I cant say what it is: maybe its that I feel as though I am a tiny little heathen vying to be recognized for owning a status saved for people who don’t really care for it. I have this recurring vision that I’m a child sitting on my knees before an edge of a great abyss. I hear this voice and always she says ‘there you are child’; she smiles. I feel elated. Wow its powerful. She only smiles, and she doesn’t have a face or a form, but I seem to crawl into her arms anyways, an area as wide as space is deep and I feel so much relief, like what I experience when my mind forgives the germs and pardons my weakened feet from walking, sliding into a period open only for rest. Its pure forgiveness. Its peace. Its the reason I keep coming back.

But now I wonder why I even have the respect to write: my skin is heavy with filth and frowns, my mind is a steady torch growing tall in the articulated breeze that comes from the wicked west from where I hear my thoughts cheer ‘get real’ at a rally of long chins and gray faces. I react when I know I shouldn’t, I give in and give up and sulk on the bathroom floor; a cup of tea reminds me to work with something other than the mystery of my own mind. The vacancy sign is definitely on, waiting for ease to rent to room. Where is stillness now? I soak my head in chemicals to hide the markers of an aging crown and I frolic through the words that dump from me like an elephant takes a shit. I’m tempted to throw it all away, to burn the forest down before the wildfire devours his prize, to win the flow and to fuck it all, like an elephant takes a shit. God it must feel good to evacuate so much useless matter, to give it to the ground: I’ll give myself to the process, like an elephant takes a shit.

I was at a cafe sipping my umpteenth cup of coffee, absorbed in the literature that has come to consume the entirety of my waking life and pondering a breath of sweet Indian smoke when I opened this letter. At first, my ego was satisfied with skimming the contents quickly and returning to the comfort of my toxic mind-space, but as I settled into his words I found a sort of calm, and in reading the message, in removing my attention from myself and onto the words I was inevitably enlightened; here, before me, is the truth that people have the power to heal themselves, that no matter where you come from and what your troubles are, the very thing you desire is entirely within your means to achieve; that, like Jason, in letting go and removing yourself from the insanities all around, you discover a sort of peace of mind that comes only when you no longer seek to grasp it.

His story, indeed, symbolizes the greatest ‘becoming’ of us all; it represents the most precious lOve story ever, that is, the lOve we fOrm with Ourselves as we re-fOrm Our lOve with essence, nature:

Shed old skin however best suits your desires; but do so soon and you will become wise beyond any level the best authority could grant. By removing yourself, relieving yourself of superficial duties and unnecessary attachments you allow yourself access to the highest source of infinite power, strength, hope, and love; be humbly and daringly open, accept that life is your challenge not to win but to surrender, and flow into it with the same respect you would offer the sea if you found yourself on a surf board, on a wave, powerless and in awe of the expanse of unity that could bring even the strongest warrior to his knees.

Jason Writes:

I know you would love this amazing California beach trip. I wish you could see this Shammy. I didn’t know who to write to I just had the urge to write, so I know you would appreciate this. Excuse my poor writing I am new to this. The peacefulness that this trip has granted me greatly triumphs every possession that I have and its “ability” to assist in my happiness. This is what being free truly feels.

Right now I am sitting lying in my car somewhere south of highway 1, which by the way is just as beautiful heading south as it is heading north. I got to Santa Cruz today early morning and surfed Pleasure point for high tide. You wouldn’t believe the seaweed there. I kept getting completely tangled in it and would be absolutely destroyed by the waves when I was there. This definitely wasn’t a rookie surfs spot. The hardest thing about surfing is getting actually out to where you wait patently for waves. When there are good swells it is near impossible. It takes every bit of strength you have to battle nature at its finest. So many times you just feel overwhelmed by the ocean. As soon as you overcome the wave another one instantly attacks you. The constant pounding makes it seem like it would be so much easier to just head back in.  I personally feel that it’s a sign of respect for the ocean, almost a test. You must past the pounding waves to be allowed to ride them.  The ocean is so unforgiving to those to don’t respect it.

After a few hours in the water the low tide set in. I took a break for lunch and started driving south through Capitola. I found the most amazing sandwich place ever. Had lunch there and ended up meeting some locals who guided me to Steamers Lane. Steamers lane is a cool surf spot south of Capitola that works well at low tide, so I went there and surfed for an hour or two. The ocean bottom was hard rock. Next to coral reefs this is the most unforgiving. The most amazing part of this spot is the inaccessibility of it. The water comes up all the way to the cliff; there is little to no beach left. Definitely somewhere you don’t want to get caught. There is a large lookout over the cliff filled with people watching in awe of the surfers completely shredding the wave or completely wiping out. There were also a few surfers that never surfed this spot. I started talking to them and we completely analyzed and planned our surf (all good surfers do this).  Time really doesn’t seem to matter right now. The only way I have been able to tell is by the sun. I went to take a post surf nap in the car (much earned) and ended up passing out for about 4 hours. I woke up and it was nighttime.

