dream garden bestie festie
Once upon a time in Richmond, Virginia, ...
a group of my friends invited the public to enjoy their backyard garden dreamscape, which featured a wild harvested, multi-course meal; a photobooth; live music; vintage clothing popups; glorious flowers; and probably the best dance party I'd ever grooved my body to.
My initial aim in showing up was to support my friend Lou who had been talking about wanting to be a DJ since we met, was asked to do so at this event, but didn't have any sound equipment. I brought in my PA system and a small mixing console for her (and she fucking CRUSHED it), and had no distinct intention to pull out my camera.
Nothing against doing so, I've just been that person at so many events in years past and am enjoying my leaning into engaging with community gatherings differently these days — adding to the vibe while not feeling like I need to be the one to capture it all, too.
I brought a typewriting setup with the invitation for peopple to ask me to conjure poems on the fly. But wound up not writing at all.
Instead, I caught the waft of a whim to take pictures of some of my homies who were innvolved or in attendance.
Instead I got choked up while playing a couple of songs on a cute boy's guitar (oh haaaaaaay) during the open mic session.
Instead I modify my outfit no less than four times.
Instead I moved my body with even more abandon than I was capable of back when I used to drink alcohol.
Without further yammering, here my some snaps from the day, shot with my Canon 5D Mark IV and a Sigma Art 50mm f/1.4 that I wanted give take for a test run after having recently acquired it.
(I'd considered writing more about the profound impact this day had on me, but think some things are better left to their moment & place than verbally regurgitated at length.)
(For a beautiful, more immersive dive into the festival, though, check out certified badass Katie Bosch's coverage of the day's various pronouncements.)
Richmond Tire Fire
[Richmond Tire Fire]
From the long, sleepy corridor of Belvidere,
I look out and see a grey-black basilisk
roiling into the sky, traversing its sooty form
from west to east, an ever-rejuvenating bulk.
The light is shrouded around me.
Few eyes follow the adder’s path.
I pull over, throw on my bag
and grip a bottle of water.
Drivers on Leigh appear not to notice
anything more than their automated maps
broadcasting from phones clasped by claw-like fingers.
They pass in gleaming cars with expressions confused —
as curious about my attention as I am of their lack.
(Are they blind?)
More and more, people trod toward the Leviathan’s origin —
entranced — its mouth affixed to a turquoise building,
tongue flashing so fast it looks like one
continuous mess of flickering, airborne lava.
Men in caps run about its maw
seen only as silhouettes dragging
along a lengthy canvas worm
(their best defense).
We sit on a graffiti-adorned retaining wall.
Highway travelers slow but only one has stopped.
(Some must go. Some must watch.)
We make eye and verbal contact.
We capture the scene with mobile device and mind.
They snake deflates.
The crowd peaceful near the barking
backyard dog who scolds our stupidity.
We are the dumbest creatures on the planet.
We trickle and fade and forget
after a mere moment’s passing.
The hazard lights glow against adjacent buildings
in the distance, a veritable rainbow shown in the cast
of man-directed water to combat the mistakes
made by man-directed madness
of cinderblock and rubber turned to cinder and fume.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Dusk to dusk.
We pace about at breakneck speeds,
only to sputter, dim, and die again —
taking all the naysayers along with us.
Ad astra per alas porci.
The viper puffs into an hombre cloud.
A single beam of light takes shape in its fog,
roving in sanguine supervision but seeing nothing.
[02/18/2020]
At the Crossroads of Fundamentalism and Humanism:
Recalling Bernie Sanders's Visit to Liberty University
Recalling Bernie Sanders's Visit to Liberty University
Liberty University students, among others, enter The Vines Center in Lynchburg, Virginia, on September 14, 2015 to hear US Senator Bernie Sanders speak.
“It may be that the human race is not ready for freedom.
The air of Liberty may be too rarefied for us to breathe.”Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
A news reporter gets ready to speak into the camera with the swelling in the background.
The scene at Liberty University on September 14, 2015, was a familiar one, as was the creeping feeling of overwhelming inauthenticity, likely stemming from the fact that 10 years ago I sat in those same seats three times per week attending what the university ardently claims is not a worship service, listening to people preach and sing about God. Every so often a political speaker would come through, but one could (so to speak) lower the volume on what was being said and not miss a thing. It was always the same.
That same feeling persisted while I worked as a copywriter and editor for the school’s propaganda department in 2010. It only alleviated itself once I finally left the position (and my seat in my graduate English classes 18 months later), and stepped away from 25 years of living within the Evangelical Christian community.
On this particular morning, I let the feeling pass over me while Liberty University Senior Vice President for Spiritual Development David Nasser prayed into the microphone, to be heard by millions:
“I pray that today, Father, that you would teach us, God, that you would use our guest today to help us know not just what to think but how to think.”
Before the guest, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, could rise to the podium, Nasser delivered an enthusiastic update on how a student in financial need was given $7,000 in excess of what was required for her to stay in school. She in turn decided to give the surplus to other students in need.
Another report: Students, thousands more than were expected, showed interest in a new outreach campaign to the point that the website kept crashing.
“It is by far the largest single response we’ve had like that as a student body,” Nasser said, “and I think it just goes to show that nobody is a greater servant than a Liberty University student.” It was the first of two wildly hyperbolic sentiments Nasser would utter — well aligned with my overall LU experience.
As if to serve as a reminder to those in attendance and viewing around the world of the particular socio-intellectual climate they were entering into, the praise band performed “This I Believe (The Creed).” Rather than an artful expression of worship of an all-powerful, all-encompassing deity, the song is a listing of the basic tenets of Christianity set to the emotionally saccharine soundscapes usually found during the tender moments of a summer romance flick — built by major and minor chords carefully tied to the heartstrings they're intend to pull.
Liberty University praise band performs “This I Believe (The Creed).”
Following the incantation, Nasser returned to the microphone to introduce Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, son of Liberty’s founder, the late Jerry Falwell Sr. — a man infamous for blending political consciousness with evangelical conservatism (among other controversies).
“Nobody loves you more, Liberty students, than our president,” Nasser said of the extant Falwell. “No one cares about you, wants the best for you and wants to see you be world-class leaders more than our president.”
