Naked Faces, Rage, Ghosts

Three vignettes from my cross country Pandemic Tour of America that stand out:

Front of house staff at the Four Points Sheraton in Elkhart Indiana was also the cook in the kitchen. "We only have chicken baskets or fish baskets."

A young woman at the same hotel walked up to a guy in a car and said something in Spanish and he assaulted her, throwing her to the pavement (I think using the car door) and then he sped off, coming perilously close to running her over, and smashing into another car in the parking lot on his way. Offer of assistance to young woman met with "fuck you, asshole, leave me alone." Did not call law enforcement, because who trusts the law enforcement officers of Elkhart Indiana to do right by a young woman of her probable ethnic background in her predicament? Not I. I don't call law enforcement hardly ever, anymore. This is America. I quickly weighed in my mind, is her worse enemy the abusive fucker in the car or ICE? That's where we find ourselves.

Walmart in Gunnison, Colorado. Quick run inside to get some basic groceries. Most people wearing masks, practicing distancing, even obeying the little arrows on the floor. On the way out, a very large, intimidating man of the caucasoid peniscite variety, not wearing a mask and standing about two feet away from a much smaller male employee, yelling, "Goddamn it, if I can't try them on, and if I can't return them after I buy them, I don't want them." Employee: "But you already bought them and left the store sir. We can't take them as a return." "Oh hell fucking no, you fucking twerp, I'ma kick your goddamned ass!!" "Sir, staff is currently on the phone with law enforcement, I advise you to calm down. Our policy says we cannot take them as a return." "Bring all the police in here! They'll be on my side!!"

I could not get out of there fast enough. Basically, I could not get out of any of the places featuring human beings, anywhere between New York and Arizona, quickly enough. There is a weird, palpable madness across the land. It is always there, but it is much more visible now. Our system seems to have ground people down to suicidal desperation death wish distraction and restless, angry mean ignorance. Trouble's brewing, big time. I have never even considered arming myself before, not when I lived on the upper east side of Manhattan in the early '80's, not when I lived in North Philadelphia, not when I lived near Inglewood in Los Angeles. But watching caucasoid America in its restless, manipulated, poisoned madness, being armed is starting to make real sense, as merely a reasonable precaution. I find that appalling, but reality is a thing.

After my first couple of encounters with foolish America, dumbass people pretending there's no global pandemic underway, I decided to head to back roads and camp the rest of the way. I went through northeastern Colorado, then to Gunnison National Forest, then to Utah, and then a remote area in northern Arizona. Doing it this way added a couple days to my trip, but it brought great peace of mind. 

The main roads down into Phoenix from northern Arizona were blocked due to accidents, the usual nonsense on any holiday. I had forgotten that my plan had me returning to the Valley of the Sun on Memorial Day. The two hour drive took five hours. 

I had thought I would hang out here a few days, maybe even see some people. But too much is completely wide open. No masks, businesses not limiting people, no social distancing. Restaurants are open for dining in. I don't feel safe here, so I am headed out tomorrow. Not sure where I am going, but I will be camping as much as possible as I travel. 

One of the weird things over Memorial Day weekend was how many of the usually deserted or very sparse National Forest camps were completely full. I think this was due to the combination of people having been cooped up for months, and many of the developed campgrounds were closed. It was nightmarish, to see so many huge campers and so on parked in remote wilderness areas. 

Meanwhile, my father had a stroke a couple nights ago and is now bedridden and unresponsive. It may well be that I am headed back east. I definitely need to find some way to have a stable internet connection and continue a job search, but not spend much money. It's a bit of a conundrum thanks to the pandemic. 

The wilds are calling again for now. Amazing isolation, silence, rivers and mountains, night stars (the Milky Way at the zenith at about 4 a.m., still weeks away from summer stars per se). My heart is not particularly well but I'm feeling totally exasperated and done with the human race. Hermit inclinations to the extreme. It's a funny time of year, camping-wise, as cooler spots during the day are very cold overnight, and warmer spots overnight are blazing hot during the day. I know I want to be in the far north country in July.

It's been surreal, having so much alone time after a few solid months of family. And yet, along the road, there's always someone with me, a feeling of conversing with ghosts. 

What are the different parts of missing someone? For sure, one of the parts is to want to show them everything along the way. Look at those mountains. Look at that river. Look at that sky. Look at that canyon. Hey, how funny. How weird. How many stories you'd tell but you'd rather just live them. It's too much to ask, to live them, and it's too much energy to tell them. Sinking therefore deeper and deeper into silence. 