Heading back to the beach it was marked with the bright lights of the Saturday night bonfires. Here I met a bunch of people from Monterrey. We exchanged stories and danced the night away, cold sand beneath my feet. Ironically it was total surf hippie music. I wish you could see the stars here. It looks like they are neatly scattered across the sky. So bright and vibrant, they will keep me company tonight. I can hear the beautiful peaceful sound of the waves crashing down in harmony as I sit here in my car and write you. That’s it for tonight. Time to catch some shuteye.

I slept like crap last night. The only place I found that I could crash was right off the freeway. It got so cold at points too. It is strange to me that on a normal day that would completely bum me out. However I had some fruit for breakfast and was instantly put in a wonderful mood. I started driving to somewhere I could surf the sunrise. I put one of a few CD’s that my friend gave me for this trip and re-discovered Missy Higgins. (I went to the concert with Shereen.  Her voice could bring peace to war. Missy’s, not Shereen’s; haha) . She is amazing.

I ended up at Carmel Beach to surf the morning. The water is so clear and blue here its amazing, perfectly contrasted with pure white sand. It looks like it could be in a movie. The water here is ice cold though and the water was more of a rolling wave (good for long boards not short), so I was not able to surf long. Afterwards I started heading down south again and stopped by a Whole Foods to grab some grub. I ended up only buying fruit (apples, mangos, bananas, and a pineapple) and tons of water. I stopped somewhere on the coast to take a nap and relax for a while. It’s still crazy to me that I have nowhere to be and I can just go as I feel. That feeling is more amazing than anything.

Furthering in driving I came across Sand Dollar beach near Big Sur.  You couldn’t believe the price of everything down here. Gas and food is crazy. I think I will have enough gas to get me to my next destination tomorrow though. I think this is going to be my camp spot tonight and I will be heading down to Santa Barbra tomorrow. I started talking to these people and they even invited me to have dinner with them at their house. We skim boarded for a while and it was amazing.  I didn’t tell you that I love skim boarding too huh. However, I decided to get a head start on tomorrow. The further south I get the more breathtaking the beaches are and the more I wish that you were here with me. You would truly appreciate this more that ever. Highway 1 goes all the way down the California coast.

I started thinking about my life as sit here overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I think I am going to have a few goals before I decide to make drastic changes.

1.Eliminate liabilities. I have discovered that possessions mean nothing in comparison to experience. On my trip I instantly want to take every hour of TV watching and video game playing back. I have no memories of doing these things. Every memory of you and I sticks out in my head so vibrant and motivates me in life.

2.Improve my health. After a few days of surfing my arms and shoulders are torn. It is seriously wearing on me. My goal is to get mavericks water-ready by next year, not during competition mode but enough where I could be out there with the best. I have been out in the water where there were huge 15+ foot waves and it is so scary. Imagine looking up and there’s 15 feet of water above your head. Even when you duck, dive or turtle roll through the wave it feels like your are being hit by the force a bomb would create.  You dive in and it’s like a sonic boom.

3.Education. I have discovered that I think I am in need of a major change. I’m thinking communications (not mass communications, there is no money in that). I want to do something I love and communication is it. Everyone loves me; they cant help it.

I can’t believe I am writing you an essay.

I’m getting more towards So Cal and the water is getting much more warm and crowded.  Everyone seems so superficial here. They definitely don’t appreciate the little things. I did catch the most epic wave today though. I rode it all the way to its end. Flying past surfers and other swimmers, it was one of the greatest feelings that I have ever had. The feeling that you are completely in harmony with the wave is breath taking. You understand each other and you are working perfectly together to create something beautiful. My heart was beating so fast after. All I wanted to do was run and yell. You should have seen the smile on my face. I don’t think it’s ever been that big.