Nasser said that students reciprocate that love, and as an illustration explained that the guttural bellow of “JE-RRYYYY” the students would initiate upon his approach to the podium, was a sign of a support, rather than a cacophonous jeer.
This cheerleading rigamarole, the endless qualifying and over-stressing of statements is identical to the form and feel that I experienced as a student and employee. It always seemed intended to ensure that the perception of Liberty, its students, and its administrators is not left up to chance.
Even Falwell’s gifting of a personalized football jersey to Sanders felt nearly ritualistic; I have witnessed many guest speakers receive memorabilia or honorary degrees over the years and it carried the feeling for me of Liberty trying to “mark” someone for the university’s own edification.
After Liberty had sufficient opportunity to position their cultural niceties and carefully construct their whitewashed house of cards, Sanders began his speech by cutting straight to the quick
“Nobody loves you more, Liberty students, than our president. No one cares about you, wants the best for you and wants to see you be world-class leaders more than our president.”
“[L]et me start off by acknowledging what I think all of you already know. And that is the views that many here at Liberty University have and I [have], on a number of important issues, are very, very different.”
A fair amount cheered in support of those beliefs: gender equality, the right for a woman to control her own body, LGBTQIA+ rights, and gay marriage. Some of the voices belonged to students. As it was during my time as a student, many on campus are not as conservative as the administration’s statements to the press imply.
Liberty University Senior Vice President for Spiritual Development David Nasser addresses the audience. Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. and US Senator Bernie Sanders sit in the background.
“But I came here today,” Sanders said, “because I believe from the bottom of my heart that it is vitally important for those of us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse.”
In case you missed it, you can watch and read that discourse in entirety here. I won’t analyze or recount much of what he said in this piece, as that has been done in dozens of other places in the days since he came to speak.
What’s most interesting to me about this event is the interaction between these two forces: Evangelical conservatism and self-spun socialism. A clean Protestant comb-over and the wily white wisps of an irreligious Jew. My past haunts and my present leanings. The fundamentalist and the humanist.
In the evening after the engagement, my co-parent was at a local bookstore preparing for the next day of her teaching job, and I asked her pick me up a copy of Steven Pressfield’s creative manifesto, The War of Art. One section of the book, called “Resistance and Fundamentalism” does an excellent job comparing these forces.
“The artist and the fundamentalist both confront the same issue,” Pressfield writes, “the mystery of their existence as individuals. Each asks the same questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?”
So, there is common ground here. Sanders positions that commonality with a different, yet related, question: “What does it mean to live a moral life?” How does one govern morally?
“The difference is that while one looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen.”
Steven Pressfield
The War of Art
That common ground falls away, however, at the precise moment each party seeks their reply. The fundamentalist, says Pressfield (an authority on ancient Greek civilization, the author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, and a self-described Christian), attempts to find an answer in sacred texts written thousands of years ago, in the context of a society far removed from our own, and attempts to apply those old responses to today’s complex cultural landscape.
“The difference is that while one looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen,” Pressfield says.
The artist (or humanist — the author uses the two terms interchangeably in this section) seeks to find that answer in the here and now:
“The humanist believes that humankind, as individuals, is called upon to co-create the world with God. This is why he values human life so highly. In his view, things do progress, life does evolve; each individual has value, at least potentially, in advancing the cause.”
The latter approach, is a far greater challenge, but is more in line with the demands of a global society that faces ever-the-more complicated trials and questions.
Reducing the presidential election to two issues (gay marriage and abortion), then, as Christian fundamentalists have stereotypically done, is far more understandable given Pressfield’s distinctions. It’s just so much easier. It requires less thinking and deliberating. There's effort and uncertainty involved.
The fundamentalist doesn’t have to weigh the pros and cons of carrying a fetus to full term when it’s diagnosed with skeletal dysplasia. The fundamentalist doesn’t have to dive into the alleged moral ambiguity of a person who has felt like a stranger in their own body, only to feel whole through modern science’s ability to allow her to affirm the gender she (or he or they) has identified with all along. To the fundamentalist, the answer is clear. The baby will be born (and, in some cases, summarily die). A man is a man and a woman is a woman. Thinking anything outside of that makes you wrong: a murderer, a freak, a pervert, a sinner — lost.
The fundamentalists can sit quietly in their seats, letting their thoughts drift to a homework assignment or their eyes to smartphone screens during the speech and Q&A, while Sanders postures that the United States is not a just nation. But those same individuals can jump into raucous applause when the campus spiritual leader offers a cute rebuttal about inequality: “It’s not a skin issue, but a sin issue.” (Note: A clever turn-of-phrase does not an absolute truth make.)
But there is hope. I spoke with a Liberty University resident assistant who said she cheered for the right for a woman to have control over her own body (although a guy from behind offered her a consequential “fuck you”).
I spoke with a few others who said that you no longer get reprimanded, fined and expelled for being gay at LU, as you would have in the past. And for further sense being made, I encourage you to hear the words of an evangelical pastor (and fellow alumnus) who equated Sander’s plea at Liberty to John the Baptist decrying the Pharisees.
What I’m getting at is that hope is out there, however rarefied. And I think it’s the duty of those who see it to keep that candle burning, if not tip it to the person sitting next to you to light another, and another, letting the wax spill over your hands and Levi’s.
Even though I may seem somewhat positioned against Liberty and its administrative body (arguably with good reason), my frustration really comes from a place where I know people can be better or, rather, must be better if we are going to keep this beautiful thing called human life spinning for another few thousand years or so.
My preference is to not be ashamed of the fact that my undergraduate degree is from Liberty University, a place not exactly synonymous with intellectual integrity and compassion for those who are different.
My preference, as it was on that day, is for positive change to take me by surprise.
At Liberty, the cultural climate seems to have improved from the time my supervisors tasked me with editing less-than-favorable information from the school’s Wikipedia page (I declined), but there’s a long way yet to go. I hope to be able, as I was on that day, to take an electric blue and pink polka dot bicycle ride across town (like a one-person queer pride parade) to witness it happening.
