Blues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0jRX69mxcE
Sweat clung to clothes, and my shoulders began to hurt as i carryied my heavy bags across campus, bags that kept falling, bags that could barely be closed because of all the papers, books, and clothes within them... and as i stopped near the library to pick up the papers that had fallen out, i thought what a wonderful cool shade that has recently intervened... how cool this breeze is.
I. The Situation.
Last night i slept on the green benches outside Epsilon, under the roof of what is known as the "The Hut" or "the Gazebo." at first it was difficult because sleeping on metal bars for long periods of time seems to make certain parts of the body soar. My bags beside me. I hope they won't get stolen, but i often leave them alone, outside, for hours even, because i know there is nothing in those bags worth stealing.
I wonder about the rapist they say has been lurking near campus.
I am sleeping in a skirt and imagine he will wake me up... and maybe i'd be dead by then or nothing will happen because i am a male and as a male i should be able to fight off such attacks. When i realize my train of thought, i stop and ask myself about my assumptions.
I had no money on me. Correction, i had a penny and maybe a nickel.
Before last night, i've worn the same pants for five days, until someone insisted i change them because the rips in the legs were being something of a sight. I didn't change my pants because i left my clothes (and my money) at a friend's place who lived off campus and hadn't been able to get in contact with him. So i borrowed clothes from friends... the skirt included.
I've eaten well. Some days food might consist of bagels and apples. But friends have treated me to lunch or dinner.
Monday: slept at Megan's place (because she was too tired to drive me back to campus). Tuesday: slept in front of cooper. wednesday: in front of library (i felt guilty when i told the woman who worked there that i was not sleeping there, but was reading and dozed off. she seemed kind enough). thrusday: john's floor (because i was waiting for him to lend me a shirt and we feel asleep waiting for him to do it.) friday: under the gazebo.
Why: because my memory has not served me well at all and forgot that i did not finish certain paperwork. i remembered having done so. because i don't really want to sleep at a friends place though many have offered. because i want to see where i'm taken.
i lost my id. so i can't take the university bus.
This morning Megan brought over my other belongings. So i am left on campus with my luggage: one large bag on wheels, two bookbags-full, and a cd case.
i stayed for a few days under the gazebo. kept my bags there mostly. staying awake sometimes till 3 in the morning, listening to residents play guitars, harmonicas, and recently the drums. I decided to stay somewhere else for a while because i spent most my day there, and i didn't want any particular area to become my unofficial home. When the drummer, who i met only yesterday, offered me a shower at his place or a place to store my bags, i knew it was time to move on.
and i have no money because my parents have no money. mom says it's like when her and dad got married, when she was 17. they're now divorced and i think of all of the zeros i put on my fafsa application. mom spent all of her retirement money after the hurricane and though she has tried to do as much as possible after the hurricane without the help of the government, of FEMA and Road Home (?), she needs the money and thought her houses would sell but they didn't and thought the money from the government would have come in but it didn't and school's starting and there are children to clothe, feed, and get supplies for, and 3 of their birthdays were during the summer. and my dad's power went out for maybe a week or more because someone installed his electricity illegally and has his own obligations.
and i didn't get a job over the summer. The money i did earn by helping my mom work on her houses, getting them ready for sell i spent of gifts for a particular person who means most to me.. that and my greyhound bus ticket here.
the money i have comes from my last conversation with my dad that went something like this.
Daiquiri: i'm leaving for tampa.
Dad: what's the situation?
Daiquiri: going to stay with a friend for a while, apply for temporary housing, get on the wait list.
Dad: i guess i won't be talking to you until you come back because you never replied my emails when in college. So remember you got to learn to take care of yourself because your mom and i can't help you. Here's about 200 dollars. it should get you through books and such.
Daiquiri: thanks. [in a low voice as he is already moving into the kitchen to finish making breakfast.]
Status: Nomadic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYrVwGxlcFA
II. The experience.
Some things/feelings (especially romantic) will be left out for various reasons.
My friend Nikki picked me up from the Greyhound bus station where i talked to hairstylist with Japanese blossoms on one of her feet, and a man from england whose gotten little sleep traveling across the U.S., starting in L.A.
Everything is surreal and i have no grounding.
