under these stars

amidst a week of goodbyes

including the planting
of Hopi Blue Corn

amidst the finest mist
of a gathering storm
of desert spring moisture


and my heart singing
with the sweet sadness

inspired by
the diverse and gentle affections
received upon departure

an unexpected visit
from an old and dear friend

a homemade greeting card
filled with reminders


the mind tosses up
unexpected images
to try and understand the present

my twenty-year high school reunion
was already nine years ago

when in reality
accurately perceived by my subjective experience

it really was only three or four years ago
six at most

wasn't it?

_______

themes like mortality occur often:

how can anyone avoid realizing
this blessed impermanence

permeating each day's
every action?


it stuns me with poignancy

for each moment
as every fellow traveler knows

is not to be missed

_______


I've had the good fortune

to be part of a couple productions
of summer theater under the stars

and so this moment is familiar:

set it up one more time
enjoy it all now that we've got it down

amidst a sudden rush to savor

this community of lovers and fools
the bonds and routines

which despite best efforts
have been taken all too for-granted

and wonder from where this silent tear arises

newport avenue

i took the pricey place

couldn't see stumbling past open bedroom doors with momma and pop and grandma trying to sleep through their miniature greyhounds barking at me at midnight

the prison cell of a rental was painful to have even imagined

and i was running out of time

it set up a great growth experience, riding the wave of my own jackally doubt and some weird new age shame that there wasn't some universal flow i should have been in perfect harmony with to find the perfectionist's dream home

all of which dissipated like morning fog after making the decision

leaving me suddenly recognizing people again
smiling at dog walkers

and gleefully
immersing myself without a wetsuit
in the 59 degree

pacific

_______________

it was good to make a decision

even if I won't be able to put up all the drifter friends I am making

they are the most interesting folks around here, and while they have a niche in OB beyond most places, the trend seems the same as anywhere

and since the just-don't-steal-the-tv-like-our-last-roommate 420 house didn't invite me to join them

i'm taking the conventional n/s
n/d behind-the-house studio

which is better since i'm around the kids so much these days anyway

_____________

but it sure is weird
then heading down to the street scene
amidst the bars and head shops

wondering which of my personas
is the main one and which
are subpersonalities needing to be kept under wraps

playing mando with street buskers

including a banjo playing sweetheart travelling through
reminding me i can still feel stuff no matter how unreal

after going out for ice cream with my straight laced bro-in-law and the kids

after agreeing to the pricey place

and watching it all co-occur
on the same

street

waves

amidst a couple rough first days of post-driving fatigue, along with internal pressure to make it all happen, especially finding a place immediately, i noticed a subtle fear or perhaps despair descending on me, especially in my relative sense of disconnection with the ocean and kids

it was the uh oh is this all a big mistake? moment, coming as my subconscious realized this was the last moment i could still turn around and undo this moving plan with minimal karma, a moment that i have in the past had difficulty with due to overwhelming additional factors of minimal and dwindling funds

this time i rode the wave, supported by receiving a couple friendly emails, a cup of yerba mate, and the remembrance to release into the hands of Benevolent Universe, with a prayer that it all serve the greatest good

and sitting on the perch i seem to have claimed, the left-most of four outdoor stools at the local cafe overlooking the beach and scene, a couple folks i'd met the night before with my mandolin strapped over my shoulder came by to discuss paradigm shifting and a shared perception of the need to empathize with cops, so that they have the option of joining the coming global picnic too

and looking at the water, i remembered eros, the whole point of this--the call to adventure, to embrace something new--and i realized what i had been missing about the water: the desire to go in, the stimulus of the potential for immersion, be it real or fantasy, which brings forth the horses to carry us to our places of responsiveness in the world

so with at least my legs in the 59 degree water, i felt the indescribable wonder of being amidst the swirling patterns of moving cold foamy wetness

and i say: life is for Beauty, sure the wonderful physical stimuli of youthful curves and vigor, yet which are but a glimpse into the true eros of this life, the ever-renewing word-defying dance-with-otherness, naturally available if we but manage the processes of our maturing with some grace and humility, along with some boldness and tenacity, so as to remember to love all of this

Life

mostly about the kids

a part of me is watching
and wondering
is this really happening?

while i may go out dancing tonight
or just blog at length

and listen to the peatbog fairies
music a friend gave me
and was finally heard

what i really am doing

is moving

______

a little work on the car done
tithing the good ride fairies

new captain contacted
with at least three days a week
work offered

which means with call-ins I can get
4-5 days a week

my choice
how perfect is that?