Once the service was over, I ran into a couple of friends who are currently enrolled. Their energy at hearing Sanders speak was electric, encouraged and invigorated. They told me to follow them around back of the building so we could possibly meet him.
And so I did.
He graciously exited the SUV when he saw us, and said he had enough time to take a few photos. When it came my turn to say hi, I handed my DSLR to a friend and told him how to shoot (but neglected to give instructions on the focus, as you can see below).
I had never met a U.S. senator before, much less a presidential hopeful, and so I was grateful for the opportunity and wanted to say something meaningful. What I wanted to tell him was that in my 12 years of voter eligibility, I’d always cast my ballot in favor for who seemed like the lesser of the two evils. This election could be different. There’s a candidate who I believe actually represents me and the America I was raised to believe could be possible.
OOPS: Forgot to tell my friend how to focus my DSLR for this shot of US Senator Bernie Sanders and myself.
But I couldn’t get any of that out. Instead, I shook his hand, smiled for the camera and said, “Thanks for not being full of shit.”
He laughed, and looked into the camera. I’m pretty sure he knew what I meant.
Thoughts? Questions? Frustrations? Let’s talk about it (below).
Florida Findings
Florida Findings
I smell the sand.
I see the sand.
But I do not taste
its brine. It exists mixed
in with the ash and dirt,
leaves and twigs. On the forefront
of this surface is the pockmarks
of rain pellets that fell as we
chuckled and wept and slept.
The rustling I hear
undulates. Its crescendoes
punctuated by aviary chatter and evidenced
by the workings of swaying shadows.
In the shade we discover
the wetness and the cold. Beneath
the sunlight is revealed the crystalline
dimensions of it all. Sparkle and fade.
Even some of the disconnected leaves
are green
although trampled. Even the chill can exist
in the light.
I can furrow my face
at these perceived chaotic churnings
or I can delight. There’s always choice,
although I often refuse to give
myself the space to make the more useful one.
I wonder if these disinterred
roots still grow. Yellowish, mottled, and broken,
do they flail their fractal hairs
to amble toward somewhere more
secure in order to try again for fruit?
Above it all, when viewed without
distraction, is peacefulness,
is lush lingering
limbs that protect or provide
portent.
_____________________
February 7, 2020
Florida Earthskills Gathering
The Power of Poetry (workshop)
w/ Eric Lewis & Olivia Verhoye
Spontaneous Prose (7 minutes)
Spontaneous Prose (7 minutes)
I’m favoring the sounds
of “F” this morning,
because FUCK this.
Feverous in my fecund mind,
my heart following the form.
Were it different — I wish —
I suppose what I grieve would not
be lost. But it is, for now.
Maybe it must.
I scour the insides of my skull
with a hot spoon, culling the meat
from the bone, searching for favor
but finding none — internally regarding
my externalities as pretentious
and sanctimonious.
But maybe it’s me?
Does god know? Does the some-
or everything we call “god”
even have some faculty of knowing
that in any way resembles what we endure?
Or does god simply exist and experience and change?
Octavia Butler says that “God is Change.”
Is my raucous resistance to this relational revolution
an indication of separation from my own
true divinity, that which i displace
with my thoughts and run-amok emotions?
We’ll see.
—————
February 7, 2020
Florida Earthskills Gathering
The Power of Poetry workshop
w/ Eric Lewis & Olivia Verhoye
BOSCO — "Cruel"
Dropped on NPR — “Cruel” music video by the formidable @hellobosco.
It was an honor to work with such an incredible team/family of intentional artists who gave their everything to make this as awesome as it is.
CREDITS:
Director - @fosteraddington
DP/Colorist - @alimsabir
Editor - @darthvadenz
Lighting/Grip - @mwilso26
AD/Script Supervisor/Writer - me
Producer - @vonallen
Art Direction - @hellobosco
Carlina Muglia / 2nd AD, Set Photography - @carlinamuglia
Any Churdar / Line Producer, Set Design - @ace.chudro
Sydney Anebrete Kosse / Set Design - @_strangerdanger
Additional Cinematography - @skull.lady_
Additional Cinematography - @caseydoran_
Location Scout, Set Design - @gabrielladanielle
MUA - @drvco
Stylist - @cdhouseofstyle
Hommeboy — "Otherworldly"
This was a lot of fun.
While in Atlanta to work on a short film written by Matthew Addington and myself, we had a couple of days set aside to work with some friends on their personal projects.
HOMMEBOY (Kawan Moore) was the lead actor in our film, and wanted to put something out for his new single, “Otherwordly.” So, with the help of some friends and a few choir robes, we put this together.
CREDITS:
Directed by HOMMEBOY
Cinematography by Matthew Addington
Second camera and set photography by me
Mattiel — "Keep the Change"
While I wasn’t able to attend this shoot in person, the director (frequent collaborator Matthew Addington) contracted me to create the original script.
As is common in the world of film production, the initial scope or concept undergoes frequent changes. What once seems essential later seems tertiary. A new idea arises and changes everything. While what was written for this video differs from the final product, I’m thrilled with how it came out in its simplified form.
You can read my version of the script here.
credits:
Shot and directed by Matthew Addington and Alimzhan Alan Sabir
Produced by Mattiel Brown
First AD and Set Design by Remy Ciuba
Edited by Mattiel Brown
Feel'd Notes: A Fitting Diagnosis
I’ve had a strained relationship with mental health for as far back as I can remember. It wasn’t until after my 30th birthday, however, that I encountered a fitting diagnosis — ADHD. Before my clinician laid it out for me at the time, my belief was that I had bipolar II. I’d previously met with a psychiatrist in 2010 at the encouragement of a friend who went to the same guy and received Adderall. I tried one of her pills and it made me feel productive and “normal,” so I went in seeing if I would get my own.
I later learned that mental health diagnosis is more effective when ones symptoms are being taken into account from a period not as heavily influenced by alcohol as mine had been. My propensity for late nights, barely sleeping, impulsivity, intermittent hyperfocus, distractibility, and mood swings were all attributed to the wiring of my brain, rather than the substance used to douse its natural faculties. The psychiatrist gave me a medication initially developed for epilepsy, one said to be effective for bipolar but required the user to wean on off the recommended dosage. Pretty sure death was one of the potential symptoms of taking (or discarding) a “effective” amount right away.
