What a day!

First of all, it’s been raining for about 12 hours, off and on. [Note for newbies: it doesn't do that here. Usually.] I stepped outside last night into mud and “corn snow,” the pelletized snow we frequently get. Or maybe that was hail on the ground. I wasn’t in a mood to investigate. Right now at 8:00 a.m. the sky is overcast and the mountains are gone, invisible behind a curtain of lowered gray.

In another hour, I take off for Albuquerque, 2.5 hours away. There I’ll visit the Apple Store and try to convince a genius to replace my battery for free while they’re installing a new space bar key. Then I come back this direction to Santa Fe, where I’ll visit a couple of glass shops to get estimates on a new windshield for the Vibe, and when I’m finished with that, I’ll visit the oral surgeon and pay close to $400 just to find out if I’m a candidate for a dental implant.

Ah, America. Ah, me.

These are, I feel, very weird times. I’ve felt off-balance for more than a week, as if I’m expecting something awful to happen, like the boy emperor starting yet another war and bumping gas prices to $10/gallon. As if that were the worst consequence, I know, I know… But all of a sudden, the money wants to flow OUT in a big way that’s unnerving. Perhaps this is to make room for more to come in!

We still need a bigger house and a studio. Everything is in flux but still seems stuck. It might be time for something big, which brings me back to my uneasy anticipation of whatever.

Good day to you all, at any rate. Stay calm and proceed in an orderly fashion to the viewing deck. Life goes on.

Just what is this, you know? What makes this lumbering bag of bones and blood get out of bed in the morning?

There we were in southeastern Colorado with the weather turning grim, and my wife wanted to keep on heading east. I was fixated on getting to McCook, Nebraska and urged us north into the wind instead. The duststorm that hit us next was blowing at 60 mph, like nothing I had ever seen, bringing us at least three times to a dead stop on the backroad two-lane because we absolutely couldn’t see a thing. The punishment the car was taking made me wince. When the blizzard followed right after the dust, it was almost like a relief, but then I started to get scared. I thought my wife wasn’t going fast enough, that we wouldn’t get to McCook before it got dark. With the snow blowing so hard, once we lost the light, the road would be invisible.

We got there just fine, though, and had dinner at a barbecue joint down the road from the Holiday Inn Express. I’d made the reservation on my cell phone while we were still an hour away, shouting over the roar of the storm and straining to hear the service rep on the other side of the world.

For the next few days, Iowa. Relatives and eating out. Stores, curbs, traffic lights. Humidity. A rural industrial landscape, for the most part, its charm now more a memory and a brand. Dubuque was a long dance of shopping and eating. Serious eaters along the Mississippi, too! Shop, eat, shop, eat. Where does it all end?

Heh.

On the way back home through eastern Colorado, the new car took two serious hits to the windshield from flying rocks in the middle of nowhere. One of them made a 10-inch crack. I was emotional collateral damage for at least 50 miles.

A couple of hours later, we were flying across a vista impossible to photograph, so huge and so dramatic it was: sun and clouds and snow-covered mountains, a highway that stretched forever, and nobody on it. As we approached northern Taos County, I felt we were being lifted up into an exalted realm. Coming into Taos itself, disappointment: too many mud houses and too few trees, all the unanswered questions I’d left behind for a week.

But I still don’t get it. Okay, it’s back to chaos, but what would I do if everything was fine? If I had all the money and comfort in the world but still heard my minutes ticking away, what then? Hell, why do we do anything? I did have the thought, though, that I was an expression of unnamable, inexhaustible energy, and that most of my upbringing and subsequent socialization was based on turning it off… One’s duty is therefore absolutely clear!

I wish anything more were, but that much we got knocked.

How can I ever keep this short and sweet?

All my life I’ve been on the outside. As an Air Force brat, I was always the new kid in class. I never knew friends longer than six months or a year, and then we moved again — over 40 actual changes of residence before I graduated from high school. That was hard enough, although I had the compensation of gaining an enormous amount of experience going to school in different states and countries. What never became clear until I was well into middle age was how dysfunctional my family life had been, and into what a danger to myself and others this had molded me.

True enlightenment is excruciatingly gradual in nature, because it doesn’t “take.” That is to say, one experiences shocking moments of clarity and emotional release, but the underlying patterns — the unconscious structures created in the course of one’s upbringing — are so far removed from everyday awareness that one still crashes into the wall, even with eyes wide open. It’s kind of like the dirt road to our home back in Taos: over the horribly muddy late winter, the ruts became so deep that when things finally dried out, the ruts were (and are) still there…

In my case at least, the truth gets revisited time and time again, but the interval between experiencing negative emotion and re-centering grows shorter. The ruts are still there, but tend to have less impact when I drive over them. I’m able to spend more and more time in a state of relative peace and calm engagement, but it takes constant vigilance! Repeated perceived assaults on my ego, motives, or intentions will eventually succeed [see previous post], and I react accordingly, manning the ramparts to repel an “enemy” who really only lurks within.