So my album for the day is ‘The Who’. It complements the drive so nicely. Tomorrow I will be driving back to the bay and for the first time in the trip there is somewhere…

I’m down as Pismo beach and it’s just littered with people. There is nothing inviting about this place. It is kind of neat that the surf breaks due to a large pier. However it doesn’t allow for a long ride. The last thing you want to want to be is stuck between a large wood beam and a crashing wave. I don’t think I caught one wave today. There was just way too many people. So I headed in to do some homework. It is amazing that I can sit in my car, perfectly angled so I cannot see the crowded beach; just ocean, sun and sky. I wish I could do homework here every day. I can just focus. Especially no internet and phone to give me any distractions. The only regret is that there is a small part of me that wants some pillow talk at night. I can only hint upon what I see and how I feel. I think I could do a better job verbally describing it to you. Talking about this experience probably wouldn’t give it any justice either. I think showing you may be the only way.

People down here do not appreciate what I am doing, unlike the people more north who thought it was amazing. A lot of people ask me where I’m from and what I am doing.

As soon as I was ready to give up on So Cal I met this old surfer. This man was the most peaceful person I have ever met in my life. He kind of reminded me of that guy from Surfer, Dude. I went and had lunch with him and he taught me so much. Its amazing how wise he is. Here are a few quotes from the old man.

“Surfing is much like love, it always feels good, no matter how many times you’ve done it.”

“Very few people life live anymore. Life lives them.”

“Listen brother, if there is one thing I am going to teach you today is that I have never stressed one day in my life. I have lived it more

 than any other person could say. I have nothing and only that reason alone gives me everything. Live peaceful young brother.”

CRAZY right. I asked him if he had a phone number or email to exchange and he said that he would always be somewhere by the beach if I wanted to ride with him. He has no phone or email. Amazing…

Well I am heading home tomorrow so I won’t bore you anymore with this.

Live Life Shammy, Be Peaceful.

Love,

Jason

Blow and Morning Brilliance

‘Oh my gato’ how the energies are painted in tiny specks across a spiraling reality: how minuscule the projection appears through my weary lenses looking out from within a  nightlife capsule; the sniffles and sneezes, the dollar-menu gazes and gourmet hollowness of this place is spawned from an oath to commit an act of epic togetherness.

It is this element of absurdity that links the faded frequencies of gone people; we’ve done this before, we do it again, distance is a trophy best honored by recurring sips of powdered air.

There are warts on the morning horizon, craters on the face of dawn pop and leak fluids that unveil a recent history of conscious massacre, one fueled by an overabundance of mind-altering goodies.

‘Quick’, I think. ‘Lets clean it up before the aliens arrive. I don’t want the obvious remnants of an intentional mutilation ceremony to taint the preliminary impressions of my possible saviors’.

Oh well. I shrug my thoughts and lean into myself: an olive tree is pointing a finger at me and I grin: ‘okay, okay, I’ll play my part’, says I in a whine. I collect my frigid form and manifest a smile when all I most easily want is to play with the party people. Regaining a sense of stillness I remember the impermanence of it all and sentence myself to detention, surrendering the responsibility of playing straight.

While life seems to be descending to a fine point for the partakers of illusory escape, I am with absolute presence and awareness, in a dress fit for a clown, laughing at the process and counting the seconds until I can gracefully walk away; I am free to feel the frequencies of a morning sun without the burden of having to pop her pimples.

I gesture to leave my souring nest but pity is a poison best sipped near the entrance of a new day and I ponder my own willingness to stray the comfort of isolation. No. Not today. I can’t go on like this. Ready. Set. Go.

I escape; I scurry into daylight, my shadow trails behind and I find a seat before the sun, beside a tree nestled eloquently in a bed of mulch and stone. I drop down down down to bloody knee: I can’t go on like this. Stop. Breathe. Listen. Screeching tires, busy doors and voices of people pushing sloppy conversations through forked tongues: over it all the piccolos cry, there it is: there it is: one tree in a field of asphalt has the power to pull angels from the sky. Its 10 am, I slowly release the heartbeat that rocked me from the safety of sleep; I undress my armor of emotional impermeability and learn that I am none of the things I call myself. Ready. Set. Go.

Dear Journey,

Confession:

I think maybe I tried too hard to be a hero around this. I dressed in an armor of emotional impermeability one night in the distant past and I neglected to change suits. Today I sat in the sun; I felt small. I miss feeling small. It felt nice. I surrendered the energies to which I have been so attached, the ones inspired by you, ignited by this spontaneous connection-

I write this as the thought of you reading these words makes me feel vulnerable- it is from this source of uncertainty that I trust you, dear Goddess, to provide nourishment for my spirit; music has been a fine dose of encouragement, colors return to grace the buds in beauty’s arms with pink-pointed kisses.

