A traveling companion

.Thursday.

partially written on
a discarded gum wrapper, a bookstore receipt...and yeah, that's another bookstore receipt

I am going somewhere.
One of the odder aspects of traveling is that all the details become disturbingly real. Your eyes seem to grab hold of everything around, picking up data with the sense of immaculate detail of a bargain bin scanner. Clear – but sometimes, the edges blur. It makes you wonder where you really are. How you fit.

So I look. My prying eyes trying to pluck words out of the venerable air, grabbing sentences from any source that manages to grace me the path of my veiled brown eyes without the tender embrace of context to make any knowledge the slightest bit whole.

The cure for anything is salt water. Sweat, tears, or the sea.

“Your father was a bastard (section unseen) as swift
and sure

you only pick the best
Love,

They're all that I can hold onto, right now. My head feels heavy, my eyes lidded, pulling me down into a tired world. Even as the taste of burningly excessive caffeine still mingles with the tartness of aircraft cranberry juice on the back of my tongue, I feel myself start to drift; outside of me, things keep on keeping the fuck on. My compatriot and I are shushed by a curly haired dynamo, as she apparently took offense at our having the audacity to speak on the subject of dead dogs in the presence of a six year old boy that we couldn't see. I can see him, now. He's holding something. A book, one that supposedly teaches young minds with a one/two punch of words and colorful stickers.

It's about pirates.

He sits still like a hummingbird, as boys (and boyish men) are known to sometimes do. His mother shields him from the context of unpleasant truths that are going on in the world, as she concurrently denies him the context of the murderous plunderers that he has chosen to idolize. No history, no knowledge of Edward Teach carving men into paste as he sailed wild across watery expanses in Queen Anne's Revenge. No fresh context for the world. It just seems a wee bit sad, that's all.
That's all.

The sky roars on outside, letting horrifying images of dried-out hillsides that somehow manage to terminate into epic towers of smoke drift right on by, while the sound of our velocity through the thinness of the upward air makes it difficult to speak. To connect, in any cheerful manner. I want to reach out, to touch...to stretch out my shivering legs. Yet it cannot be done, not yet. For better or worse, the free range words are all. They might do, for now.


.Friday.

partially written on
a previously forgotten piece of work-related notation, a receipt for a box of jasmine green tea, and an old note that was to remind me that I was in dire need of a haircut

Yet again, yet again, I find myself happily getting lost on darkened streets.

Now: It's around 1:17 in the illustrious AM. My friend and I are seated in a curiously warm 24 hour eating-type-joint, where alongside me a boisterous trucker is getting over his drunk by jawing with the staff about the quality of the food. He wants me to try the Chicken Parmesan.

Before: We were out there. Striding carefully like a pair of spectral wisps, afraid to disturb the quiet stillness of the night. It's out there, all around us. Descending from on high like a fluid pressure that does little more than sweep through the streets, completely covering all things. Making it denser. Pressing down. In fact, I might as well say it – in this town, the level of quiet is quite nearly disquieting.

Even for me, even for I, even for the sort of person that I am. The sort of person who has built a sense of personal peace on turns of phrase that are echoed out across the space of empty lanes, orange city lights buzzing down with nothing if not approval. But this...nothing is out here, nothing more than the sudden explosive flash of headlights from down the road; nothing more than towering cranes, swaying lightly against a death-black sky. Nothing but street lamps that suddenly die as we try to walk beneath the oasis of their glow. Not even a flicker. Just gone.

It happened twice.

Now, again: Coffee hot, lights warm. Flames erupting on the other side of the counter, causing a somewhat snarky waiter to announce “Fire!” in a crowded restaurant, yet not in any way that would incite a stampede of people suddenly trying to claw through the solid walls to the get to the quiet air outside, shoving each other out of the way, looking to crush faces into the backs of heads if only to save their own sorry skins. No, it merely flares up, casting temporary illumination upon our faces. This place might be a little bit fantastic.

Let the morning come.

-&-
Holy fuck! they have some amazing water pressure in this joint.
-&-

Out of the door, down the elevator, out of the building, down the street; it didn't take long, not at all. We're pacing along with a torrential downpour of other sorts of folks, making our winding way through an epic room. Elsewhere, across it all, I can hear the sound of this places favored ultra-caffeinated Guarana beverage being tossed away, the glass bottles sending hollow echoes towards our ears. The sound of it makes us shudder, the first time. Echoes that move like ripples that have forced their way across a stream.

It 's a quick move across the space, all things considered. Passing by ropes, stretched out to serve as guiding arms; passing by gleaming windows, tall like pillars; passing by an old man named Stacy, who looks over us disapprovingly as we chat about things that us whippersnappers tend to talk about; passing by people. So many people.

