There is a cool breeze blowing tonight at the Rancho. I have a week left and then it is back to reality. Wherever I look I see green, a giant green sea. The bushes, the banana trees fluttering in the wind, the palm trees swaying in the breeze, the mountains in the distant all collide to form a massive green collage.
The man at the table behind me is giving a young boy a lesson in the philosophies of life. He is telling him that the world is more than the small town he lives in. He tells him that he needs to get out and explore. Good advice. No, this is great advice.
In fact this just reinforces the whole theme that I have been pursuing since my arrival down here in the land of lush, green and verdant surroundings.
I pull on my headphones and drift away… the beach boys are working their magic. Kokomo…..
After my 2 day stint at the local hospital for Dengue Fever, I felt like a new man. The doctors told me I needed to rest and take it easy. They told me my body was exhausted and depleted and needed time to heal. But I felt so good. The following weekend my fellow Nica 6 buddies all went to a small coastal town called Rivas for some sort of training.
That night we all decided to let loose and drink and celebrate. I’m not sure if somebody spiked our rum or what but that night our whole group, and I do mean our WHOLE group got stinking drunk. That’s right silly drunk right in the main Central Park of Rivas. We were running around screaming, dancing and laughing for hours. I think we kept that whole town up for most of the night.
At some point everybody started throwing up. People began passing out in the streets and on park benches. It was getting ugly. Most of us managed to stumble or crawl back to our hotel rooms. Some had to be carried.
I somehow ended up sleeping on the cement floor. The booze mixed with my body being depleted of energy was not a good mix. I ended up sleeping with head on my arm for most of the night. Now normally when you sleep you toss and turn throughout the night and your blood circulates. Now when you just had Dengue Fever the week before and the next week you suck down a bottle of rum… well you just basically pass out and don’t move.
So the next day I awake and my hand and arm is throbbing in pain. The next 2 days the pain got progressively worse and the movement in my hand became progressively limited. It got to the point that I could not move my hand at all. I was freaked out.
Eventually I could not take the pain any longer and I had to go visit my friend the bitch nurse. After checking me out she tells me I need to go see a doctor but it looks as though I have partial paralysis from cutting off the circulation to the veins leading to my hand for an extended period. She also tells me that some people call this the drunk-man disease. Oh great. I blamed everything on my Dengue Fever and she didn’t pursue it.
I would have to wear a brace on my hand and go to physical therapy for the next 3 months. After about a month I started getting feeling in the hand and was actually able to partially lift my hand. I would eventually get full movement back but even to this take it still feels tingly from my arm down to my thumb and forefinger.
Soon after this little fiasco the majority of our Peace Corps group was forced to come into the Peace Corps office and take some alcoholism quiz. They had random questions. How many drinks do you drink a week? When is the last time you drank? On and on the questions went. Well, I’m no idiot, I lied my ass off. Shit from my quiz you would have thought I only drank on my birthday!
My buddy Jason, the one I said earlier was so smart. Well this genius decides to tell the truth. Um yeah, I drank last night. I drink about 10 beers per occasion. I drink several times a week, I drink alone… etc… etc….
Jason ended up going to a series of classes on alcoholism after acing that test! Smart! Now he lives in Nappa Valley, rather ironic, huh?
Local market...
Belts?
¨
So, I found some old journals that I kept when I lived here in Nicaragua. Most of it is very convoluted and hard to make any sense out of. I will share a small portion of the madness.
Now these are true “Ramblings!” Man I was a lost soul back then!
Peace Corps Journal June 1995:
Well it’s my last night in Masaya. I’ll be heading for Managua for a week and then onto Esteli for 2 years. I’m drinking cheap port wine and listening to Bob. I’m very happy I’m leaving. The family experience was a disaster. I was unfortunate with my family. They did not treat me well – but, I blame it all on the father! He is a jerk… Fuck him! I bought them a radio/cassette player today as a going away present. They didn’t, actually “he” didn’t like it! Fuck him! I feel cheated and sad. I feel as though I should have been treated better by my adopted Nicaraguan family.