As you could imagine, I didn’t feel comfortable consuming that drug for a variety of reasons, and stopped dosing before I even hit the second tier up the potency scale. It was during this time that I began writing songs again after a near 4-year hiatus wherein I dealt with a guitar-related growth in my wrist. My drinking (and mood swings) continued for three more years, until I traded in my addiction to alcohol for filmmaking and yoga.
It wasn’t until another 2 and a half years that I found my way into another clinician’s office — the one who identified me as having the “classic,” indrawn sort of ADHD that is not as easy to spot as the outwardly hyperactive variety. While I had accepted the bipolar labeling with a grim badge of cool, learning about ADHD from my counselor (and an amazing book he recommended called Driven to Distraction) led to a flood of self-identification and … relief.
Reading strangers’ accounts that sounded like they were grafted from my own experience and into the book provided both pain and hope. Ahhhh, so THIS is that thing that I’ve always known but could not speak to, draw lines about, and know how to address. That invisible force, identical to my frame and mirroring my movements, finally had a shape, a name, and a host of effective remedies. I’d stumbled my way into typical self-medication techniques, but the confirmation of the more lasting treatments I’d already discovered on my own combined with a litany of other methods provided a greater plan toward self-mastery … or even just for surviving.
The funny thing about ADHD treatments, though, is they are often synonymous with activities one would do when living with greater diligence. Daily exercise. Keeping a schedule. Early nights and mornings. Meditation. Develop a skill. Sometimes my mind is so untethered that implementing the activities that harness it is a daunting prospect. I often fail. I beat myself up for it. I get worked up and stressed out until I reach a point where I have no other avenue but to write or sit in nature or stretch as many muscles in my body as I can find.
In the wake of such experiences, I feel rejuvenated and rested — even if I just broke a sweat. I reflect on those trails and wish I could have remembered that the stress never helps, and its never as bleak as my panic and depression lead me to believe by clouding my experience. I’m so grateful for those moments (or seasons), and am learning to be patient with myself when my mind grows dissonant. Because I know that I’ve not always felt this way and won’t always feel this way — that no matter how hard it gets, it always gets better.
Shoutout to my partner @veganastronaut, our counselor, and anyone else who rides these waves with me.
###
Feel'd Notes: Self-Doubt
Thank you so much for taking your time to send so many kind responses. The feedback shouldn’t be what galvanizes me entirely, but it certainly helps fuel my diligence in this endeavor of frequent expression. To add clarity to my recent barrage of transparency, I want to address some of the comments the previous posts have garnered.
A few people have asked me if I have a book coming out, or why I’ve not been published. Those same questions have plagued me for some 12 years now. Not trying to pull a Muhammad Ali here by declaring myself as “the greatest,” but if I’m being honest, I do have a sneaking suspicion that I do have within me (or at least through me) access to a certain level of creative ability that COULD amount to more than just admiration for my literary (and musical) heroes, but more so a strange kinship.
In other words, I’m scared shitless at the prospect that I MIGHT BE ONE OF THEM.
What if I fuck it up? What if I’m deluding myself? To borrow a phrase from Frank Herbert’s Dune chronicles, I do feel a sense of “terrible purpose” regarding my nature as an expressive human. Not so much that I feel like I have any sort heightened ability, but rather that I’ve grown to recognize that we ALL are uniquely gifted in tremendous ways that are acutely needed during the time of our individual lifespans. We need only to permit ourselves to submit to that purpose, effectively making ourselves a conduit for what transcends the individual self and benefits the ALL.
And so to circle back to the question: Why am I not published? Well, I am. A poem here. A personal essay there. A short story in a college literary magazine (ages ago). I’ve been paid as a freelance journalists for some local publications in the past. Sometimes I’m contracted to write web content for a variety of purposes. I’ve written and co-written screenplays. Not nearly as much as I’d like, mind you, but it’s happened.
I think the spirit of the inquiry, more specifically, is: Why am I not self-sustaining as a creative writer? Why have I not published any BOOKS? Well, honestly, it’s because I’m terrified that I’m not good enough. I’m terrified that what I have to say is banal or (worse yet) self-indulgent. I wonder if anyone will care or connect with what I have to say and share. Ultimately, I’m worried that everyone will reject ME.
Oh, the wily ways of self-doubt.
As much as I can project those fears on to you, dear reader, the truth is that I am rejecting myself. I’ve been running away from my true self for 12 years. I sometimes meter who I am because I think it won’t be accepted, perhaps because I tend to view myself as unacceptable. I could blame my conservative Baptist upbringing, but at some point this is all an effort in self-repression, a reticence to open my heart and lungs and mouth and just BREATHE.
I no longer wish to run and hide. I want to unfurl. Because if I go through much more of this existence without speaking the thoughts and experiences I’ve accumulated, then it feels like I will have lived a “near life experience” (as my friend @gull_face would call it), which would be a tragedy. Not just for me, but a tragedy should anyone not live and live fully, to not step into the space to be the unique embodiment of consciousness that we each are.
In February I published a confessional called “Sleeping at the Wheel of My Life’s Purpose.” In many ways, it has continued to be a daily battle to plant my hands at 10 and 2, instead of allowing myself to take a cruise-controlled careen into the abyss of unconscious patterns.
Some things inside me have shaken loose of late, and I really hope these habits persist. So, again, thank you for the encouragement and feedback. It means a lot. Like @devendrabanhart said in a live session called “live @ quiet please!” — some people are strong enough to make a go of this life’s journey on their own, but me, I need help.
Thanks for being there. Thanks for listening. And if there’s something you feel like you need to share or say or be that you’ve been avoiding, I encourage you to let it out. No amount of inner turmoil is worth constipating your soul.
###
Feel'd Notes: Opening Up
When I met this being, it was only a mere few weeks after I realized that continuing to hold space for my marriage to come back together (despite how many times my co-parent implored me to move on and realize that it’s over) was actually an effort of not listening. Ultimately, it was unkind to continue to hold that hope, if that makes sense.