Places like this always make me feel kind of strange.
I can watch colors bleed out at me from every corner, attached to a host of people that carry with them various tastes, stories and smells. I can watch the things that they do, the games that they play. I can play the games myself. And I do. It's fun, discovering cell-shaded bits where I can construct people with devastating facial hair, and playing dynamic shooters that make it obvious that the developers really have a big wanger for Michael Mann. This place isn't quiet.

In the midst of everything else, I'm sitting back, watching a pair of people connect. Not in any fanciful, sweeping romantic gesture kind of a way – they're just sitting together. A girl and a fella, perched together on the thin bench that finds its place in front of a polished black piano. It gleams. It reflects their faces, as he sits there and teaches her how to play. Neither face is, neither face is smiling. But it seems right, whatever it might be.

He takes his leave and she sits there, alone, feeling out Zelda themes with the tips of her fingers. I ask her to play a specific song, the one that represents the only horse that I ever gave a damn about, never mind that it was never real. I sit beside her and listen to the surprisingly powerful trill of her voice as she tries to pull the song out of her memory. I sit beside her and watch the movement of her fingers as they stride carefully across the ivory. It doesn't mean much of anything, the song or our idle chatter. Yet it seems right, whatever it might be.

I also bought some T-shirts.
So that's nice.


.Saturday.

partially written on
a receipt for bulletproof chicken, some sort of prematurely faded slip from the Seattle airport, a stub from “Superbad,” and proof that I bought a muffin on 08/07/07

I am staring George Orwell in the eye.
He has a charming face, one that – despite the sunken lines of hard-won ideals and hard-thought ideas – still manages to look through layers of time: To affect me with his state of whimsy. It's a bit depressing, actually. Not any fault to the creator of ol' Winston Smith, of course. No, the feeling was there before I popped into this bookstore in search of....something, I dunno. But even in here, it's too bleeding loud.
And even right now, it occurs to me that I'm getting ahead of myself.
So then.

This morning, the world began beneath a gray sky. I proceeded to shower and failed to shave, and then stepped into the elevator, only to find myself dominating the middle of a pack of senior citizens. All of them staring, as if I were about to try and hungrily, viciously tear my way through the un-trodden path of their flesh. As appetizing an idea as that was, I instead turned to them and asked that faithful old question: “Why do you suppose that no one reads John Gardner anymore?”

Empty smiles, blank stares.
They didn’t remember him. These days, fewer and fewer do.
It wasn’t long after that, that I was sitting on a cold, hard floor, reading about the frost. That same room, the room of high ceilings and clinking glass. It was a somewhat troublesome place to be. On that cold floor, alone.

There were others there, of course; the world of the winding line that stretches farther than the coasts is nothing new, certainly not to me. There were people on my left, throwing down the blue sparks on the handhelds in their hands (obviously), while the people on my right were chatting in hushed, excited tones about the prospect of the music that was to come, occasionally letting loose an echo of a laugh. And behind me? In the part of the line that had curved its way around, the nature of the thing creating a place beyond my little spot? They were playing Family Feud. It was on a VAIO, one that had clearly seen a season or two.

I said nothing, to no one.
This was somewhat out of character. My old habit in lines like this, in situations like this, is the somewhat dubious procedure (that is to say: Yes, I realize that this is fucked up) of moving through lines like this with the simple act of conversation. I would walk forward a bit, drawn to some sort of something on a someone’s somewhatsamawhozit, and through the act of speaking about it, and then other things, blend into that portion of the line. And then again. And again. And so on.

Rather prickish, you might say. I’d agree, too. But I’d probably still do it. But this time, it wasn’t being done. I just sat there. On that cold, hard floor. Waiting for something to happen.

Whatever did happen on the in-between, my friend and I made it through the day. We listened to a charmingly adorable French-Canadian man talk about historical accuracy in regards to murderous crusaders in the streets of Ancient Jerusalem, and then watched him endear himself to us by way of offhand comments directed toward his creation. We watched something that we’d forgotten about, that still had the ability to make us laugh. We rested our backs against cold, hard concrete. It was the most comfortable concrete that we’d ever experienced.

Whatever happened, we ended up here. In this place, sitting silently as we stare at the opened bottles of Black Cherry soda that are rested right before our eyes. George Orwell looking over us, wondering what to make of this pair of sour blokes. With all of this going on around us, we -- the pair of us, yes -- still feel a stretch away. Looking for something to connect with, so that it might bring us toward the noise, meld us into its psychotic rhythm in a way that makes the pounding in our heads vanish into the depths of the ether. It reminds me of the other night.

Back when we had set ourselves adrift on the streets, waiting to collide with something, anything within the night that fell thick around us like a fog. No one out, few things awake. We wandered into the nearest light source beside us, a sex shoppe/adult bookstore. The door was open.

