the gift

Every year, on my birthday, I check to make sure it’s still there.

Every year, it is, and my heart is both torn and comforted.
It was the first thing I ever knew, and over the years has become a part of me. I think that without it, I would be lost.

Every year, for my birthday, I take it, wrap it up in pretty paper, and give it back to her, but I could do that a thousand times and it would still be here inside of me. It makes me who I am… but I do wonder what it would be like if it were gone.

Inside is the very first thing I was ever given, and something I carry with me even today. Even more today.

I didn’t have any words to voice what I felt, couldn’t make sense of it as the heartbeat and smell and warmth that let me feel that I would be safe was ripped away and I was torn out of the arms that for fifteen minutes kept the cold of the world away forever.

I would take it out, put it in a small box, wrap it up in pretty paper and hand it to her. Inside is something bigger than she is or can ever be, but something that over years and years made me stronger than I ever could have otherwise been. It takes a lot to hold the pieces together for so long.

She would open it up every year on my birthday.
Inside would be the baby’s pain.

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A little Everything

Another birthday quietly comes & goes with the slight disbelief & perhaps even small discontent that I made it another year.

I wake up late this morning, make my coffee, do the morning stretches to try to regain a scrap of the flexibility that, along with my strength, was eaten away during the 18 months that I spent in a hospital bed, and after I adjust the pillows climb back into bed, set the laptop on my lap & start to scratch words. I’ve found the bed is best – at least for the swelling in my legs. Keeps it down.

A conversation yesterday with a wonderful old friend & former lover about everything under our suns, and ending with tentative plans for a cross country trip in Spring – renting an RV and taking a few weeks to cross the country to her home in upstate New York. Likely plans. Almost definite plans.
I need to do something. Something that *means* something. The Kickstarter for my book crushed me as it fell to nothing but rubble of hopes, dreams & the plans I had which would have changed everything in my life, given me a purpose, a value.

I wonder why my life, my happiness depends so incredibly much on doing something, creating something, helping someone – I know that there are many who are content to live their lives in a mundane existence, and that’s all they seem to need. They seem to be happy – but that’s not me.  That’s not me.

I need to taste everything, experience the deepest pain and joy as I can, and truly feel PASSION, feel alive in this world, feel like I’m more than just another inconsequential pawn.
I need to breathe the fervent, blood red breath of life deep inside me, feel it fill my lungs, my heart, my soul, and match it with my own.
I need to swim to the deepest dark depths of the sea and feel at home there with creatures that understand that all I want to do is learn. Where are my fucking gills?

Where have I gone? Where is the music that I once danced to, the fevered rhythm of life? Have I fallen prey to my own sickness? Have I given up?

I can’t. I want to. I can’t. I’m tired. I can’t. I can’t.

Sometimes I think some of us live only to beat the odds. To be able to say “This is what I know.” And, just maybe, help someone else. Help them open their eyes, to see a little bit more beauty, to believe a little bit more in their dreams. To see how perfect we can at least make the world around us – or at the very least make it better.

I am not more courageous, not any more special than anyone else. I live in the same world.

I’ve just seen more of it than most – and because of that, in spite of that – I’m willing to keep fighting to make it a little bit better.

the weight of unwritten words

It’s been a long time since I’ve taken pen to paper – or at least fingers to keys, and written in here. On this.

It is not by choice. Quite the contrary. I’ve wanted to, thought about it nearly daily, but it was only just that – a thought. The more I thought about writing and didn’t, the more difficult it seemed to get started. Just with that first thought, inspiration, that first sentence which then carries the weight of the words that follow, and seems to do so easily…

So I begin with that first thought – that it has been a long time since I’ve written in here, and far, far too long. Instead of the first sentence, I have carried that weight.

Perhaps that is the curse of someone who calls themselves a writer; if they aren’t writing, what are they then?

So I begin. There is a lot to say.
There always is.

Twelve days ago, on September 5th, I turned 47 years old. If someone looked back on my life and only had that to go on in trying to determine my age, my guess is that they may guess that I was much further in years than I am. The strange thing is that I don’t feel anywhere close to 47 – if I forget all that has happened in my life. Save for the added coffee in the morning, or the way I bounce off of random things a bit less bouncy… it’s difficult to believe that I’m three years away from 50 friggin’ years old, but… I digress.

