, but who are blind to the fact that we all live in the shadows of our skyscraper landscape. Working in the Tenderloin now, half the time I just want to run outside and hang out with the guys on the corner rolling up a blunt, tuck myself into my jacket and smell the truth in the air. It's not better or cool, more thugged-out and tough; it just feels more familiar now, the smell of exhaust and rain to the smell of photocopies and the tapping of keyboards.

I remember one night last year when it had been raining, and the seven of us threw our clothes in the tiny tent and ran about the wood and barn area in the chilly late night air, just boots and socks and the sting of cheap whiskey to warm us before we reached the fire, feeling the rough texture of the log against my ass as I sat down and spoke to a stranger about the wonders of life over a cup of coffee. And later, still, wandering off onto the trampoline because the barn was full up already, pressing our cold bodies together in as many ways as we could to keep warm, and our friends heading to sleep, finally, laughing as they passed us. "You guys want to join in?" he asks and we all laugh, as they head into the darkness we mold into a jumbled mess on the trampoline, slick with rainwater and warming with our bodies. Did I ever expect that I would see nights, days, life like that as a normality over a form of escape?

And I see myself right now, paused in transit, non profit housing employee, dreaming of my own space (again) and a comfort in routine of work and friends, of shows and late night dancing, and know there is too much to define home as, for it all seems so familiar.

I only know that it is not office work, right now, that my compass is pointing me to, and soon I will leave.

...Not dead, just busy with everything, and the definition of everything changing day to day. The balance is the easiest to recognize, hardest to find, if it is even possible to find.