inspiration – An Accidental Vagabond

IMG_20170725_164120~2 — In Bali, three times a day offerings are left for God.

It’s been six months since I wrote my last post. Six months since I’ve posted a photo to my Simple blog, and more than six months since I have written a poem or a short story. It’s as if I have given up on myself. It isn’t as if. It is as it is.

I do interesting things, at least it appears to be that way on the outside looking in, but I have to forcibly remind myself that my life is interesting or that it has some measure of value. Much of the time I feel disconnected from everything, like I’m a replicant just posing to be a part of the human race in hopes that I don’t get killed by Harrison Ford- although I guess if Harrison Ford or Ryan Gosling were the last people I saw on the planet it might not be so bad. I travel quite a bit. I live in different countries. These are privileges that not a lot of people get to experience, so I understand the immaturity of complaining of feeling bad. What right do I have to feel bad when I live in a different country-by my own by choice? What right do I have to feel bad to have when I’ve just returned from a vacation in tropical wonder? What right? It isn’t a right. It is an inability to stop the feelings no matter where I go. No matter how beautiful the sunset, no matter how fun the party, no matter how exciting the adventure I can not escape the feeling that I’m fucking all of this up and doing it wrong. I didn’t connect enough, I didn’t have enough fun; I don’t look good in the photos; my photos aren’t spectacular; I feel lonely; I’m outside everything; I don’t feel it enough; I’m not adventurous enough; I’m not wise enough; intense enough; beautiful enough; young enough; never, never, enough. Who do I live for? It’s supposed it is me, but I’m not really certain.

A few years ago, I discovered that traveling doesn’t save me. I now know that no matter where in the world I am, and no matter how amazing the place is I’m also there too, and if I am not in the right head space then the place will not and does not change me. Sometimes, when I speak or tell stories to people I feel like I am lying. Like I am a fraud. I’ll walk away from a conversation and think to myself, I talk too fucking much. Why do I talk? Is that story even real? I have grown enough to have had many of self realizations, but not enough to know how to change the way I think about myself within those realizations. Meditation, yoga, self-help books, therapists, I suppose I’d try religion if it wasn’t so vulgar in its abuse of people. Still, the seeking of spirit is still there. I can’t see the progress. I’m sure there has been some, but I just can’t see it. I had a lot of dreams that I ignored for the same feelings that I have in my travels. Not enough, not good enough. I know that everything takes practice and experience, but I have the hardest time applying this well known truth to my own life. Somehow, I am outside of all of that truth. Anyone can be anything they want except for me. I’ll never improve; I’ll never be good at something; I’ll never have a successful relationship; I’ll never be worthy of the life I have been given; I’ll never live it to the fullest no matter how many hashtags of “livetothefullest” I post to my instagram. I am aware of the ridiculousness of this thinking, but training myself out of this thinking has been the most challenging thing in my life. It’s a constant battle. I’m a tired warrior fighting a never ending war.

The first time I left the U.S. I went to Europe. I was 25. I was heartbroken from a lost relationship that I thought was going to last forever (even though I didn’t always treat it as if I had believed it was forever). I thought Europe would save me. It would feed my soul and I would forget my former love. That’s how it is in the movies and the books. You never read a book about the person that goes to a new country and spends the entire time crying over their former lover leaving them. This is because no one wants to read that story. We know that feeling and we don’t like it. We want the good stuff. I didn’t get the good stuff because I couldn’t open to it. I was too busy wallowing in my self. When you can’t let go of an idea or a vision of what you thought you wanted or believed you would have, you can never be open to receive your new vision. This makes you rigid, closed, and disconnected to the magic around you. I know this because there is magic all around me that I miss every day, and I have missed for years. I see the magic in my friends. I see the magic in strangers. I’m grateful that I have the eyes to see at least that much. Europe didn’t change me the first time, or the second or the third time. At some point, perhaps it was in the 13 year break I took from traveling, I realized that I had wanted the place to change me. If I could go to a new place I could be a new person, but this never happened because places don’t change us- they effect us, but we change within ourselves. I couldn’t change the person I was to match the image or idea of the place I was in. I knew that it didn’t matter where I was in the world, that if I didn’t work on myself then I was never going to be happy or find the happiness I was searching for. Am I actually searching for happiness? I’m not even sure of that. If you don’t know what you are searching for then you most certainly will never find it.