We talked, a bit. We had a small chat with the lovely tattooed lady behind the counter, who greeted us with a pleasant smile and shared our view on the state of people floating across the streets. No one to see, out there in the cold. No one to go to, to strangely revel in the act of being alone. It was a pleasant diversion, I can say that for sure.

No such luck, right now. Back here with Orwell, back in the world where the normally quiet confines of a bookstore manages to somehow be loud enough to grate at my damnable ears. So with that in mind, the only true solution? Make it fucking louder.

“If it’s too loud, you’re too old.”
A hero of mine once said that, in the middle of one of his well-trodden talks. We shall see, denizens of the intratubes. We shall see. After all -- I’m a young man, yet.

-&-
We saw.



.Sunday.

partially written on
the receipt from a Pizza Hut where I once saw the truly horrifying attempt of a customer trying to hit on the girl behind the counter

Well, here I am. There’s a window in front of me. Looking through it, I can watch the leaves on a paltry sidewalk-tree shiver against a slight wind. I can watch the people similarly planted outside the glass, whose conversation I cannot summarize, seeing as I never bothered learning to read lips.
Other things.

There go the people, walking on by. Making their casual strides as a tallish gent sits in a franchise that he’s actually none too fond of, but, well….they have chairs. Old habits, I suppose.

I

it’s a place

that

face

pancakes

Sgt. Pepper

across the path
b
y
t
h
e
park

REEL MISSING

















all ate the knuckle-grease pizza, as Blue Planet made colorful observations about marvelous things in the world behind us. Within it, all things seemed to glow.

It was a time, to be sure.


.Monday.

partially written on
something far too faded to make out. But something was there, once.

Outside, the expanse of the sea is a vision of blue.
The blue is so deep that it hurts.
The vast, unchanging uniformity of it.
The sea is best when it’s caught in a storm.
No storms here.
Not for me, anyway.
I have yet to feel Seattle rain.
And I have wanted to.
Honest and true, I wanted to.
It seems that the more I miss it, the less likely it becomes.
Another getting lost in the vast uniformity of time gone by.

It makes me think of the woman sitting beside me, her small hands creased and freckled with age. When we took off, her hand was resting on her throat, as if it were holding back her breath. Her eyes were still like stone. She’d seen it all before. She probably will again. But it makes you wonder: What did she see, the first time her eyes looked out over that stretch of narrow runway, while the Earth roared by outside? What did she feel, when she first looked down to see the frightening blue of the sea?

I cannot keep from questioning the history of weathered hands. I can look over at them, at her. She’s reading something. The pages are set aglow in the arches of light.

was sich seinem Blick

It’s all I can manage to see. It’s not much that I can comprehend. After all: It’s not my life.
Mine is not hers, and mine is not the places that I have been. We move around through hosts of places, gathering things that we tuck away at the back of our minds, so that we might find some use for them in the future that we wish to face. They can give perspective, that much is certain. But the places don’t always make us. We do that ourselves.

And we are, for the moment, home.

A feeling.

I had to.
I had to do it, that very night.
I had to do it, that very night -- I had to wander around that town, out in the night, out in the cold. Stopping and scribbling and hastily scrawling on white sheets of notebook paper, my fingers trying to outrun the cold that was grabbing them by their roots.

When I felt like I might stop, I moved.
Started again.

It happened a few times, more times than I can even be bothered to recall. And so, I do not bother. I focus more on the other things: On the frigidness of the air; on the light borrowed from unattended windowsills, creeping up to them as if I were tackily stealing a cooling pie. I focus on that which I had to do.

It got done. It really did. I felt something inside me that had been crashing around my subconscious for far longer than it ever should have; crying with a sound like the hollow echo of an incarcerated man, running his tin cup over the bars of his frigid cell. Keeping it trapped nearly ruined me. So I, I, I set it free. I had to.

It was in that action, that I remembered.
Everything.

I remembered who I was, in the words that clawed their way from me as if they had some manner of demonic compulsion. I gave those words everything, shoving my whole body into that unassuming collection of seven pages, the pages that were wrinkled and cold after the song of the night.
But still -- they shone.

Brightly.

Days like that are a wonder.

I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility to say that sometimes, every once in a collection of whiles, we all have our days like that. Days of being wild, days of living in a way that doesn’t exactly burn a hole through the Earth, but still -- you know. Days that mean more, because they’ve done something. To your life. To your thoughts. To you.

One of those days might have occurred. Now.
Here, in this place. It might have occurred. It’s hard to know for sure, without the clarifying passes of time gone by to truly let me know. But right now, I’m in this scratchy chair, with John Danielle and his Goats of the Mountain crackling out of tiny laptop speakers; right now, I can feel it. I can feel wonder. The wonder of the day.