When I finally began to rest into a place of acceptance, I was driving back from witnessing two of my friends get married in Richmond (I was living in Lynchburg at the time). @420chocolatejuice was part of the wedding band, and rode back with me in my 1993 Volvo wagon. He and I became close during some of the most trying points of the separation, and it was easy to open up to such a willing and compassionate ear. He asked how I was doing, and I said I was doing well, and simply acquiescing to the reality that as a non-Christian, non-drinker that lives in Lynchburg, the chances of me finding a partner on a similar wavelength were essentially nil.
Judah wasn’t so certain. He encouraged me to be open to possibilities in unconventional places. Then he gasped. “Oh my gosh. You HAVE to meet my friend @veganastronaut. I think she’s dating someone who lives states away, but if nothing else I think you’d make great friends.”
Friends I was good with. After being with someone for 12 years, someone I was (and in many ways am) still in love with, dating was by no means of any interest to me. Just a week before that conversation, on what would have been our 10-year wedding anniversary, I was at a @sufjan5000 concert. A friend of ours we met in Argentina gave me two free tickets for the show. Sufjan is one of the few artists my co-parent and I ever mutually enjoyed. After not finding someone to join me for the show, I went alone, and wound up finding someone at the gate who could use my extra ticket. I wore an outfit that was much more representational of how I was feeling as a person. I stood out, I know, but I felt like me.
Out of curiosity (and for the first time in my life), I downloaded Tinder and Bumble. I swiped through, made a couple matches, and immediately deleted my accounts.
Even though I didn’t so much as talk to anyone on those apps, it still felt good to accept the fact that July 22 is now just any other day and that I am an autonomous being with the ability to connect with others in whatever capacity I desired. At that point I really just wanted to connect with myself.
I went home after dropping Judah off and looked up the person he mentioned I’d get along with. The strange thing is that I knew this person, but didn’t know her. I’d seen her at a music festival my friends put on two years prior. She was climbing up a tree that I was sitting beneath with my co-parent and our three kids. I remember noticing this free-spirited person and admiring how much fun they were having.
While it was somewhat synchronistic that the person Judah recommended I meet was this same creature I saw that day two years ago, it was surreal to discover that she was the same person I had seen at the same festival the next year. And the same person I saw the year after that at the same concerts and gallery showings I attended. It was weird because in each of those instances, she looked like an entirely different person. I didn’t know her, but I knew her, somehow. Like she was this beacon of energy that called to me, yet I felt too timid to meet. To discover that these seemingly three different individuals that I had noticed over the course of two years were actually all one person, however undergoing progressive transformations, struck me in a bewildering way.
That next weekend, I went to see Judah play bass in one of my favorite musical projects to date, alongside bandmates @jlloydharmon and @silentbetti. I had just moved into a new place with my kids, and wanted to celebrate the milestone by experiencing some local culture. I went to the venue — a vape shop — fully intending to leave if people were blowing plumes of the grotesque nicotine substance into the air my children were breathing. Not only was that not the case, but instead the lady in question was there smudging sage and dancing around. Her bright, gregarious nature intimidated me. I knew I could not keep up that speed. I kept my distance but I noticed her smiling at my kids at one point, which made me happy. Again, I wasn’t in a dating mindset at the time (and really I never am … I make close friends and sometimes those close friends become lovers or partners), but figured if there were to be some interest, any person I might see romantically would have to accept the entirety of me — minions and all.
I left that night without speaking to her, but not being able to help but be aware of her every movement. My kids said they were having fun (my oldest was being far more outgoing than me and made friends with people who later became MY friends), but it was time to get them to sleep. I drove off blasting the music from a somewhat obscure music project that included Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood called Junun, wondering if she would hear it and turn her head.
Later that week, my friend Jeremiah (who fronted the aforementioned band) posted about discovering that very project. I commented on his post, saying I’d been listening to it since that February. Oddly enough, she posted on it to, and had been enjoying it for a year. I mentioned that there was a documentary out on it, and that I was dying to know what the songs meant in English. She said she had the CD insert and would loan it to me. We all made plans to get together a few days later to watch the documentary.
In the meantime, Judah invited both she and I to his place for a vegan lunch that took place hours before the documentary screening. I arrived a few minutes past the agreed time, knowing that there’s no way I’d be able to match her energy. I was just coming out of a place of crisis. Just then allowing myself to enjoy social settings again.
When she arrived, it was clear she had just been crying. Or WAS crying. I felt a sudden sense of relief and concern. She and her partner of several years were breaking up right then and there. She recited poetry to help calm her nerves, and read a Frida Kahlo letter about being single. I was enraptured by her eloquence and literary recall. She mentioned that she’d spent 15 percent of her life with this person, and was reeling. I replied, “Try nearly 50 percent.” She must have understood what I meant, and gave me a big hug. She was leaving for work. She pulled back from the hug, held me by my shoulders. Looked straight into my eyes and said, “I don’t know you, but I know you, and then left.
We reconnected later that night at the documentary viewing, where we didn’t speak much but I was still so aware of her motions and posture. I drank (and shared) yerba mate to ground myself. After the viewing, I invited her outside to loan her a collection of Ralph Waldo Emerson essays, encouraging her to read “Self Reliance,” as it helped me so much during my own period of grief. I also gave her a typewriter, and said the kinesthetic, noisy, imperfect nature of it was cathartic to say the least. We spoke outside under a street lamp for an hour. I felt seen in ways I had never felt seen before. She said she felt the same way. We left that night with no expectations, just relief at knowing that after so many years on this planet, that truly there was another soul like me out there.
We shared our first kiss the following night, after accidentally meeting as guests of guests to a bonfire at @foraged.obscurities’s house. We spoke until nearly 4 a.m. At 8 a.m., I was to begin my first day on the job as an English teacher at a new high school. The kiss came without notice, but felt like something from long ago. Like we’d known one another for eons but only just then reconnected. We were (I thought) simply hugging to say goodbye and part ways, but she held on tighter and longer, then whispered, “You are so charming” in my ear. We pulled back and looked at one another.
Our bodies separate, but I could feel her entirely as if we were one entity. She asked, “Who are you, perfect human?”
I replied, “I’m pretty sure I am you.”
