Immigration journey...

I posted this on Quora but it seemed fitting to post it here. Future posts will add some detail to this series of events. It is enlightening and will shed light onto the current immigration debates taking place in the media.

What has been your most expensive travel mistake and what did you learn from it?

Arthur Ort, 20 years wrestling with religious truth, voracious reader

Updated Wed

The chain of events started when we arrived at the gate in Heathrow after an 8 hour red-eye from Boston in February of 2015.

“Can I see your UK Visa?” we were asked after the customs agent looked at my wife’s Jamaican passport.

“We don’t have one,” I replied.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you in,” was the reply.

Our worst fears were realized.

As a US Passport holder this wasn’t an issue. I was good to go. For my wife, a Jamaican citizen and US Green Card holder, this was not to be. We had the Schengen Visa which had taken us on some late night, rapid fire trips to New York, Washington DC, Cleveland and Chicago to obtain. With the Schengen Visa arriving the Wednesday before our departure, we thought we were finally good to go.

The following night while surfing the Web I found a site that mentioned the need for a UK Visa as the UK is not a part of the Schengen countries.

Curiously, my wife overheard a conversation about the need for a UK Visa as she was filling out papers for the Schengen Visa while we were in Chicago as I drove around the block several dozen times waiting for her. One was not needed was the consensus on the subject.

That was apparently not true. I had a meltdown. We were were flying out early that Saturday.

I called my wife’s sister-in-law who is a British citizen who had worked for Customs twenty plus years ago when she lived there and she said that sometimes the agents have latitude as to who they’ll let in.

With airline tickets, train tickets and a two-week itinerary planned canceling just didn’t seem like an option. With the feeble hope of her words we decided to brave it.

We got through Boston without incident so thought maybe, just maybe, we’d be ok.

At 7 a.m. in the morning (2 a.m. eastern US time) in Customs at Heathrow my wife was denied and escorted away. I went out to face my wife’s sister and her husband and tried to explain what had just unfolded.

Several hours later, a canceled Euro Pass and the purchase of a pair of plane tickets to France (hundreds of dollars on such short notice) our stay was extended.

We were able to experience the vacation of a lifetime through England, Wales, Belgium and northern France with her sister in Bristol and a good friend in Lille, France.

On the last leg of the journey, a p.m. return trip from Charles de Gaulle to Heathrow after our two weeks were up we were met with words that sounded very familiar when we presented our tickets to board:

‘We can’t let you board,” said the gate agent.

Denied again, this time at the gate. The transit visa through Heathrow expired at midnight on the day of travel, not 24 hours upon landing. The flight was held, our luggage removed. Add a hotel room to the bill.

So very grateful for Isabella from Air France who booked the hotel for us and changed our flight times to the next morning or we would have had to book new tickets as well.

After a whirlwind night, an early flight from CDG to Heathrow and a scramble and last minute decision to avoid having to go through security and missing a flight, we ditched our luggage at Heathrow and headed back overseas, elated at being free.

Upon arrival in Boston, we were once again met with words that were becoming hauntingly familiar:

“Please come with us,” my wife was told by two individuals who approached her at the booth where her passport and biometrics were scanned.

I was left dumbfounded. She was, once again, detained. You’d think my wife was a universally wanted criminal.

Hours later we learned that immigration law is different than US law and ‘did the crime, did the time’ does not apply. Petty crimes from thirty years ago in the moral purity of immigration law as it applies to those deemed worthy to be in the US are still relevant today and have the potential to make a green card holder inadmissible and, ultimately, removable.

Four years and thousands of dollars later (and still accumulating) we are still dealing with the trip with an immigration court date looming in January of 2020.

What have we learned? Aside from the particular ‘how not to travel' advice of that trip and more about immigration law than I can ever have imagined, we have felt at a deeper level than the media narrative at least one of the ways in which immigration law is broken.

We met incredible people through this journey, from the initial customs agent to those customs agents at Heathrow we talked with, to Isabella at Air France at CDG, to all the people we met through our doing it wrong travels and through all the people we’ve met navigating immigration law.

Though it is not easy, we have learned to find joy, hope and celebration in the midst of trials.

Systems fail and bad decisions are often made but people remain awesome.

P.S. Our luggage that we assumed was lost forever showed up at Pittsburgh the Tuesday after our return.