hang out on the beach
and play more music
when the personal economy is good

pick up days when i need to
or just want the exercise

it's really what i was hoping for
in joining tjs a while back

relocate to cool places
and see what suits me best

the beach suits me

___________

wow

it's great to have savings
to venture into one's dreams with

too many rotted on the shelf
from some kind of poverty

and i tell you
the calling to nurture the kids
is huge

they are great kids
actually it would be more accurate to say
great people

who haven't so far
caught much of a break

in terms of finding adequate support
for their young lives

sad

and
i am going to make a difference
in their lives

_________

i realized today
again

what it means to be an uncle

it is a role that suits me
incredibly well

I can really drop all my jackals
around kids

they have had enough judgment
and harshness

to build all the character they need

i'm not sure they've ever had someone
move to their town

to come spend time with them

with the sole purpose
of offering the caring attention

they seek
to be happy, or at least happier

as they work on learning
the essential life skill
of loving themselves

and thus access an essential resourcefulness

as they journey
into the challenges
of their lives

____________

yeah there is pride in my voice

it's a celebration
of being in tune enough

to wake up immediately
upon realizing the opportunity
to contribute to others'

lives

and the mutual needs met
by offering young ones

the essential uncle-ing tasks

of mentorship into the world

learning to play ball
interacting with others respectfully
ordering tea at a cafe

fishing

guess i need to learn how to fish
now

____________

along with this
there is the calling
to be of tangible support as well

giving and contributing
economically to their dreams

even if it's a ten or a hundred
or a meal out here and there

they can get a sense maybe it's not
such a world of deprivation

it's like the two months
i will be hanging out with them

it can be seen as a short window

but for a family such as ours
a little is a lot

we are if nothing else

tenacious

_______

in other news
my hair which i think was buzzed
eight months or so ago

is already entering
ponytail territory

____________

i am jumpy
with a couple waves of near panic today

is this really happening?

i sure hope so

i'm packing half my stuff
tonight

and driving to san diego


tomorrow

warm night

wow first nice-enough-to-hang-outside
night of the season

and with a relatively late
seven a m start tomorrow
the luxury to savor it

air so still and pleasant and warmly cool
i decided to bike to edo for pizza

and so energized went for a run
through the hood
before going in to eat

then home uphill
with a belly full of pizza and beer

i so enjoyed the dark night of silver av
i continued on over to the u

seeing surprisingly few cars
a couple other bikes
a skateboarder

before finally heading home
to muse with cliff on the evening sky

vonnegut and vipassna
math and meteors
dogs with buddha

nature

hocus pocus

I wanted to keep my job. This was my home. When the time came I wanted to retire here and then be buried here. That was before it was clear glaciers were headed south again, and that anybody buried here, including the gang by the stable, along with Musket Mountain itself, would eventually wind up in Pennsylvania or West Virginia.
--from Hocus Pocus, 2001

i think vonnegut had it about right

not only the idea that humans are simply vehicles designed by trafalmadoran superbeings in order to give germs a supreme breeding ground so as to become immune to the challenges of asteroid-induced space travel

but also in his style of writing a paragraph or two of some basic idea before moving onto another, with their distinction being signified by a line

__________________

it may be that he and i shared a basic tendency toward schizophrenia, in which the boundaries of this and that are not as obvious to us as to conventionally media-induced consciousness, nor the boundaries of now and then

although he died finally in his eighties from a bump on the head, while i just pretend to have lived

he said as much of himself: that without writing he would not have been functional

me, well: i have milk to stock

__________________

the greater likelihood is that i share with him a common anarchistic trajectory

one that follows a great enough and long enough disruption of normality that there becomes no further meaning in any conventional prescription for life

for him clearly the meat locker beneath the ground in dresden in which he was imprisoned and therefore ultimately saved from the carpet bombing of the city by his own troops

for me maybe it was that kindergarten class where i sat frozen without interacting for six months or maybe the kototama or the holocaust or too much pot as a teen

or something else like the immense failure at most everything i've tried to do and everyone i've tried to love

or the mental wards themselves

_____________________

but what i mean to express is how grateful i am that there are so few illusions left, and i am all the more capable of happiness as a result

i know pre-fab monogamy is a bland choice amidst those offered by a universe marked by zen and eros, whereas more fitting at least for me might be

an empathy-rich-platonic-polyamory-with-other-options-to-be-consciously-and mutually-determined-on-a-case-by-case-basis

i also know jobs and homes and friends, no matter how seemingly permanent, come and go

and that the glaciers, or some such thing, will soon swallow up the whole of it

____________________

and that is why

at the end of civilization

when it would be sheer stupidity to move from community-centered mountain safety into the dregs of urban petroleum-based living in a coastal state about to go bankrupt

i have decided nevertheless to spend the forseeable future

on the shore of a beach
connecting to something yet alive in this world

learning to surf these waves