In a world of love and money, I went crazy in San Francisco.
Golden Gate Park opened up and held me like a womb. The abundance of Whole Foods fattened my lonely days and emotionally complex and confusing emails from loving friends brought sobbing tears into my nights. I could smell the eucalyptus all around me in my cave of tree and vine, their fallen leaves and bark were my carpet and they covered my bags when I went out for the day.
The mist fell on me like a veil of death, a gift from the whole planet. "Thank you for the heavy veil of tech culture," the mist seemed to say, "in return I shroud you in an endless fog that no messiah will save you from."
I searched for love in the best possible place. A void opened up around my friend and I and we took the opportunity to dance around in that void, failing to anticipate the clutter that had been left there, invisibly. We yearned for the love that we knew was there, we tasted and smelled that love. It was sweet, tender, funny, but the void sucked us in, like an enormous vacuum vagina, emotionally inescapable.
There was no way we could dance our way out of this womb. My great wordsmithing was useless. We were latched on to an umbilical conduit of anxiety and shame. I ate the shame, I slept with the shame, I looked at it every time I closed my eyes.
I would visit the San Francisco Public Library every day and disappear into mezzanines of serpents and temptations and false gods walking through gardens and a lost paradise.
I would spread myself via Facebook into little wi-fi rooms all over the planet, through the monitors of people who admire and love me, into their distant hearts.
I would shamefully look over the cliff-face to the lower floors to see desperate angry library patrons yelling at staff or into their phones. I would see the uniformed security team come up, try to talk to them, grab their arm, grapple and grip against the struggle and escort the unacceptable lunatic out of the building into a different unsafe adventure in the city.
I would stay until the library closed, always too early, and step out into the falling darkness and cold, before the fog rolled in. I would sneak into the back of the bus, crowded thick with Capitalists, stinking of alcoholic fragrances, the glare of iPhone light, descending towards the ocean, past the park. I would step off the bus by the rose garden, past the log cabin and into the eucalypts.
Maybe the fog would roll in with me at the rose garden, maybe it would wake me in the night with heavy droplets falling from the leaves far above me. Already nestled in my sleeping bag, I would pull the blue tarp over my body and tuck it under my sleeping mat. In my plastic womb I would be warm and safe and dark, to breathe and sleep and dream.
Showing posts with label homelessness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homelessness. Show all posts
2013-02-27
Living in houses
It's time to get back to the earth. Living in houses destroys us in more ways than we can comprehend.
For example?
Sleeping patterns. There is one reason why we don't go to sleep when it gets dark and wake up when it gets light. Houses (and electric light). One example.
Partying and live music is another good reason we don't go to sleep when it gets dark.
I guess if things were different we would party and perform live music during the day, or at night under the stars and especially the full moon and around the fire (rather than in houses).
They promote compulsive behavior. They disengage us from reality; earth, air, water, sun, other plants and animals. They separate us from our neighbors and even our friends. In houses we sleep in different rooms and different beds; when we sleep on the earth we naturally sleep together, if only to keep each other warm.
Agreed Chris, I am completely off balance after coming back from Mexico, main reason being where I'm living.
If you clean up your house sufficiently, you will be vacuuming the floor until you are back on a healthy living soil and you will be dusting the roof and walls until they no longer protect you from reality and the air flows and the sky is visible in all its beauty.
I am a fat slob. I live in a house. I may not be actually fat, but I feel like I am. When I eat a big meal I look at my stomach, it juts out rudely. After eating a big meal, I feel like eating. While eating I feel like I should be doing something, like reading or watching TV. I want my food to be cooked and heavy with carbohydrates, specifically crude grains; fried rice, tortillas, bread or pasta. I eat because there is nothing else to do. I eat because I can't relax. I eat because my environment is entirely uninspiring. I create my own space, I cover the walls with beauty, I keep it clean and I fill it with comfortable furniture and meaningful objects. I enclose myself in this space, surrounded by these objects, alone. Here I am able to create a fantasy world, in my thoughts perhaps, or when asleep in my dreams. At my best I create stories to reach out to the world from this space, but usually I don't have the energy.