Poor me…perhaps it’s the port talking or the fact that I only have one more day in Masaya- I really couldn’t tell you….
It’s hot yet the mosquitoes have given up on me- perhaps they just terrorize you until you get deathly ill from their bite – then they give mercy.
Man, I am way down here. I am way the hell down here! It seems as though once again I am balancing precariously on the bottom rung.
Monimbo- what is that? A Hood! I live in a hood. I live in shitsville. Nicaragua is a land of culture. A culture that is pure and known. A land where the door is always open to embrace the stranger, yet a land of poverty. Yet as the poverty diminishes; the curious eyes open and the thirst for knowledge is apparent. I view Nicaragua through A Gringo’s eyes….
I sit now idle. I ponder upon the slope; the arch in the rose that slants in my front yard. It reaches toward the sun. It stretches its stem to embrace the powerful star.
Reggae pulses its message through me. Well everything is alright. As I drink from the bottle of disappearance. May I cease to be? May the raindrops weep their tears upon my veil of being? Wash me away with the tide, only to emerge fresher, stronger, newer?
Flashing, slowness, dark shadows. Life lingers in the balance. Yes, I can come down. Or rather up. Such pointless depression. Depression brought on by my lack of will power. I must come up. I am wallowing in a state of futility. I wonder what my body is thinking at this point. I’m sure it is not too enthused. Yet the bloody shadows of intoxication outweigh all the steady neon lights casting shadows upon my bloodshot eyes. It seems as though the visions are good. I could be fading into the sunset yet the drift is slow and peaceful. I seek balance. I need to cleanse my body. I need purity. Can I find a steady plane? All I see are bleak futures, rising tides, heavy waves and pure confusion. I am at a loss.
The ice cream man...
It seems as though music and booze were a steady theme throughout my Peace Corps experience!
So after I departed my plush digs down by the river I moved up into the main part of the city. Well on the outskirts. This house was a real shithole! The toilet was located about 20 yards up a little hill from my house outside in the elements. The shower was also located outside and there was no roof. It was just a small 3 foot by 3 foot cement floor surrounded by 4 walls. There was a water hose for a shower head.
When it rained the patio at my house would flood. You would have to spread 2x4’s around the lakes in order to get to the shower or toilet. The kitchen was just an outdoor area with a roof.
One day after an especially hard rain I decided to take a shower. So there a am holding my hose above my head and trying to wash my hair at the same time which is not an easy feat when I feel something on my foot. I start to freak out and at the same time I’m trying to hose the shampoo out of my eyes and see what the hell it was.
I finally manage to peak at my foot and what do I see but the biggest freaking toad I had ever seen in my life sitting on my foot. I start screaming and run out of my shower. Now Maribell happened to be over that day visiting and here I am running around naked jumping through the freaking lakes in my patio screaming like a banshee! It’s a wonder she ever married me.
So I’m yelling at Mari but I don’t know the work for toad or even from in Spanish so she has no idea what the hell is going on. I finally drag Mari over to the shower balancing oh so steadily on the 2x4’s which are the bridge to my shower and I open up the shower curtain and show Mari the toad and the next thing you know she is screaming and running around my mini-lakes.
Turns out I’m with one of the few girls in Nicaragua that are also deathly afraid of slimy animals with warts! I ended up getting a broom and prodded him to jump out of my house and to perhaps go visit my neighbor. Ah, the neighbor……
Now my next door neighbor had a dog that barked nonstop. I’m talking day and night. Down here the people do not trip on a dog barking for hours at a time! It doesn’t even faze them. No animal control here either. They had the dog tied up on a leash about a foot long and he never moved. He just sat there all day in his shit and piss barking away. Hey you would be barking too!
The house behind me had a giant parrot that screamed, squawked and talked all day. I would scream in English and also in my broken Spanish to shut the dog and bird up. So now you got the dog barking, the bird screaming and the Gringo cussing as loud as we all could.
