Made of This (Sweet Dreams)

Tags

dreaming

I dreamt of her last night, an unknown woman in an unknown place.
The shared laughter, the light that was in her eyes when she looked at me, reflected in my heart.

It has been a long, long time since even my subconscious dared dream of such a beautiful feeling…

The Life to be Lived/Away from These Walls

Tags

Going Home

 

2.18.12

It’s coming down to the wire. Just a little over one week more at Laguna Honda until I pack my things, leave.

I’ve already been here far too long, at least for the preservation of mental health, and regardless, there is little choice but too, as after 30 days in hospital “care” SSI plummets down to an outrageous sum of $42.00 – and what they expect anyone to do with that gargantuan monthly sum in the City of San Francisco, I would most certainly like to know. It must be an incredibly well kept secret – or a very, very cruel joke. My guess is the later. Perhaps it would be fine if I were stuck here like so many are… but every chance I am able to leave, I do, staying away as long as possible – until I get tired, until there is little left but the redundancy of café’s, as even those get old after a while.

Excited, perhaps a bit nervous remembering the last time, but my heart beats faster with each thought of it, and…

I’m going home.

Back to my motorhome, back to my sanctuary. At least until all that needs to be done is done at one of the SRO places I’ve applied to, as I would like to do a bit of interior work on her – ripping out the beaten down couch & putting in a much more attractive, comfortable & space saving seating arrangement, (getting my feng shui on, yo) & perhaps even painting the outside, as well as a bit of engine work… but most of those things can wait, at least a bit.

Gods, I can’t wait to leave this place.

To wake up in my bed, in my home… to get away from these places of sickness & death, to get away from those who seem to have just given up on life, content to stay here until they die; as if they haven’t already died inside… this is no place for me;

and it is far past the time to leave.

There is much too much life to be lived.

The Road to Anywhere

Tags

Photography, Road trip, Travel, Wanderlust

Perhaps this little road trip to L.A. will satiate me for just a bit, but I’ve got a feeling it will more than likely sharpen my desire to *truly* get on the road, and keep going. I don’t know whose blood flows through my veins, I’ve never met any of my blood family – but perhaps they – or one of them, were travelers, wanderers as well…

What matters…

 

I really didn’t do that much, not at all. Cleaned, vacuumed, put things back in place & re-placed others, checked out the engine… & just enjoyed being home. Immensely.

You can’t really even call it work, but it made me realize, made me remember how much I have missed feeling like… feeling like I was actually *doing* something; something that may matter only to me, but when I’m done I can step back, look around at what I have accomplished, and see, with my own eyes, like I made even the smallest amount of difference.

Gods, I have missed that feeling so profoundly, but until today I couldn’t put my finger on what the emptiness was, why I was so angry, why I felt so useless.

Work.

Getting my hands dirty, feeling the strain in my muscles, using my mind to figure out problems… and the rewards of a day – or at least a few hours – well spent.

It makes me feel alive.

a brief moment…

 

If I had a full tank yesterday, there is nothing more that I would have liked to do than just hop on the 101 in either direction, and simply go. Anywhere, nowhere, the shine in my heart & eyes coming back after being dulled and tarnished by over a year in hospitals. I’d just keep on going, pulling over in little towns, eating at greasy spoons, writing and being so gloriously anonymous as I watched the people who may live there, or may be passing through just like me… just a few days, after the weekend, then I would be back with a new peace, a new vigor for life…

But I didn’t have a full tank, so after the archery range I watched the sunset as I walked along the tide-line at ocean beach, then when the sun had squeezed all that it possibly could out of itself for us I headed back into the park.

Gods, it had… has… been so long since I just rolled around, taking streets that looked like they didn’t lead anywhere and discovering such incredible beauty with no one around…

enjoying the hellout of myself by instead of speeding up when some single rushed asshole behind me leaned on his horn, slowing down even more and giving him my biggest smile as I doubled the single finger he was holding up with my own.

 

I need to get back there much more frequently, and without question earlier in the day. It was as if, even only for a brief yet exquisite moment in time, everything bad was washed away, and it was just me, my car, and the music.

Home is where…

 

Home comes in many forms. It is where you feel safe, accepted… loved. It can be a specific place, or it can be anywhere that certain very special people are, but when the word is said, when you go there, when the definition rings true it should be felt in the heart, seen in a certain shine in the eyes.

Yesterday, I went home. Home, not in place but in people, in family, in love – where my family was.

Tears almost betraying me at times, my heart too big for my body, hugs, smiles, and a welcome – a welcome back, a welcome… home.