I remember when I used to be alive. I used to sleep on the beach. I used to make fire before going to sleep at night. I used to fall asleep looking at the stars. I used to breathe fresh ocean air, cleaned by the salt. I used to run naked up the beach when it was empty and leap into the water with exuberance and submission. The ocean would always deposit me back on the sand, safe and refreshed; reborn. No matter how many hot chlorinated showers I enjoy I cannot recreate this type of cleanliness. No matter how many times I masturbate down the drain pipe I never have the feeling that I have entered the vagina of the Earth and been accepted.
I am a filthy smelly bum. I sleep in the park. I carry bags around with my everywhere I go. I have everything I need on hand. I sleep in the bush, surrounded by trees, cosy on a yoga mat in a sleeping bag, wrapped up in a woolen blanket. When I wake up in the morning I eat my stolen breakfast on a picnic table in the sun. I wash my hands and face and collect water from the public toilet. I rarely shower. Sometimes, when I am on a crowded bus or in a crowded cinema, I feel self-conscious about my smell or wonder if I have dirt on my face. In the park this does not matter. I love being in the city, I love to meet people and to have experiences and to expose my self to cinema and theatre and live music. But public transport and shedules are so stressful in comparison to the world where the clock is the sun and the moon and the agenda is sitting on the earth and urinating on a tree.
When I am in a house I crave to be alone, to have my own room, to be able to close and maybe even lock the door. When I am outside I love to sleep with everyone, in a row, to snuggle, to keep each other warm. I look at the pigs I live with, sleeping in piles, and I envy them. I sleep alone in a bed. I sleep on the earth by the fire beside all my friends. I sleep in a pile of humans in the bush.
For example?
Sleeping patterns. There is one reason why we don't go to sleep when it gets dark and wake up when it gets light. Houses (and electric light). One example.
Partying and live music is another good reason we don't go to sleep when it gets dark.
I guess if things were different we would party and perform live music during the day, or at night under the stars and especially the full moon and around the fire (rather than in houses).
They promote compulsive behavior. They disengage us from reality; earth, air, water, sun, other plants and animals. They separate us from our neighbors and even our friends. In houses we sleep in different rooms and different beds; when we sleep on the earth we naturally sleep together, if only to keep each other warm.
Agreed Chris, I am completely off balance after coming back from Mexico, main reason being where I'm living.
If you clean up your house sufficiently, you will be vacuuming the floor until you are back on a healthy living soil and you will be dusting the roof and walls until they no longer protect you from reality and the air flows and the sky is visible in all its beauty.
I am a fat slob. I live in a house. I may not be actually fat, but I feel like I am. When I eat a big meal I look at my stomach, it juts out rudely. After eating a big meal, I feel like eating. While eating I feel like I should be doing something, like reading or watching TV. I want my food to be cooked and heavy with carbohydrates, specifically crude grains; fried rice, tortillas, bread or pasta. I eat because there is nothing else to do. I eat because I can't relax. I eat because my environment is entirely uninspiring. I create my own space, I cover the walls with beauty, I keep it clean and I fill it with comfortable furniture and meaningful objects. I enclose myself in this space, surrounded by these objects, alone. Here I am able to create a fantasy world, in my thoughts perhaps, or when asleep in my dreams. At my best I create stories to reach out to the world from this space, but usually I don't have the energy.
I remember when I used to be alive. I used to sleep on the beach. I used to make fire before going to sleep at night. I used to fall asleep looking at the stars. I used to breathe fresh ocean air, cleaned by the salt. I used to run naked up the beach when it was empty and leap into the water with exuberance and submission. The ocean would always deposit me back on the sand, safe and refreshed; reborn. No matter how many hot chlorinated showers I enjoy I cannot recreate this type of cleanliness. No matter how many times I masturbate down the drain pipe I never have the feeling that I have entered the vagina of the Earth and been accepted.