Sexual Abuse

Abuse - sexual, as in my case, or any other - will mess you up. I was probably in my late 30s when I was able to pinpoint the exact moment when my life changed forever. Though I do not know the exact age, I know the exact location, circumstance and people in the room as clear as I am writing this. That meant more 20 plus years of layer upon layer built upon that wound so that area of my life was underdeveloped, overcompensated for in other ways and a mythological creature was built upon that vortex.

The curious thing is that I remembered it and could talk about that moment but the disconnect was so great that I did not know that it was the source. I may have have noticed it when feelings of rage flared up around the person even though I didn't quite know why; I just thought that person was just a jerk and I justified the behaviour because of the abuse within his family. In hindsight, after this I would find myself amongst the company of outcasts, most, maybe even all, of whom had come from abusive or troubled environments.

I recall being at one of my friend's houses and having his stepfather threaten to whip all of us in the room, me included, with a belt because we were being too loud. And he most certainly meant it. My friend would later move on to the military and I lost touch with him though back at home he was seen in town behaving in a fashion that would lead one to believe he carried on the same manner of raising children. 

It was never a conscious thing. I just knew I did not belong in certain cliques and, though not antagonistic toward those cliques, I did not fit in. So I fell into the non-clique cliques and even hung with the 'hoods' loosely enough not to go down those paths which, I am well aware, were also symptomatic of abuse. Had I chosen to go down that path rather than soak up the vibes without actually entering, those addictions may have done more damage sooner.

It was then that the seeds of rebellion were planted. Though it would in time graduate beyond the suburbs it was comfortable, suburban rebellion. Sneaking out at night, alcohol - lots of alcohol - and rock music though, again, it was the obligatory classic rock and the rebellion that got a knowing smile from those who lived through it the first time and passed it on to us.

However, this was a linear progression. This was not a circular progression out of which people grow and conform into their expected role once they've shaken the 'teenage rebellion' rite of passage. No, this would grow differently than those within my family.  I was not alone in this as many from my class would follow similar trajectories and it always led me toward believing that there was some form of trauma underlying all of these people's lives.

I graduated beyond the classic rock of my youth and 'discovered' Motley Crue (now classic rock) and heavier, louder rock and roll, though comfortably from within my suburban bedroom. Alcohol was not frowned upon so it was easily accessible. In my case, it started before I became a teenager. It was all controlled, the parameters of our rebellion laid before us. And I think, when coupled with the abuse, because there was no relief for feelings of which I was not aware, I progressed. I wanted more, further, deeper, louder, angrier, self-inflicted as other than appearance and my internal dialogue I had learned to put on airs.

I kept clean cut rather than becoming a stoner cliche. I maintained, though this was a gradual slope, a job. From the upper echelons of my first job to working in a coffee shop, I cannot remain oblivious to the fact that my addictions were leading me to make some minimalist choices.

There was always 'something' there that kept me from going all in, some effort at restraint that kept me from doing heroin, that kept me from growing my hair long and living the cliche. But that 'something 'was slowly losing its grip and I was gradually on my way there. Addiction isn't always instant. Perhaps our level of security slows the journey and we can go a long time without going all the way there. But it was coming.

Before I left on my walkabout I met my now wife. It was she who kept me going and it was she who I turned to on the lonely journey across the country, even as I lived among and with people. She was my life line though I didn't know it at the time. And it was because of her I returned when the bottom was falling out and I somehow knew where I was heading. And it was through her that I was introduced to a faith that would ultimately reveal that moment in time when life changed, when my innocence was lost and I would spend my youth trying to destroy that innocence - and myself in the process - and my adulthood trying to reclaim it.

1994 Into The Wild

Y'know how we often talk about getting out, going, just being free?

It's a regular conversation in small towns, suburban towns, where culture is, well, isn't. I vowed to get out. I didn't know what that meant. All I knew was the small town thing, the high school clique thing, the pursuit of the traditional career path thing wasn't my thing.

Never did prom. Did two Sadie's Hawkins dance (what the hell is that anyhow?) and one homecoming dance. It was pretty stupid. I suppose being drunk or stealing street signs instead of participating in anything else in high school wasn't very bright either.

