My Letter To The World

My childhood was not easy. Many have had tougher but I had an interesting run of life before I knew anything about what that meant. For too long it felt unfair, like I was robbed and something was taken. Tonight I see clearly through eyes that have recently cried the most soulful of loving tears, why all of it happened and why I am here.

At the beginning of this summer I moved across the world for winter, away from love, towards an uncertain dream, hoping the fog would settle and a path would appear. In recent days and recent nights, all which never ask much of sleep, I have begun touching on things inside that I've seen before but only as they flee away with fear as though I'm saying to myself, I'm not ready. Now I am and it's shown through looks on the train shared between children and I, moments when the dying sit beside me and I refuse to look away for long. As the dying woman coughs I sit yearning for water and a glass to forgive her parched present pain, if only for a second. If loving one gets love in return, loving the world brings one straight past the certainty of death to the highest heaven. This is where I am and this is why I write to you.

So many nights I have been working, finding time throughout to scribble notes and type letters, while maintaining one of the hardest positions in the world by being one of societies replacement parents. During my time in and out of work I am constantly wondering whether I should live it, feel it, write it down, or just speak the story. It all happens with good intentions and blissful realizations. There's enough time in every day for all that we need. When words bubble up, out they go. When writing at a hundred words a minute is far too slow to transcribe the thoughts of my mind, I say it freely to a friend, learning from life as my feelings speak without hesitation. When writing a letter I am holding one's hand, taking them through where I've been and showing them how to land pleasantly in moments of contentment during any situation.

As with all of life, my words mean less when not directed at another, for saying these things to you makes them better than just saying them for the sake of saying them. There is a story I'd like to tell and, since I can't mail out a hundred letters of thanks to a hundred souls tonight, I'll write these words here, hoping that those I love grab my hand and wander through this moment with me.

Tonight I am working at a house, a contingency unit, where I've been working for the past few weeks. In that time children have come and gone, and those who have stayed have been waiting, or so I feel, to see what I was made of, to see if I could be trusted. This week has been tough. Sweeping up broken glass is something I got used to. Getting eye level and raising my voice to the stern growl of a lion has been the only choice. It's routine. A glass of milk gets dumped on the floor. The cup gets smashed. And so it goes, or has gone, but tonight I have no glass to sweep up. This house is one of a few where the unmentionables go. No home, no need to worry, no support from life, and no fear of death, this is their world. Ten years ago, even less, it was mine too.

When I arrived there was the little one waiting to see who was knocking. He hugs me, relaying his youth as he smiles like a child I worked with a world away. On rollerblades he skims through the house hopping steps and asking for cookies from one staff, then the other. We let him go, let the energy go out freely and before he went to sleep he and I watched cartoons and laughed together. He said something to me in French when I asked him to go to bed. As we hiked the creaking stairs of an old house turned make-shift home, he asked me if I knew any other languages. I said no, and asked where he learned French. School, he says as he speaks greetings in farewells in German and Italian as well.

I bring an extra blanket and he lies down in bed before I throw it over him with a one two three count that came with a smile and let him giggle a little before I turned out the lights. As I closed the door I whisper buenas noches and before the latch shuts he asks what I said. Goodnight in Spanish, I reply. Where'd you learn that he said? School, I said with a smile as the door fell flush with it's frame and I softly released the handle back to it's place, letting the silence of sweet childhood nights send him to sleep peacefully.

After that came the older one who smoked the cigarette behind his ear while talking on his phone for a few minutes before coming inside and heading straight to bed. He saw me, as he has all week, and for a second in his world of trouble I feel the truth of just being there, over and over again.

Later on, at the point when their absence lasted almost long enough to report their unknown whereabouts to the proper authorities, the other two came home. With the same noise and intention for disruption they usually have, they swore and talked of the abuses they faced during each of their four arrests today. I listened and my part time partner parent, the other staff, a man of almost sixty who exudes the love of a great father and has stories of playing the bongos with all the Aussie jazz greats, heads off to another house where things have gone sour. He checks in first. You ok? We'll be fine, I say, head on and take your time and good luck.

Then there in front of me my eyes began to see more than before as I noticed the two teenagers sitting there talking to me about what sucked that day and why it wasn't fair. Throughout their conversations of being busted and dealing with the consequences I heard many subtleties that deserved more focus. One said that he was thrown down by the cops, that it wasn't fair and that he hadn't done anything deserving of such a reaction. He then said how his buddy beside him pushed the cop because he messed with his friend. I stopped the conversation and began my explanation and interpretation of what I had just heard and what it meant.

So you stood up for your buddy in by pushing a cop, I ask.

Yeah, he says, it was bullshit and he didn't deserve it.

Don't mess with the guys in uniform, I reply, you'll get jail time for that and then it's over, but I gotta say that sticking up for your boy like that is a beautiful thing. You're lucky to have that.