I finally went to the neighbor and told them they had to do something about the dog. They did… they moved it from one side of the yard to the other….
I had visions of how I was going to poison the dog. I would wrap rat poisoning in a pile of hamburger and throw it over the wall… After plotting for several weeks, I finally concluded that the Peace Corps may frown on my killing dogs and birds and gave up on my plotting.
One day I’m chilling at my house with my new schoolteacher friend (yes she actually hung around) making dinner for her and a friend when I hear a knock on the door. I answer the door and there is this pathetic looking tall blonde kid looking at me hunched over.
“Are you Kevin?” he asks.
“Yes I say”…
“Hi I am Robb. I am the new volunteer living in Esteli. I just got here today but I am feeling sick.”
“Dude come on in” I say.
“No, I’m just going to go to my hotel room” and with that Robb took off.
Well… whatever I thought. I wasn’t all that cool about sharing my city with another American anyway. This was my city! I was the King of Esteli. Ok not really, but I liked to think I was.
So WAY too early the next morning, I hear somebody banging on the door again. I managed to crawl out of bed and open the door and there is that same blonde asshole… what was his name again?
“You have to help me he says” I am really sick. I mean really sick. Oh great this is all I need. My hangover wasn’t helping matters. So, I call the Peace Corps and they put me in contact with my favorite person… the bitch nurse.
No, she hadn’t been fired yet. After her last lapse in judgment when she almost killed me, she decides she better take ill Peace Corps volunteers a little more seriously.
She tells me she is going to send an ambulance from the capitol of Managua up to Esteli.
O.K. I tell her, I really like your whole new outlook and sense of urgency when somebody is deathly ill, HOWEVER, It is a 3 hour drive to get to Esteli from Managua and another 3 hour drive back. Not really the best plan. So I told her I would get him on a bus and go with him down to Managua and we could be there in 3 hours instead.
So I loaded him up in the bus and away we went. Remember I am still reeking of booze and barely able to function as it is! About ½ way to Managua, Robb tells me he has to ralph. SO I go up to the bus driver and beg him to pull over. He does and about 100 people had the unexpected pleasure of watching poor Robb bent over yakking his brains out for 5 minutes on the side of the Pan American Highway.
Robb finally manages to gain some control over his stomach and away we go again. Robb is now bent over in his chair looking like he may pass out or die at any moment. Now in Nicaragua they pack the shit out of busses. When all the seats are taken, people stand in the aisles or even ride on top of the bus.
Anyways, there is this big fat guy standing up in the aisle next to Robb eating some type of food covered with cabbage and carrots and every time he opens his big fat mouth and shovels food in, he also spills the cabbage, carrots and whatever else he was eating all over Robb’s head.
So me being the brave protector of the new Peace Corps Volunteer, I tell the guy to watch out in my somewhat improving Spanish. The guy just looks at me as if I am a nut. He shovels some more food into his mouth and a big pile of food falls on Robb’s head. Now Robb barely even knows what is going on at this point but hey…. he was under my protection now and I wasn’t going to have it.
So I get really pissed off and I start going off on the guy even throwing in a few of the nice new Spanish swear words I had learned.
Well fat boy just looks over at me, grunts and pulls up his shirt revealing a rather large pistol tucked around his big fat belly. Uhhhh…. not good.
Well… let’s just say I shut my mouth really quick. In fact I didn’t say another word the rest of that trip to Managua. I did manage to keep myself occupied by picking bits of food, cabbage and carrots out of Robb’s head.
When we finally arrived in Managua I loaded Robb into a cab and away we went to my favorite place in Nicaragua, the Bautista Hospital. We rush Robb into the emergency room and talk to the doctor. Well, it turns out Robb had Dengue Fever too!
After Robb got situated in his room, I told him to have fun with the sponge baths and away I went back to my little city. Robb and I would later become good friends.