I am a filthy smelly bum. I sleep in the park. I carry bags around with my everywhere I go. I have everything I need on hand. I sleep in the bush, surrounded by trees, cosy on a yoga mat in a sleeping bag, wrapped up in a woolen blanket. When I wake up in the morning I eat my stolen breakfast on a picnic table in the sun. I wash my hands and face and collect water from the public toilet. I rarely shower. Sometimes, when I am on a crowded bus or in a crowded cinema, I feel self-conscious about my smell or wonder if I have dirt on my face. In the park this does not matter. I love being in the city, I love to meet people and to have experiences and to expose my self to cinema and theatre and live music. But public transport and shedules are so stressful in comparison to the world where the clock is the sun and the moon and the agenda is sitting on the earth and urinating on a tree.
When I am in a house I crave to be alone, to have my own room, to be able to close and maybe even lock the door. When I am outside I love to sleep with everyone, in a row, to snuggle, to keep each other warm. I look at the pigs I live with, sleeping in piles, and I envy them. I sleep alone in a bed. I sleep on the earth by the fire beside all my friends. I sleep in a pile of humans in the bush.
2010-12-01
More free
It doesn't matter anymore. I am not anyone that I thought I was. I'm just not. Although I know I'm better than they are. I know I'm more free.
We both walk the same streets, yes, but their feet are bound by shoes that damage their body and cause them pain. My feet are free and the skin underneath has hardened and serves me well. I wear the wounds on my feet with pride because they are the result of my freedom and I know they will heal. I don't need to spend money on shoes that do nothing but damage and bind me.
In fact I don't need to spend money on anything. Unlike these poor trapped souls, trapped in the concepts of their minds, I am free from the idiotic ideology of Capitalism. Yes, I walk the same streets and carry the same green shopping bag, but I do not pay for my food. Only the ignorant and the trapped pay for their food when every day every supermarket in the country throws away masses of perfectly good food. All I need is access to their dumpsters. And failing this I merely go into the store, place the items in my bag and walk out. Why pay this corporation to bind my brothers and sisters into corporate slavery and food addiction?
Of course I am not addicted to bread and meat like they are. I am a vegetarian and I am not under the illusion that wheat is a viable option for a healthy body and mind. I am more free than them. Instead of paying for cheap industrial wheat bread I enjoy expensive spelt bread for free. I am more smart than them, I know that spelt is an ancient form of wheat that hasn't been industrialised over the years to make it indigestible to the human body. It is also organic and wholegrain. How they feed themselves on this barely edible food-like item called wheat I do not know. They are addicted and despite eating and searching for my organic whole spelt bread compulsively, I am not addicted like them. I can stop anytime I like.
I don't have a car like they do. I don't pollute the planet. I don't support oil companies raping Iraq. I don't send my brothers and sisters hurtling through windscreens so I can arrive a minute earlier than necessary. I'm better than them. I will never own a car. I hitchhike instead. I am more free than they are because I don't believe the propaganda saying that hitchhiking is dangerous and you will be murdered if you participate in it. This is obviously not true and only the ignorant and the slaves to television believe it. I can go anywhere I like because I am free.
I can sleep in the park because I have a tent in my bag. I don't need money to pay for accommodation. I can sleep in a cave on the beach if it rains. I can stay up as late as I want eating huge mouthfuls of expensive food that the most hard-working wage-slaves can't even afford. They can't afford it because a refrigerator on hire purchase is a priority over the food that sustains their body. They can't afford it because they choose to not be free, like me.
Sometimes I sit under my temporary shelter with my warm cheap sleeping bag looking at their cars driving past and I pity them and their ignorance. They don't even know they're not free. They can't bear the silence; I'm guessing they all have their radios on inside those expensive air-conditioned cars. They're listening to that music that they're supposed to like and eventually decide they do like, just because they listen to it so often they may as well like it. They're pretending to not pay attention to the advertising but of course they can't help it.
