the Road is a Woman

Slowly coming back into what I need to do, getting back into the life I have chosen not out of want, but need. Once a small taste was had, I knew that there was nothing else I could do and remain true to who I am, always wanted to be, always was - it just took time, lots of time, to finally find the doors, yet once found I walked through knowing I would, could, ever go back.

Without question it takes its toll, demands sacrifice around every corner - frustration, hunger, lack of almost any type of security seem to be the norm, at least for me, at least for now, but those also inspire me to become better, do more, give more of myself in order to remain myself...

I've found, however, that that is a balancing act that needs to be closely watched. In past projects there was always a knowledge, a comfort, that I could always walk away with little damage to anything but my spirit, but the magazine - the magazine offers no such peace or comfort. Since February of last year, when I first started working on it, teaching myself how to build a website, design it so it isn't complete shit, learn far more in Photoshop that I ever knew it could do, usually by accident ("oh, cool!... wait - now how the fuck did I do that?...") and days of creating & destroying graphics, four months and then more with barely the minimum of sleep - but it was launched at the end of the day I had chosen. Beltane, May 1st. I did it.

I did it, and lost myself in it. The magazine, my vehicle of dreams, took over my life, took over my soul, spirit, and everything I had fought so hard to become, had grown to be before.
The cliff was there so I jumped, and found the wings that kept me aloft, kept me flying and fighting and trying to put aside the constant fear of what I had gotten myself into...

It took me away. Ruthless, unforgiving, sucking me dry - all I wanted to do is somehow make it work, somehow support myself and more dreams that had been put on hold through it. Every second a fight to somehow have it get me a bit past starving, a bit past having to sell all the books I had, pawn tools, do everything I possibly could just to support the magazine that I had fallen in a strange unhealthy love with. Everything was sacrificed, including my Self - hell, I wasn't even writing anymore; I had sacrificed the words that make me whole, knowing I desperately needed to do something, knowing I could find myself again on the Road, and having no monetary means to get there, I decided that a benefit was in order, a celebration, a wake for the previous year...

Then, the show. All I had to make it happen. All my hopes invested in it. I had a live to change, dreams & my Self to reclaim. I needed to find Art again.
Apparently the Universe has other plans for me.

Emotionally crushed, sitting in my "home" (Dancer, aka Falkor II (Falkor I was a van I had a couple of years ago), aka The Extraordinary Big Top Vagabond Vehicle) in The City, Franny came by to offer love, to check in after I expressed what I was feeling at the time on Facebook. (Funny how so many people can misinterpret "Fuck Everything" when it is put into writing.)
Then Bobzilla sent me a message. I am now coming to the end of some much needed time away thanks to him, who, the day after the "benefit" for Big Top (which ended up dragging me backwards even further from what I want to achieve) called & told me that his house mate would be away, and I was welcome to come and stay at his house for the week. I needed to dissapear, for a short while, for me... I have been able to step outside of myself to more clearly see the inside. I needed this time. I need to continue Big Top...

I folded my wings up and finally, after so long trying to fly higher & higher, have touched ground again. I escaped from everything - didn't read emails or answer calls for almost a week, let the past year of Big Top wash through me, found what I think I needed to, the lessons - and let it wash away. Come back to the ground, come back to me...
Reminded of a message I received years ago when I was writing, I share that with you now - it is very dear to me, and something I don't read often enough...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I do admire you... I do not know how you do to live the life you live. You remind me of the replicates in the Blade Runner Film. So wild and beautiful like poetry lost in time... like tears in the rain...

Do birds ever come to you?

I will be praying for you these days... for you, my friend, to get home soon. I am so very glad life is good to you because you are so good, way over too many stupidities of this world. And, I might be wrong, of course, for I perceive your nature must bring this need to pull it all the way. Not being a slave at any risk... it’s a pretty good damn meaning and purpose. I believe in you, you are an inspiration to life itself...

I feel you have been giving way too much, and you are so intense, could be dangerous like love... you seem from here like a wild tender beautiful authentic being, more than human. I want to pray for you to find what you are looking for, what you really need....

There is something of me in you; still we might be completely opposites... You are, brother, creator of fantasies, worlds, and million thousand ways to fly. I watch you fly mesmerized; still I wish something wires you to the land... I don’t know why, sometimes I wish I could become that wire to connect you with your land, or at least, send it to you in some magical way...

The higher you fly, the further away, the deeper this wish buries in me... like a dream, it cuts. It’s not easy to say this kind of things, to describe this kind of experience without some fear...

I hope you’ll understand… I hope you do receive a kiss and a hug with these words which aren’t enough, I know, but it’s all I got now…

Blessings
***

From a woman in Caracas Venezuela who I have never met, but she somehow found me in LiveJournal (where I used to write) and followed me through my experiences, and the words I wrote about them. I don't read this often enough. I don't realize how blessed I am often enough...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Tomorrow I drive my home back to The City, after a much needed and appreciated week & a half here. A few things to fix on Dancer first (the driver side mirror was hit & torn off the night after I got here, and thankfully I had enough from the show (barely) to find one on eBay & replace it - can't drive it without one, the things is 27 fucking feet long & I need to see shit, ya know?
Back to Big Top and the grind with a new beauty, remembering the lessons I have learned over the past year. Remembering that I need to make absolutely certain I take some time for me, to drive (if I have enough gas) or bus it to the Sea, where I have always found my home, my peace. Remembering that though the show ripped me apart, delaying the road trip for a time as well as many other things I had hoped for, the bottom line - the most important, beautiful thing, is that everyone I have talked to since then has said that they had an absolutely amazing time at it - and when it comes down to what actually matters,

that's it. I created something that made people happy. That is all that everything is about.

Wanting to learn more than I can about the past year of Big Top, the new year of it - and what I need to learn, I took out my Runes yesterday for the first time in a long, long while. They have been my chosen & trusted Oracle for over 14 years, made with stones from most places I have visited, making new individual stones as I find them. I asked, they answered. I drew Kano.

"Kano - Opening, Fire, Torch

This is the Rune of renewed clarity, of dispelling the darkness that has been shrouding some part of your life. You are free now to both receive gifts and to know the joy of non-attached giving.
Kano is the Rune for the morning of activities, for seriousness, clear intent and concentration, all of which are essential at the beginning of any endeavor. One of the thirteen Cycle Runes, the protection offered by Kano is this: The more light you have, the better you can see what is trivial and outmoded in your own conditioning.
Recognize that while on the one hand you are limited and dependent, on the other you exist at the perfect center where the harmonious and beneficent forces of the Universe merge and radiate. You are that center.
Simply put, if you have been operating in the dark, there is now enough light to see that the patient on the operating table is yourself."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I search for the words again, come close at times such as this, but still - they are forced. The ease only comes with an added ingredient. The intimacy I had with myself will need to be relearned in order to write like I once did, when I was pleased with what I wrote, and learned from the simple therapy of escaping my mind and letting my heart speak.

In the past, there have always been catalysts fro my best writing, muses to make every moment lived fully, seen & felt fully. They have always been women - it seems as if they hold a precious key, as guarded as the - Kat, my Motorcycle, music, Stardust, New Orleans, other women of flesh, The Sea...

and that's why I know that the Road is a Woman as well.

and that's how I know that I will do whatever it takes to get back to her...