This is absolutely the hardest lesson to learn, and from the looks of the world, most of us never do. It’s far, far easier to project — which simply means that we see our pain reflected in the faces of others and cast blame. Usually the supposedly guilty party invites such judgment, tying everything up in a neat little package that’s almost impossible to unwrap. (We do the same thing when we fall in love, only this involves projection of our better nature…)

This brings me to something that came up while looking over my last post:

Yes, the collective IS insane. Most of us lead unquestioned lives, persisting in patterns of unsustainable behavior that only become obvious through disaster — and that’s if we’re lucky. But in a sense, pain and demons are a gift. They can lead you to the good stuff. I have a hard time sometimes when I’m “in the world,” because i see it as a threat to my integrity, something like: I don’t want to live this way, yet all these others DO, so either there’s something wrong with me, or I’m okay but everyone wants to kill me. Paranoia? Sure, but natural as anything. It sometimes leads to pre-emptive attacks. After all, if I can change the way other people think, the threat will disappear — except that the collective can’t be bludgeoned into submission. Hell, that’s what makes it a collective. It’s largely unconscious. It doesn’t even know it exists!

So.

The only way forward is to BE the change one wants. If I want to be loved, I have to love myself, and that’s the part that got left off at the factory. With regard to how others live, well, I don’t have to DO that, do I?

(And neither do you.)

That’s what I can’t stand.

As soon as someone comes along who offers to do things differently, who speaks to me like I’m a grownup, who’s tapped into a universal desire for positive change, then come the killers of hope. Every so-called “realist” comes out of the woodwork, saying things like:

It’s a dream!
You’re naive!
The world is SHIT!
You have to FIGHT!
What makes you happy is IMPOSSIBLE!
Etc., etc.

This is horrible and spiritually corrupt. This is like locking your children in the basement for 20 years. (No, no, you can’t have a president who makes you feel good, because it’s bad to trust your feelings.) Where do these people come from? What mother abandoned them on an ice floe? Have they no souls? I’m serious. That’s very bad boojum. One has to stay centered and not be sucked in by the fear.

What makes me happy is possible, because I’ve felt it. The hope killers make me feel dirty inside, and I will certainly never vote for them.

I can hardly believe it: my wife and I have a chance to get away.

People tell me you have to get out of Taos every so often, for reasons that would never be apparent to you unless you stayed here over an extended period of time, and they’re right. This is Taos, and everything else is the world. They’re not the same thing at all, which is exactly why I’m here. I sensed that for the longest time before we ever showed up, though I never knew how true it was until I’d lived it. (My old friends probably think this line is arrogant. Not so!)

This is exactly why anyone who comes here to retire is insane — not that we did, I can never “retire,” and pretty soon, neither can you. Ah well. What matters most here is a level of personal freedom that includes way more of the freedom to fail, you might say, than any place I’ve ever experienced. There are no limits of the sort sanctioned and created by social or government safety nets. This is a HUGELY WONDERFUL THING, but it takes you into realms you would not otherwise inhabit, and that’s precisely what will drive you mad unless you’re an artist or love to surf the sea of marginalism. Still, one has to get away, and in a few days, we’ll be heading north to visit my wife’s siblings in Dubuque. Talk about antithesis!

It’s a glorious time of year to travel. As we head north, we’ll pass drop down in altitude and encounter more-developed springtime. The small towns of Nebraska and Iowa are a fabulous antidote to the forced self-examination of living on the edge, though I expect $5 per gallon gasoline will start breaking minds soon enough. On the way up there, we won’t have much of a chance to take the back roads. That happens on the return trip.

But we do have a truly inspiring drive heading north from Taos. I wish everyone I know back East could take this route up to Colorado, through what I call “Rand McNally white space” all the way to Brush, where one finally joins the Interstate. How many of you can even imagine driving all day long and seeing fewer than a couple of dozen other vehicles? After having nothing but pronghorns, prairie, and mountains for companions, hitting that divided highway is a total shock: suddenly it’s rolling semis, country music, nothing good to eat, and designated places to pee. THE WORLD!!!

Sleek, fat teenagers with television eyes working at McDonald’s, unclouded assumption of the right to exist, a landscape of the mind… but also things I do remember fondly, like the comfort of the herd, and pavement! (We have a real car now instead of just a truck, reminding me that asphalt has its uses.) If I keep my hair tied, I can pass. I used to live there, and it was mostly good.

There will be pictures and audio recordings from the road. Stay tuned…

I want to title this image “Prayer,” for some reason. Enjoy!

Yesterday evening

I just looked out the window, and New Mexico is still here. There’s a mountain thousands of feet high without a single condo on it, and there never will be, because it’s sacred to the Pueblo. I’m not assaulted by golf or 24/7 grass mowing. The closest Interstate highway is over an hour away. I froze all winter, but I’ll never be hot and sticky. My wife loves me even though I’m a jerk. I’m almost 63 with the ambition of a 30-year-old. Call me a “senior” (except when I buy a movie ticket) and you get shoved into the gorge — hey, there’s a gorge! Over 600 feet, straight down onto rocks that are BILLIONS of years old. I saw a hummingbird yesterday, three bright yellow goldfinches this morning. It’s going to be 75 degrees today, and the wind won’t be blowing over 45 mph.