I can't stop thinking about these people and how much more free I am than they are. It is fair? Why am I so free and they are so not? What catalyst broke me awake from this over-fed indigestible sleep of an entire childhood of religious capitalistic authoritarian weakening education? I want to burn the schools that enslave my brothers and sisters but I can't be bothered. I ate too much avocado and rye bread. If I could bomb every school in the world maybe there would be another person sitting here beside me in this park in the rain in the night looking at cars and silently judging them. This moral superiority doesn't feel as good as it used to. I know I need to read some more books and expand my mind further and find other ways of judging people. I am bound in my own world of limits and I carry on my back everything I own and it is only a single kilogram too heavy.
If only I was free enough to throw away that extra kilogram. If only I was free enough to know exactly which items are superfluous. If only I was better than I am, like I'm better than them.
In fact I don't need to spend money on anything. Unlike these poor trapped souls, trapped in the concepts of their minds, I am free from the idiotic ideology of Capitalism. Yes, I walk the same streets and carry the same green shopping bag, but I do not pay for my food. Only the ignorant and the trapped pay for their food when every day every supermarket in the country throws away masses of perfectly good food. All I need is access to their dumpsters. And failing this I merely go into the store, place the items in my bag and walk out. Why pay this corporation to bind my brothers and sisters into corporate slavery and food addiction?
Of course I am not addicted to bread and meat like they are. I am a vegetarian and I am not under the illusion that wheat is a viable option for a healthy body and mind. I am more free than them. Instead of paying for cheap industrial wheat bread I enjoy expensive spelt bread for free. I am more smart than them, I know that spelt is an ancient form of wheat that hasn't been industrialised over the years to make it indigestible to the human body. It is also organic and wholegrain. How they feed themselves on this barely edible food-like item called wheat I do not know. They are addicted and despite eating and searching for my organic whole spelt bread compulsively, I am not addicted like them. I can stop anytime I like.
I don't have a car like they do. I don't pollute the planet. I don't support oil companies raping Iraq. I don't send my brothers and sisters hurtling through windscreens so I can arrive a minute earlier than necessary. I'm better than them. I will never own a car. I hitchhike instead. I am more free than they are because I don't believe the propaganda saying that hitchhiking is dangerous and you will be murdered if you participate in it. This is obviously not true and only the ignorant and the slaves to television believe it. I can go anywhere I like because I am free.
I can sleep in the park because I have a tent in my bag. I don't need money to pay for accommodation. I can sleep in a cave on the beach if it rains. I can stay up as late as I want eating huge mouthfuls of expensive food that the most hard-working wage-slaves can't even afford. They can't afford it because a refrigerator on hire purchase is a priority over the food that sustains their body. They can't afford it because they choose to not be free, like me.
Sometimes I sit under my temporary shelter with my warm cheap sleeping bag looking at their cars driving past and I pity them and their ignorance. They don't even know they're not free. They can't bear the silence; I'm guessing they all have their radios on inside those expensive air-conditioned cars. They're listening to that music that they're supposed to like and eventually decide they do like, just because they listen to it so often they may as well like it. They're pretending to not pay attention to the advertising but of course they can't help it.
I can't stop thinking about these people and how much more free I am than they are. It is fair? Why am I so free and they are so not? What catalyst broke me awake from this over-fed indigestible sleep of an entire childhood of religious capitalistic authoritarian weakening education? I want to burn the schools that enslave my brothers and sisters but I can't be bothered. I ate too much avocado and rye bread. If I could bomb every school in the world maybe there would be another person sitting here beside me in this park in the rain in the night looking at cars and silently judging them. This moral superiority doesn't feel as good as it used to. I know I need to read some more books and expand my mind further and find other ways of judging people. I am bound in my own world of limits and I carry on my back everything I own and it is only a single kilogram too heavy.
If only I was free enough to throw away that extra kilogram. If only I was free enough to know exactly which items are superfluous. If only I was better than I am, like I'm better than them.
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