Yeah, he said. Yeah, said his friend.

The conversation continues and I care not whether these guys go to bed ever. I'm stimulated. They are too. I tell them about my childhood and they listen. I explain why it makes sense to do it another way, and how life can give you anything and everything you need. I say it's always good to be there for your boys. One of them says to the other, I like the way this guy talks. And we talk on till two am and beyond.

There were so many moments of realization for me. I told them my story, said it wasn't much different than theirs, and told them I was proud to have made the choices I did and proud of what I had achieved. They listened and liked what they heard as yawns began to crawl over their young and often fearful faces which relaxed into those of children once again. We talked about jobs, about having money to do what you want, about women and children and how they deserved the utmost of respect. Then they told me about those who look out for them, the woman at the train station nearby who never makes them pay and tosses each one a smoke as they go past, the man in the park near Flinder Street who, during a brake from busstling to sleeping streets with his guitar, shares some of his grass with them.

I say, it's ok. You guys are fifteen. This is what's supposed to happen.

The phone rang and I answered to find my coworker's low raspy comforting voice on the other line calling to make sure I was alright. Are they in bed, he asks. No, I say, but we're having a great talk so take your time because we'll be fine.

And back into the room I go, sitting in the same sofa seat where these two teenagers waited to continue hearing me speak. They listened the way my friends do and I listened the way their friends do. At the end of it, when exhaustion reminded them of their youth and the comfort of warm blankets they went to sleep saying thank you in a way most people never hear. I walked one to his room and spread out his blanket, thanking him back. And off went the light as the last child fell silent. I walked slowly down the hallway trying not to make sounds with my steps, feeling love like I'd never known as tears came quickly without me even asking.

In the office the TV showed informercials for hair care products so I turned on the computer to find that a signal couldn't be reached and the internet world was unavailable. This, so often is a blessing, because there are times of beauty that require experienceing a feeling alone. So I changed the channel and found a fuzzy station with an old black and white movie complete with standard characters; a beautiful woman, a handsome businessman in love with her, another man who loved her first fighting for her back and violins singing the distance between scenes. I turned off the office light and sat with my feet on the couch eating a few cookies with creme centers as a reward for a life well lived.

The story unfolded on the screen but I didn't pay much attention to any of it other than the last scene where the other man, her first love, wins and they set sail out of the Hudson Bay and head off towards Paris, or London, or Rome. It didn't matter where they were going. In that last scene was that old black and white finish. With top hat and trench coat the man grabs his dark haired, full lipped, and porcelain skinned lover and kissed her ferousciously as the crescendo rose and they swayed while credits came rolling by.

So softly I stepped, as the credits rolled on, out to the moonlight of this never ending, always changing night where I smoked and smiled waiting for my co-worker to arrive back again but that didn't happen for another hour, most of which was spent lying back on a couch that's more comfortable than my bed, with my legs kicked on the arm of it, and my hands behind my head, staring contently at the ceiling glowing with the flicker of a silent movie that I didn't watch but lived instead.

With my eyes shut I almost slept but my mind wandered to so many thoughts. I work at night and sleep in the days, but recently I am lucky to get a three hour nap, but maybe it's not luck Maybe it's time to stay awake. I wanted to write but sat instead in the feeling of knowing I had changed a life, knowing that I was fifteen once and heard some similar words from a man working in a rehab in west Jersey who stayed on late to teach me some things on his guitar and talk to me about the way things really are. I no longer remember that guys name but I'll never forget his stories, or the fact that he always looked high, and always seemed more burnt out than I had ever felt, and most importantly, I'll never forget the nights when it was he and I in the staff office where I wasn't allowed to go, sitting and telling stories as he showed me chords but got too excited to play songs so I never learned guitar but instead learned of love and friendship and the truth that it is always there.

And now I sit seeing the time as six, knowing there's an hour to go of my last shift before a day off and plans for poetry reading and moments of freeing my words in front of others in moments on stage I now know I deserve. But this story hasn't ended and this letter must go on, but next comes the mopping of floors and the scribbling of notes and a walk to the train and a long ride home. Then, in the hours to come, when I reach my house still sleeping with my friends inside, I'll walk quietly in and finish this letter of eternal gratitude and love, this letter that says to all above, below and beside thank you, for I have found my purpose in life.

A Rant. (And I'll need a chorus)

And I ready the supplies which rest by my side for there are things to say and all fuel necessary for words sits readily available for use. Last nights whiskey tells me of my walk through the night with company in the form of wind and waves of air that shake trees. Some are lemon trees. But I think of moments before the whiskey when the world, and I wasn't expecting it, leaned over and kissed me.