Megan lets me keep my things at her place and i think that she is wonderful and can't help but hug her repeatedly. I meet her friend Judy and what a wonderful person her friend is. They are often busy because of work and schooling. Judy is tired and Megan is tired and i am left with the impression that this happens often, the exhaustion. I spend the night at her place, in her room as she sleeps in the room with her friend and i am slightly disturbed by all of the windows in that room, how the outside lights up only to reveal its darkness when you turn off the lamp. I find great peace in petting the three cats that live there. I planned to stay on campus but megan was so tired and kept insisting. In the morning we sang "Tom's Diner" without most the lyrics intact as she made me tea and bagels with peanut butter. I take one of my bags with me as she drives me to campus on her scooter.
It is amazing... being on that scooter with her. She tells me to cover my head if her crash... seriously, she says, because head trauma is the last thing i want.
That night, the particular person i mentioned earlier decided to hang out with me... the night, as usual, is otherworld-ly. at the end of it my fingers were caught in the door and she laughed at me, telling me we'd hang out again. She has something around her wrist and it says "master". I spent the last of my money i had on me on the milkshake at denny's which became the tip though it was enough for the actual milkshake, she paid anyway. She talked about the death drive. I talked about my interpretation of the meaning of immanence. She said i didn't grasp relativity. I said i did. and then the conversation went something a bit like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3ripSM
anyway... things no longer felt surreal. Things over the years have become very automatic, the responses no longer really listen to the calls or understand them. Until she's there. And i feel alive... in many ways. I am aware. I can feel the words rising from my mouth, my throat... i gave her two of the four gifts i bought her.
She offered me to stay at her place... i refused. things i would do for her i'd do for no one else but not this.
I choose not to think about declining to stay at her place for the night. Because i'd smack myself if i did.
I read up on the life of zen master Ikkyu.
~Ikkyu, i heard of your ways as a child... the stories of your wit. You were fooled by none of them. But i here you were fooled by death. Is that why you carried a skull on your bamboo stick into festivals? I hear one of your masters, who had a limp for many years, before he said, told it :i've been following you, leg, all my life, it is time for you to follow me. and he sat to meditate and the bone of his limping leg broke through his skin. I hear you cared for him so much, that with your bare hands you cleaned after his diarrhea. You were bastard child, Ikkyu, who rejected those tiresome formalities of the zen structures... i look to you for guidance here.~
Jordan allows me to take a shower at his place since it's been a few days since i've properly cleaned. "Hobo showers" they told me. he treats me to food homemade and i feel very grateful as i stare at the strange picture of rudolf steiner who was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner.
John checks me into the dining halls occasionally and i consume large plates of mostly fruit. He plays guitar very well and everyone seems to love him. Three o'clock in the morning and they're still playing. I read poetry to his guitar and we even improvised a song or two, his voice reminding me of playful indie punk as i tried to sing in a voice inspired by the many blues songs i've been listening to lately. John plays blues guitar. I ask him to play me a song about "my woman done left me" and i enjoy sitting back and listening to his notes. Many faces flow into and out of the gazebo. Some i get to know and know well... they are good people and i listen to their stories.
Stories. We've forgotten so much about telling stories. And i've focused too much on the figures within them, the imagery, the sound, and not actual story, stories i'm remembering in these blues songs.
Often, i spend too often trying to recollect the details and forget the story. So most stories will not be told. and when they are, not well.
After meeting with the particular one, i wanted around campus, carrying my bags, dressed in old clothing, without a single care. i spent the morning casting bubbles in front of cooper.
Janice and i spent a good bit talking, and she bought for me lemonade and i realize corporate establishments will never be able to make good lemonade.
...
I find myself getting little sleep, but tonight i was fortunate enough to not find myself waking up only three hours after falling asleep. I stare at the light in the gazebo which is half covered with the bodies of dead insects. I wonder how did the insects get inside of the glass. There is one flying creature that constantly beats its body against the glass, trying to get, trying to get it to die.
I think about what i am hoping to find. my friend calls me because she is concerned. i tell her i'm alright. she doesn't believe me. When she hears that i am thinking about doings things i'd not have done otherwise, doing these things for that particular one she says she doesn't like it. and i tell her, that this world in comparison to the world with her might as well not exist. her opinion matters... but only until it's about
and shes' upset by this and i apologize.
but i am feeling weightless. There are these bags, full of notes and papers and books and i leave them lying around campus, often walking out on my own. I feel weightless. I do not summon images and feelings of her, because i want to do this without her... to bring some things into this world, i'm afraid, only taints them. she is not to become a technique.
i try to focus on reading. I cannot focus.
I am nomadic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0gQP5Toj4U&mode=related&search=