All I knew was I hated it. It seemed stupid, pointless, stale, cliche. So I couldn't wait to leave. By the time I was 25 I had a fat bank account, was a recovering alcoholic (though was in reality simply trading alcohol for the mellower haze of being a pothead) and was running headlong into madness. Ah, the good ol' days.

So I left. I had a semi-plan, a list of friends to visit in a circuit throughout the southern route to the West. I really did have a good time. The freedom was intoxicating, invigorating. What I remember - and had difficulty handling - was the total and complete freedom to make my own choices. Driven by the demons of abuse, addiction and obligation, this freedom was a struggle. I felt as if I had to get somewhere, do something, gain approval from someone. In other words, I wasn't free.

But I left. I cut the ties. I quit the job and left. The photo above shows some of the remnants. One of the best moves was becoming a member of Hosteling International. To stay in the heart of San Francisco for under $20. In the red light district of San Fransisco, anyhow. Maybe I do have a prostitute story. Sort of...

I had met a guy (can't remember his name...we were sick of each other by this time anyhow...) in a Hostel in Portland, Oregon and he needed a ride to San Fransisco. I was headed south anyhow...camped out overnight in the dunes on the coast of Oregon...couldn't find weed in Acadia, California and ended up sleeping on the side of the road somewhere...got to drive the entire stretch of Highway 101 along the coast...convenient company I suppose...but no pictures.

So out the door of the Hostel is, quite literally, hooker alley. I had never seen so many prostitutes congregated in one place with car after car driving up, girl getting in, car driving off. And these girls were stunning...in a done up, plastic kind of way. These were not the crack cocaine kind I was familiar with in Youngstown. So we sat out on the street for hours, just watching. It was at once fascinating and sad, on so many levels. No conversation with the prostitutes, just observations. Not much of a story, but...

So the photo above is what's left of my journey. A couple of receipts and the Stamp Book from Hosteling International (with several other hostel destinations stamped inside, all of which are no longer in existence) and my journal.

The journal is a weird thing and says a lot. There is very little personal information, very little details on what I was doing. It is mostly musing, bad poetry and the ramblings of someone who is smoking way too much dope. There are little snippets here and again which are intriguing but they require more analysis. But there is much detachment, very little personal detail.

I do have Gilligan and The Professor's autographs, though. What a weird thing that was. At some beach festival on Pike Street where I worked there was a bunch of sand and Gilligan and The Professor sitting there signing autographs. It was a truly sad thing, these two old guys living off of a show thirty years in syndication, Bob Denver telling the promoter he was hungry and wanted something to eat. Just plain bizarre. Even then I sought irony...

...which explains the L.A. Coroner's receipt for two t-shirts. They were selling souvenirs. I met the woman who had started it up and she had informed me that it started as something of a fund raiser and it took off. They had mugs, towels, t-shirts and an assortment of stuff that people could buy.

I did find the impressions of my first, and only, Dead show in the journal and my first, though not last, time on acid. But that's another story...

Christopher McCandless and the bus...

In 1994, I was roaming the West, bogged down with way too much stuff and too much existential baggage. A friend of my father's, who was living in Seattle, had some property outside of Flathead Lake in Montana. He offered up his place prior to my visit to Seattle where I would stay with him for a few days. It's hard going back, so much has been forgotten in the haze of fifteen years gone by.

A pivotal period of time in my life yet so little has been recorded. It is a mystery I have yet to penetrate. Like Chris McCandless I so wanted freedom and space yet at the same time was desperately seeking love, not so much of others, though that was present, but love of self and, ultimately, peace with God, though at the time a notion of a 'personal' God was the God of wrath, punishing me for every sin. I sought freedom from the burden of God as well.

Pictures will follow (when I find them) but the 'home' on the property, of which a foundation had been built, was a school bus. Yep. A school bus. Cliche, perhaps. The property around the bus was littered with (bad) sculptures that looked like either a bunch of hippies on too much of something had built them, scratching their heads in the morning at what had been created, or the kind of things you would find at the home of a serial killer. Freaky either way.

I would stay there for three days. I rode my bike into town (not sure which town it was...Elmo I believe), sat by the lake during sunset (although I may be imagining this based off of a picture I've seen), and basically hung out. No earth shattering revelations came, nothing profound. I do remember the utter darkness and silence inside the bus.