Before kissing, I wanted to let her know some things about me. About how my last relationship ended similarly to hers. I had an affair in 2010. It only lasted a few weeks, but the effects of it continually reverberate in my life and the lives of those around me. (More on that later.) I had held in the secret for 5.5 years. The day I cam clean was the day my marriage was over. I tried to keep things together by holding in something so significant, but it only built a greater and more impenetrable wall between my co-parent and I. The guilt was part of why I used to drink so much. I figured I could bear it forever. That it would be too cruel to let her know this thing had happened that I would never do again. On top of how wrong and cruel it was, it also fucked ME up. And I needed to be honest with this new friend and not go too far down into the affectionate wormhole of a new connection without letting her know who I had been, and would understand if that would be a dealbreaker.
She said it was remarkable how far I had come from the person I described myself to once be, and that she was glad to meet me “now” instead of then. Even a day earlier, and who knows if we would have allowed ourselves to connect so profoundly. Before that first kiss, we discussed how we wanted a partnership to look like: true companionship, total transparency, and mutual augmentation or BUST. We made out for what felt like an eternity, and stated tentative plans to meet up when we could, in a day or two.
We’ve now been together for three years. I’ve never experienced a closer friend, a more synchronous lover, and a more viable intellectual contemporary. We discussed being in an open (ethically non-monogamous/ polyamorous/whatever-you-want-to-call-it) relationship within the first couple weeks. At the time I thought the right answer to that was “oh HELL no,” but later, after much reading, was surprised by how much I resonated with that relationship structure: one built on avid, clear communication and trust, a understanding that we will likely feel connections/attractions to others at times (especially given that we are both queer), and a deeply affectionate bond that felt like any intimacy shared in addition to what we experienced together was more of an overflow of what we had rather than a detraction from the partnership.
We’ve had various trials and errors along the way, and often one or neither of us feels all that mentally well. Not because of our relationship or whatever shape it takes in a given period, but because we BOTH experience depression and anxiety in our own ways. We BOTH experience existential dread. We BOTH feel that this mess of a society is so backwards and doesn’t really have a place for compassionate people who would rather live in harmony with the environment than exploit it for momentary personal gain and pleasure. It’s a tough fight at times, but we are here for it, and eager to accept and overcome whatever new challenge with compassion (and grace for those moments of intense fear).
Ultimately, however, I know that this smiling face in the picture here is my partner, my lover, my friend, my companion, my contemporary. Regardless of how hard shit gets or how dissonant we can sometimes feel, we know that just beneath the membrane of illusory separation, that one thing is irrefutable: “I am you.”
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Strange Visions: Speaking from the Center
I woke up this morning with this anxious feeling trickling through me, its source not exactly known. One of my kids and one of my cats rolled on top of me on the bed, both requesting food of one sort or another. My partner got up first. I took another moment to close my eyes and process the dreams I had been having.
So strange. I don’t recall much from the visions, other than the two people many decades my senior who stopped in the middle of a dancing crowd to jump and land both feet on top of one of my typewriters, a burgundy Remington Noiseless from 1938. When the first person did it, a woman, I was perplexed and asked why. She walked off confused, and resumed her rhythmic undulations. Later, when it happened again, it was an older man, and this time he totally busted the carriage and also the iPad screen that was underneath my typewriter, which I had not noticed until after the damage was done.
Now, I have no idea what the hell this dream means, or even if it’s worth looking into. I have, though, and I wondered if this is something I should take to heart. Either way, I imagine no small part of the jittery sensations in my body have carried over from that dreamscape. I think it might also have to do with the inherent nervousness about my modes of expression, particularly the frequency and heft I tend to infuse into every phrase. Even with packing as much as I can into every word, I still tend to go lengthy and florid.
I’ve been communicating with a new friend I and told them that I’ve been a little bit hesitant in speaking as much as I would like, given that I do not wish to overwhelm. They encouraged me not to reign it in. I said that they had no idea what they were asking. (Haha.) They encouraged me to find an outlet for my expression.
Which is exactly what I’ve been doing this week.
I often feel like I am “too much.” And this is something that goes beyond verbal communication. I tend to have a high tolerance for substances. I have a lot of books at my house. A LOT. If you’ve ever seen me perform under my musical project @naturalastronaut, you know that I push my voice to its edge, both as an effort to feel it and to cut through the cacophonous sounds sod made by a variety of guitar effects and loops. My hair is a lot. Some might consider my manner of dress fairly ostentatious as well. There’s a lyric in one of my songs where I refer to myself as “flowering at the seams.”
OK — { *DEEP* breath } — I admit that I also have a fairly high desire for human affection as well. Not exclusively sensual affection, but just moments apart from this accompanying snap, we made love in a small bamboo forest not 50 meters away. There’s something about sex outdoors, in nature, that feels particularly connective. We’ve experienced long stretches in our relationship where we have been ravenous for one another. Other times, we have lengths of time where financial stress or other factors take up more of a share of our energies. I don’t always fare well during those times, prone lose my mind in self-spun narratives that depict me as undesirable or somehow loathsome. With enough internal convincing (I can make a strong case), I become loathsome. I stress us both out with worry, perpetuating marathon conversations that either find some place of sensible resolve or we are just so drained that there is nothing left to do but to sleep for what few hours remain before the next day’s duties come calling.
I don’t really have any distinct plan in place when I begin writing these micro essays other than to speak directly from my center whatever it is that is lurking beneath the surface. But I guess what I’m getting at here is that human intimacy gets weird, whether it’s a getting-to-know-you conversation with a new friend, an enduring erotic connection, passing a sea of strange faces down the street, or even intimacy unto oneself. Friends can act like strangers. Lovers can act like enemies. An individual can feel so estranged by their own personal self.
What matters most is that we extend grace in moments of perceived disconnection, to see ourselves and others as humans who experience fear, frustration, sadness, joy, and all combinations in between. We are all almost always going through our own shit. It never ends, we just learn more and grow in the process. And if the stakes keep raising, its because we’ve leveled up to the next challenge. Just make sure you find rest and sunlight along the way.
