Squibble

There are no coincidences, and sometimes, that fucking sucks.

(I'm about 107% sure I'm going to delete this tomorrow....gin in the veins)

The following is a mish-mash of blatterings, squibbled down tonight during a freestyling need to ramble on, and on, and on my bed lie about 20 books. They are on top of my twisted, sweat soaked comforter, bedraggled and disarranged, as though they've been dumped here. One splayed open with sentences underlined, scribbled words in the margins, beside some of the scribble are exclamation points in groups of three. Beyond my bed are other signs of my current tilted affair. One, my portable heater is on, although the temperature outside does not excuse this. The heater has a remote with five buttons. I fuss with these options throughout all hours of my restless nights. I am writing this blog at 3 in the morning, this is probably the most straightforward flag I'm not right, which is actually all right, ask anyone who has been through the shit. I have nothing to more to say.

.............the previous statement is no longer true.

My mind is playing pinball with doodie, on course to setting the highest fucking score of all time. High wasted jeans confuse me. They have me doing algebra, when I just want to know if what I'm glimpsing is a nice tail. (This'll come back to haunt me, guaranteed, this will come back, this will be a conversation at some point.) I have nothing more to --- there are only two things in all this world I'm not good at; parking and drinking hot beverages. Take that to the fucking bank and redeem yourself exactly two pennies.

Come down here God! I'd like to have a word with you.

The truth seems to be all I know anymore, and the truth is, I blubber and wimp all over the place, all the time. I cry like I used to before I shelved my dreams and broke my own heart, a sucker punch society landed years ago when I was dealing with the unendurable. Look, I know the Universe is on my side, my life proves this, but society has me bobbing and weaving like a mofo. But let me tell you a story; I can bob and weave like a mofo. The End. I am the captain of unconventional living, and today I sounded the alarm, abandoned ship, and boarded my dinghy, appropriately named I'm currently paddling this crafty little fucker places my ship could never go, which is also exactly what I'm doing. This new journey shall be composed almost entirely of (and forget about my dinghy for a sec, numerous means of transport are at hand) turning the car around, walking down side streets, getting lost and just rolling with it, avoiding the interstate, taking the long route, two lane highways, two-stroke travel, dirt road travel, horseback, camelback, railway, buses with chickens, boats with strangers, canoes for one, canoes for two, risking getting stuck, rolling down the windows, blue highways, glass lakes, cafes and headphones, books and squibble, you know, places and things where you can truly hear what your inner voice is trying to say, which is the purpose of all this anyway. I'm looking to high-jack the world's biggest megaphone, and surgically attach it to the man deep within my soul that's trying to be heard. Then, and only then, when I once again land myself all back up in the mix, will I be able to confidently steer I'm currently paddling this crafty little fucker places my ship could never go exactly where I want the crafty little skiff to go.

Life is art for me, and until recently I didn't realize I have lived my entire life by that philosophy. My imagination builds new versions of me everyday, which is how I constantly arrive at all the new places I want to be, and beautifully, I almost never know where the hell that is. Doesn't matter. What matters is how much love I manage to feel along the way. Love is how we change as people, and as A people, and how we help change others. Hearts! They are capable of miraculous things. I have seen it. I have performed miracles in my life because my heart was so determined. I have loved the unlovable, fought unfathomable fears I have never shared, destroyed the odds, obliterated insecurities, stood above the impossible, survived unmiracles, and all the while my 142 pound heart, beat after beat after beat, surging encouragement and heroically lifting me beyond doubt and fear. I look around at everything I know, all of it, and realize it is all heart. Good or bad, this is all we have, it is everything, it is the only way to keep yourself alive, but you have to be brave enough to listen. Our duty as citizens of humanity, of the Universe, is to continue to imagine and imagine and imagine, and especially to imagine new love. To reinvent ourselves again and again and again, to change, to refine, to invent, to re-invent, to unlearn, to learn, to understand how our past versions contribute to our new, to let go, to reconcile, and just as importantly, to uphold the shoulders from our past of which we stand on, of those who had the courage to love this world in a way that helped us find our own way, because it is a cornerstone of them we have been given ourselves.

(earlier in the day, written in the now)...There is a waitress here where I am, here where I am everyday, I am at the counter, she's behind it, my face in my book, this is our routine, but something new has just occurred, a change in our routine has just occurred. She leaned over, a textbook way to get my attention, and said, "Here?," while rubbing her glossy, wet, coffee stained hands together. Confused I offered my left hand. She took it between hers and rubbed the wetness all over me, then, slowly, she pulled her hands away, "That's all," she said, smiling, she went back to work.
Ka-Fucking-Boom! Free lunch! Free lunch! (((((Free luuuuunch!))))

(Back to now - the middle of the night)...I was raised by no less than four hundred and twenty nine parents. My Grandmother was one of them. Yiya was five feet tall, dead white hair, wrap-around shades, floral print dress, Kleenex in one hand, fly swatter in the other, the talk of her fifteen home village, a threat to any person who dared challenge her, strict, happy, nurturing, brave and blind. Yiya - she was on my team. She went blind when I was ten. She knew it was coming. There were 74 years between us. So. She taught me about struggle, I taught her about Saddam Husein. She taught me about history, I reminded her of friendship. She coined me 'Little Saddam', because I ruled our house. "Little Saddam," she would say, "bring Yiya her eye drops." I liked to help her with things she couldn't do. On hot days I would pick figs from our tree, and we'd eat them together on our porch swing, the still sky moving above, me pretending to like figs to be like her, even though figs are gross...(no transition)...and her morning cough, silence too, and I would just lay there, through all of it, waking, like from a nap on a hammock at 5 AM. At some point I'd sleepwalk to the bathroom and pee. On my way back she would sometimes ask me to sit with her. We had a pair of blue velvet rocking chairs that swiveled, among other hideous things, and they were differentiated by Yiya's chair, which was the one parked aside the big 60's sliding glass door with bb gun holes and squeaky screen. This was where the full Nevada sun fell in from the East, above Sunrise Mountain, warm to the touch, an unwavering brilliant stream of crimson orange light into our living room, and it shone its truth through effortless magnitude, leaving the world just before dawn as it always is...complete. And I would sit with her. She smelled of Kleenex and wool coats, of 80 year old skin and Vaseline. I'd fall asleep in her lap, so heavy to be there, a child's unawareness, a feeling that only one word in all my vocabulary could even begin to capture what I truly felt; I was at peace. She would pet my wavy hair and just stare. She was remembering me, in the sunlight, for her days would soon be defined by light or dark, and her memory of what I looked like would be all that remained of her old eyes.

I am realizing at this moment I never once tried to remember my Grandmother. Her life was entirely left on me without my even knowing, a gift that can only come from the experience of a full life. She is my strength tonight in this time of pain. She believed in me, something of unparalleled importance in my life, and she believed in herself, which I learn to do more and more each day. She gave me all the essentials that make for an extraordinary person, and instilled in me a magnitude of love that has saved my life ten thousand times. But unforgettably, what I am remembering most right now about my Grandmother, is that she taught me about the unfathomable strength, in women. She went blind without so much as a word, in fact, she grew stronger and stronger til the day she died. That is how I will always remember her. She was so alive.

This might not make any sense to you, but Ernest Hemingway once said, "The shortest answer is doing the thing." So here's the thing - this is the story of three friends, Jimmy, George and Francis...

Good night.