I would venture that Chris had had his fill at some point. Being still, settling in one place, was difficult, especially when not in a state of constant motion "doing" something, anything.

Into the Wild Christopher McCandless

In 1992, my addictions and subsequent wanderlust were beginning to manifest. Big time. I was making good money at a job I swore I'd never do and was living on the cheap and socking the excess money away (what was left after drinking anyhow...). It was during this time I began journeying West frequently. I'd been to Colorado in high school to ski with the family so had a taste of it and was drawn to the idea of space. Lots of it.

A drive from Ohio to Bozeman, Montana; a one-week tour of the four corners in a rented convertible Mustang; a job interview in Brooking, South Dakota. The itch was there.

The photo above shows actual copies of two Times articles where I first learned of his story. I've laminated them in order to preserve them. The first article appeared on September 12, 1992.

The header of Chapter 10, page 98, in Jon Krakaeur's Into The Wild contains the text of the column (if you click on the photo above you can read both articles). I remember the day it hit. It took hold of my soul and never let go.

A week later, the second article, the one above with the photo, appeared.

I have a day planner from 1992 (I was selling cell phones then...remember the bag phones?). On September 18 I have "Vacation" written (with a big arrow pointing through to September 27th).

On September 19th his body was identified.

This was my trip with girlfriend in tow driving to a bed and breakfast in Bozeman, Montana. Even then distance was a magnet. We went through South Dakota, visiting some roadside museum tribute showing where Dances With Wolves was filmed (another serendipitous moment), yes, Wall Drug, the Black Hills and making our way to Bozeman. I think it was this trip where I really became hooked on the open space via automobile.

Somewhere along this path I picked up the Sunday Times (probably outside of Chicago where we were staying with friends on the way) which contained the article on the identification of his body. That photo, which I've never seen anywhere else, is the image I have and will always have of Christopher McCandless.

I picked up a copy of the Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where we had stayed for a night that week, and found an article about Wayne Westerberg's assistance in identifying the body. Carthage, where Christoper spent time, was just north of the Interstate on which we were traveling to Montana. I was traveling along the same terrain, unknowingly, following in his footsteps as I would do Robert Pirsig's several years later. Below is the original copy of the South Dakota paper, preserved and guarded for seventeen years. The story resonated deep.

Snippets from his diary were published in the Times and then the details soon followed. It was gripping. Horrifying. But I was captivated. Immediately. He went where I was longing to go. For years his story would haunt me. In my travels, he acted as cautionary tale. But he was not a hero. There was no glorifying his tale. He simply lived out where I was headed.

He was, quite simply, me. I think on some level he is a mirror for many who have dreams of going, getting out, wandering into the wild. What I was dabbling in, he acted out in full force. I understand where he was coming from; I understand the drive; I understand the longing for alone and for solitude and for Truth. We all struggle with this, some more overtly than others.

It was to my shock when Jon Krakauer's book was first published. And an even greater shock when the movie came out. Here was a private muse of mine, now made public, myth, legend. For those who know or knew me, to read the book was to read my story. No one could really figure out what it was that was driving me, why I couldn't find peace, why the longing to run, or numb myself. While the questions are never really answers in the case of Christopher McCandless, I, from what I have come to know, get it.

Both he and I graduated from high school and college in the same years. Like him, I too was, and still am, content to drive old cars with high miles. Like him, I too was becoming more and more disgusted with materialism and the "American" dream. I wanted out. As with him, it is perhaps ironic as both of us, though perhaps emotionally lacking, were, for all intensive purposes, well provided for materially. In other words, one might argue, we were both spoiled. Obviously we learned that the answers to life's bigger questions were not to be found in the world of 'stuff' but at least we had the 'stuff' we needed to survive.

It took me years before I was able to read the book and months to muster up the courage to watch the movie. There was something private about his story and I was afraid to relive this period of my life. I wasn't ready to heal as this part of my life had become, in my mind, quite mythical. The reality I wasn't ready to face was that I was just scared, emotionally scarred, a boyish man who wanted to hide from the fear.

Though there were genuine and sincere longings for truth, I don't know that I was running to anything as much as I was being driven by something, running from something.

By the time I left home in 1994, I had a much larger cushion than the one he had. I had a pretty sizeable savings account, a car and, as I would later learn (one of the best lessons I learned being on the road for almost a year), way too much stuff.