And for whatever reason, despite the way that things tend to happen, despite the way that people usually feel…the day appears to have continued, to have gone on. And on.
I wonder if I can feel?

I can.
I have to.
I have to, because, because…
Because something might be happening.

Something is happening.
To fuckery with all of the times before, when I didn’t know what was going on within myself, with all the times where the world seemed clear but was really lying through yellowed teeth; to hell with the lines that past experiences have drawn in the sand.
It rained, today. I laughed, today.
Something is happening.
It has to be.

I can feel it. I can feel the same twinges that happened within me that very afternoon, when I knew that I would have to stop my life in the evening, if only so I could find something new in the world of graphite and wood pulp. That day, I knew. I knew with such madness, that I could drive myself towards being the kind of man that I am today. Before then, I’d wanted it. That day?

I felt closer to it than I ever had before.
From the heart of that wonder, I found something in me. Something that I liked. Something that in a way, is alive, even though it’s invisible to the naked eye. Something that meant a change. Something that still means the world.

Yes.

There is wonder, here. And if you see wonder, wonder that you can hold with your hands and hear with your ears, wonder that crackles like a fireplace in a winter household…then you might not be able to do anything but let it warm you. When you feel like you might stop, you move. Let it start you again. Whether it be noon, night, or morning.
It’s beautiful to be in morning.

That’s where we are. We’re in a day that feels like morning, sun barely peeking over the edge of the horizon, clouds across the sky suddenly shimmering gold. You can look at many things, so many things in life. You can make a lot of choices. You can see a lot of things occurring everywhere. But when you see this this, you cannot deny it. It’s shining.

Brightly.

There’s a life to be lived here. Whatever that means, whatever that brings. Whatever the future holds. Something right now is happening, and that cannot be cast aside. It’s a beautiful thing.

A bolt of lightning strikes my heart, and I shiver as it leaves me cold.
But still -- I’m warm.

A simple exercise.

Here we be. Here I am. And now, there might be something that can be done. Something that I could say or do. Something that I could think. Just talk. Don’t think, not this time. That’s all you need, just to start with a beginning, letting your feet get just a little, just a little, just a little damp. Just enough to know where you are. Give you a solid ground of liquid, a fair bit of, “My feet are wet.” Just enough to put you someplace where you know you have someplace to go. So. Here you are, you brainless git. So talk. Talk to someone. Or with someone. Or perhaps, even about someone.

Anyone.

There’s a girl, one who just walked into this place, shirt slipped off the surface of her shoulder, giving the quiet establishment a fair glimpse of her fair skin. Probably caring about the 80’s style implied by her dress, but not talking, not looking at anything other than the pale yellow of her cup of tea. The light of the world is shining on it, that cup. It glows with the certainty of a new day. It’s lovely.

She’s alone.

There’s a man, hair tousled either by design or by long nights where sleep had become nothing but a distant memory. His lips move, a reaction, oblivious to anything other than the words that emerge from the face of his tiny laptop, neither knowing nor caring that he telegraphs his words to the outside world. He might be watching. He might be typing. He might be reading. Whatever it is, it’s clear to all that the man wishes to think. It’s a noble endeavor if there ever was one. With that, I wish him the best.

He’s concentrating.

There’s a woman, jaw working with the undulations associated with chewing a piece of gum. It’s a free sample, one that came attached to the label upon her coffee sleeve, one that she probably didn’t realize would make her mouth move up and down and around, a person with her cud. She should learn to chew with her mouth closed, some might say. I’d be among them. But she won’t stop. And she won’t notice, even if she’s told.

She’s reading.

There’s a man, one who walks with the small-paced swagger that reminiscent of fathers and grandfathers, men that you grow up with. Men that sometimes, you wish will pass you by. His graying beard and cheery smile seem out of place. He looks like someone you would see walking down the street in the midday son, whistling some bygone tune, not thinking about buying tea in a coffee-joint primarily frequented by pretentious fucks. Myself included.

He’s gone.

There’s a cashier, hands making noises that sound like porcelain, moving in places that the eye can’t manage to see. Working quickly and efficiently, not quite having reached the point where the day since passed hangs from the neck like a weight, every movement redefining “sluggish.” But still, she looks out the window with an interest that recalls freedom, even as she smiles at all those who sit within the world that is currently her realm. The smile might be genuine. It might just be another lie.

She’s energetic.

There’s a new man, one who looks over the ridge of his thin, metallic frames, giving the people among him a glare that suggests a bored sense of superiority. He has work to do. At the very least, that’s what he thinks, as he prepares his laptop for his business with a languid pace, practically sneering at anyone who chooses to look his way. His hair is short, his clothes are neat.