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Creating from a place of rest
As you might have noticed, the frequency and nature of my postings has changed quite a bit over the last few days. On Instagram, I’ll sometimes go months without sharing anything. On Facebook, I’ll share an article that confirms a perspective that I’m surprised to find out is violently opposed by so many. While taking so long to post anything and/or posting other people’s content are not my ideal, sometimes the rhythms and tides of my daily life sweep me away from the projects and practices that are most important to me. I can tend to get lost scrolling for hours and not realize it. Or I’ll spend an extended amount of time opening internet tabs of various job postings that I might be able to do, and only end up submitting my name and resume to the applications that require the least amount of up-front work. Later, I’ll compensate by stretches of manic “diligence” where I forget to eat, barely sleep, and don’t interact with those around me. By then, at least one of the gigs I was most excited about has been filled. So it goes.
Rest and I aren’t often well acquainted, which is problematic as a creative being. I’ve read that one universal trait among the greatest minds throughout human history is intentional periods of respite. Albert Einstein, for one, came up with the theory of relativity while soaking in the bathtub. In his book, The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle attributes this reality to the mind not being the true creative force of our beings, but rather it’s the space in between, beneath, and around our mental chatter where our unshakable identity exists and from which true innovation springs forth. When our mind is at rest and we are not creating a false identity of our thoughts and emotions, we relax into the infinite expanse of our consciousness, breathe deeply, and access our fuller potential.
I’ve inadvertently tested this theory countless of times in my life. When I push hard and headfirst, I struggle and writhe. When I create from a place of rest, take my brain out of the equation and let my soul do the work, my vision clears, my muscles release, and my voice rings true.
This picture was taken at Smith Mountain Lake on the dock outside a house where my dear friend @420chocolatejuice was laying down tracks for his album (another gnarly story for another day) with an ensemble of other mega-talented artist friends: @silentbetti, @jlloydharmon, @lostframez, and @carsontcody. Witnessing their level of dedication, aesthetic agility, honed skill, raw talent, and genuine LEVITY put me in a place of shock and admiration that I still refer to in my own mind when aiming to stoke the flames of my own growth and diligence. But gently. With compassion for my place on the path.
I know there is greatness in me because I know there is greatness in all of us. We are capable of so much more than we give ourselves the credit and rest in order to attain. Let’s do this shit. Who’s down to chill the fuck out and make some serious moves in between naps and cuddles, all the while with smiles on our faces and tears in our eyes?
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Without transparency, I become opaque
These pictures (and yes, there are more of her to come) are of my partner @veganastronaut. We met a little over three years ago, approximately 9 months after my former partner/co-parent and I ended our 9.5-year marriage, overall a 12-year romantic relationship that began the first semester of our freshman year of college.
I can’t and won’t pretend that those 9 months were easy for me. I intend to write about that period someday soon (the what, the why, the how) but for now I’ll only graze upon the subject. I still love her dearly and will always consider her to be family and among my most cherished friends, but one of the roots responsible with our growing into a different sort of relationship is my own penchant for not fully accepting myself as I am, thereby denying my ability to be loved.
I hid from her, from our friends, from our family, from myself. I allowed my fear to prevent our growing closer as lovers and best friends through fuller vulnerability and transparency. For years I kept the fact that I am not a Christian (at least not in the sense that I was raised to understand the term) a secret even from my own inner dialogue. I was ashamed of my sexuality. I was ashamed of my gender. I was ashamed of harboring simultaneous attractions. I was ashamed of how differently my brain seemed to work compared to everyone else I knew.
Instead of being open, I allowed certain realities to build inside of me. I rarely wrote or played music. I used late nights of excessive drinking to ease the pressure some, but it would still build to the point that I would explode at a single pinprick, taking offense even when none was intended. I lashed out. I became verbally and emotionally abusive — a mere reflection of the caustic nature of my own internal dialogue.
It was a troublesome journey to come to the understanding that it was impossible for me to love others the way I knew I could without first loving myself. For me, loving myself looks like not putting things in my body that I know are harmful to me or the environment. It means practicing stillness, being outside, writing, reading, playing music, laughing, sleeping 7.5 hours per night.
Even just the thought that I wasn’t living up to my own standard is enough to unleash the raging dogs of self doubt that prevent me from showing up for me and my family in the ways I know I can.
On the day that my co-parent decided our relationship was over, I revealed some things about my past that I had been hiding. There was no premeditation in this revelation, it simply happened. I spent most every moment of my marital separation focusing on how I can heal myself and unearth in me both the rotted portions and gems alike, not as an effort of saving my marriage but as a means of saving my own life. It’s not nearly impossible for me to hold things in about myself, no matter how dark the detail. Without transparency, I become opaque. Everything within me rejects non-disclosure. Being so open it’s exactly easy. It’s often painful, honestly, but the breeze of clarity it provides is unlike anything else I know. It is truth. It is light. And through those acute vulnerabilities I find myself less alone, less afraid, and more capable of taking deep breaths at the water’s edge with those I love.
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Anxiety is a Masterful Teacher
Anxiety is masterful teacher. I experience many forms of it, but one that beckons me so sweetly into its grip is social anxiety. I was picked on a lot from a young age — by my family members, the kids on my block, my classmates — and all the way through college. Eventually I found alcohol to be the perfect lubricant for connecting with other people. It helped me to dance like a wild thing, even when I entirely hated the music.
Now, even if I hit a spliff, I feel incredibly awkward while dancing, even (to an extent) when I love the music. So often I find myself in public settings where my discomfort acts a reflex that goes from filing alienated to instead assuming that nothing I survey is of any interest for me. (Yes, this IS pretension.) This experience really upsets me, however. I really wish I could enjoy the things that so many others seem derive pleasure from, but instead I maintain my position as a wallflower, perhaps outwardly seeming aloof but inwardly wishing I could be in the fray and experiencing whatever everyone else is getting out of a particular event.
I went to @floydyogajam thanks to the generosity of my dear college friend @everfreespirit and her wonderful partner @ragoodial07 (who I’ve been getting to know over the last year or so). I spent half of the festival by myself, floating around to whatever workshop, yoga session, or musical performance caught my attention. Sometimes I’d run into one group or another that I knew. Strangers introduced themselves to me. I maintained a wall of shyness at first, but something in me kept urging me to push beyond my comfort zones and to try things that were distinctly uncomfortable. Eventually, I broke through this barrier, and found myself having an incredible time of laughter and healing with old and new friends alike. I won’t forget what occurred this past weekend soon, and still find myself crying at random moments. It’s the best sort of weird.
