Growing Pain

Wish to uplift, but I'm a bummer, most all the time. Had so many years of regularly feeling good, at least at some point each day or week, and felt fabolous beyond compare for many of those times. Will I ever get that ever new bliss back? Still believe in finding fulfillment in the now, which is why these words appear on this screen. Want the light to fill me, consume me, shine all around me, like it is. Too blind to see it. "That's not the electric light, it's just your vision growing dim." --L. Cohen. I see now why men perish after losing their families and money, harder than they could have imagined, emotionally honest or not. Of course, the October Country has left us to deep Autumn, the helladaze season, the frosty dying season. Must learn from then let go of past mistakes, work to feel light, remember to eat. Bless my friends and family for continuing to put up with me, believing that I'll come in around in awhile like a guy with a hangover sipping coffee.

Feel better all ready

Summer breezes sometimes blow cold
Across the bay with pastimes grown joyless
But whip them in the eyes I must
To feel them surge warm and thrill once more

The rising sun and Jimi Hendrix
Losing traction on the curves
Forgetting self on carnival rides
Hypnotized by the abyss

The subtle joy of pain every true skateboarder bemuses
Has taken flight across unskateble cobbles, to werewolf moors
Self absorption steals the joy, lends power to death, fear to life
But the moving love that keeps me free is on the move again

To spin, to dance, to fly & sing
Meditation, music making, progressing across watery bodies
Sensing seasons, ignoring reasons, howling at the moon
Crying with the stars, trees grow with me, coat my car in sap

Dreams of Dreams Within Dreams

My dear departed father visited me in my dreams last night, and not in a vague way. We shook hands firmly, sat in his car, exchanged the gravity of quite a lot. The weight of the world seems to crush me, squeeze my breath to shallow, make my body ache, race my heart. Keeping a positive attitude has become a hat trick, slippery and evasive. Looking for good here and now.

Creative Processing, Ghost Dog Love

Ghost Dog Love

da pain, da pain, da pain
rains snows sleets dogs and dogs.
epic dogs, pheonix dogs, Rumi dogs
across my core, through our collective soul

Brother John taught me Stinkface.
works for bright light
hard emotions, angry or sad
a mask of facial tension
reflected darkness of our abyss

Ghost dog becomes ghost dog
charges forever inside me.
energy seemed boundless.
Now so in soothe

Timeless Fragrant Love

light grows to dim again
eyes bright one moment
clouded and tired another.
no human power could relieve this suffering,
but relief you channel graceful
flows through us, trees, oceans, bird filled skyways
yesterday and tomorrow blind fiery ghosts
ego slips, macho trips, bring them all back
music beyond our minds
electric heat and cooling
clear sounds not too loud
round and around every little thing spins
orbitals of orbitals cannot obsure this
timeless fragrant love

Riven, Radially

May rains falling right on time, wet and wind driven, cool and not overly happy. They seem to challenge me, like the rest of the world, calling me out. Whatever happened to adventure cycling? Keep having to check myself to see what kind of animal I am, what species I'd like to become, seagull or hawk, panther or wolf, oak tree or mayfly. Riven, radially, as a log.

Tidbits, Trains, and Cycling

"I'm ain't nothing but a dirty dog, a briny hound, a dirty dog." --Jimmie Revard's Oklahoma Playboys

Cycling loves me so much that reciprocating comes preternatural. Had a way sweet ride along the Richmond shoreline Saturday - Point Isabelle to Ferry Point then back through the tunnel by Point Richmond, through what the wife & I used to call "Illegal Activities Land", back to Point Isabelle. To top it off our wonderfully unhurried trio threw in some impromptu adventure mountain biking to attend a King Cake party at the Albany Landfill, where I of course got Frog (the saviour) in my slice of cake, and so will be hosting a party this Friday in Oakland (buzz me for details, or comment on this post). Little sore, super stoked, "like a couple of kids, flipping our lids".

Been wondering what gets us through the nights not fun. Each of us with our own set of tools - meditation, liquor, television, books with yellowed pages, hot baths, the wild wonders of ancient and modern medicine, + a wide variety of excercise routines. More to the point is what might get me through this dark & stormy now. Sleep, bicycling, better things. No Selping! (not Sleeping + Not Helping)

My favorite part in André Gide's "The Counterfeiters" was when they dared each other to lie between the tracks as a train passed over. Then that one guy (my hero) did it. He passed out from fear as the train passed over him, then woke up feeling transformed, not to mention with an awful ringing in his ears. I'm a firm believer in donning one's stunner shades, ear plugs, helmet, gloves, and going dumb. Push your luck!

"I'm going down to the railroad, lay my head on the track. When that train come along I'm going to jerk it back." --from Dirty Hangover Blues by W. Lee O'Daniel & His Hillbilly Boys. That line cracks me up every time. As Homer Simpson so astutely put it: "I thought I had an appetite for destruction but all I wanted was a club sandwich."

Fear of Cycling

I'm guessing that my father's passing last December had a more profound effect upon me than I first would admit. The thing is, cycling, one of my favorite things, has fallen by the wayside, which I now blame for myriad mental and physical pains. Enough blogging about it, I've just got to get back on and peddle or find some other strenuous exercise to enjoy.

Life is for the living.

Delicious Depression

Gumba gives me little pats on the back when I pick her up, to comfort me, like I do her. And if she hears the intro to a thumpin' song she'll squeeze my upper arm in time with the beat, a reminder to start dancing. Also, she has perfected "uh-oh". What a shining star, she floods my mind with light and vision.

Regardless of how pleasant the children can be, a persistent shitty mood keeps poking me in the collar bone. I must love depression, overwhelming workloads, and the constant feeling of emotionally, physically, and spiritually lagging. I believe that we choose our moods, our reactions to situations, and I find myself savoring anger, cooking with self-pity, pouting like a snotty brat; delicious, but with unpleasant side effects.

"O sweet serene moments, how you vanish!
What delights us here, except our hopes,
never lasts for us, or even lingers."

--from Leopardi's Canti