Now, when I go to a new place, I don’t expect it to change me. I know it will effect me, but change me…no… I must find the way to do that within me, and that can happen anywhere even at home. Although, China changed me, but it was more likely my mother dying while I was in China that truly changed me. Well, not changed, but set the wheels in motion. Three year’s later and I’m still dealing with her death. Last night, after returning from a trip in Bali, I was overwhelmed with how lonely I felt in Korea. I looked at the room I was in. The closed walls, the tight space, the towering high-rises, the silence in the elevators, the lack of eye contact, the hours sometimes days without communicating to a person in person. I compared this to the open space of the place I had stayed in while in Bali. Every morning I had the staff to speak with, and how friendly they were, how easy it was to speak with people, how Balinese people would always say hi when you walk past on the street; the noises, the daily offerings of banana baskets of flowers on the ground and on the doorsteps. The openness of everything. My space had been huge, the sky had been huge, and suddenly, I felt all the smallness of my room in Korea. I was struck with an overwhelming loss. I had missed my mother. I missed being tied to someone, to belonging to someone. I think my friends would ask me why I don’t leave Korea if I feel so lonely there, and I suppose I would give the same answer as I had in China. I just want to see it through. Now, as I am about to begin a graduate program in TESOL, I will possibly have to stay even longer in this lonely yet intriguing country. I know when I leave it is unlikely I will ever return to Korea. I did say the same thing about China, and now I would like to go back to visit, but Korea, doesnt have the same effect. I have no animosity toward the country, but it is a place for the young. Korea doesn’t want us aging people, it doesn’t even want it’s own aging people-unless they are rich. Maybe there is a bitterness in this from me, not being able to stop the process of my aging, and Korea here to remind me of it. I’ve always struggled with loneliness and now I am on my way to invisible. I’m not afraid of it. I am painfully uncomfortable with it. The pathway to acceptance is a painful one. It’s less traveled because it is unpleasant. There is also no promise that you will feel better once you’ve reached the end of that road. I think only death brings that peace, if you can not find the peace within yourself while you are alive. I believe this peace is possible, but I don’t believe it’s possible for me. That’s my demon. What is all this about? What is this self-flagellating about? It is my purging. The beginning of a new task. I new process that I have added to my lists of processes to teach my self to enjoy the process.

There have been some times when people told me that I was talented, but I never allowed myself to believe them. Which is insulting to the person praising because you discredit their point of view by not taking the compliment, but most of us are selfish in our thinking, and we don’t see the gift that people are giving us. We wait for the insults because for some reason those are more believable. I’ve forgotten my praises, except one, and I imagine I remembered it because for years I thought of it as an insult. Once a teacher described me as tenacious. When I first heard this it made my heart drop. It was during a certificate ceremony when myself and others were receiving our degrees from a writing program. This same teacher had previously praised all the other students with words about their work, and their talents, and how people should look for their work in the future. When it was my turn he said nothing of my talent and nothing of my work, only that I was tenacious. I felt dejected by this statement. It yet again reinforced my belief that I was talentless, and that I was not enough. I also felt like it wasn’t accurate. If I was so tenacious then why did I quit acting? Why did I quit writing? Why didn’t I pursue the other arts I desired like dancing, or art or photography? I gave up every dream- how is that tenacious? Yet, as I look back on his comment, I know that it is the truest thing said about me. I am tenacious, even though I don’t always face my life in full awareness, I don’t give up. The fact that I am alive is a sign of my tenacity. I have stood at the edge of a window frame on the 13 floor, at the edge of a busy street, and the lip of a bridge, and just wondered if I could just let go and end this life. Those are not even my darkest moments, and yet, I hold on. Even after the death of my mother the most important person in my life, I still hold on. Even when I don’t know why or what I am holding onto I hold on. As if I am digging my soul out of the earth I grasp to improve my being and to grow. I search, and I finally know what I search for. I search for my freedom and my joy.