Self-Absorbed Tosser

Which title is how a rather perceptive and boldly deep reader recently described good old Percy Hades, after dipping into this here blog. 

Okay, why not? I mean, it is likely to be true, since the accusation is wounding enough. If it were a complete misrepresentation, good old Percy Hades would just chuckle wryly, and say "smdh."

Yet somehow I feel perhaps the one wielding that particular rusty dagger, as brilliant and percipient as they clearly are, might have missed a slight detail we like to call context, that is, that this blog is specifically one of those "personal journal" blogs, yes? 

As in, a blog specifically about good old Percy's experiences as he bravely trundles, self-absorbed tosser or no, through hell. I mean, it's not as if Percy is not engaged in a great many other activities, thoughts, writing activities, and endeavors, *as well as * trying to limn the strangeness of being a callow newcomer in relationship recovery, after a decade and a half of substance addiction recovery. Trying to find ways to describe having had his entire life burned to the fucking ground a mere three years ago, and then all of the other *interesting* experiences, and their internal and external ramifications, that have happened in the interim. That, DEAR readers, is *entirely what this fucking blog is about*, so, yeah, there's a certain endless omphaloskepsis and self-absorption. Katabasis Central is, lo and behold, *self-absorbed tosser central*. 

Is it useful or even entertaining to others? Or is it all just annoying whinging and fucking endless agony and "self-help stuff" as another friend put it (a mischaracterization of recovery, but that's okay, I get it, I really do). Well good old Percy is here to tell you that he does not give one flying goddamned fuck whether you bloody wankers find it entertaining, useful, engaging, purposeful, meaningful, or whatever the fuck. 

Furthermore, anyone who would weaponize the bloody fucking mess that is this blog and use it to try to wound or ridicule the real life blood and guts human behind the persona of good old Percy can fuck the fuck right the fuck off. 

Self-absorbed tosser Percy Hades, signing off, with love, reciprocal daggers, and an enthusiastic oh hell no. 

No Business

Someone whose friendship I valued recently pressed toward more romantic/erotic interaction, and I was flattered, and I tried to respond in an available way at first, since this person is attractive, brilliant, fascinating, and we obviously are simpatico in many ways. As things began to heat up, I could not ignore my burgeoning sense of unease and dread, however. I started having horrible nightmares about past situations, and began to realize feelings of deeper disturbance. I felt fundamentally dishonest, and as if I had to exert effort to ignore my gut-level qualms. 

Sadly, and truly regretting the necessity, I stepped back, communicated my boundary directly, and had to admit to myself, most of all, that I have no business at this time pursuing an intimate, romantic or sexual interaction with anyone. At first, this had me feeling very negative toward myself, struck by my incapacity, and the framework of inability to be available for an interesting adventure. I felt nearly bottomless despair, wondering when I will ever get myself back on my feet, and realize that love can be so sweet, pace Joni. I was surprised by many of the aspects of the pain that came up for me, even just barely venturing into this territory. 

But I also had to be honest about not only my incapacity, but what I truly want. I want to be alone. I want to be footloose, fancy free, and autonomous. The plain fact that I am not yet, and that I am still inconveniently attached to a corpse of a relationship from the past, is neither here nor there. Pursuing something in any effort to get free of the past is bad faith, and doesn't work anyway. So, re-framing my reality as a matter of what I want is much better. For now, I want NOTHING. I am single and unavailable. I am in particular, *unavailable*. This is by choice. At least, the ways that it is operative in my daily life is by choice. Conscious choice and a conscious commitment to myself. It has the force of a ton of fucking rage behind it, and that in itself tells me a lot. 

At some point, a fully manifested, sunlit, real partnership with someone in the actual world will be grand. But that is not what is happening now, nor is it what I want. It is neither here nor there what I am able to do, at this time. Of course, my capacity or lack of capacity informs my choice and my desire to be single and unavailable at this time, but it is not the whole story. 

I regret that my vagueness for a while made me seem available, or had me "trying to be" available. I am only now learning how to be single and unavailable. so it's not surprising that I would make mistakes. I have always allowed for the possibility of a new romantic/sexual relationship in my life, and my boundaries have been loose and weak in the past, so it's no wonder that I am simply unfamiliar with standing firmly in being unavailable. The person who was interested is a total knockout, also, and that didn't help matters. One of those weird things where one feels like, hell yes, I need to make myself available. The problem of course is that that doesn't work. The gut level resistance and reservations will be heard. I have a long enough history of ignoring all of it in my past, and ending up in long term, highly problematic, bad faith, dishonest, "halfway in" relationships as a result. Perhaps if I stand in my unavailability now, some day I will learn how to say an unequivocal YES to a woman, something I have not often done in my life, and the last time, to a woman who was 100% maybe-morphing-into-NO, and made no bones about it. 