About a month after that crazy day I packed up all my worldly possessions which conveniently fit within 1 large duffel bag. I said goodbye to my good friends… the parrot and the dog. I then hopped on my bike and rode to my new house. I am almost positive that as I pedaled away that day I heard that parrot scream in perfect English, “Shut the fuck up!”
Robb, my new roommate, and I cracked a beer and toasted each other that night. We had broken one of the Peace Corps rules by becoming roommates. We didn’t care! Hell we realized that by pooling our money we could now afford to get cable and a phone! Of course it would take 6 months for the bastards to process the work order… but we were happy as clams!
Peace Corps Journal 1995
A man upon the cusp of existence! Tell me, tell me, tell me. So this is the story I write. I am just a boy living the Peace Corps experience. A boy lost amid the foliage of Nicaragua. A young man hidden among the mountains of Esteli, Nicaragua. And still now, tomorrow will be a new day. With each passing day comes yet another. A day to release the chemicals and emerge stronger than the day before. Rise up, rise up he says. WITHOUT the ocean my task looms heavy. I endeavor to overcome the obstacles placed before me. Some days are harder than others. But in reality I only want to emerge clean and new. I want to embrace my manhood. I no longer wish to run yet only to stand erect and sigh, yes, I am a man. I no longer wish to run from but rather to.
God give me the strength to echo my name w dignity. I am as big as my heart permits, nothing more or less. Let me devour all that I know about being a man, let me cast aside all my weaknesses and let me be….Oh let me be.
For only then can I look into the mirror and find beauty. So let that be my final passage.
To live within the maze to search for the unseen door, leads the mind to seize upon confusion, while the heart continues to roar. Yet your dreams flutter in the sky, awaiting your capture, continuing to fly. Hope strings you along, patiently singing its enduring song. Structured silence, destined gloom? Oblivious to all, questions assumed. Revel in your tranquility never foresee an end, laughter unveils the pain as the mind continues to transcend. The light shines bright on the isle of dreams gods sparkle in their golden streams. Yet learn from Homer avoid all luring song, for here dreams die, making life unbearably long. Your answer will grow clear on the isle of fears. Erasing the pain suppressing all fears. Look to the sky; here is where dreams are found, our bodies may be mortal but our souls know no bounds. The answers grow clear on the isle of tears, erasing all pain suppressing all fears. I forever dream, dreams that have no measure. I must find the island to discover the hidden treasure.
Life actually settled down tremendously after I moved in with Robb. He got a girlfriend, I had my girlfriend. We eventually got our cable T.V. hooked up. Life was moving along nicely.
I guess the next major obstacle I had was with my counterpart and my job. Most Peace Corps volunteers are hooked up with a Nicaraguan counterpart that is supposedly a work partner and I had hoped a person that would help me fit in with the culture. I ended up with some alcoholic asshole on a power trip named Bismark.
Yeah… that’s right, just like the ship! Bismark and I got off on the wrong foot and we never did forge any type of relationship. He was the manager of the Savings and Loans Cooperative I worked at and he thought he was the shit!
At first he viewed me as a token American that would make his Savings and Loans cooperative look good to the associates. He later viewed me as a threat when I pointed out why the cooperative was losing a shitload of money every month and what he needed to do to get it straightened out.
You see the cooperatives receive funding from different countries that are trying to help developing countries. That money is then “supposedly” lent to small companies to grow and thrive.
Peace Corps Journal 1995
Well the manager and the accountant of the Savings and Loan Cooperative I work at just had a major blowout in front of me. They apparently lost some applications for government loans. They keep asking me if I have them. As if I really want or need them. It’s really stupid and petty, but it seems as though the manager is an asshole and on some sort of power trip. Give a man a little power and he wields it like the staff of Merlin. Latin America is definitely a backwards caveman world, small men with big dreams of grandeur. Perhaps they realize that it is all rather pointless and they revert back to primordial days.