I have a soft spot for Christopher McCandless. Without being too sentimental, I can honestly say he may have saved my life. I was the typical suburban dreamer, longing of living in the mountains, or moving to Tibet, being free and on the road. As Christopher McCandless learned, too late, it is hard. And, in the end, what really matters is not being self-sufficient but being interdependent upon others.

For my year on the road I took four rolls of film. That's it. Of all the people I met, I am not in touch with any of them. This is perhaps one of the saddest reminisces of all. I met some amazing people, brilliant, beautiful, adventurous, yet made no connection with any of them. I got close to a few people but couldn't handle it and left. Longing for identity, I ran with a diverse crowd and experienced things I would never have otherwise experienced. But, in the end, all these experiences were mine. They were not shared with anyone.

The road of relationship is much more difficult, and rewarding, than that of the loner which, in the end, is a death sentence. We all die alone, certainly, but what matters is what we have deposited in those who remain when we die.

Christopher McCandless' story is bittersweet. Had he lived, it is likely no book would have been made about him as many have adventured much in the same way he did. It was his horrifying death, capturing a fear many - especially many a traveler - hold, that of dying alone, starving, in the middle of nowhere.

The book is a great read (though it is as much about the author as it is about McCandless) and the movie is stunning. I cried several times during the film, something quite rare, though it had more to do with my process of healing, film as mirror, than it did a concern for the character in the film. It comes highly recommended.

My only concern is that it tends to idolize him and his adventure. After all, he basically abandoned his family. It seems he realized this too late. And, as some have posited, perhaps he was more than just a little bit crazy, his disconnect and need for isolation signs of those who have mental illness.

As an aside note, the song "Big Hard Sun" performed by Eddie Vedder is a remake of an original by Indio whose CD containing the song is was out of print. It was karmic. I heard this song once on some independent channel in my hometown and was mesmerized and bought the CD new back then. 

I still have it (love Vedder but the original is much better than the remake...). Here it is twenty years later and it's come full circle.

Here's the original from Indio's Big Harvest album:

As if these connections are not enough, L. Subramaniam play violin on this track. For those who aren't familiar with his work, his track 'Wandering Saint' appears on the Baraka soundtrack which, for those who may be interested, has a strong significance in my life as well.

I have always been led by signs, between points in time that confirm that I am where I am supposed to be. When these signs come I know that what has happened between those two points in time is complete and I can lay it behind me and move on. There have been several of them in my life, confirmations that speak "my" language and are too serendipitous to ignore. This was one of them.

Though I don't consider him to be a saint or hero, Christopher McCandless' life, though tragic in the end, was not in vain.

Seattle 1994 Baraka and the World of Illusion

I am listening to the soundtrack for the film Baraka as ripped from the DVD (seems this is heading for obsolence as the Blu-Ray is said to be astonishing...).

In 1994 I was living in Seattle, having found myself there after several months on the road after quitting a "real" job and hitting the road (fueled by confusion, madness and drug use...). It was quite an experience.

One of the memorable moments in the drug-fueled period of my life was the opportunity to see the film Baraka in all it glory on the big screen. I doubt it was in the original 70 mm Todd-AO format though it may have been. All I know is that I was stoned when I went to see it and was mesmerized. In the midst of a spiritual crisis/catharis, the subject matter of the film was right on point. It was where I was at the time; it was also where I wanted to be. I sat in a stupor for about an hour and a half as I asborbed the images and sounds of the film. If you've never see it, you must see it at least once.

One of the pivotal moments, at the height of my buzz no less, was a scene in a trash dump in India where people are rummaging through the trash while Dead Can Dance's "Host of Seraphim" is playing. I was frozen in time. Never had I been so moved during a film; never had I felt a song so powerfully. It was, for that moment, transcendent. Even now as I listen to the song, it takes me there, a perfect memory capsule of a moment frozen in song.

Now, fifteen years later and a bit more worldly wise, I have found that many of the images in the film are based in settings that would be considered the tourist variety and the film itself is structured to "sell" a point. Though profound and moving it is now fairly obvious. Perhaps maturity and experience has shattered the illusion but it doesn't take away from the original experience for which this was a pivotal moment. This is a risk as we age, that we condemn and become cynical about those things that profoundly altered our worldview. But this film educated me and was instrumental in my desire to see the world in context.