Or maybe its that I hold weakness in the back of my throat and it is now creeping upwards, shorting neural connections and breeding odd ones instead- I don’t know anything, but that this is not an end is something of which I am sure, though it has presented itself as one for some time now. And so I grant it the respect it deserves and I bury it while reading these words; otherwise I might turn my back to catch something shiny and new while this precious gem reluctantly floats out to sea…

Love,

Rasham Writes

Letter From Anonymous:

“When I met your friend at (location not mentioned to protect identity of actual characters), he lightly patted me on the shoulder. Who does that? I almost laughed, I almost let my tongue free. It was insulting, and let me know that he is probably rich, definitely condescending, probably has a superiority complex, and is insecure. I noticed when you and I took a picture, you also were leaning on my shoulder. I thought to myself, do these folks go around feeling a little superior? Just food for thought ”.

Thanks for the food! Here’s the thought:

Every person you encounter is an amazing resource for something, and the instance you form a judgment, you have blocked the lesson; you have disrupted the flow. It takes more work to restore the flow than it does to disallow judgments.

Judgments are our way of making sense of things so we may understand them better. So often we form judgments, devaluing our experiences by valuing what we consider the validity of our observant and critical minds; we interpret and define, label and assess, dissect and pick apart; all so that we may form an idea of an experience or thing in the language of our thoughts and context of our personal histories. To this idea we become attached, perhaps for many reasons, though mostly because it feels good when the world fits our pre-established judgments of it; our learned, acquired, and adopted preconceptions that contribute to form what we call our reality. Our reality is not to be confused with reality; indeed, our reality means our interpretation of what is, but reality implies ‘what is’, and what ‘what is’ is pure being; it exists independently of our assessment of it, and is free standing and infinite. We come into the world and inhabit a tiny space for a small amount of time, and we are allowed the mental capacity to experience it with our senses and form ideas and thoughts, and figure stuff out, and communicate about how we lived it. That’s great, but it is not reality.

When we form judgments we take away from the thing being experienced; we pull it from its inherent reality (its pure being) and make it a form in our minds; it becomes like a test subject on the operating table of our imaginations, and we take from it and add to it until it resembles little of what it actually is because it is no longer real and it is no longer itself as it bears characteristics of our own personalities while missing aspects of its original form.

We now control it as we strive to control everything; through judgments we discover we can control everything because everything becomes something to which we can attach in some way or another.

It feels good when the world fits our pre-formed judgments of it; otherwise we experience FEAR. From fear is born the binding power of our own minds: from fear is born judgments. The unknown, the unfamiliar, the unsettling, the new; these types of experiences give rise to fear;fear sparks the desire to understand; desire to understand stimulates the process of forming judgment; judgment forms opinion; opinion becomes action and action leads us either to regret or embellish; either way, to act on a judgment is to act selfishly, trusting in the mind and allowing it the power to guide us in isolation from the guiding force of truth, actuality, and pure being. Selfish is to trust the mind and its judgments, to wander through life an ego on a spine, walking and talking and forming relationships as one sees fit; judging, therefore resenting, elaborating, denying, repulsing, blindly influencing and ignorantly interacting as though the head is impervious to all and all else is impervious to it.

This is not the case; a friend described people as having tentacles, and every word, action, interaction, smile, and look that manifests within us extends to affect others like the tentacles of an octopus extends through space, influencing the flow of the surrounding environment with only mild intention: we control the birth of the action or word, that is, we can decide to extend our tentacles, and we can direct it towards a desired result via intention by choosing how to deliver the word, action, interaction, or smile,  BUT how our tentacles are received is out of our control. Therefore, we mustn’t be careless with our tentacles; we must be impeccable with it. Never let loose a tentacle of judgment: from it can only be born more tentacles of judgment and more tentacles still until the original thing is so swallowed by tentacles it ceases to exist or has been sentenced to exist in a state of misery, or it passes us by like dissolved possibilities for great friendship, opportunities, adventure or service.

Tentacles are our connection to each other and our world: why spend them freely and carelessly? To feel safe from fear is the desired state: but when the bearer of thought is open to the truth of impermanence it seems that security is nothing but an adjective used to describe the way life sometimes is, sometimes isn’t. That’s all everything is really. It sometimes is this, and it sometimes isn’t. These are not judgments; they are affirmations of acceptance of the nature of life’s flow.

