Small world after all...

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears...
It's a world of hope and a world of fears...
There's so much that we share, and it's time we're aware,
It's a small world after all...

Grade 3, during the blur that was my elementary school years.  I think it was St. Edmund's Catholic School where I spent all of four or five months.  I was dressed in my buckskin, and even a little moosehide headband with black yarn braids.  I was the Indian.  Among little Dutch girls, boys in liederhosen, and all the colours of the rainbow.  Was I the only one who felt shame?  How terrible that I was ashamed to be Indian.  How fucking terrible that a seven year old has to feel those feelings.  Where did they come from?  How does the purity and innocence of childhood become tainted by asshole things like shame and fear and the need to be liked over anything else?

Who knows...

Singing became a big part of my life.  Always, always.  My family were all musical - Kokom "Mother Maybelle" Edna, Uncle Vic and his lap steel patent and professional session time and road trips with the likes of Ferlin Husky, Anny Murray, and a bevy of country stars; Uncle Jimmy and his banjo, mando and fiddle, brylcreem pompadour and a smile that shone brighter than a National steel guitar.  Uncle George, who I remember dancing in pantyhose and skirt, front partial plate taken out, but whose fiddle playing rose above his fashion sense and penchant for drunken showmanship.

My mom taught me my first song - how fitting that it was a Hank Williams tune, Blues Stay Away from Me.  My uncle Rocky showed me some chops - a Carter family riff, a little Ghost Riders in the Sky,  and these things sent me on the way to discovering a talent for song.

Soon, Dwayne Arlidge shared a little Black Dog with me and thus a love affair with Zeppelin was forged.  Rob Wingo introduced me to Major Pentatonic scale and some 12-bar blues. 

But it was my mom's record collection that really created my love of music.  Jackson Browne - Running on Empty - a record recorded entirely on the road, some in hotel rooms, and one even on a bus (this is obviously not the bus recording, but such a groovy tune; the bus recording has the drummer playing a hi hat and a cardboard box with a footpedal as a bass drum, and you can hear the ol' Silver Eagle gear down in the background as it approaches a downhill turn).

Music transported me.  I remember lying on the floor with some big ass Dolby headphones just sitting there listening to Jesus Christ Superstar, "I don't know how to looooooooove him..."

How I longed to be soothed by Jesus like Mary Magdalene.  How he could touch her heart, this woman of the street.  How he could rattle her to her core...  I could relate.

I remember feeling so ripped off by the world.  How could we continue to kill, stockpile arms, hurt our children, drink, fight, drug and steal when clearly the truth was laid bare before us by this humble Galileean some two thousand years before.

Music used to make me cry.  Softly, gently, laying on my back, all of nine years old or ten or seven or even six:  Warm salty tears sliding down my cheeks, ears and ragged mullet, finally gently laying to rest in our myriad shag carpets.  Comforted me so deeply.  Brought reason and timing, stories with starts and finishes, middles and denouments.  Brought order to my chaos. 

Funny, we sometimes had pretty meagre fridge contents, but shit we had music.  Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Nana Mouskouri , Beach Boys , Charlie Daniels Band.

Lots of music, all kinds. All flavours.  Rock, country, blues, classical, Indian Music - AWESOME Indian music  I loved this band, this album, this song.  Idyllic lifestyle, being one with the rivers, the woods, the deer and fish and sky and sun. 

Even my dream last night.  I was diving into crystal clear waters.  Swimming with my crazy step daughter while her mom was all worried, chiding us from the bridge.  Free.  Alive.  Tears and laughter.

I awoke to a sickness in my chest and a pain in my heart, fear and loathing in my brain and hurt in my stomach.  All these beautiful things within this world, and I choose crackdens, the paranoid highway - eyes in the rearview, scoping the countryside, looking for cops, people following me.  What the fuck.

I missed my trip to the mountains this weekend.  So sad for me.  How I treat myself. Fucker.  The guy that's driving this train is really starting to piss me off.

I was just listening to that song from the last link:  XIT, Plight of the Redman, At Peace, and watching the video.  At the end it says, "For You Native Americans Looking for Peace.  Just Go Home. Where Home is.  And Peace Will Find You.  Mother Earth is Waiting. Grandfathers are Watching."

So I cry yet again, knowing full well the words are true.  How I could have dove in crystal waters.  Friday night I sat in my truck, me and my little asshole friend hiding somewhere in the hood, alone and broke, yet again.  I looked up at the moon, knowing she was shining down on my friends in the lodge out in the mountains.  In my home.  I knew the grandfathers were sad for me, that they missed me, but that the show would go on for those whose moccasins took them there.  And then, I looked above, as my thoughts were strumming around all guilty-like and self loathingly, I realized the northern lights were dancing in a circle right above me.  Despite my level best effort to hide from life and responsibility and spirituality and what is real in this universe, there they were, the Grandfathers and Grandmothers themselves, dancing like I've never seen them before.

I thought of my childhood and the pain and the poverty and the shit and the scum, but I remembered only the gold and the happy days and the joy and the laughter.  I thought how amazing my life was.  How blessed I was.  What a gift was my miserly little life and the amazing gifts I have been handed to steward and share.  How could I keep thumbing my nose to Creation and flipping the hurtin'est bird to my Creator and ancestors.
What is beautiful, is that they still love me.  So dearly.  I know it.  I want to share my vision of the world with my family, with my kids. 

For so many, this has been an amazing summer.  I read my Facebook; I creep friends' pages.  I see what fun you're all having. 

For me, this  has been the summer of shame. 