One of the scenes which freaked me out at first was early in the film when a group of men, all seated, perform some kind of a dance in the jungle, all led by an older "shamanic" figure, eyes glazed over in a hypnotic trance, arms in unison as the bodies sway back and forth to the rhythm of the chant. A striking visual.

Years later I would learn that this is a staged performance called Kecak, or Ramayana Monkey Chant, a musical drama performed in Bali that celebrates an ancient Sanskrit epic. While it has its roots in sanghyang, a trance-inducing exorcism dance, it has become a "Westernized" version of the original.

A German painter and musician, Walter Spies, became interested in it during the 1930s and transformed it into a performance piece. Spies worked with Wayan Limbak, a Balinese dancer, and Limbak popularized the dance by traveling throughout the world with Balinese performance groups. These travels helped to make the Kecak known throughout the world.

This transformation is an example of what James Clifford describes as part of the "modern art-culture system" in which, "the West or the central power adopts, transforms, and consumes non-Western or peripheral cultural elements, while making 'art' which was once embedded in the culture as a while, into a separate entity."

Here is a more telling photo:

Sounds familiar...

Americanization

To what extent is education exploitation? Too cynical? Is my desire to keep such cultural elements confined to their historical roots a sign of the same "spirit" of Westernization, an elitist version of creating an exotic "other" for voyeuristic purpose?

Speaking of exploitation, tourism and Sufism, this all reminds me of an article from Hakim Bey, one of my favorite anarchist writers, about Overcoming Tourism...

This film was my first exposure to the music of Dead Can Dance and I would, over time, absorb anything related to their music, discovering many artists on the legendary 4AD label. Even today, it is still some of my favorite music.

However, much of this had to do with the mystique I created around their music. I envisioned some mysterious, mystical, exotic group whose music was angelic, ethereal, transcendent. That wasn't the case but the music of Lisa Gerrard, vocalist for Dead Can Dance, is truly amazing. She is perhaps most known for her work in the film score for Gladiator. Like much of my early spirituality, I chose to believe in a myth of my own making, a self-idealized projection that led to living in a world of illusion I created.

Time, age and maturity can often dampen the original joy of an event but this film changed my worldview and instilled a deeper desire for exploring the religious life. With music from around the world buoyed by a score from Michael Stearn (a favorite of Hearts of Space), it's a gem. The music is incredible though I think the weed enhanced the music to an extent I haven't experienced since.

Actually, the last time I watched the film itself I was tripping on LSD and in one of the early scenes of a mountain, I saw the face of Jesus being molded, melting, out of the mountains, a liquid face morphing and changing but still clearly Jesus.

I don't expect you to see Jesus there but I did, plain as could be. It was a charcoal etched vision of him in Fritz Eichenberg or Gustav Dore style (no halo, though) but it was unmistakable. I wanted to stay in that moment forever. Sadly, the crew I was with wanted to trip to something else and ejected the video.

A soundbyte from this film can be found in Jonathan Lisle's incredible Original OS.0_2 mix on John Digweed's Bedrock label and if you watch closely you'll see stills of the film in The Matrix Reloaded when Neo speaks with The Architect.

It's amazing the things that frame our worldview. Because this film so impacted my life (and, obviously, the lives of others) it has become a way of framing my perception of the world and is thus instantly recognizable when placed in various cultural media, a signpost, common ground among a larger tribe, all on the same journey, like product placement (is that irony or cynicism?).

The CD version of the film was too short and left out a lot of the subtle musical gems from the film as was the case with both Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi. Certainly these will be on Blu-Ray soon. What a peculiar twist having paid $75 for a used VHS version of this movie off of ebay after it was pulled from the shelves of Blockbuster when it went out of print. I can't help but think that there is something ugly and sinister about the material product of media proliferation.

It looks as if an "upgrade" to the soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi is forthcoming as well.

My wife and I saw Koyaanisqatsi performed live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Philip Glass leading his orchestra as part of an effort to fund the finishing touches on the third piece of the trilogy, Naqoyqatsi (or, as my wife calls it, quite prophetically, Not Quite Qatsi). Having heard this live with the film playing on a movie screen in the background was comparable to my viewing of Baraka, though I was sober this time.