It doesn’t bother me when people share judgments, I simply don’t reply: when someone shares a judgment they have actually invited you to become impressed by their words whereby they expect some reaction: even when there is no reaction they interpret lack of action as reaction. If I choose to play, I can either defend myself against the judgment or partner with it, forming a judgment of the judgment either way, committing to a conversation bound for nothing but failure, amounting to little more than wasted time.

In order to maintain a peaceful presence, to engage humanity on a higher plane I smile at judgments and seek to offer these words as a reply, skipping gracefully over the sloppily strewn tentacles: ‘is that so’?

I hope people get it; with judgments, you move nowhere, you get nothing and your tentacles become so rotted that no other tentacles born from healthy beings are willing to unite; you will be alone with your tentacles in the company of other rotted tentacles. While all the life of the sea is available in limitless potentials those rotting tentacles will forever isolate you from the rest so long as judgments are allowed to maintain you, the bearer of precious consciousness.

BUT, with openness and a willingness to see beyond what you think is, or perceive as, or assume to be; to recognize the power of your tentacles and to accept that the ways in which we all collide in thought and action are inevitable and constant, though changing and with variance, you can have EVERYTHING.

Energy is precious, life is priceless, and though love is infinite our bodies are not: I choose to engage people in conversations of betterment and progress: undress the mind, simplify, and practice practice practice laying those tentacles with pure intention and grace. “Watch as the whole world becomes you friend”, is what was said to me. It truly has. It can be for you too.

So!

Dear Anonymous,

I will neither embrace your judgment nor deny it; it is neither right nor wrong; it merely has no place. If we were face-to-face, I would have swallowed my pride (as I am a beginner in studying the art of ‘being human’), and replied, ‘is that so’?  And, despite the context of your message and message of the subsequent discussion, I love you, anonymous you who has lit my fire and allowed me hours of pleasurable writing. I love all of you. You see: Love is not limited, it certainly is not founded in judgment: to say I can not love this thing because I am already in love with this thing is a gross misunderstanding of love. Love is not mine to decide the quantity, it is not born in me and requires no rules of distribution to be felt and experienced. Love is not to be rationed or controlled or denied or accepted. Love is. I am love. I don’t need love. I don’t want love. I have nothing to do with love. Love is greater than me. I am small, but I am loved, whether I exist or not.

Namaste,

Rasham Writes

The old man was sixty-five, barely energetic and hardly capable of a laugh. He had worked his entire life at a job he only slightly enjoyed and beyond this fact of him I knew little, except that he was well respected by his peers and community. They didn’t see him through the looking glass as I did now and had for many years. As I watched the grumpy old man pout in his night gown I had only a desire to reach him: in my mind this happened as sort of a horrific ordeal where nothing made a sound and he was crippled so that I could hold his wrinkling face firmly between my trembling hands. I would have him focused and ready to listen to me when I said all those things you want to say to an abusive, manipulative, ego driven power maniac. I wanted to extract the insanity from his glazed eyes and manifest his holy disposition into righteous fear. How else do you tell a man that he isn’t the most important person in the world?

He was still slicing tomatoes, still engaged in prayer, and I was still watching. Here before me was the conclusion of a regrettable tale about the poisonous potentials of an unhealthy marriage, though the life of this souring professional  still had time to reach an even more distasteful end. He was always obsessed with money and possession, he wanted, and earned, and loathed, and desired, and craved, and achieved: for what? A house with a swimming pool, surmountable debt and a handful of children with hearts full of hatred.

Here comes mother bear, timid and glued to the easy life the marriage afforded. Unwilling to leave the comfort of nice things made by nice companies which furnished her nice home, she too was beginning to succumb to the virus that was this old man, her pulse was fading; she was like a patient before a doctor who had exhausted all possibilities before considering a plan B, though both characters existed in her mind. I loved her so; to me she was as defenseless as a calico fantail in a sea of sharks, having been conditioned to life as the smallest organism in her unfortunate reality.

I was only mildly remorseful: the archaic beginnings of this husband and wife had its roots in religious tradition, whereby a woman is wed to a man purely on account of familial negotiation. They hated each other:  to one another they were nasty, brutish, and rude, and to outsiders they were unnecessarily miserable. Here they are now, twenty-six years of life in a cactus bowl and the old man is chanting a prayer and mother bear is prancing around as if she deserves his attention (and my pity).

I walked out of the scene and into the sun, and I thought of how sad it made me to love these two characters of life. It pained me to stay, it pained me to leave; I was caught in the sticky residue of an insect trap, only able to move my neck so that I could alter my visual perspective of this environment; the same image in a different piece of broken glass. He disliked me because I hadn’t achieved anything beyond mediocre. She disliked me because I failed to support her placid existence. It is true: I hadn’t achieved anything one would call ’success’, and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my condition for moral support of a life I viewed as a boring road to a catastrophic end, where the old man either shoots his old lady or dies alone with homicidal intentions.