I'm still sad. Fuck all of this goddamned fucking bullshit, is the angry energy around all of my grief, also. I'm sick of all of it. Exasperated by my own heart. If there were a way to extricate cleanly and be cold as fuck, without ripping my own heart out and watching it beat a few last times, and then die, I would do so. But there simply is not. I may well admire others who seem capable of killing their feelings, but I don't have the capability right now. I have had, in the past. It has not served me well, anyway. 

But here's the bottom line. Nothing can be precarious for me at this time, or hinge on the life and behavior of another person. My stand in being single and unavailable is fundamentally a stand in taking responsibility for my own life, my own reality, and goddamn it if I will have my reality hinge on the behavior or decisions of others. That is the reality at this time. It is the only safe place I have found to stand, through all of the past three years plus. The fickle, unreliable, hesitant, changeable, unavailable realities of A and others are all well and good for them, but I absolutely MUST find a steady course for myself, or die. It is that dire and urgent. It sounds fairly dramatic, but it is exactly how it feels. 

Anyway, I am single and unavailable. That's that. I lean fiercely into it because I haven't done it before. I am a garden of NO's. I am more wall than boundary, because I'm weak in it. I am done, done, motherfucking done. When I get more easy and comfortable with it, perhaps the walls can be opened up a bit. I expect to be in a remarkable and inspiring, beautiful, passionate, devoted and creative living partnership someday, because I have the capacity to be really good at that. 

For now, this is about as naked and raw as I feel. And I am learning that I absolutely must protect myself, as a result, even from ones who would not harm me. It's harm I cause myself, more than anything. 

Reckless protection

The cumulative mistakes and missteps I've made, and how much these experiences have fucking mangled my sense of trust in myself, other human beings, and the universe, has all been on my mind a lot lately. I've been feeling appreciative, more open, more social, and more willing to be vulnerable, at times. But I must admit that such moves almost always result in a consequent or simultaneous feeling of dread, wariness, doubt, danger, and an irritable desire to withdraw. 

I think it's good for me to be wary. Fools rush in, after all, and my blind charge right past all sorts of very real, very painful realities in past situations has led me to where I am now. It reminds me of the cavalier impulse of an inveterate smoker of cigarettes, who says, "Who cares about cancer or heart disease? I'll deal with that when the time comes. Quitting smoking would take away one of my great pleasures. It's a risk I am willing to take." These thoughts of course occur in the free and clear hypothetical space where the terminal diagnosis has not yet been delivered. 

For me, part of my recklessness is that I discount how tender, sensitive, sentimental, and impressionable my heart is, and put myself in situations with people who are more capable than I of being distant, cold, unfeeling, practical, self protective. "I can take it!" I say to myself. I am finally beginning to learn that I sometimes can't take it. I'm tired of being gutted by people who are capable of a total disappearing act. 

In conversation this morning I thought of The Fool from the tarot, and how that archetype has definitely characterized a lot of the energy that has been behind many of my major life decisions. 

I mean, even the little white dog has better instincts, right? And yet, I think this is also one of my enduring strengths, this "Fool"-ish plunging and high stepping energy. The thing is, the heartbreak and suffering of the past period of time has been severe enough and bewildering enough that it may well be that The Emperor has finally gotten through, at least to some extent. 

Caution, a plan, boundaries, self protection, discrimination, taking red flags seriously, wisdom, parsimony, self preservation. The anti-Fool. Of course, the two are good companions, each balancing the other in crucial ways. When I was younger, I hated The Emperor archetype thoroughly, and always felt uneasy and rebellious when it came up in a reading. Now, I feel somewhat leery when The Fool makes an appearance, and welcome The Emperor a lot more. 

The plain fact is I have repeatedly offered everything I had in situations where it was unwelcome. Not sure unwelcome is the right word. Impossible to be taken, impossible to be received. Return to sender. The person or situation to whom you sent your whole self is no longer at this address. This was a capstone experience after years of throwing myself away, really. For example, being in a teaching job where I put my whole self into it, but in a school where I was completely disposable. And enduring the humiliations of the graduate school experience. Although, that constituted a turn in a different direction, since the Ph.D. awaited at the end of the process. Many, many of my other situations were scraps from the table, disposable situations, where the majority of the time I was subsisting in a kind of barrenness, and would glory in breadcrumbs, intermittent and niggardly. Precisely why I have been used to living an emotionally depauperate life where I was dependent on people and situations that could easily take or leave me is still something of a mystery. 