I know little, yet I observe much. I seem to be causing a riff in this pathetic little cooperative I work in. I tried to be a team player and they pushed me away. They don’t want me to help them. I can’t turn to my Peace Corps director because they will look at this as a problem I created. Another of the many ways the Peace Corps refuses to back us up. I really just want to go and drink 6 beers, right now! That’s all I want to do. Sad! But no, I’ll just go home, eat and then finish my book. Sad!
As I mentioned, the money the Cooperative receives from other countries is supposed to go to small companies as loans so that they can grow their businesses. When the small businesses repay their loans that money is then available to more small companies eventually creating a prosperous micro-economic benefit for the whole town. You know; the whole trickle down methodology.
Well, what I soon learned was that the money was being channeled to, not only friends of the directors, but the directors themselves. They would make themselves loans with little or no intentions of ever paying the money back. Even my good buddy Bismark had some fat loans! The default rate was something astronomical like 40%. However, when they ran out of money they would just get another large donation from some organization or country that really didn’t quite understand the system.
After several attempts to modernize the cooperative by computerizing their system it became abundantly clear that these guys did not want my help. Soon I found myself living a charade. I would show up to work at the office each day and sit around and do nothing. That’s right, I would just sit around and read a book each day.
After a few weeks of this, I realized that I no longer wanted to participate in this bullshit charade and I told my Peace Corps director that I was done with that place. I told him I was not going to work there anymore and that if he wanted to boot me out of the Peace Corps than that was up to him but that I would no longer pretend to work at some stupid job. I had done that for many years in the states and did not come all this way to live a lie!
Peace Corps Journal 1996
Well I really don’t have a person to whom I’m writing so I will just write. Today I will soon learn my fate for the next year and 1/2. Either I will leave the Peace Corps or I will be working independently. Either way, something has to change. I cannot go on like this anymore. I’m always stressed out! I’ve worked too hard in my life to feel constricted like this. I need to unleash and become more free to expand and grow. Anyways, life is life and I expect that all I can do is to be truthful and honest, well for the most part! What do people expect? To be silent and endure something, a situation which is intolerable? I think not! And so, I push the line. I’m trying to help and make a difference. Yet the people here are unwilling to bend or change. Yet they are willing to take and unleash their stupidity and unkindness. And so we have arrived at my day of judgment for the next 1 ½ years. And so I search for an internal light to spark my way and guide the lost boy. Yet my vision is clear, my body is strong and my spirit is rejuvenated. So bring it on baby!
I later talked to my Peace Corps Program Director. He happened to be one of the few Peace Corps Directors that was an actual Nicaraguan. Not only that. But he was from the laid back Caribbean side of Nicaragua. He told me, “Kevin… just do whatever you want.”
I told him I would teach English and work with small businesses. He just said, “Whatever.”
From that point forward I was basically on my own in Nicaragua for the next year and half. No set job, no obligations, just pure freedom. Oh yeah baby!
Before I left the Cooperative I did manage to hook them up with another organization that was funded by the AID, American International Development… basically the money arm of the U.S. in developing countries. They began taking over control of the cooperative little by little. Many years later I was driving down the main drag of Esteli and saw the cooperative on the same street as all the major banks in the city.
I went into the cooperative which now looked just like a bank and asked about Bismark. Well Bismark was out! Apparently he had sunk just like the ship! AHHHH Karma once again rears its head!
Hell, almost instantaneously after my Peace Corps program director told me I was on my own I started travelling. I first started travelling locally to visit my fellow Nica 6 Peace Corps Volunteers spread out all over Nicaragua.
Down here each town has a party celebrating a Patron Saint. Each town has a different patron saint… so you do the math. All I knew was that there was a LOT of parties to attend. Now who am I to turn town a party?
By this point most of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Nica 6 had basically abandoned their jobs as well! So, my buddies and I began travelling from town to town to the local party. Now these were some major big parties by the way. The whole town comes out and gets down.