I refuse to allow myself to snick back into old habits, now that I’m back in Richmond and home with my family. I have a lot of work and healing still to do, and I’m excited for it all.
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And if I can and do change, you can (and are) too.
If your friends aren’t obsessed with plants, are they really even your friends? If we don’t care for the planet, are we even human? Are we conscious? We often consider ourselves the most intelligent species on the planet, but would truly intelligent beings actively destroy their own bodies, their own homes?
Perhaps, but not ones that are aware of their actions and the implications they have on our ecosystem. I don’t say this to denigrate you, me, and everyone we know. I realize there’s nothing new in this sentiment. This is a reminder to my Self, that which resides in me and beyond me, that we ARE better than this and need to live accordingly.
I left religion years ago, and if I do have a faith, it’s an exoteric practice that demands that I not live in contrast to the truths that I have experienced first-hand. For this reason, I do not drink alcohol. For this reason, I do not eat animal products. For this reason, I do what I can to minimize any purchases and actions that could be complicit with what I see to be directly responsible. I’m not sharing these words out of pretension (as if I’ve found some “elevated” way of being that allows me to condescend) but rather because through transforming my behaviors in accordance to this creed, I too have been transformed — within and without. And if I can and do change, you can (and are) too.
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Feel'd Notes: Gaining Perspective
How often is it that we lie on our backs, look up at the infinite expanse of everything, and feel what it feels like to be an inextricable yet impossibly small part of something so grand and limitless? As a child growing up in the woods of New York State, such a state of wonder was ever preset. Having grown and moved around up and down the east coast of both American continents, I find such connection less and less frequent in my life.
I make myself busy. Not just because I want to sustain myself and my family, but because it’s the nature of the way my ADD mind operates. I have so many interests, all of them infinite. It’s difficult for me to decide how to spend what little time I have in this life: how to practice, what to practice, where to be, who to be. I’m run to anxiety. I’m prone to really really low thoughts, and it all affects everything in my life. But no matter how worthless and scattered I may feel from time to time, sometimes just lying down and gaining that perspective that’s bigger than my worries and tasks, I see how far I’ve come, how much I’ve changed, how much I’ve grown, how much life I have lived and have yet to live, how rich it has been — how wide and deep and peculiar.
I have been so many things to so many people, and yet throughout it I retain a single glimmer of awareness that has remained constant throughout it all. Losing touch with this perspective, I grow tired and terrified. I’m so grateful for the moments when I feel cracks in the narrative that I tell myself, and I am brought once again to an understanding of where I am and what I am to do. I sometimes forget how to have fun, and grow despondent. I sometimes forget how gentle I am, and lash out at those around me. Regardless of what you might think of me, how soft and how kind or how compassionate, there is a ferocity in me known only to those who I’ve lived with. It is as much part of me as it is not my truest nature — one of curiosity and wonder.
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Capable of Confidence
I asked the people of Facebook yesterday what they did to build their confidence. Sometimes my posts there are polarizing. People misunderstand what I’m saying or take it as a personal attack and the vitriol of the public stage comes to my desktop. My friends call my other friends names. People wrote dozens of messages trying to persuade me or others why their interpretation of my words can only mean the one specific interpretation they gleaned. Sometimes the comments amass to several hundred heated or otherwise pretentious sentiments. This time was different.
This time, people I’ve known for days or decades chimed in with genuine feedback. I learned a lot about each person who responded, and gained many insights and tools for what I can do when I lack the confidence to move and breathe fully as I am and what I’m growing to be. I’m surprised that others are surprised when they learn that this is much of the time for me.
Many people said to be still. Others said to take action of your own volition. Both are entirely true and essential, as were almost all of the other responses (go to my FB wall to read, if you’re curious).
When I’m not wading through the anxiety and depression I’ve had since before I was old enough to go to school, my ADD works as a superpower. I can connect with most anyone, as I am tapped into the oversoul that comprises us all. I know I am capable of anything. I know WE are capable of anything — the potential for manifestations of infinite love or infinite fear. Which should we choose? Are we even awake enough TO choose? Too often, I am not. But I have been and I can be. You can too.
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Feel'd Notes: Art & Exposure
To make art — and I mean art, not advertisements or pop jingles ... something from the soul — is to expose one’s self. Yes, to others, but perhaps the scariest part is turning over the stones of memories, ideas, and emotions and revealing them to yourself.
Not for vanity. Not for glory. Not for riches. But for healing and for truth. Rend your clothes, the layers of little lies you whisper to yourself, see yourself as you are, and re-spin the threads. Weave them into the fabric of your life, your creative force. You don’t need a pattern to follow other than the rhythmic thud of your own blood. Let it ring in your ears as you submerge yourself into the murky depths of your process, no matter how ramshackle, and take rest while basking on the surface of your infinite, growing awareness.
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Spontaneous Prose
SPONTANEOUS PROSE
Blue-lit morning. Golden eyes sparkle — never fading — even in the brightness of dawn. Silken and dewey, you writhe.
We knock heads. Face of my face. Understandings between embraces — the entire contiguous organism open, receptive, transmitting electromagnetic connectivity and transmuting pain into presence and joy. Undertow of emotions, sweeping the anxiety out and out until it washes into a billion diamond smiles.
Breaker of breakers. United and untied. Fancifully verbose yet precise — not a word wasted in this stillsuit of eternity.
Breath of my breath. I inhale your exhales — perfect in time, imperfect situation made pure. Whole. Unanimous pleasure. Guidance of intertwined fingers. Goddess of all that I am and will grow to be.
Regal.
With the morning’s digital clangor, I arise — rinse the night’s perspiration from my skin only to to fall back again. 400 threads. 4 million years. My soul, you are divine, infinite, correspondant even in formology. Your brilliance beyond measure, beyond expectation.
In you I find ever-present rest and equanimity.
Te adoro.