He’s a prick.

There’s a woman, with a man. They sit close together, their backs facing this pair of prying eyes, not giving a face to the lack of a name. But they’re close. His hand placed against her right shoulder, massaging it with firm circles, her neck moving slightly in accordance with his efforts. They move in sync, action with its reactions, the pair of them keyed by the same glow that affected that cup of tea. And when her head turns, I can finally see her face.

She’s happy.

And then, there is a man. Or not. He’s male, that much is certain. But he moves with steps not easy enough for his height, jerky movements that telegraph nerves and disunity with the world at large. He might be a boy. He might be. He might be an adult on paper, but his face looks onward at this place as if it doesn’t have a clue, glancing from person to person without knowing who anyone is, as if he were trying to accomplish something. He wants to be a man. Maybe. Maybe he’s just waiting. Waiting by passing the time, letting this space waste the day, letting his movements waste him away. And that might well be true. But he might also be waiting for something else. Inspiration? Life? Love? Dreams? Existence? Nothing. Knowing nothing. He’s hoping for so much. For everything, even.

He’s…well, I imagine you can guess.

A(cceptance).

There is a way to move. There is a way to move with a sense similar to oil of vitriol, burning the way through lesser substances, finding a path by making a path. There is a way to move through life whilst living it, surging forward with an intensity that easily lends itself to an all-too-simplistic Freudian reference that is far more entertaining to brazenly laugh at instead of sheepishly standing aside, digging ugly patterns in the dirt with the sole of a shoe. There is a way to move with eyes that manage to see as much as they can, not nearly everything, no; but as much as is needed, as much as could ever really be known. There is a way to move with songs of blood vessels overtaking the sounds of silence, forcing you to concentrate on the road ahead, lest you take a wrong turn and end up right back where you started, sitting on your ass in the middle of Goat-Fuck Nowhere.

I never knew how to move on.

It was a problem. It still is.
A problem because the world gives no allowances for those who wish that things could be a different way than they are, even when they should be. Not knowing who or what you are, not understanding where you belong or where you think you should belong. The world is a place of motion, spinning on its crooked axis along its elliptical orbit, expecting you to take things in stride or to simply be left behind.

I tend to dwell. I build things up before they begin, thinking my way into an impossible arena full of expectations, that can end with nothing but disappointment. Leaving me sitting there, staring at the lines on my hands, wondering where it was that I had brought myself to at that very moment. And more importantly: Wondering how. Sitting in a space that didn’t exist. Staring at blood that had never been, trying to relive mistakes that probably hadn’t even taken place. Thinking too much.

And there have been different things, so many things…so many touches that try to point in one direction, or another, or the other, or upways and downways, longways and…other places. Possibly in Denmark. I wouldn’t know, I’m not a masterful wizard of topography. Nor am I merely passable in the subject of mappings and movings, knowing for goings. Not knowing where to go.

And as always, not knowing how to begin.
This is the way it goes. With beginnings intended to be something that can be understood, something planned, something that can be looked upon with little/no imperfections of apprehension building up in the corner of smooth and milky eyes. Intended for greatness, purely by design. And just as surely, intended never to be. This here, this very bit of personal immunization via text…it began as something else. Something It was something intended to be metaphorical and vivid, conjuring nascent images from the depths of Emerson’s Oversoul, something that we all would know, all would understand, even if we never quite knew why. It was supposed to take that which was true and that which was merely fabrication, placing one atop the other with clear boundaries that would still manage to let them seep into one another, granting understanding and meaning through the action of thoughtful mingling. Fiction layered atop fact. False and true. It was supposed to come from something that I wasn’t really a part of -- but still, something that I had seen -- something that mattered, if only in its own way. It was also supposed to talk about Godzilla.

It was intended to be special.
What it was, was morose and pretentious.

It didn’t belong. Not here, there, or anywhere. Not because the idea was entirely poor, not because the situation was one that couldn’t be properly be elaborated upon, and most certainly not because I didn’t bother to care. It belonged in the world. It just didn’t belong with me.

Because I wasn’t a part of the beginning.
It wasn’t mine. I couldn’t step into that moment. Couldn’t bear to swoop in like the grandest of fools, imposing my hijacks upon what I thought would once again be a true duprass. It was too new, too real, too meaningful in the skin of those to which it truly belonged. It was still theirs. Because I hadn’t taken the time to let it become my own. I hadn’t allowed it to cure, growing more and more of my own insights (and possible misunderstandings) like a fragrant rind, only ready for consumption after countless seasons had run their course. I couldn’t truly begin, because I didn’t give it time to move. With me.

There is a way to move, to get you where you need to go. But you never know the way.

Never. Never know how to push, only pulling, even when the sign is right there, a beacon of common sense telling you what must be done. But you never know that way. Never can read, never can see. Never know how to move.
Until the move has already begun.

