Victor and I hit the town last night, returning to "Che's lounge" located in the hip 4th avenue district of Tucson, AZ. I was here two years ago under much different circumstances -- even though they are virtually identical. At that time, we met the lumberjack and the photographer, drank some jack n' cokes, and ate hot nuts at 2am. Last night, we settled for a few jack n' cokes and a 2 am stop at The Carl's Jr. adjacent to the luxurious two-star rated Days Inn hotel. The piping hot chicken I ordered left a memorable impression on the roof of my mouth that I'm reminded of every time I take a sip of coffee as I sit here and type.
I am at The Epic Cafe. I like it here. This is where my blogging career started in February of 2009. This is where it resumes after a 6 month hiatus. I am struggling to write anything and I don't really care to. My pounding head and off balance equilibrium make it difficult to focus on the computer screen. I'm easily distracted and I'm finding it more enjoyable to people watch (an excellent activity in Tucson) than I am attempting to formulate sentences. My left wrist hurts. My table is off balance. I'm hot but not too much. I can hear portions of everybody's conversation -- like a scene in a movie where the lead character is having a mental break down -- vision is blurry, the conversation gets louder and more intense, a bead of sweat trickles down the nape of the neck AND THEN...
CUT!!!!!!!!!
Director: Wrong line, Asshole.
Actor: If your stupid kid wasn't making so much noise on the set, maybe I could do a better job of regurgitating this awful dialogue! Paige! Get me a Venti 1/2 skim, 140 degree soy chai, in two cups, filled half way in each, diluted with essence of steam and a GODDAMN snowflake on top.
Very easily distracted, I tell you.
So, Yeah, Epic Cafe. Drinking coffee, musing about my poor, pathetic life.
February of 2009 - Left my girlfriend of 8 years. Wasn't ready to grow up. Wanted to travel and join a rock n' roll band.
February of 2011 - Traveled. Fired from rock n' roll band. What now?
"This is an enviable position to be in!" I keep repeating to myself.
"I am lucky!" I say
"The world is my oyster" well, I don't really say or think that. That is very cliche and sounds stupid. The world is not my oyster. Perhaps it's my passion fruit or coconut shell. Maybe even my PBR or meat fortress, but it's certainly not my oyster.
Two and a half years ago, I was stuck in life and sucked at life. I learned a few lessons along the way and figured out how to create my reality. It was simple, really. I would say something and it would happen. Well, it wasn't that easy. I couldn't just snap my fingers and say, "I want a million dollars, sequential numbers, no dye pack and a piece of apple pie a-la-mode" and have it appear. I would have a thought - and figure out what it would take make that thought a reality... i.e., buying a gun, a "geezer mask", learning to speak like Christian Bale in Batman, robbing a bank, and checking Yelp on my iPhone for the best place in town for apple pie a-la-mode.
I knew one thing then. I wanted to travel. From the day I took my first Japanese class as a sophomore in high-school, I had a thirst to explore. In fact, that desire to constantly seek new adventure and experience was probably ingrained in me from childhood...
Blah blah blah... I'm getting a little to self-indulgent here. I was able to peel my eyeballs off of my laptop screen long enough to notice a gentleman "glide" in the door of the cafe. He had long blond hair. He was wearing a pink sweater, glasses and had eyebrow tattoos. His outfit was accented quite stunningly with pink roller skates. He came in, took a lap, stared quite creepily at something and exited quietly. Is String Cheese Playing in Tuscon this weekend?
I just ordered my second GIANT cup of coffee. Things are going to get weird. Apropos for this city, me thinks.
So, yeah. I did some traveling and played some rock n' roll. A lot of traveling, a lot of rocking. I went international. I stayed stateside. I climbed to the top of Machu Picchu and stuck my toes in the Atlantic and Pacific multiple times. I swam in the icy-cool water of the largest natural lake in the western U.S. and melted faces from Portland, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. I ate fresh caught blue crab, and partied on a yacht. I've had BBQ from Memphis twice (my favorite in the country) and one of the best Al Pastor burritos ever from a silver trailer in Telluride, Colorado. I drank. I was homeless but never without a home -- even if home was a Wal-Mart parking lot, a cuddle on Pearl Street or a city park.** I traveled along the winding and intoxicating Pacific Coast Highway of northern California and I jogged through the streets of Norfolk, Virginia, inhaling the dense sea air and admiring the mighty presence of our floating war machines. I slept on couches and floors, in vans and under the Montana stars. I didn't go to sleep. I never rested. I met a companion who I enjoyed restlessness with. We climbed mountains and played basketball and ate food and drank wine and passed out from exhaustion. But I never really rested.
I was living my dream. I created exactly what I wanted to be doing in my life at that moment. Every new experience I had was a result of a grander plan that I'd put into motion just a year and a half earlier. Of course, it was fate or chance or divine intervention or manifest destiny or a fortune from a cookie that connected all the dots. I don't understand the complexities of how everything actually happened, or how intertwined all of our relationships are. I'm simply saying that in 2010, I accomplished about everything that I'd dreamed of just a few short years prior to that. January, 1, 2011, I was the happiest I've ever been in my life. So sure of my impending path and what was to come next.
Everything came crashing down.
Not to be overly-dramatic. January brought no illness, no death, nothing catastrophic to my simple little life. All in all, I have my health, I am resourceful and able bodied. I have friends and family that show me unconditional love, regardless of mistakes that are made. I live in the mountains (A long time coming!), I'm enjoying the finest season of snowboarding I've ever had. I make enough money to ride choice powder days during the week and put gas in my '93 Civic - even though I'm continually attempting to destroy her. I have a comfy twice weekly gig at a top-flight steak house in downtown Denver that feeds me fillet with truffle butter and lobster and crab-fried rice and sea-bass. I am perhaps a little too healthy, not quite able to take off that extra weight that I've accumulated over the years. But my identity has been shaken and the carpet of life was blindly and quickly pulled out from under my feet. I still don't understand exactly what happened but I choose to move on and open the next chapter.
The problem is, as I turn to page 174 of my "choose your own adventure" book, I find it frighteningly blank.
"This is an enviable position to be in!" I keep repeating to myself.
"I am lucky!" I say
"The world is my oyster" or my steak with truffle butter...
What now, indeed. Music, at least temporarily has been knocked a few pegs down the list. I understand this is a natural reaction to being dumped and perhaps it will rear it's ugly head soon enough but I'm simply not feeling much from it right now.
Traveling, on the other hand, is very much still at the forefront of my priorities. Trying to figure out how to facilitate that is currently the most difficult task...
Conceivably, starting at the same place all over again will show me the way.
Shut up, Damon.
**Don't scoff at sleeping in a Denver metro area city park. The cool of the summer morning air accentuated by the soothing melody of a song-bird and the rhythmic, trance-inducing pattern of the sprinkler cycle provides a incredibly relaxing and peaceful environment to rest a weary head for a few hours.