Is this heaven, or what?!

Oh yeah, vote Obama.

Must walk and breathe today.

Courage!

First the heavy stuff:

I ran into this by Lynda Obst, an Obama supporter since 2004, “one of the most prolific and well know female producers, authors and commentators in the film industry,” in a Huffington Post column entitled “Women of My Generation Have Clearly Lost Their Minds.” The theme of the piece is the psycho-emotional unsavoriness of Hillary Clinton’s victim trip, and please remember I’m quoting a 50-something professional woman here:

And now she is the killer of Hope. (It was just too delusional to manage). We are not that multi-racial post-oppression society that shocked the world and for a moment was its wonder. We are, thanks to Hillary’s kitchen sink and staff, the same old America they thought we were. The racially charged, fractured America Bush & Rush left us with that Obama has the prescription to heal. The one that attracted us original believers during his miraculous 2004 convention speech then swept 11 primaries in a row and apparently had to be stopped (thanks, SNL). We are the broken polarized America she wants to rule, will do anything to rule.

That we have learned can’t be ruled…

The bitterness is understandable. I feel it myself.

It’s a response to the betrayal of possibility, the denial of love, really. That’s it, a denial of love: I’m only hurting you for your own good, etc. I had to suck up all this pain because the world is SHIT, so vote for me because the other guy is too good to be true. The Bad Mommy, the one who doesn’t love you because she hurts too much herself. Pretty damn dangerous stuff in a president, I’d say, and awfully depressing in one who thinks to lead.

On the OTHER hand — and there is always an “other hand”…

If someone comes along who touches something universal that makes people want to embrace a common good, this is exactly what you get by way of reaction. It has to happen. It’s going to get much worse, in fact. But fine! So what? This only means the thing is real: you can’t raise dust with an imaginary broom.

I’m going to quote a post now from Raging Universe in its entirety. That’s probably not ethical, but the post is only one paragraph long, and I expect the author won’t mind, especially if you pay his site a visit. It’s called “Obamaland.”

It struck me as odd and interesting last night while musing after Barack’s Mississippi win. People get all mucked up — in and out, on top of, and underneath one another, entwined, entangled, and everything — and they attempt to include him. But he’s usually gallivanting about in Obamaland, be it Wyoming, Alabama, Wisconsin, or wherever. Well, yes, he does touch base periodically to answer a query or debate some non-issues, but not for long. He’s some traveler. I bet he travels light.

Don’t analyze it.

Just keep moving, everything’s fine.

Okay, let’s try that again, geez.

This is in reference to Clinton’s virtual endorsement of McCain that sent me over the top earlier, previously posted as “Now There are TWO Republican Candidates.”

The first thing is, I always get my underwear in a twist over political evil, and that renders me incapable of things like satisfactory interaction with my wife, who said “it’s just the PROCESS!” and should be obeyed on spiritual matters. (After almost 30 years, I’m finally almost up to speed on this.) The reason I become unconsciously driven has to do with my makeup, the psychic structures dating from my upbringing and inheritance that trip me up — the remaining ones, I should say, that haven’t quite been allowed to wither in the daylight.

In a word, betrayal.

When I feel betrayed, I rage at the molecular level. Betrayal can consist of many things but always relates to withholding of trust and love to manipulate behavior. When I sense betrayal of trust on a national or global level, it affects me both in my head and in my heart. I’m hurt, in other words. I experience emotional pain as well as intellectual frustration. it hits me on a deep unconscious level, and I lose my center in defensive anger. A Jedi warrior I am not, alas.

The evil spells still echo in my dungeon: watch out, don’t shoot too high, don’t dare to dream. Remember, though, not everything is projection. Oh, no!

The worst aspect of Sen. Clinton’s embrace of neocon warmongering is that it represents a betrayal of humanity. No, really. I suppose I should explain that: if we don’t get with the love-one-another program, applied to every person, plant, rock, and creature in the universe, it’s all over for us hairless bipeds. We’ll get what we deserve, and Nature will not shed a tear. I’m not too fixed on our survival, actually, nor do I think it’s anything intrinsically “special,” but never mind. I am so jonesing for the high of working for the common good. I think we all are. This fear-fear-war-war bullshit is so stupid and oppressive. Our survival isn’t the issue, anyway: the issue is whether to feel good or bad right now.

The only real risk out there is whether we’re afraid to take it, whether we look deep enough inside to feel our connection to the whole. There’s evidence to suggest that we are evolving, too, so maybe I can take the squawling of the dinosaurs in the tar pit for what it is and lighten up. As my sweetie said, in reference to what started all this, “If she’s digging her own grave, shouldn’t you be HAPPY?”

Only a fool will argue for feeling bad, so I decided to shut the fuck up.

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo turns 39 today. He’s written a beautiful statement on how his young son has changed his life, and I think it’s something every son who missed out on a solid connection to father love from his own dad should read.

Guys like Josh are carrying the ball for the rest of us, you know. That’s why it’s so important.