All of a sudden eyes are cast downward, and the wheels of the grand ol’ wagon-train have already began a turnin’, drifting down a hill that nobody knew was there. And it is with that slightest inkling of an idea, that we are finally able to begin.

This is not intended to be a place of sadness. It wasn’t started with that in mind, and it’s rare that I sit down to make one of these bloody things happen with anything but interest (and the occasional blind panic as a result of self-imposed deadlines) on my mind.

But even with that being so, I’ve often been told that this makes people sad.
I’ve often been told that this place makes me seem sad.
From those who know me well, as well as those who honestly don’t know me at all.
This bothered me.

I wondered why. And in was in that moment, that instant of wondering, that I finally found a way to move. A way to move on.

There were people there. There are many arguments to be had about the state of a lonely society, and many arguments to be made for the affect of solitude upon thinking and moving and being. There are ways to be lonely that lead to ideas, and there are quiet mornings when nothing is better than waking up alone. Waking up and breathing in the air turned sweet by the cold, and suddenly feeling content with that space. That life.

But it isn’t always so. Because when life is lived with expectation inflated by imagination, all of those brisk mornings suddenly have a chance to take a turn towards the frigid. And within that space, it becomes hard to move on.

Unless there are those around who care to notice. Just enough, so that when they look and ask if you’re okay…that their simple action can make all the difference. Stop becomes Go. It isn’t the be all/end all. It isn’t a grand plan towards enlightenment, and it isn’t a call to lose your hope in a sea of solemn indifference. But with that said…it can be nice, sometimes. Living by the kindness of strangers, under the steady gaze of friends. Seeing the life that is already exists, looking at what it is instead of constantly dwelling upon what it could have been.

Seeing things there that matter.
I found myself driving on a quiet night. It was on the Universal Backlot, the general activities of the place greatly silenced by the hour, but still being more active than a common street at 3 AM. A place a business, where I was doing business. But as I was slowly proceeding through the labyrinth of stages and busses left silent for the night, I saw something that I hadn’t been expecting, and certainly hadn’t been hoping for. Deer.

Four of them. Calmly walking across the industrial pathways of that place of business, not caring about where they were or who might see them roam. Their unhurried gait made visible by the colors of the harsh orange lights, and the pale, pale glow of the moon. They paid me no mind, and we both went our separate ways. And even so, despite there being no true meaning in such a thing, as is often the case with the world around us -- their presence did something.

Even as the world is moving along, it will still take the time to move you.

I still don’t know where I’m going. I’m still going to sit still and stare outward, and still make things grander then they could ever have a hope of being. I don’t always take the time to consider ideas written by Camus, and pondered over by people who are far wiser than I will ever care about being.

But I’m where I am.
There is no sadness here.

Not today.

A moment of clarity?

It’s a common practice.

We take the things we see, the things we know, the things we do. The things we are. We take them, and we gather them together in a pocket of our mind, so that we may carry them around with us, day after day after day after day. Hoping that they’ll clack together and make a single spark, a spark that for one instant will give us enough light to make it clear.

I’m carrying something.

At first it was an image, something that I had picked up in a flash-frame of existence; a moment that my eyes saw as special, and my brain chose to remember. And despite my thoughts about it now, I can be certain of the reason that it was chosen to begin with. The image that I beheld, that moment, struck me as something to remember, something that I could look back toward in later years and say “Yes.”

It was something beautiful.
A face with soft features, lightly tinged with a rim of red light. Looking away.

It began as an image. Something beautiful to keep with me, just a nice thought to turn to on days when the sun burns down and the world feels like it’s preparing to boil over. It’s something different, now. Something different than it was initially meant to represent, all because of something else. Just another spark, and suddenly that moment -- that moment became clear.

Just what became clear? What sense did I reach, through the addition of sudden context? Somewhere that we haven’t quite reached. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

Apparently, I don’t smile very much.

People have said it of me. They’ve spoken of how my face doesn’t fit the cheery disposition of the collected conversation, of how the structure of my cheeks and the look in my eyes appears to telegraph sadness. I’ve never really noticed. But only recently, I decided to think about it. To think of a face. To make clear the notion that a face without a smile doesn’t always carry a frown. So what does it carry?

Why, nothing at all.

It’s our face. OUR FACE. Not the face that reacts, the face we wear in accordance with the context of situations. Not the face that serves to declare our perception of events, the one we bring to the roundtable discussion for the purpose of scowling when someone chooses to bring up the issue of creationism. Think about it. Think about how people see the things that your face says, how they think it makes you clear. They look at it, and they perceive. Perception shapes reality.

But that doesn’t make it real.