Life without drugs and addictions. Being grateful. No regrets. Enjoying the now. To live without illusion. It really is possible.

WALSTIB...

Poems...

Not saying they are good poems or even poems at all but dug them up out of some old writings and found them interesting, even if only as expressions stamping times and places of my life.

Creativity (3/94 Missoula)

No substance
Being
The end.

To the Man on the 9th Floor (4/1/94 Portland)

Seeing
Not hearing
A transparent barrier
Not experiencing.

Listening
Not hearing
A transparent barrier
Not caring.

Two worlds
Lost in between.

Suicide

Why go on?

Exactly.

Four Months Ago (6/12/94 Youngstown)

I’ve gone to hell and back to get where I am right now.
I’m leaving on the first flight back tomorrow.

Serving You Since 1992 (Seattle, Safeway. 1994)

You serve me at the grocery store
But you never acknowledge me
As more than a customer.

Never once gave me a smile
Never once gave me a moment
To know how I feel
About you.

The Elf (1994 Seattle)

She’s tiny
And small
And smells
And crawls around the block
So fragile as to drift with the wind
Purity in another form.

A scavenger
For food to feed the insatiable hunger
That drives her that drove her that consumed her
And left her
Here.
Starving.

She walks below
And she walks
Beneath us
Protecting us from the coming monsoon.

She slides each napkin
Each Twinkie wrapper
Each cigarette butt
With her right foot
The pain causing her to grit her crystal teeth
Her powdery bones brittle
Her left foot providing the force
The trash providing the glide across the pavement
Enabling her to move to the can
(please put litter in its place)
Where no one (...chooses to...) will notice.

"I can’t bend down, my broken hip," she says
To no one in particular
Perhaps to God
Who doesn’t hear her cry
But still she believes.

As I bend effortlessly
To lend a hand
She gives me a look, a wink, a smile
She knows I know
We understand.
And she quietly
So quietly
Cleans up the trash
Left by the tie
The very tie that binds

The fear
Fear that she (we) is (are) one with us (her)
Is all that separates
Desperation from security.

Pushing a Broom (Youngstown, 8/10/05)

My soul fell out
Gone
Nowhere left to fall
Nothing left to fall
Naked as Adam
At the very moment
Where he tasted
For the first time
Felt
Sensed
Awakened
His soul emptied
Overwhelmed
By awareness
I was there
And there was nothing

Tremendous
Horrifying
Rushing
For a moment
Just a moment
Removed
Hovering
Suspended
Raw
With nothing
But a hollowness
My heart
A gaping hole
Never have I felt
So alone
Beyond alone
Only

My cover blown
Floating
I return
And feel the weight
Of the world
Now knowing
Protection
By its absence
So afraid
So alive

All I know
Is
I never
Want to feel
That
Way
Again.

A Youth Hostel and the Dao De Jing...

It's the middle of 1993. Working in the cell phone industry which was just becoming huge, I was a top sales rep, making top commission, having just won top prize in a three month sales contest. I was in tight with the Vice President and played the part. All the bills were paid, I traveled on a regular basis, was in great shape and had no problem with the ladies. I had it all.

Yet my soul was restless. I was miserable. Having recently quit drinking, I had taken up smoking weed. Lots of it. Loved it. Calmed the nerves, mellowed me out. It may have had a lot to do with my decision later that year to quit my job cold turkey with no real plan other than to go. I'm not sure it was the factor or if smoking the weed put me in a frame of mind where I was no longer afraid to do what I had already planned on doing. But I announced it in late 1993.

I can almost guarantee that more than a few folks thought I was a bit insane.

In short, I packed up my car full of way too much stuff and hit the road. I had plenty of money saved and enough weed to last me a while.

Leaving out more than a few details (which will hopefully come back as I continue digging...), in early 1994, I had made my way to a youth hostel in Kellogg, Idaho. Even back then I was exploring abandoned buildings having spent quite a bit of time looking through an abandoned school and abandoned hospital next door to each other. Sadly, I took no pictures. In fact, of my whole year on the road, I have about four rolls of film, very few of them of people. I had some serious, serious issues with relationships.

Anyhow, I spent a night or two at the youth hostel, venturing up to Sun Valley to see about skiing (which I can't remember whether or not I did...).