It was, without any question, the best birthday I have ever had. In my entire life. Ever.
You see – as a birthday gift, my girlfriend, Kat (aka the most amazing and incredible person/woman I have ever met) drove me up to spend the day and night with my Birth Mother at her house. The first time in my life I ever spent it with the person who created this incredible life – the person who gave it to me, to do with what I could.

It was like we were old friends, Kat, my Mother & me, just sitting around, talking, relaxing, shootin’ the shit. Nothing special, nothing heavy… and astoundingly beautiful.

I can’t help but think to where I was just under three years ago, fighting for life in a hospital bed for over 18 months, and so very many times knowing how easy it would be – and how much I wanted to just give up, have it finally end, stop fighting and let this life fade away. I even had saved an easily lethal cache of morphine to make it happen quickly, easily, painlessly if I decided to leave.. but something wouldn’t let me.

So I did what I could, and I lived. Surprised the hell out of the nurses who cared for me during that time – and as I was saying my farewells before I danced out the door, some weren’t afraid to say that they didn’t expect me to live. It was safe to say then, I guess…

Since then, life has only continued to become better and better. Sure, there have been some hard times, of course – but nothing compared to the way my live has been changed & been so beautifully blessed. Things have happened that I didn’t think were even possible… but I continued to dream that maybe, juuuuust maybe, they were – somehow, someday, if I were patient enough.

I took 25 years of searching, but I found my birth mother. It took nearly a lifetime, but found a partner that I can easily envision sharing the rest of my life with – and I think that, even including finding my mother, that is the most amazing and unexpected blessing of my entire life.
I do apologize for the lack of poetry, for it is most certainly warranted, but it’s knocking on the door if 5am and I’m just struggling to finish this particular post so I can get to sleep, and start regularly posting again.

There is some crap over on Facebook, so maybe tomorrow at some point I’ll rip it off of that horridly undeserving place and put it here… but for now, and until again  – soon –

Good night.

Origin.

Five days.

Forty-seven years minus five days ago was the moment I was taken from her arms – taken from all I knew – her heartbeat, her voice, her smell, my only known home. Ripped from everything I knew as comfort, torn from all peace inside.

Only we, the “adopted” know this feeling… but can never truly give it a name.
Others could never understand. Even we barely can.

Forever betwixt and between, never knowing ourselves – making it up as we go along, constructing and tearing down walls built around our hearts to try to have the slightest bit of control over who leaves who this time… destroying any chance of happiness… we don’t deserve it. We aren’t like the others…

We hide.

Only in finding are we somehow made whole – sometimes. The lucky ones. Only the children who needed to search, and then, only those who were fortunate enough to find their origin.

Origin. Where the shape of our eyes, the slant in our smile, the small everysingleday actions of our hands, the pain we don’t even notice in our heart anymore because it has always been there and always will be and it is just who we are… the emptiness our only connection to where we come from…

I have been fortunate. I found her. My Mother. After actively searching for over 25 years, wondering and creating fantasies for an entire lifetime (maybe I am David Bowie’s son?!) – I found her. Alive, welcoming, and only a three hour drive away.

This year I am spending my 47th birthday with my Mother – the first birthday I have ever spent with her – excepting of course the few minutes of the night I was born.

It was Kat’s idea. My girlfriend, my love, my partner, my best friend. She is making it happen – driving us up there, the third time I will see my Mother. The first time Kat & Annie will meet.

This writing is crappy – I am just – so incredibly overwhelmed… 15 years ago I took my gun out of my mouth, thinking “what if tomorrow is just a little bit better”?. Two years ago I was in a hospice, fighting like fucking hell just to stay alive. I had no idea what the future held, just that I wanted to be around for it…

I couldn’t have imagined how amazing my life has become – couldn’t have even dared to dream something even remotely close to this…

But here I am. I found my Birth Mother, and have found the Love of my life – the woman who I have been searching for, who I had nearly given up on actually finding… and as an added bonus, she says she loves ME, too!

Five days. My first birthday with my Mother, my first of many with Kat…

Yeah. So… life is fucking amazing. Well worth the fight to stay alive… and it just keeps getting better.

Even though I am not David Bowie’s love child.