Look in the mirror, at your face that presents nothing. At the face you have when you’ve been quietly sitting in the dark, mulling over whichever possibility has darted out at you like a lizards tongue. At your shoulders, neither stiff nor slumped, simply there. At your malleable self. Is it clear what that will become?

Or is that what we are to begin with?
I think, I guess, I assume… it’s the real face. The one we have for ourselves.

The one that we keep when we’re locked in our own worlds.
The one that has no context, so that it cannot be easily understood; and for that reason, is the one that speaks with more clarity about what we want and who we are than any simple smile or frown. Something that takes work for any who wish to puzzle it out. Making sense of accumulated data, putting pictures on words and forming words into cogency. Finding clarity. But does clarity always mean quality? Is that what we need, just blocks lined up in a row, ready to be shot down by some hillybilly with a daisy air rifle and a "YEEHA!" welling in the depths of his throat?

It's just another thing I've been thinking about. Maybe it doesn't make sense, which brings us to the point, in some wackitudinal post-modern roundabout manner. Maybe it sounds good.

Maybe it doesn’t.

But whatever the concepts are, whether or not the reality of my perception isn’t real…the malleable self is there. And every so often, it comes out from underneath the underneath, a moment of silence in the midst of all the talk. Whenever that face comes out, all can become clear, if you take notice.

It’s certainly something beautiful. Just like a face with soft features, lightly tinged with a rim of red light. Looking away.

Looking away.

There it is. The instant where all could have been known, if I was only observant enough to bother knowing about it. But guys like me always think things are going well until we’ve been told that they didn’t. So it was, that the moment was gone, existing only as an image until this morning. This morning when it came back to me. When the image slowly morphed into something else. Perception reshaped my reality.

And so it’s trapped within me, that moment, that image, that impression. A face with soft features, lightly tinged with a rim of red light.
Looking away.
I’d like to think that it matters. It's a rare thing when I understand the context of any little anything that I suddenly find in my life.

That hasn't changed, not this day.

But thinking -- not knowing -- something doesn’t change how things are. Could be I’m wrong. Could be I’m here, making mountains out of molehills, musing about images that might have said something with the quiet of human expression.

In truth, it probably means nothing.

But there is still something. Even amidst all of this, all of this confusion and searching, wondering and thinking, hoping and dreaming, my malleable self can find something that molds it into a smile.

Someone said that they respect me.

And respect is real, if it’s been earned. As it stands, I’m not sure if I’ve earned it yet. But I can most certainly give it a try.

And that -- that is clearly something beautiful.

A walkabout.

Would you ever find yourself in the San Fernando Valley?

Actually, that isn’t quite what I meant to say. It’s too obtuse, it doesn’t properly get the point that I had intended to make. So.

Would you ever put yourself in the San Fernando Valley?

Would you lace up the new boots that you had bought for some other purpose, grab a bottle of water that claims to be from glacial paradise but is really from yet another city reservoir, and journey out to the disconnected land of the dry arid heat, the land that might as well be a part of Los Angeles even though it technically isn’t?

I’m not here to tell you if you should. I’m not here to tell you if you shouldn’t. I’m not going to argue the pros or the cons, and I’m sure as hell not going to decide where you should spend your time if you decide to venture out to the City of Angeles for whatever fucking reason. No.

Instead, I’m going to speak of something just a wee bit more specific.

You see, the San Fernando Valley is my home. For going on twelve years.

Twelve years since I was put into the land with the vast expanses of streets, asphalt stretching out and glittering underneath the wavering air that gives the “city” vistas an eerie similarity to the expanses of ‘Once upon a Time in the West’ (or ‘Kill Bill volume 2’, whichever of those you’ve seen). Twelve years of Mexican men wandering down the street with a small cart, pedaling Chicharron while grinning with a face made of half-toothed smiles. Twelve years of walking by the LA river, watching the multi-colored bounty of the ball pit from a nearby McDonalds, watching as they try as hard as they can to drift away in the squalid dribble of moisture that may or may not be water.

They try. But they’re never going to make it anywhere.

To tell you the truth, I don’t really care for it that much. But through thick and thin, through sickness and health, and certainly through love and hate -- it’s been my home. And for better or worse, that makes it special to me.

And honestly, as with anywhere else, you might be able to find something there.
Something worth seeing.
If you know where you should look.

Should you ever find yourself in the San Fernando Valley?

Take a walk. Walk past the people idling in the fronts of almost a dozen Pawn Shops that populate a short stretch on Van Nuys Boulevard. Walk past the front of the Police station where, as I was being led along in handcuffs, the officer assigned to me got pissed off because I couldn’t keep myself from whistling a jaunty tune. A story for another day.
Walk past the small shop where I bought myself a harmonica that I never could learn to play.