The parties go something like this: Break out multiple bottles of Rum and Guaro (moonshine). Next grease up a pig and let him go…. Let’s see who can get him! Grease down a chicken and nail him to somebody’s front door. O.K., Now, everybody get on a horse and ride around the block and see who can be the first one to rip him off the door.
Next how bout we grease up a pole and see who can get to the top…. Nice. Lots of grease involved in these parties.
Alright how about we cut off a couple bulls’ penis… let them dry in the sun for several days and then use them in epic drunken sword battle reenactments from the 1800’s. But let’s really wail on each other until we start bleeding. Hey now this is a party! You thought toga parties were fun?
The finale of these weekend long parties usually entailed a makeshift bullring, a bunch of extremely drunk Nicaraguans, several bulls and some extreme drunken chaos.
Now in our case you could add to that drunken mayhem, several drunken Americans running around that same bullring. Yes, bulls running directly at us with their pointy sharp horns. We would leap up on the wooden rails at the last second as the bulls charged close by us. Good times for sure!
Juice?
Soon I began going on trips throughout Central America. At one point I even traveled 6 hours in several busses and crossed the border into Honduras just to get a burger from McDonalds!
Peace Corps Journal 1996 some beach in Guatemala
Life!
So, here I am. Yeah! The surf is looking plush – no board! The call for today- fish! The lefts are peeling. And so here I sit, a man, about to embark on a bottle of Guatemala’s finest! And so I drink, oblivious to the reality which lies beyond. My tent is pitched, my mind is cloudy. Zeppelin rings through the mind! And so it goes; or so I go, down into the depths of the bottle. A soiree into no-man’s land.
How nice, he says. Love is in the air. How putrid and fetish those salt water breezes. Air conditioning, oh that treasured gift. Soon my body will be pure; clean and hard. Janis Joplin unleashes her pain through my ears. Oh baby I hear you. I do, I do. The weight lies heavy upon us all. The syrup gently rolls down my throat. Oh so sweet. Bye bye, baby bye bye.
Money? I have little.
Wisdom? Not much.
Desire? Oh plenty.
And thus, I write on with a mad desire to pursue knowledge.
Freedom of mind, of pen, freedom of expression unto the glorious paper. Oh how so, oh how truly, truly so. The purity, the beauty, the flow, oh how sweet the ink. Oh, I flow, kids, children lurk heavy on my mind! To give unconditionally. Ahh, such sweet, sweet words. Love is divine.
That of which we seek. Unspoken words, hidden thoughts. Yet the sweet slumber lays further ahead of my existence. For now, I am content upon this paper, I etch my name, my being, my presence. I am heard and with such a sweet ring, the bell of eternal longing.
Shhhh…. Silence! Can’t you hear???? Ah, and the bell tolls. The direction of her bliss knows no boundaries. And thus, she sounds, the inevitability of it all is such sweet song. The ice of ages melts and becomes only what she was. The water that traces through her body is upon us, coursing as she may, searching to release her purity.
One thing you have to love about Nicaragua is that it can rain basically at any time and at any moment. Hang your clothes out to dry on a sunny day… and bam, downpour. I’m chillin’ at the Rancho just switching over to Rum and Coke and the skies just opened up. I guess I should have known by the subtle breezes I felt earlier. These are usually the tell tale signs! Hey, cut me some slack I have only been down here for two weeks and I am a little out of touch. Oh man… the thunder just pounded down around me! It is raining so hard that the rain is coming through my little rancho roof and dropping on my head!
O.K. No worries… Just need to move over to the next seat where the rain hasn’t managed to find a hole to penetrate the Spanish tile roof. And we are talking real Spanish tiles! Made out of dirt and cow shit and fired in a brick oven! Really.
It is coming down pretty hard. Fortunately I have managed to save my computer, my rum and the last ashes of my mom. O.K. don’t say morbid! That is wrong. She would be laughing her ass off right now and actually truth be told she is actually sealed in an air tight ziplock baggie at the moment. So she is probably the driest one out of us all!