I myself was born with an abundance of creative energy but it usually manifested in some useless form deemed irrelevant by my peers. It didn’t matter: in the shallow hold of my nervous hands was the idea of simplicity, an idea lost in the minds of some and refuted in the minds of others. All I really was trying to accomplish was survival, and how it happened was a phenomenon I left to be determined by the slow progression of time.

I was sitting under the maple tree when she walked out, perhaps to make sure I hadn’t gone far without my shoes, perhaps to make sure I hadn’t gone far without my brain.

“Come inside, dinner’s ready”, she said.

“No thanks, I’m not hungry,” I remarked. I hadn’t the appetite to feed after father had declared us all filthy fools. I watched her return to the house and felt my heart burn for this woman who still cooked meals for her grown children long after their appetite for homemade supper had faded.

I began walking up the street, then down the street, across the street, and onto another street which I crossed once more. I had a few dollars in my pocket and was interested to see what poison at the local mart I could cheaply afford. All around the sky had dulled to an ugly shade of rotten blue and the lanky lights from overhead revealed every imperfection on my face. The store appeared deserted, but as I approached, a man with a rough appearance emerged from within a cloud of smoke.

“Hello”, he said, and followed me from behind as I dragged my feet through the doors.

“Hi”, I said roughly; I had no desire to encourage conversation with a mini-mart manager.

I noticed an air of discomfort but did nothing, I said, “a pack of Marlboro lights,” and reached to pull the cash from my pocket when the presence of another man rattled my feigned sense of security. I could see him from the edge of my vision; I was attempting to both complete the transaction and monitor the sketchy intruder. I was handed my cigarettes and this caused a premature wave of calm, but as I awaited my change the sketchy intruder shifted and I spun around in defense only to catch the butt of his pistol. I heard the mini-mart manager laugh; I felt my mother’s ring around my finger followed by the relief of solid ground which felt as smooth as ice beneath my limp body. My last thought before the rush of colorful darkness was “maybe this will make them happy.” I felt my pants being tugged from around my waste and heard the door through which I had just passed close and welcomed death: I didn’t want to be around for my final moments on Earth for they were surely not worth living at the mercy of the mini-mart manager and the suspect behind.

“Ma’am? Your change…ma’am?”

I awoke from my nightmare and accepted the change. The intruder behind wasn’t interested in me at all save that he was growing impatient on account of my mental pause. I turned to face the door and walked into the night, drifting into a random hole of society, partially doomed to live in fear of an end such as the one I imagined in the presence of the mini-mart manager and the suspect behind, partially doomed to live in fear of an end such as the one which was the fate of the old man and his wife.

I fled the basement, then the ballroom of convenience store items and onto the sidewalk where I discovered myself sliding in a strangely romantic momentum into the arms of the city. I felt the filth of her skirt my ankles and imagined it was a kiss. Steam hissed from the narrow-toothed mouths in the trampled pavement and I imagined it was the nonsensical whispers of love. Instead of the symphony of taxi car horns I heard the harmonies of a French quartet and it filled my heart as I began to walk alongside the wildly enamored crowds, glancing upwards at the violet shadings which like a cape draped the backsides of her magnificent structures.

I relished, rambled, reacted like a puppy to his master’s touch. I was weak at the knees, kind of awkwardly smiling with a strange glimmer of satisfaction in the mirrors of my eyes. Like 400 years of history in 40 pages of words the whole world was in motion though my existence remained as a footnote in my own thoughtful assumptions of this city.

I remembered my life before in the tame valleys of the immature coastline, nestled within the breasts of the earth, quiet and obscured. I would see only the world through the skin of my television set which usually spoke of some wild occurrence, leading me to believe that the rest of the world was dying. Whole continents were vanishing from my vocabulary, I wasn’t so certain regarding the existence of other places. I thought the evil empires had swallowed the seven wonders in an explosive rage, that history was lost in fire and elsewhere lives were reduced to feather light grains of silver ash. I sometimes feared any proof of life in the distance beyond my bedroom window, I hated the taste of conflict and wished it all to manifest gently into the space between the moonlight and my skin. No voices, no noise, no worries, no harm.