There were times when I was younger and I felt I had something to offer; when I could feel passion in my veins, when I felt like my inner self was bigger than my outer self and I longed for a bigger body that could fit my soul. My skin felt tight around my inner being. I want this feeling to return. I make these tiny painful steps toward rebuilding my inner life. It feels like rehabilitation from an accident I don’t remember. I need the physical therapy, but I don’t know why I need it. I started listening to podcast about change, reading books about change, motivating my inner thoughts to be aware of my choices about holding on to or letting go of my feelings. I started focusing on my habits and trying to change my life through changing my habits, like the habit of not liking any choice I make. This is habitual. It is habitual to think I’m not enough. Here is the point of this purge: I give myself 30 day challenges. 30 days of meditation every morning. 30 days of yoga. 30 days of not buying coffee. 30 days of waking up at 6:00 a.m. It can be anything. Behind every 30 day is the motivation and the intention to better myself by facing my habits and changing them. My measure of success is completing the 30 days. An even greater measure of success is turning that challenge into a habit. 30 days of letting shit go (this is a tough one). This here is 30 days of writing.

Day one is this confessional. I have four blogs. Poetry, photography, short stories, and this one. It doesn’t matter where I post or how much I write as long as I do it every day. What’s the intention the motivation? To be a good writer? To be prolific? To be seen? No. The intention is to make this writing a habit. A real habit. That my day doesn’t feel complete if I don’t write. To feel cleansed after writing. This is my intention. I don’t know if I will ever feel like I am enough or feel connected to this earth and the people in it, but maybe one day I will. My only legacy will be what I place down in a public place. It may not be much of a legacy, but because I am a human being in this world reaching out to grasp something, the same as all the billions of other human beings on this planet, I feel a need for a legacy. A small legacy and fantasy legacy, but a legacy all the same. To me that is writing.

With all of the self induced suffering and suffering caused from living in the world, and the apathy that leads to wanting to give up on this life, I still want to live an extraordinary life. I want to be amazing. I want to be amazing to me. I want to receive the magic, and if it takes me a life time to get there I will still try. There are times in my life when I can feel it. The beauty the enormous beauty of it all. I don’t know what gave me the gift in that moment to see life, but I’m so incredibly grateful to have received it. I want more of it. And I know it is there even if I don’t always believe it is meant for me. Life is fleeting. I’ll ride this suffering like a dragon into a storm. I don’t know if the storms will pass, but I’ll ride to the edge of the world, and if you want to grab my tail, you are welcome to do so. Purged.

Day one.

I’ve moved rooms, again. I’ve moved five times since I’ve been in Prague, and I’ve only been here four months. It’s really not all that unusual for me to move so often, but I’ll save all that moving talk for another post. This is about Henry.

I’m currently staying in a hostel. This hostel names their rooms after colors. My last room was “Beige”, and now I have moved into “Ruby”. I’ve also stayed in “Lavender” and “Purple”. Funny enough, my “Beige” room had lavender painted walls; not that that means anything, but I like to pull connections out of nothing. The night before I was to move, I had been lying in my bed in the “Beige” room, and sort of mentally writing. I do this a lot. I imagine that I am writing. Sometimes I am smart about it and actually write these moments of genius thought down, but not often- so my genius is often lost. I was thinking about the first time I had ever read Henry Miller. I’ve been reading Big Sur, by Jack Kerouac, and I was thinking about the part in the novel when he mentions a possible visit with Henry Miller. That’s all that is mentioned in the book, but I know what happened because I had read all of the other accounts from other writers. Maybe it was Carolyn Cassidy or maybe it was Henry or perhaps it was Kerouac himself that had told the story. The plan was for Kerouac to sneak quietly into San Francisco, and meet Ferlinghetti, and together they would drive to Big Sur to have dinner with Henry Miller, and then Kerouac could settle into the cabin, but it didn’t happen. Kerouac came roaring into San Francisco with his bourbon and drinking buddies, and never made it to dinner. Kerouac was already deep into his alcoholic depression, and going to Big Sur was his attempt to try to clear his mind and confront his demons, but he didn’t succeed. He ended up drunk, disoriented, and threatened by the dramatic coastal environment. Where Miller saw life Kerouac saw death.