Clearly, my relationships within my family system were this way. And the first love and first heartbreak with the Lovejoy had this arc to it, also, with her pursuing her own goals blithely, without any compromise or gesture toward my well being or desires. I guess that was part of a pattern, yet also set it even more in stone. A quick review of the historical facts has me moving to accommodate the life of a woman six times, from 1987 to 2007. I have not once stood in a particular place or work situation and had a woman offer to uproot and re-arrange her entire life in order to be with me. This is similar to patterns with my family, where I think I have been visited where I have lived three times, in total, by family members, my whole life. I have always been expected to visit, and I've either obliged or not seen family members for years on end. 

Recent friendships have me feeling more connected, after a stretch of even more deep hermitage than I thought I was in before. But along with a sense of connection, a fiercely self protective and isolating energy arises. I'm feeling a lifetime of resentment and anger over having been played, so to speak. I mean, honestly, I've played myself, and let myself be played— ain't nobody's fault but mine. How easily I have abandoned my life to be with women, in particular. As befits a Fool, the rewards have been great, but the losses and discontinuity and chaos and lack of stability for myself have also all been profound. Perhaps there are new ways for me to find some kind of middle between Fool and Emperor. 

Living, Dying, and Living Death

The labors of helping care for my father have me reflecting on the body, old age, health, illness, incapacity, and the experience of life. My gut impulse is to recoil from the possibility of being alive in a condition similar to his. I think to myself, oh fuck no, off I go should I ever face being immobile, severely disabled, reliant on the basic care of others to empty my catheter bag and wipe my ass and lift me up into my walker or wheelchair. 

Of course, a few different possibilities present themselves to counter this gut reaction. One is the old frog in the boiling water idea, where old age slowly and somewhat imperceptibly robs me of various faculties, but none of it is dramatic or pressing enough along the way to spur suicide, although the end result would be identical to where my father finds himself. Connected with this may well be the fact that we seem to be in the habit of staying alive, and maybe we compromise again and again and again as the years go by, accepting ever more threadbare pleasures and experiences as trade off for insisting on the misery of existence. Another thought that occurs to me is that it is not a simple matter to kill oneself on one's own, and anyone who assists risks criminal charges in many states. 

In other words, there are a multitude of ways I recoil at being in a disabled and miserable old age like my father, but a great many ways that precisely that could happen. At which point I realize I'm just spinning around in what if thinking and who knows what the future actually holds? A Facebook friend of mine posted a couple days ago that her hale and hearty father, 78 years old, given to 45 mile backpacking trips and bicycle races, dropped dead in one minute from a massive heart attack, in spite of no previous indications of trouble. My sister's husband, also, an example of bitter ironies. He waited a few years for a liver transplant, and finally accepted that he was probably going to die from liver failure. But miracle of miracles, he got the call that they had a liver for him, and the transplant worked. That was about five years ago. He lived a pretty good life in the intervening years. But then, boom, dead of a heart attack. No warning or any indication of heart trouble. And dead at 61 years old, no less. 

So I get it, in my mind, that worrying about the exigencies and vicissitudes of old age and what if this or that is bootless, yet the realities are so present for me these days that I can't stop. 

On the positive side, what I am seeing inspires me to continue taking care of myself. Yoga, good food, sleep hygiene, cardio, basic measures to try to age well. Mentally also—keeping active, staying challenged. Showing up for emotional sobriety, meditating, and maintaining at least some strong friendships, also. I am a lot more conscious of making choices to age well, in whatever ways are possible and do-able for myself. The good side of this is that the incentives are present, not future. I feel better now, and that's good motivation. I think in many ways I am healthier now than I was at age 30, barring unavoidable changes in body chemistry. 

But I still feel haunted by the specter of a terrible old age, characterized by poverty, scarcity, suffering, chronic pain, incapacity, grinding loneliness, and being trapped in both my body and my situation. The downside of having a very vivid imagination indeed. 

The greatest blessing, it seems to me, would be to wish someone the most pleasant and enjoyable old age and a good peaceful death. It is more and more apparent to me that these experiences are more valuable than I previously realized.