I used to sway to the lullabies of the pacific breeze in pleasant solitude. Now I was humbled by the unexpected company of all the universe colliding in a single moment on a crooked sidewalk of New York City. I was falling in love with her, and couldn’t dream of returning to the desolate grounds of the wooded suburbs I called home. Life occupied a different capacity here, everything seemed to not only breath but to breathe deeply, energy absorbed, recycled and expelled at a rate only measurable by the comparative speed of shuffling feet and shifting lights. A seat with a view of the end of the world and how I could I go back to beginnings?

It was as though there was charge, a slow pull which could not be challenged, and I first surrendered myself to her in the sanctuary of a Catholic church with doors wide open, where I sat and wept in the presence of statues for whom in the language of pure sadness the tears of an entire city had been spilled, the tears of the great and the powerful in tragic instances of self realization and need.

Again she called to me as I skated along the water’s edge and took a moment to look in her direction and into an abandoned lot with many pillars set like pawns in a line of defense ahead of the weathered ticket booth. It wasn’t significant, no historical markers labeled this warehouse as worthy of pondering but it was fascinating nonetheless. Perhaps if I stood here a hundred years’ past it wouldn’t seem so barren and alone. Something happened here long ago, and in the songs of the pigeons at my feet I recognized the sweet melody of a carnival tune once performed by the clowns at the gatherings in this seaside courtyard. The life of this place hadn’t died; it had only diminished so that it could still be perceived in the imaginations of idealistic tourists searching for love in the ruins of a city.

I thought it was unfair that time had forbidden me the opportunity to see her irrepressibly alive, but I had long ago realized the absoluteness of my contemporary birth and subsequent modern survival. I thought that perhaps I had been here before in some other manifestation of myself, that perhaps I was so intensely attracted to this dilapidated scene because some memory fond surfaced in my core, and the city wasn’t inclined to allow me to pass without proper recognition of what could very well have been the place of some noteworthy event in a past life, like my first kiss or broken heart. I chuckled slightly under my breath and in a fog of silliness I airily pranced along, not a single expectation or destination in mind, on a first date with New York City.

I noticed him from the edge of my vision as he brought the cigarette to meet his toothless grin and sipped, exciting the ember glow which was the only sight about him that seemed to resemble life. I approached; he saw me and said, “Wow. Lets get married”, to which I allowed a half smile to garnish my expression though I walked past him without a break in pace. “You smiling though, right? Ahhhh…” said the toothless man from behind. I was amused, perhaps enchanted: I had never before been in receipt of a marriage proposal, and though it had been produced by a sewer bum as substantial as the dirt wedged between his bare toes he was in this moment the most valuable person in my life having caused me such delight, and I secretly accepted his offer as if it had been the entire state of New York on bended knee.

The air was spiced with fumes of seared flesh leaking from holes where chefs were busy with the orders of a ravenous city. My appetite began to flourish and so I turned abruptly to face the entrance of a café. I violated its boundaries by peeling aside the veil of beads and crossed over into a Mediterranean oasis. Oh the sounds were luring, the voice of a thousand winds to the beat of a hand drum and I was off my feet and onto the embroidered fabric of a pillow upon the floor.

The radiance of the candle in the middle of the mosaic countertop was masked by curls of fog from the snouts of intoxicated smokers: from bubbling fountains at the base of the huge glass pipe to the fire pit at its peak, sweet tobacco was inhaled through the mouth of the hose and released. My inhibitions too are clouded in a haze and I put the piece between my lips and filled my lungs with the scents of moist apple. I let it all go, every bit of anxiety and nervousness escapes, and I am afraid to feel my pulse because it is dangerously low. I am in the company of a beautiful woman from Spain whose lips are stained red from the wine in the gauntlet she is flirtatiously fondling with her fingers. Her long blond hair blankets the bare skin of her backside, and her moves are as seductive as the length of her dress: she has the savage attention of every male in the room. She stood up to dance and before my eyes she transformed into an Arabian gypsy; her body mimicked the sultry energy of the den and behaved as chaotically as the wisps of smoke.

I sunk like a ball in a glove, slipping towards the floor all the while nursing the argeela like a child at her mother’s tit. I recanted the validity of the knowledge I had thus far held timidly in my mind, and suddenly the course of my life seemed to have been at the mercy of a map reader’s mistake all along. A vivid premonition fabricated by the allure of the Spanish dancer showed me that indeed my life, however small, however useless, however mundane, was changing. The beautiful mirage of sequential encounters with New York City on this arbitrary day forewarned of a love so great it could only spawn glorious triumph, or worse; supreme devastation.