O.K so let’s just go down this road now. As I mentioned previously my mom passed away recently. I brought part of her ashes down to Nicaragua on my trip and I have been spreading her around the different locations that I have journeyed to on my adventures.
Now I had planned to sprinkle some of her ashes in the cemetery that is located very close to my local Rancho Bar. That is why I have her along with me tonight. I’m not that fucked up… well maybe.
Anyways I do have to admit that I miss her! I think the hard parts are whenever something really good or really bad happens to me. I get that urge to pick up the phone and share my feelings with her. I then realize that I can’t. My mom was my sounding board. I would spit out anything I was feeling and I would get a reaction in return. From that reaction I would move forward. At times what I heard in return would piss me off and I would fume for days. Then I would realize that what my mom had said had validity.
I think at some point I already knew what my mom’s reaction would be to any situation I brought to her. I just needed validation. “This is right or this is wrong.”
No matter how much I pleaded and defended my case she would set me straight. I couldn’t bullshit her or win her over in an argument that didn’t have a pure cause. She would always call me out and set me straight.
No matter how cute, cunning, charismatic or persuasive I thought I was, she saw right through me. I wasn’t any of those things to her. I was just her son; plain and simple.
Eventually all I needed was her silence on a subject to confirm to me that I was wrong! No matter how much I continued to argue my point with her, I would only be met with her silence. I would eventually relent and tell her, O.K. Yes you’re right and that is wrong.
When I first brought Mari to the U.S. as my new bride I was nervous how my mom would react. My mom gave Mari a huge hug right off the bat. They had some weird conversation that I’m sure neither of them understood. Then my mom took my new wife shopping. She would not even let me go. What? You guys can’t even understand each other!
They didn’t go anywhere fancy. That wasn’t the point. They bought sandals and clothes and I don’t know what else. They went out for lunch. Mainly they bonded.
That was the whole point. Mari and my mom would become very close over the years. I later named my daughter after my mom, “Kristi”.
So now if I have the desire to carry her around in a ziplock baggie and spread her ashes haphazardly around Nicaragua…. So be it!!!!
Peace Corps Journal 1996
As I stretched my eyes to find some semblance of order in the ungrateful morning, I noticed the cobwebs draping throughout the corners of the room. I noticed a spider gradually ascending up the silly string he called his home. I began to wonder where the spider slept in this twisted puzzle of threads. I rolled over, closed my eye and the spider’s life was no longer relevant.
I woke again and was rather disturbed that this spider had disrupted 10 minutes of my sleep. My thoughts began to pursue the idea of grabbing a broom from the kitchen and ripping the webs of the spider from the walls.
As I plotted my revenge, another notion came to me. I pursued this by once again closing my eyes and beginning my journey into unconsciousness.
As I lay there motionless my mind began to flutter endlessly through a storm of love and hope. I found myself looking through a telescope. The telescope faced the sky yet the mystery of the heavens was far from apparent. I pondered the question of God. I pondered the question of death. Mostly, I pondered the question of life.
I squinted my eyes to see farther, yet I could still not see any answers. I screamed out, “What do you see?” the answers echoed back so silently I realized that in actuality the answer lied within the eye of the individual.
Each individual possessed his own telescope for which the heavens were visible. Perhaps their telescopes were bigger or smaller or perhaps their minds were bigger or smaller. I noticed a beautiful princess crying beside me.
“Why do you cry beautiful prince?” I asked.
“I cannot see anything through my telescope.” she said.
I glanced into her eyes.
“Well my princess, I see a merry go round, a circus, a beach, the bright sun and a shiny ring. “
She looked through the telescope once more and spoke.
“Sir, I still cannot see anything.”
I looked deeply into her eyes for the last time, removed the lens cap from the telescope and walked away, weeping.