I stopped by CellSpace, and fell in love again as I watched my family, the Vau de Vire Society, rehearse for the upcoming Edwardian Ball Weekend… and decided that I’m going to do whatever it takes to build back the strength to perform with them again, though this time… this time, I will be stronger, healthier, and much more driven – as I know what it’s like without them.

Brainwash

Tags

Funk, holiday

January 1, 2012  -  a day exactly like the day before yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that, and… and so on.

Day in,

Day out.
Of course I’m extremely grateful to be alive and for all of the incredible and loving people I’m blessed to have as part of my life, but sometimes… sometimes the walls that have surrounded me for most of the past fifteen months are far, far to white and lifeless, constricting and confining, and even walks down the hall or to different floors do little or nothing to quell the desire to post a simple ‘thank you, great to see you all’ about a party or show that I went to the night before.

This mental funk *will* go away soon, I just wanted to begin the cleanse by getting the words out of my head and letting them soak on the screen, so they’re easier to rinse clear of my heart & bring back the me I know that has them splattered everywhere inside.

Please, no obvious replies. I know you care, I love you too, and if there’s the slightest hint of pity in any reply that comes this way you’re a damn fool, because I should be dead at least twice over but I’m *not*; I just really don’t want to be here anymore, within these walls, especially with a necessary 24 hour pass request to do something as simple as go to the fucking store.
Furthermore, the mental funk is a much more pleasant place to be than the inside of an empty smile, because I know when the funk goes away the eyes will shine and the smile, just like this frustration and resentment, will be honest, true, and glorious, because every little emotion, every grievance, and every laugh shared with one of the nurses or CNA’s  reminds me that, against the worst odds…

I AM STILL ALIVE! 

 

11.18.11 A Day of Rest & Thought

11.18.11

A Day of Rest & Thought

Stayed in today, resting, keeping my leg elevated. I don’t know why it’s always my left leg that swells the most – perhaps it has something to do with the body’s channels, perhaps it’s something that tells me I need a chiropractic adjustment, perhaps it’s because I’m not only left-handed, I’m left legged. Strange though, as the right has always been my preferred.

I need to remember that, at least for a little while, I need to be careful, ever watchful, vigilant; that I can’t leap back into life the way I wish to, and now more than ever I need to be even more attentive to my body, so that one day soon I will be able to be what I once was.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It is in my dreams that I find her, never seeing the face

yet feeling her in my heart. When I wake I am left with only a warm soft smile,

trying to remember every vague detail,

the laughter, the peace,

keeping my eyes closed and wanting desperately to go back to my dreams.

Back to the warmth, back to her.

There is a touch of sadness in my heart as she fades,

and I’m left wondering when I will feel her again,

and if it’s only in my dreams

that I ever will.

When I walk through The City, it seems as if there is someone for everyone,

so I try to keep believing that,

that there is someone

The One

for this trainwreck of a hopeful romantic.

11.11.11 ~ Love, Gratitude, & Recovery

Tags

life, love, SIDESHOW!

11.11.11

5am

Swollen feet, ankles & calves, the pain not felt until the night had passed and the hours crept well into the morning, still dark.

The pain and swelling of my legs will go away within a couple days, but the night will live forever in my heart, in my soul, in the way I am everlastingly changed, for it is you that constructs the man I am, as the family of friends I have found unknowingly molds, forms and creates the person you know today.

 

I want to be better for you, I want to give you all that I am, I want to tell you in words that don’t exist how grateful I am for each one of you, and show you what you have created with your love by giving to the world what you all have given me.

I want them to remember the beauty of life that we all had as children, when we knew that the world was ours, even if it was one we had to create in dreams. I want to be evidence for them, so that they know with all of their hearts that those childhood dreams can be a wondrous reality now.

 

I wish I could have thanked you all that night, each one of you individually, but each step I took in one direction left me halted or pulled in another by someone else so it was impossible to do what I wanted. Being who you are, I’m confident that *almost* all of you can understand this; and to those who can comprehend that this semi-recluse was spread too thin to get everywhere, I can’t articulate my gratitude for such a beautiful and magickal evening well enough to satisfy what I wish to say. I want to actually look in your eyes, hug you warm & tight, & have that action declare what any words I can write here fall far short of – although for now, these words will need to suffice – and if you can, imagine me holding you and looking into your eyes, and you may feel how much love is behind them:

Thank You.

You created an exquisite evening, a beautiful celebration of life, of love…

and it will live in my heart, swollen with love, forever.

The Power of Love

Tags

Hepatitis C, love, Maitri, SIDESHOW! The Benefit, Spirit

 

Because THIS is What We Can Do! (aka Occupy the DNA Lounge!)