I thought of never returning home. I thought that I would stand center stage on a patch of stone in a city square and dramatically declare my intentions to abandon my origin and live like a renegade on the run from a past less desired. I thought I would forgive myself of all the remedial attempts at a praiseworthy life, and like the carcass of a shorebird being dragged out to sea, let myself go limp while she carried me into the abyss of her cosmopolitan junkyard.

I thought of never returning home, but in a small cubby of the world events were forming that would influence my life in ways I had yet to experience. Sitting somber on a craft bound for disaster I had only the look of a corpse bound for a muddy retreat, and I blankly stared at the couple who stood before me now as they always had: the old man chanting prayer, and mother bear prancing around as if she deserved his attention (and my pity).

-’Twenty Something: The Chronicles of Ham’

On a train going nowhere, I couldn’t have written it any other way…

A unique perspective demonstrating the beauty of uninhabited plots of familiar land, slow moving, which is a replica of pre-modern times, ravaged factories and abandoned settlements now painted with the colors of graffiti, the train moving in the direction of the wind across the water, sun sailing on the surface as eagles swim in the sky, past Benicia, state capitol once upon a time in the forgotten history of California, golden arches of grand allure in the backdrop of hillsides.

I am enamored with the sights of the bay from beyond the window of a breeze. Battleships with baffling capabilities sleeping side by side, shades of green light meadows with prickly plants which engulf pale gray ponds where cows sip beads of water and stand still as if studded in the canvas of the prairie land picture. Horses prance as if to dance to the rumbling of the passerby, folds in the earth are filled with furry foliage of forest fauna, I cannot resist the temptation to witness rays of soil ascending in perfectly planted rows in the valley of farming where fruits survive till September harvest. A kaleidoscope of agricultural artistry illustrated before the ever-changing window of the moving model. Spanish styled architecture of sun-burnt flavors and sun tanned skin toned walkways paved through pristine channels of a quiet settlement. A bunch of bike riders in bright yellows pedaling parallel to yellow speckled highways, and the high ways of captains containing crops in winged crafts. Suburban boxes painted in pastels and markets of outrageous artifacts, Wild West history on the faces of historic housing, the era of enchanting colonialism coloring the aura of this chapter in the trip.

Up and further still, cascading elevation of thousands of lengths where miners once had a multitude of money-making moments now faded in the momentary blackouts afforded by the barriers of concave funnels protecting the traveler from the treachery of snow and sleet. Skylar’s Colfax is crested in sands of fire and stone, a 6am cocktail isn’t such a bad treat, brick walls and balconies and daisies in the cracks of cemented sidewalks.
Pumpkin coated slopes and baby undergrowth, spiny pillars of deadwood peeking out from the shade of old man evergreens and secret cabins. Purple poppies and odd shaped conglomerates, dark spaces and drop-offs. Vertical striations in pale panoramic layouts, barbecued rock, jagged and unfriendly. Mirror glass tubs of rippling fresh water, cotton clouds blanketing the peaks of poignant pinnacles.

Although the candidates differed, the substance of the on-going dialogue remained the same: each interviewee spoke of themselves, of their strengths and favorable characteristics, of their experiences and history, while the receiver nodded in encouragement of the conversation. The energy permeating the space around the subjects was tense, as the contestants, in the uncomfortable silence that would befall the pair at the end of a brief, nervously awaited approval from their host. They feared rejection, humiliation, embarrassment, and this fear was present in the slight movements of their hands and legs, and the awkward inflections in the tones of their voices. They were selling themselves, placing themselves on the shelf marked ‘for sale’, elaborating on the benefits of that which they were offering.

We do it everyday, in every aspect of our lives. We sell ourselves as thin, fit, healthy, intelligent, witted, and funny. We buy what we value and pay for that from which we benefit.  It rules our civilized lives; we are constantly concerned with maintaining the well being of our bodies and our minds, decorating and educating ourselves so that we may one day be highly valued by our peers. We are conditioned by media and market, by economics and mainstream ideals to respond to the egoist impulse to strive and achieve, and we have fused the idea of happiness and success with knowledge and wealth, appraising those accomplished individuals for greater worth than those who have neither the brains nor the goods. A poorly valued individual is like an unattractive hooker: she struggles to survive in the business of life because she lacks that which makes her appealing to potential employers:  she may be disregarded, discounted, and placed in the half-off bin with other useless items and moral waste.

Although illegal in its most sexual application, the essence of prostitution is that upon which our modern day society is constructed, survived by the philosophy that if you have nothing to sell, you simply don’t get the job.