Walk past the lives and stories of hundreds of thousands of people who are probably more interesting than me. Stop and talk to them, if you can. If you can. But when you finish talking, when you’ve found your moment and moved on, bring yourself to the new destination.

A little grand new thing called “The Metro Orange Line”.

There it is. The first throwback to Southern California’s oft forgotten beacons of public transportation efficiency, the street car. Such a thing hasn’t really existed here since General Motors tore them down with their tyrannical tirade to spread the mass use of automobiles back in the late 40’s. They ripped through the streets with their agenda, giving us a stable full of inefficiently phallic buses which destroyed public transportation in this town, a trend which has continued until this very day. They made a movie about it. It starred a private detective and a cartoon rabbit.

Remember that?

Cool.

With this new beast, with this private furrow that back-alleys its merry way throughout the length of our non-town, it seems as is if the fates finally hope to make amends for the clogging of our expressways, our passageways, and our breathways with more automobiles than you can loll a dead horses tongue at. Have they?

Shit no. They’ve done something else.

They’ve given us something to see this town in a whole new way. So, once again, it has become time to take a walk. That’s right. Walk. Don’t take the bus line, those silver beasts that glisten like duralumin while being held together by the flimsy rubber neck that never ceases heaving, as if it were drawing air into an iron lung. The buses, they move fast, in their dart like path. But they don’t show what you can see.

So walk. Walk down a road that goes on and on. A new road that never seems to end. Because when you walk down this road, you’ll see things. Things that aren’t quite right, things that only seem to fit in the driest air, in the land where the skies are clear, where the sun beats down and bounces up. Walk down this road, and you’ll get a chance to look inside.

You get a chance to look over the lower edge of a crumbling brick wall, only to see a burned out warehouse that looks as if it would be more comfortable on some forgotten New England dock, the rusty sheet metal withering in the Atlantic chill. See this building, with bits of failing mortar hastily shoved around the steel and the aluminum, trying as hard is it can to hold itself up against the harshest sun, the sun that beats down upon it as if it knew that the building was jus a little bit off. Look at this place. And then look through one of the numerous holes that have been torn in the fading face of the sheet metal.

You’ll see a warehouse full of brand new cars. Sports cars, classic cars. Glittering, purring, trembling. Trying to will themselves free of their bonds. See this. Feel the strength of their endurance, a collective mechanical will that can be felt even if you couldn’t care less about fancy vehicles. And then move on.

Keep on keepin’ on.

Walk through the air, feeling the sweat push its way out of your skin, your body wanting to look at the things about you as well, as well as lubricating your joints, forcing you towards a destination that you might never reach if you only walk. It’s a long way, you know.

A long way, if you’re actually going somewhere. If.
Think about that.

WARNING
The soil in this area may contain a chemical at concentrations known to the state of California to cause cancer.

Now, think about that.
Think about that as you keep on walking, the road in front of you never relenting. Never relenting, but always inspiring, as all of a sudden, a single man seems to fade in from the haze of the afternoon golden hour sun. He’s drifting towards you atop the chariot of the modern age, a Segway. Slowly but surely. As he gets closer, the hum of his vehicle, although subtle, becomes apparent to you, as it lazily chops its way through the air, whirring along, making you notice even as it tries to hide. As the man passes by, all he does is nod, a motion that is slight, at best. Even so, the gesture must be returned.

And then he’s gone. Wisping away, just as he came.

Perhaps it’s the fresh traces of the aforementioned cancer pressing its way into my brain, but whenever I think of this man, of the Segway rider that came and went as if in a dream…I get an image in my head.

The image is of a man, a classical hobo from a yet to be forgotten age. His clothes are tattered rags, hanging about him with nothing but single threads, the only solid cloth being the striking red kerchief that makes up his bindle. The bindle pole is slung over his shoulder with a brash carelessness that echoes the immortal pose of Kikuchiyo, something which I cannot be sure if he knows. Even if he doesn’t, this pose makes me like him. That, and the squinting eyes of the inquisitive cat which now pokes its small head out of the bindle, looking for a breath of fresh air.

The neo-hobo drifts by. On a Segway cobbled together out of scrap metal and tricycle wheels. Still whirring quietly. Always moving, never stopping. Riding the rail of the road without end.

That’s an image the cancerous road gave me. What do you suppose it might do for you?

What builds in your head as the sun finally drifts down, letting the sweat that came forth finally dry away beneath the newly orange light of a street lamp?

What builds in your head as you still walk forward, letting your effort bring forth new sweat which beads over the dried remnants, leaving you with a dual sensation of heat and cold?

What might you see, that I failed to see? What might you say, that I failed to say?

Should you ever put yourself in the San Fernando Valley?

That’s your choice, kid. Your choice.