san Francisco
mummy, ok. so then it was on to san francisco. i cut across from rt.101 to rt.1 using the same highway jams dean died on. with it's beauty, not a bad place to die. lined with christmas tree farms where they put one strand of tinsel on each tree so that the whole hillside shimmered. route 1 or "the one", is a highway that goes up the coast. and that ain't no joke. it twists and turns around cliffs so that your top speed never exceeds 40 mph. in some turns 5 mph. which i'm sure causes a lot of tourist deaths, because on the other side of you is the pacific ocean. glorious, calm and scary. and again i thought of perry mason. every body that falls to their death is in a perry mason show. just as all black actors are densel washington. just as whoever is sitting next to me was at what ever event i am talking about. as the phrase goes, "you were there!".
so, the one. off shore oil rigs that look like cross's in the ocean. mountains that cut the sunlight so that it sinks into earth like coffee into the cracks on a table. clouds climbing ashore to rest after a long day of working for the sun, and then block the sunset with their sleeping.
"and then there is night; when a wind full of infinite space gnaws at our faces."
rainer maria rilke
i concur. and more so;
"don't you know yet? fling the emptiness from your arms into the spaces we breathe.
perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying."
again, rilke
i gave my rilke book to a counselor at camp named cosmo who was feeling down. i felt a little like a religious freak tying to convert someone. "here brother, this is the truth and it can help you see....". but to me, it is. and in moments like peeing in the rainstorm, standing on the cliff, and watching the junkie cry, everything becomes clear for the smallest space in time. rilke seems to have these feelings down pat. lifted, removed, revealed.
suddenly the car tilts forward and i am driving strait down the earth. then i am upside down, then rocking from side to side. i wonder what is happening to my body. i'm still driving, i'm not dead, there is no pain.
getting tired, my vision starts to cross. trees on the road side turn into people, dips in the road are animals. my right eye starts hurting, like an eyelash under the lid.
my back aches where they say the kidneys are....is it my kidneys?
night is my time to be lost in dreams, then jolted back to reality. as cars and trucks drive by i am near blinded by their lights. thirsty, check the blood sugar. tired, check the blood sugar. fear creeps in again. and this is my journey. to find the person that keeps stealing my courage and ability to handle this fear. it was around monterey that i began suspecting myself. no great revelation for those that know me, but to myself. rationally i think that when i go blind, it will be another metamorphosis. i will have to learn to do things differently. i have no doubt that i will rise to this challenge. emotionally, i am scared. one thought leads to another and an hour later i am sick to my stomach. how will i make coffee? how will i write songs, test my blood sugar, measure shots? where will my inspiration come from? that is the thought that has led me on this journey. inspiration. mine is usually derived from seeing and talking to people. so it makes sense to fill my mind with as much visual input as possible. a panic move. not only to fill my mind with moments but to face myself and my weakness. why do i do, what i know is going to hurt me? i think everybody on the planet has probably asked this question. i know i am not alone and that there are others much worse off than i am. that thought makes me feel like a giant piece of crap when i start to feel sorry for myself. then the humor kicks in and i can avoid the ongoing crisis for another few hours. but then back again to the questions. and how close am i to death? i don't fear death as much as i do change. and though i understand that change is good, it's not always good. or more, it doesn't necessarily make you feel good about things. and the circle is complete and begins again. and then i am lifted by the hands of clarity. there is no pain, no fear, no loss of vision. these are the moments i live for.
the trip to san fransisco was exhausting due mainly to my mind and it's racing. i pulled into town at 12:30 in the evening. i stayed with some friends, dylan and sophie. there is something very warming about staying with married couples. there is a sense of security in their daily routine. i felt finally relaxed a bit.
the next day i walked around the mission, an area of san fransisco that is heavily populated with latinos. i sat at bus stops and watched people. drank coffee, got a guyabera (dark brown), and a small accordion. i mean, if you have 2 ukuleles then you must have an accordion. got a couple small religious articles from the dollar store, too. oh, and a religious latino comic book that i think said, "the double cross" with pictures of cross' on fire and evil demons lurking about...as opposed to the good demons. then i returned home and we prepared to go out. that night we went to a movie theatre where they showed two movies simultaneously. one a french film with cute french girls, and a guy that writes stuff in bathrooms and on buildings that had to do with revolution and the buisousie...in french. and the other movie was an early charles bronson flick called .....uh, ..machinegun kelly, i think. this movie had some great lines in it like, "when dogs start talkin', there's gonna be trouble". there were oodles of good lines but with my limited memory capacity...well.... so we watched the movies and then split to a dance club where we proceeded to shake our proverbial booties. it was a blast, but it seemed that every woman i danced with asked me if i had drugs...ok so there were only two girls that i danced with and they both asked. still, it didn't bother me until later. dylan showed me a building with furniture jumping out the windows. seems a local artist took it upon himself to get permission to construct all these pieces of furniture and somehow attach them to the building so that it looked like they were jumping out of the windows. it was very cool. i believe it was called the defenistration project...again the memory, again the spelling. sunday dylan drove me around the city and showed me the sites. it's quite an interesting place, due mainly to it's peculiar history and geography. and the last site i remember of san fransisco is a fat puck rock guy singing to a fat punk rock girl the following song with his arms stretched out and t-shirt just up over the belly, "your so beautifuuuuul, so fucking beauuuuutifuuuul, oh shit,... i loooove youuu!!!!". moments like these. dylan said laughing, "i love this city". yup, san fransisco was alright.
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