The book is depressing, even without the part about ditching Miller. It’s depressing because Kerouac is loosing it, and I can recognize the serious depression, delusion, and alcoholism that he is experiencing. The depression is too familiar, and as mine is increasing in its strength, I feel like I don’t need Kerouac, I need someone else. I need Henry.

The first time I ever read Miller, I was staying in a hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the Princes street hostel, and it was 1998. I had been trying to find work but couldn’t get a job anywhere because of not having a work visa. I had paid for a full week’s accommodation, and bought food for a week, but once that week was up I had no money. I had managed to find work in a hotel, but I was fired after two days. I had never been fired in my life, but I didn’t make a very good maid. I wasn’t fast enough in my cleaning. So far it remains to be the only job I’ve ever lost. I was feeling dejected and nervous about what to do next. There was nothing for me to do, but to wander the city, and go to every museum because they were free. I would sit under the castle and want to cry because of the upcoming homelessness and winter, but it was too beautiful to cry. It was a desperate time, but there wasn’t much I could do except look for work, wander the streets, go to museums, and read.

I had been sitting on the top bunk aimlessly staring out the window when I had noticed Henry Miller’s, “Tropic of Capricorn” on my flatmate’s bed. I was curious to read him only because I had been told I wouldn’t like him. My boyfriend had said that to me when I was 20. He had been reading Anais Nin and Henry Miller. He had told me I wouldn’t like Miller that I would think he was too vulgar, but that I should read Anais Nin. He had felt she was more my style. I ended up reading Nin, but I didn’t care for her writing. Too flowery and perfumey: vagina’s like petals, and sex like every bed had silk sheets. It didn’t appeal. He was wrong about me liking her at that time, but I still trusted his judgement on what I would like and not like so I didn’t try to read Henry Miller.

But, that was five year’s before, and he was, in ’98, engaged to another woman, and I was alone traveling and poor in Scotland. His opinion no longer mattered. Henry was waiting for me. My flatmate gave me the book, and as I read I found myself laughing out loud at his vulgarity, and his boastings and rantings. I remember thinking, “how can a person write like this? How can a person be so free in their expressions. How can a person love life so much?” He spoke to me. I wanted to be as free as he demanded I be— that all people be. To not live among the dead that walk around in the “daily processes”, but to soar with the living. Don’t just get by. Do more than get by- live.

I think in many ways the dead can speak to us through their writings. They tell us to get up, to keep going, to have some passion, and to not give up. To wake up and see the world. The real world not the illusion of the world. I had thought about being a writer. I had written stories as a young girl, but I had felt insecure because really what did I have to say. Writing was for the “intellectuals”. I put all my energy into acting when I was young, but the moment that I read “Tropic of Capricorn”, and saw the way that Miller wrote, I knew at that moment that I wanted to be a writer. In a small way he changed my life. He crossed over the barrier of death and shook me, and gave me permission. I haven’t read a book by Miller in a couple of years, but he comes to my thoughts every now and then.

My move to Ruby was tedious. I only had to move down three floors, but I didn’t bother to pack so it took too long. It should have been a lot easier than it was but the close proximity of rooms made me lazy. I had managed it though, managed to make the chaotic move. The new room has several beds. I could have a huge slumber party I have so many beds. The beds have the graffiti of people who have traveled through Prague and stayed in the hostel. On one of the beds in huge black permanent ink is written, “READ HENRY MILLER NOW.” At one time someone passed through this place that was like me, someone who also was changed by the writer. Someone who also felt that Henry Miller was needed to be read. Now.

An unknown stranger writing on a bed in a ruby room. Look at us talking to each other, and we’ve never even met. See, connections out of nothing, and yet, it’s still a connection.