Soon I will return to the states and once again continue my voyage. For now I listen to Led Zeppelin and pound against my keyboard. Another passage in my Peace Corps journal now:
Peace Corps Journal 1997
Questioning the future
Structured silence, destined doom. Oblivious to all, the question assumed. I revel in tranquility though I foresee the end. Laughter unveils the pain, yet the stars continue to transcend. Dreams flutter in the sky, awaiting their capture continuing to fly. Hope strings me along, patiently singing its enduring song. I beg my brother to take my hands, to calm the seas, and shine his light on the land. May the light shine bright on this island of dreams, where my goals are clear as they sparkle in golden streams. I clench my fist disregarding all stakes I look to the skies and my dream awakes.
Pictures and maps foretell the future. The future, the mystery that surrounds the mind. As the mind travels, the heart unleashes its power. The power travels to the soul enriching the nutrients of life and youth. We inhale the scent and thrust forward on a surging wave of hope. We strive for more never yielding to the dictates of others. We embrace those who share our dreams. Together we soar; we touch the clouds and continue our quest as one. In this, the eternal loop of life. In this, the adventures of innocence.
A habit a life a world to break, wrong paths, wrong people an enormous mistake. Looking at life directly in his eye, beneath the surface and asking him why. This is the reason we live and grow, to discover ourselves and to just let go. And so we travel down the winding path, trying to avoid the devil’s wrath.
Searching, searching to unhinge our soul, to find the emptiness and fill the hole.
Step by step we continue to walk, on unstable grounds while learning to talk. We open locked doors and step inside, only to learn that the world has lied. They take away our precious tools: our minds, our hearts they think we’re fools. Then they throw us in schools. These are the people that I laugh in their face, then I watch them walk on in a backwards endless pace. Then they try to teach us what we already knew, then they tell us we’re normal and tell us what to do. A habit, a life, a world to break wrong paths.
Slowly the day twists endlessly around. The start approaches the end. The end approaches the start. The stillness explodes within my mind. The inevitability of the pointless circle is evident. Transcripts of yesterday lie below. Above, everywhere,. The bird soars above, the clouds hide her beauty. Yet I feel the presence within. I touch the beauty with my thoughts. Yet the bird soars on. In search of what? Running from whom? On goes the walk. The clatter of the message pounds and echoes off the walls. And still the inevitability feeds the white petals of the yellow day. The mind wanders, the stillness engulfs. And what of the bluebird that sung the beauty of the wind. Where doth thou bluebird fly? So on goes the entrenchments of fluids to atone for the lack of solids. The solidarity of a feather lacks the substance of a song. Yet the reverse cries terror to all. The point? Objective. The thought? Subjective. The meaning? Reactive? On and on, circles prevail. The circle has no meaning. Much like the thought. Yet still the words continue. Confused to all, but sound within. I inhale the meaning, again and again! One more time.
I spy a temperate sky. I feel the sand seep through my toes. Barren existence engulfs my mind. I feel the crush of a wave and the mist from its power soothes my face. I see a new way of life and customs. A solidarity and freedom that lets me embrace mother earth. I see my roots growing intertwined beneath my feet, growing ever outward and then back. I see your face growing bright, the sun beating its power into your heart. I see your body becoming hard, becoming united with your mind. I see myself forming jewelry from the shells and twine that the earth has created. I see a peace, a harmony, a bonding of all earthen creatures. I spy an ancient civilization with great rulers and kingdoms. The ruins enable me to search higher and find truth. I see mystery and attainable answers in pyramids and ancient medicine. I feel respect for the ancient man, the shaman and all the knowledge and wisdom he allows me to receive. I feel my soul awakening glowing once again, giving me life as it did when I was born. These images thrust me forward on a wave of hope. I spy distant lands. I spy myself. I wish you would come with me!
So now it seems that my journey down memory lane must come to a close. Perhaps I have one final blog in me before my return to reality. However tonight’s blog comes to the end with the words of Zeppelin…..
Yes there are two paths you can go back but in the long run…. there’s still time to change the road you are on.
So I suppose the real question is, “Where does YOUR stairway lie?”
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