But watch out mofos:  It's going to be the Fall of the Fall of Selfishness and the Winter of my Contentment.  And heretofore, a life of Hope Springs Eternal.

I'm not ashamed to wear the buckskin anymore you know...  I love it.  I'm ashamed of something else, and I don't know where it is or what it is, but I'll find it if I have to. 

I was just offered a nice little fulltime job from someone who knows my shitty ass truths and has seen my shine.  Someone who believes in me.  I think I can follow his lead and believe in me too.

Love to you all.
S.

Father... Oh Father. Part II

Hm.  What a day.  Two or three days of positive choices and a little bit of food and sleep, and so quickly we forget.  Forget what travesties we have committed.  Forget what pain we have felt or caused or both...

We forget.

Tonight I went down to a fellowship meeting to remind me.  It comes flooding back, real and visceral and painful and sad, but then the obligatory dance step comes a rushin' to the surface.  Shuck and jive, shuck and jive... A yadda-ta-dadda-ta-dadda-ta-Da... A-yadda-ta-dadda-ta-dadda-da-Da...

Maybe one more time... One more ride on the crazy train.

Fuck that.

Some amazing things came flying out of the woodwork today.  Work stuff, personal development stuff, spiritual stuff, truths, admissions of guilt and shame, realizations of what is real and what is fucked and what is beautiful and true.

And all I have is three days under my belt.  Well, in a row that is.

My friend is not home right now.  Likely drinking.  I smudged his house yesterday.  Beautifully from bottom to top, closets, drawers, haunted rooms and coked up rooms; he was so scared the other night.  Bleeding ulcers is my diagnosis but what the fuck do I know.

"Stopping drinking man; that's the only way I think," says I.

So yesterday he has Diet Pepsi.  Good on you D.

Today, nobody's home, and his truck's here.  Door unlocked too.  Weird. Hope nothing terrible happened.  But alone I am, facebooking, chatting, planning, plotting secret birthday celebrations, getaway spiritual weekends; just me and the cats.

And yet... Smudge notwithstanding, I still am uncomfortable in my own skin.  My babies are not here with me due to my DIRECT FUCKING ACTIONS...  guiltguiltguilt... shameshameshame...

Alone, in a basement with a cat staring at me like I'm a chocolate covered turd and I feel like a big shithead.  Feel.  Don't want to feel.  Maybe I should...  Hm.. I still have twentyseven phone numbers committed to memory; I can be euphoric (for two seconds) in ten minutes. But then paranoid, delusional, fearful, scared and fucked right up in a minute shortly following my crash.

Then I have stepped in and circumvented the Hand of God.  The guiding hand of Creator is not good enough for me, and I self medicate yet again.  Then likely wake up tomorrow late, miss my morning meeting, feel jittery and guilty and bomb my afternoon meeting, then miss my wife's birthday, and deny myself the chance to walk into the mountains with my spirit guides and snuggle up with 68 indians and spirits and teachers and helpers and all that is beautiful and humble and real in our culture.

And all I have to do is spend twenty bucks on some more street bullshit.  All this and more self loathing, shame and blame on self.

Hm. How bout "no".  How bout I show myself that I can tough it through this little ripple in the pond and step proudly and humbly into the light this coming weekend?  Shine and smile and cry and sing and eat and laugh and cry some more...

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine.  Would you hear my voice come through the music?  Would you hold it near as it were your own? 

Jerry, RIP and help me make it through the night without using.  Help me make it to the mountains tomorrow and to the sweet gentle hand of my love and her family.

Tonight, a father's responsible decision.  A broken child's old pattern breaking.  A battle of tears and pride and softness and protective arms.  That path is for your steps alone.  No simple highway between the dawn and the dark of night.

Fuck me.  This ain't easy shit.

It's not what you do when you're on stage that counts.  It's when no one's looking.  I love you baby.

Happy birthday to the most beautiful woman I know.  I am blessed by your love.

S + T forever... TL4Ever

xox
S.

Father... Oh Father. Part I

I write today from the bottom of a long steep hill that I have allowed myself to tumble down.  I write today, alone, away from my family, my children, my love.   I write today because no one will talk to me.  All they have ever heard from me are words.  I write today as though I am speaking to my love, because she can't bring herself to hear anymore lies and excuses from my mouth anymore.

So much happening in the world around me, the world that I keep ducking out of.


Life.

Simple sometimes.  The best things in life are so simple.  Like becoming a father.  Simple.  Being one?  Not so much.

At least not for me.  Not right now.  My heart is just fucking broked...  Just fucking broked all up because of how I have treated my kids.  Every single one of them.  I have done everything possible to strain the ties between us all.

All I ever wanted to be is a dad.  I remember being small and my dad not being there, how alone and afraid and unworthy I felt.  How I thought, "If I was a Dad, I would hold my son so tight..."  or "I will never leave my kids... Ever..."

Bullshit.

At least my dad only ever left once.

I keep leaving, over and over again.  "No really, this time I mean it...  I will be right back."  Poof.

Fuckin' guy.  What kind of fuckin' guy have I become?

I respect all those men out there who are there, day in and day out for their families.  Men who sacrifice of themselves, give of their hearts and bodies so that others may live better, easier.  Real daddies.  Not dickheads.

I'm pretty sure I have it in me.  Reasonably sure.

I will write this evening to you my love.  Because I don't have to you speak to right now.  Because you are protecting those you love and yourself...  Protecting them from a wolf in daddy's clothing.

I will write some more tomorrow.  I am so sleepy.  Running and running and running from responsibility and truth and honour and faith and love and all that is good in the world really takes its toll on a body.

Love to you.
S.