The things that come with not dying…

I have a problem. Kind of.
Actually, it’s more like a Catch-22 kind of thing.

Many of you may know that by all rights, I should probably have passed from this life and be little more than a (hopefully) fond, slowly fading memory right now, but that didn’t happen, and it took every tiny ounce of fight that I had inside of me.

Since then, life has just continued to get better – I found my *awesome* Birth Mother after a 25 year search, rescued the best Furbeast a person could hope for, recently met and fell in love with someone who actually has room in *her* enormous heart for mine, and started a business where I can use what *I* know to help others… and that’s where the problem rests.

Ya see, since I decided on this business over a year ago, I’ve been sucking up as much knowledge on it as I can in order to get better, stay up to date on everything and, most importantly, get clients, but there’s just TOO DAMN MUCH INFO. I find myself scattered, constantly second-guessing, and as a result not moving forward.
I need something clear and concise – a *single* focus to get my business SERIOUSLY launched, such as a study & action course – but I can’t afford it, because I haven’t been able to take & apply it.

Did I mention that as a result of not dying, I also have a birthday coming up in just over a week? And that there is a course taught by one of the best in my business that *will* kick everything into high gear? It’s clear, concise, complete and *focused* – exactly what I need to get my business seriously rolling.

Most classes I have looked at are anywhere from $700 – $2500, and WHEN I have that coming in I’ll certainly take some (*never* stop learning!) but this one is only $340 – IF I SIGN UP BY MIDNIGHT TOMORROW (otherwise it is $490, still *well* worth what it offers)!

***SO this I ask of you – for a birthday present, to celebrate the fact that I actually *have* another birthday, or just because you’re awesome and want to help me *continue* to kick ass – would you be willing to donate to my class fund?

Here’s a description of the class: http://www.awaionline.com/a/b2e/

***You can Paypal any help to cultureflux.magazine@gmail.com, and every red cent will go towards the class, hopefully reaching the $340 mark by MIDNIGHT AUG. 28th – tomorrow night!

If you can, please help everything *continue* to get better. Every little bit helps get closer to this important course – and THANK YOU!

bday rant shit

And somehow, the Journey continues.

It’s not simply just another year alive – I look back to older writings and photos, think of things that could be, and realize that this passing of the day I was brought back into form should be, could be something special.

Still, it doesn’t ease my distaste for my birthday, and I know with every stale, colorless, unimaginative and seemingly obligatory ‘Happy Birthday kSea’ (SMALL ‘k’, CAPITAL ‘S’ – yet another thing I detest about that fucking site that won’t let me have the name I gave mySELF) that is posted on facebook I will cringe. I try not to question the sincerity just as I try not to loathe seeing the same ordinary well-wishes, word for word, over and over, written without feeling and forgotten, told that is what they are supposed to today in between taking a shit and posting another ‘click “like” if you’ on facebook… but this isn’t supposed to be a facebook rant. Just, if you read this, try saying more than five words that came from your own mind. Quality, baby – not quantity. I would rather receive three heartfelt wishes for a happy birthday than have to bear the weight of ten-thousand lifeless souls.

But I digress…

 

The fire is being rekindled, the discomfort of complacency is prompting me to act – but there lies the fodder of confusion – I want to do EVERYTHING, and wanting to do so much leaves me at the place of ‘Where to begin?’ What, exactly, do I do now? Do I begin at the beginning or at the middle, like I would if I finally decided to get CultureFlux going again – and *if* I decided it was time to throw everything I am back into CultureFlux, what would the personal return be? Would I have the same passion for it? If I decided to choose the beginning of something, what would that something be?

 

What fresh new dream can I make happen?

 

As always, the road calls – I need to figure out what is stopping me from simply getting back on it, and going – going… any direction, every stop I wish to make in the middle of nowhere, be it looking out at the sunset over a beautiful valley or  in the middle of an exquisite forest, or hell, even to Slab City for a bit – anywhere but one place for too long, and I’ve been too long here.

Here. Here met with quite a hiccup in my plans, but I was exactly where I needed to be in order not to die. Funny how that happens so perfectly, regardless of what I want to have turn out, every single time.

 

I need to learn how to listen again. I need to remember to see. I need to make the best of what I have, here and now, and wait for the winds to blow me where they will…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

But I must wait. I must have an address to find my mother.