For those who don’t know and/or don’t want to take the time to read over the past year of my blog, I offer this – The power of the Human Spirit, of Love, and a brief explanation of what we can do when we take our lives into our *own* hands, instead of playing the pawn to the pharmaceutical corporations & medical insurance companies so that they can line their pockets at our greatest expense – our lives. I’ll *try* to keep it short. Please bear with me as this is *incredibly* abbreviated.

          A little over a year ago, on October 6th, 2010 to be exact, I was admitted to a wonderful place; A Respite/ Hospice care facility called Maitri – a word that means “Compassionate Friendship” in Sanskrit, with complications that had been plaguing me for years due to Hepatitis C. They affected every part of my life, and even took me away from what I love the most – performing, delighting others, and being a part of my dear family, the Vau de Vire Society.

          Shortly after I arrived at Maitri all hell broke loose with my body – the toxins & waste that my liver could not process gathered in my body worse than they ever had before, and pooled up in my legs and abdomen. For the first few months there I took the medications that my Dr. prescribed, but unfortunately those were little if any help. It was when he had to start prescribing medications to combat the symptoms that the *other* medications were causing that I started to think, and to get angry. I felt that there *must* be some other way.

 

          I began countless hours, day after day, week after week of research to try to find something that might help, but in a natural, holistic way. Something that didn’t destroy the body it was meant to help, like so many Western medications do. (It was reported by the American Medical Association in 1998 that even when taken properly, prescription “medicines” accounted for 100,000 deaths, and over one million hospitalizations.)

          When I began ordering the herbs, tinctures, potions, lotions, and anything that I could that I believed would work for me, I quickly found that, though they are MUCH less expensive than Western meds, of course none of them were covered by insurance – each bottle I bought took money away from the pharmaceutical corporations, and well, they don’t like that too much. Even if something is *proven* to work, it was natural so couldn’t be regulated.

          It was then that I realized that I had to do something which I absolutely loathed to do – ask for help. Ask for money, so I could stay alive and battle Hep C and the symptoms that it was causing in my body. At the worst of it, I weighed 227 lbs – with about 70 lbs of that being toxins that my body couldn’t process. I describe it slightly in my blog, but even that doesn’t come close to the hell I was going through.

          Much to my surprise, and with countless tears of appreciation and love shed, the money I needed to purchase the natural medicines to literally stay alive and get better began coming in, and I was then my own experiment, my own test subject – determining what worked and what didn’t for *me*. I did everything I could, from meditation, to herbs, to visualization and more to get better – and ya know what? It worked! It’s working.

Roughly seven months later, I was up, walking, my legs and abdomen back down to a relatively normal size. The nurse that came in to help with my legs said that she had never seen anyone heal so quickly; most of the other medical professionals that cared for me implied that they were worried that I would die. (I want to say now that I was and am truly blessed to have the team I had looking after me, as there are far too many “Doctors” that swim in the deep end of the ignorance pool, and believe only western medicines can heal. The people looking after me, however, supported me in every way they could, and for that, I am eternally grateful.)

I officially left Maitri on November 1^st; feeling wonderful, feeling ALIVE, and walking on my own two feet. I still need to take the herbs & wear special compression stockings, but compared to where I was only seven months ago, hanging on by sheer will alone to life and barely able to move, much less walk, hell, that ain’t nothin’!

My new goal is to completely clear myself of the Hepatitis C Virus using the same methods, but again – more research and the inclusion of many different herbs and… everything else. It will be expensive, but it’s been done before – and I have found the strength, will and love to do it through all of you.

When I finally AM cleared of the virus, I plan to write a book so that others will realize that they DO have options – healthy ones – and that they don’t need to be a nameless sack of profit flesh for the corporations that couldn’t give a damn about their one life. It is in this way I hope to pay forward all of the help and support that has, and continues to come my way – and perhaps someday, those corporations will get pissed off and afraid enough to include certain proven herbs and holistic therapies in their insurance plans… but even if they don’t, at least those who read my book and are brave enough to find humility and ask for help will do so, and realize, like I have, how much love there actually is out there in the world.

If you can’t make it to the benefit THIS THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1oth/11th, 2011 but still wish to donate and help me in my fight, my Paypal address is ksea@culturefluxmagazine.com.

Thank you all so very much for helping to keep me alive – as without your love and support, without the determination I have to get back on stage and be able to delight and perform for everyone possible, it is very likely that instead of writing this, I would be nothing but a fond memory right now.

With love,

~ kSea flux