One of the evenings, I was sitting on rocking chair on the balcony of the second floor reading a copy of Tom Cleary's translation of the Tao Te Ching, looking down a long with a granarie on the left and nothing but empty road beyond it. The sun was setting and it cast a rather peaceful glow on a quiet evening in a small town in Idaho.

I had picked up this book several months prior, prompted by I know nowt what but I was compelled to buy it. Might have been because I had found the Yin Yang symbol to be quite cool and was attracted to the philosophy behind. Might've been because it was exotic, somehow 'other' than what I knew. Could be that the drugs had been expanding my mind in that bent, gravitating toward the 'eastern' worldview, the exotica, the off the wall films and music that permeate drug culture.

I had left the heavy/hair metal music behind me and was drawn to such bands as Mazzy Star and Morphine, branching well beyond the usual fluff that makes its way into small town Midwest America.

So I have this book that I've been reading and it really doesn't make much sense but I try it and keep revisiting it periodically. I'm exhausted, having been on the road non-stop for months at a time, staying with friends, youth hostels, rest areas or camping. And I'm reading, rocking, staring off into the sunset, and all of a sudden I get it. Insight. The book makes complete sense. The entire thing. At once.

It was as if my entire soul just opened up and I stepped outside of myself and could see clearly what the book meant. It was the openness that enable me to grasp it. Once I was back inside myself and sought to understand it, the moment was gone. I was able to make sense of it now, the seed had been planted, but it was not the awe inspiring awareness of the totality of it that had come for those few moments while rocking in the chair in the sunset.

It was a pivotal moment. Something had changed in that instant. Having always been a "deep" thinker, I had never really been spiritual/religious, somewhat repulsed by the whole charade with the hucksters and jokers that inhabited the media landscape. But here I was, drawn to this little book, and my entire world changed.

But, as with many things in the spiritual walk, life did not get better from this point. We are often deluded into believing that somehow when we get 'religion' our lives will suddenly become betters, like waving a magic wand to remove all the troubles.

No, sometimes when we get such insight our troubles really begin because we see clearly. The openness leaves us vulnerable to change. We can no longer hide as we once did; we are no longer so innocent. We are now responsible. And we must face what it is from what we once hid.

But this is hindsight. It would be more than a few years until I would really "get it" and take the necessary steps to begin to change my life. But that moment was one that provided fuel and strength in order to do it. It was something of a "born again" or "new is creation" moment in the sense that I suddenly had a differnt lens through which to filter information and thus see and interpret the world.

At the time, it was sheer joy, total and complete bliss. And I was sober.

Seattle...1994...

I can't believe that 15 years have passed. In February of 1994 I left the comfort and familiarity of home for the open road. Having always done what (I thought) was expected of me, I had done just enough to get by, always longing for some form of escape (usually chemical in nature).

Somehow I had managed to graduate from college with decent, certainly not stellar, grades and had landed a sales job in the burgeoning cellular telephone industry. Somehow I managed to do quite well for a twentysomething and made quite a bit of money. In hindsight, it wasn't a lot of money but considering material things never mattered much I stockpiled money.

It was during this time that my issues began to blossom. I reached full blown alchoholic status during this time. It seemed the more successful I became the further away my sense of self appeared from "above" and thus the farther to fall. I ran headlong into the insanities of the bottle. To make matters worse I lived about a block away from my local bar where I hung with my drinking buddy and I was, uh, close to the bartender and drank for free. Cliff and Norm were we. We'd give a $10 bill to pay for the liquor and get a $5 and 5 $1 bills in return. At the end of the night it was nothing to leave a pile of money on the counter for a tip. Jack Daniel shots were lined up and I'd knock 'em down one after the other.

It was during this time that the blackouts began, waking up in the morning and not remembering getting home, ending up in strange apartments, finding strange people in my apartment, doing really strange things. I began sleeping in 'til late morning, showing up at work to make an appearance and going back home to bed to do it all again. It wasn't until I almost lost my job that I quit drinking. I quit cold turkey. But not really.

It was also at this time that the shift from alcohol to drugs began. I don't remember exactly how but I soon learned of other employees who smoked weed on a regular basis. Looking for another distraction and really not caring I decided to give it a whirl. A new love affair had begun.