 

Fuckit. I’m tired, going to sleep, and waking in my reclusive day.

…to me

6:41am – Hot coffee, a smoke, looking on the interweb for places to in the mountains to dissapear to for a few days or weeks, and getting my hair chopped & died today. Happy birthday to me.

On this day I always wonder where she is; if she thinks of me, if she’s even still alive. Searches in the past for her turned up next to nothing – I might have my nationality, but that’s pretty much it. She was a college student, so was he. Norweigan, Irish, Mutt & mutt – but I like the Norweigan & Irish so I’m sticking with those. With no known mother or father, I get to choose who I want to be.

No known beginning. I just… was. Of course with the amazing things that have happened all through my life once I started paying attention, the fact that after it all I should be dead a hundred times and am not, I fantasize about being more in the supernatural realm of things – but really, aren’t we all if we let ourselves see?

I’ve been reading a book that an acquaintance said I should, said I might like. By Deepak Chopra, it’s called The Way of the Wizard. It is based on Merlin & his teachings, and though I don’t really go for your common “Self Help” book these days, choosing more to remember all of what I’ve already read & experienced, there are many parts that I like in this one, that resound in me. One I particularly like is towards the end of the “Lessons”, where Merlin & Arthur are parting ways.

>>>”I wanted to give you a parting gift, and I could think of nothing better than this.” Merlin pointed to the road beneath their feet, which had also appeared overnight. “Roads are the sign of the wizard. Or did you know that?”… “Although you may fancy that you own a part of this world, in fact you only walk it. In spirit you are the dust on the road, the restlessness in the wind. You mortals build homes to protect yourselves from the world. To a wizard home is this moment, and moments are always moving–”     “On the road of time,” Arthur said, finishing the sentence for him.”…>>>

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I’m excited about the changes happening in my life right now. There is much of the past to let go of, many ways that I’ve become accustomed to, comfortable with, that I must transition away from – but with each death comes a new life, and hell, death is certainly no stranger to me. In order to learn how to live I had to accept the idea of my physical death over half of my life ago. In many ways, this is perhaps the most incredible gift I have ever received, even with all of the loneliness that has come with it, the sorrow, pain, and… and the child who would have been named Blue. It took me years of ripping myself apart, years of struggle, to realize I wasn’t getting anywhere. The problem was the struggle, and that in simply letting things be, looking at them, and truly seeing the clues, invitations, and finding the hidden treasures buried deep inside devastation & disaster.
That is where peace lies, where the answers are; and where I only recently realized what love truly is. At least I think so – the idea is there, but putting it into practice? Hell, I’m sure that will be a different story altogether. I still want that someone to share things with, still would happily admit that I’m imperfect enough to look for the person I wrote about in “Enough”, “No Vacancy“ – and ridiculous amounts of other places over the years.

I don’t think I ever want to be so extraordinarily “Fool on the Hill” Self-satisfied as to forget how to deeply value the  perfection of moments such as watching someone I am in love with sleep, and wonder what they are dreaming about, of seeing the world grow brighter when they laugh, watching the little things they do when they think that no one else is watching… of wrapping my fingers through the hair behind their head & pulling them to me – and of sharing with them the beauty of such simple things as the road, eating crappy food & all the goofy junk that we can’t live without at truck stops (Mad Libs!), coming to the crest of a mountain and watching the world stretch out before us, knowing that it is us, and that it is ours, and feeling our love expand and enfold us in the awed silence we share… (Whoa. Whoa! That was intended to be much shorter. Like – maybe one incredibly profound line. I swear, when the romantic fool inside of me is allowed to say a few words ya just can’t shut him up.)

And the magick of life continues to unfold each moment…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I think I need to go do some manly stuff now after the fluffiness of that last paragraph – work on my Motorhome (Alice), sharpen my knives, scratch my balls (whether they need it or not – HA!), make Alice into a monster motorhome – and maybe even be so bold as to put those nekkid lady mud-flaps on her… and then, um –  get my hair done. In a manly way. By a sexy chick. (aka the lovely & talented Raven Amparo – hair goddess.)

It couldn’t be more appropriate that The Temple of Flux burns tonight – and for the first year, the Temple is not a building; it is a much more organic shape, depicting mountains & valleys & the like. Coincidence?

I think not.