Birth Stoned

When I was young, though I don’t feel old now… I hit the road and drove around the country all alone. I just decided I’d leave, 5 weeks that time. It’s something I did once in a while. Sometimes with friends for a weekend; times a journey into the abyss; some casual cross-country road trips. Whatever it is, I feel like I am my truest self when I am out in the open, between some mountains - in my spaceships - alone in the wind. When I experience freedom from all things is when I can be my truest self, if you can imagine that. It sounds so obvious but some people never even consider it.

Perhaps you are someone who can reduce people to a Type A or a Type B personality. Type A tends to take shelter in their schedule. The way they work is so ritual that it quickly becomes a lifestyle and even a personality. For me, I am only more and more disturbed when told what to do. Call me a Taurus, or whatever, but I’m not kidding you! Something about the feeling of having nothing to do is just the most exhilarating feeling in the world. Maybe that makes me a Type C - because, theoretically, a Type B wouldn’t care either way. They can work or play. And that is not to say that I don't work, its just for myself and on my own terms and what I'm capable of in the moment. Plus, the work I do is just... different.

Maybe now would be the time to mention that I’m a philosopher and necromancer. My birthstone is a diamond. I have a mind that I swear never rests because I dream almost every night unless I’m having nightmares. On some occasions I wake up and forget but there have been few nights in my entire life where I just truly rested with this overactive imagination. I take imagination lightly as I think any kind of imagery in the mind would fall under such a category. For some reason, we are raised to grow out of that. Then we have adults relearning by calling it something else ("manifesting", if you couldn't tell). My imagination has opened my life to the realms of possible realities that I’d never have come to turn to had I not had the utter luxury of cigarettes and coffee with good company.

Steve, I hope you and your wife are well. Much love forever, Michelle.

Some of my best memories were alone, or made with strangers, or involve a little stuffed bear that I never stopped regretting getting rid of (it was a tragic accident, RIP Jerbia). Some of my friendships started in an instant because we said more than others could in years of it. Many of my memories feel so surreal because I always seem to have to watch things play back the story over and over again. I guess you could say I’m like Alice. But I think I’m able to open up to my highest sense of being when I’m in a place like Wonderland. What a grand gesture living becomes when there is life on the line and Death at the end of it. I could only describe myself as a surrealist.

I spent my time on the road taking pictures with a 1968 Minolta that one of my ex-girlfriends bought for five bucks. She was thoughtful back then. I loved every single one of them. Part of me wanted to never come back, but nothing felt right about leaving like that. That part of me hasn’t changed its mind, either. Sometimes I wonder why I gave up that life, but I had too many reasons why. But those weeks I was on the road, by myself–I can’t even remember having that kind of courage. I think at the time I had no sensible concept of the world or what courage it took to do that stuff because I did it out of sheer ignorance and unquestionable faith. Though I may add I stayed vigilant and somewhat reckless. I blame the trauma I wasn’t dealing with. It has caused me a whole lot of trouble.

This whole story is making me think we are the Lost Generation because the time I'm describing was not quite ten years ago. It is truly fascinating to reminisce on something that happened so quick. Something being the total takeover of the Internet. Look how far we've come and how did we even get here?

I am very naturally contemplative. I think that’s what makes me a writer. My curiosity drives my insatiable thoughts to just let go. Maybe when I am allowed to speak about who I am, I get comfortable. I feel like Doctor Hunter S. Thompson layering his thoughts in a simple form of journalistic story-telling with decades of the work put in; overshadowed by a fantastical personality and iconic style. A living legend but one with the endless stream within. I feel like Mary Shelly, writing just for fun and simultaneously proving a point. Dismantling the opinions people have especially in regards to what you were born as. I find it funny how having an interest or even a passion for history prompts people to say you are some kind of old soul or “born in the wrong decade”. Something about that maybe bothered me because I loved this time just as much. But I admit, now, I look back and think about how different it was. Something about all this technology grosses me out. I’m glad to have been able to experience the crossover into the modern world. This certain timelessness I embody is an homage to all that has ever been and will be.

Being so purely rock n roll, being on the open road… It reminded me of my own soul. It was like the soul of the people who brought Woodstock to the table. It was like the soul of every animal. It was ancient, and modern, and timeless, and dated. It was all of those things packed into a vehicle and hitting the road. Just getting to travel in bliss despite the worst of it–the paranoia and secret intelligence. I didn’t draw a map of the universe… I wrote it. Absolutely massive but I trashed it. Just got paranoid. Hard to do much about that. Played into their hand, did the work for them. I start to sound like an episode of X-Files but much like Mulder, I, too, am “cursed with a photographic memory”.

I keep the spirit alive. I reflect on the times before it was all so smart and more people were like me. The beatniks and the freaks. Where do they flock to now? I just wonder if we’ll ever get back to that mind, like the time I wasn’t even there for. Surrealism is alive and well in the heart of every romantic. When do I feel the most myself? Probably when I’m alone with my own thoughts. I love to let them flow. It has taken a long time to be honest about them. Here I am sharing pieces of my intimate sanctuary that is my computer processor brain. It is new for me, but something that is a natural part of the process for humans.

I was never sure about being a diamond. I thought it was so common it was cliché, like every girl dreamed of a wedding ring with the most basic thing. But I had to realize what it meant to be mined. I stopped to acknowledge the carbon atoms that my human brain can hardly fathom. I imagine what the Earth’s mantle would feel like if I had to cook there. I started to wonder if that is where the tale of Hell has come from. But would that not make the diamond a classic? Would that not make me part of the greatest elemental alchemy in the known universe? To ascend from Hell and become a slice of heaven glowing in the Earth.

I’m a Earth sign, just leave me there. You think your hand is strong enough to carry this? Beautiful and an honor to be replicated. To come out clear and be so transparent. Beautiful and never underestimated. Maybe we can’t see our own shine yet we are shining. Beautiful and bright, like the diamonds we see at night. Beautiful and bright, like the course of nature. Desired, admired, and always in style.

I feel like my truest self when I am with everything else and making people smile.