Walking through a moment like this yesterday brought me into a world that shed it's tears through my very own eyes only moments before I arrived. Yes, until we are in it we are waiting and I stepped heavily into it, unsure and cautious, wrapped lovingly in music that was there to help the avoidance. But the world was waiting and impatiently knocking so lovingly on my face with the soft hands of a baker whose spent a hundred years kneading dough. "Wake up." It said. "There are things to see."

And I smoked, which I do, and stood in the sun, wrapped in accessories and heavily laden with a backpack stuffed with things I think I need. A man approached, walking slowly and surely and made a motion. I hand him a smoke and he waits. So I remove the tunes and listen as he speaks.

"Can I have a lighter?"
"Sure," I say as I reach into my pocket and remove a red bic.
"Thanks." and he lights his smoke, still staring at me. "It's been cold out. Do you think it will get warmer?"
"I hope so," I say. "But we'll see."

He nods his head and thanks me again while turning to walk away around the side of a brick wall that seperates the sides of the train tracks. I continue waiting and notice him come back around the wall, on the other side, looking suspiciously at me. He didn't want me to watch. His fingers went into the pay phone coin return, then the return for the ticket machine, checking for something. His pants were worn with nights outside and his jacket was needed for dark breezes. As he found no coins, he turned once more, saw my eyes watching his, and he looked down. Then he hurriedly walked away. It has surely been some time since he has seen his family, maybe it's been a while since he's eaten. But he didn't ask for food. And he didn't ask for home. He wanted to know if it will get warmer. I should've said yes, it will, with a direct assertion made by the hopeful for the sake of the hopeless.

As I stood there, lost in my previous tears and wonders and fears, anxious and unsure, a man approached me with the cool confidence of nothing left and asked me a question. The world came knocking with his foot steps. And I almost didn't answer. But the train arrived and the day continued.

My heart, rapidly beating to the point of leaping cleanly from my chest without a spot of blood, sat with me as I placed my bag on my lap and huddled into a four seat compartment with two young men who laughed and looked mockingly at me. I listen to the music and fear. So much fear. And I didn't know why.

From in front comes the poking up face of a child. Her hands grab the back of the seat and those are the first things I see. Then came the little blonde bob on the top of her head. Then came her eyes, round and young and excited to be hiding. I smiled and she drops quickly. The game is on. No need for nerves twitching and wondering about the madness of the big picture. In that moment the only thing that mattered was the intense game of hide and go seek that this child and I were wrapped up in. Her mother noticed. I share my smile with her too. And smiles are shared until they get off the train, with tickets in hand, for an event of some kind that I didn't know was happening. She won, of course. And maybe it was because I couldn't hide as well as her. But she won the game. I'm just glad I had a chance to play.

Then the city. The city always comes before I take the second trip. I commute to the city, to commute back out, then I walk to work, always at night except for this moment. This was my commute during the day. And I dreamed of playing a fiddle.

The buildings shine in reflection of the big bright blonde sun. Friends and lovers smile. Chips are sold with globs of sauce and small plastic forks to avoid the dirtying of fingers. Twenty minutes to wait and I just sit and wonder, not really thinking, but wondering by sitting.

Then the next train and a couple beside me in dark suit and dress. Her face covered gently with a short black screen, hanging lightly from her hat, and he looks at me when I notice this. In my own world there is pain and wonder. Not like theirs, though. At this moment I could not compare. And I sat hoping I didn't offend with my stare, two beautiful people on there way to the celebration of a life, and the acknowledgement of a death. The man looked at me and said something. I looked down, ashamed at myself for staring for the sake of stories, and not realizing till I looked that their story was harder than mine and that maybe, just maybe, it should be left to them to live before taken to words and told to others.

They depart from the train by the side of the large graveyard whose length I walk in its entirety every night that I work on this side of town. They walk tall, with surefooted steps. The man looks back. Our eyes connect. I wonder for a minute whether he was the killer before looking for another story sitting next to me.

And I guess I don't remember. But maybe I chose to forget. But something else happened. Another story was found. But, like the couple wrapped in black, I let it rest in it's spot, knowing I could find it another day and tell it in full, but it just wasn't the time.

So with confident steps I lurch my body, heavily laden with manipulated sorrow and wonders of what if, towards my first ever day shift. I arrive. I sit. I talk. I listen. I go. Another day over.

But when I walk home the night has returned and so have the quick footsteps of people who don't trust a bearded man in flannel walking behind them. They cross the street, a whole group of women in evenly set short skirts which need to be pulled down constantly to avoid them sharing their special places before they wish. What would I do? Why act so fearful? If these streets scare you, then put on some clothes, drop the drink a minute before you reach your stumbling drunken peak, and walk home with confidence. But no, they drank to much and barely maintain the perched presence of each high heeled step, as they run across ten busy lanes, to the safer side of the street. And I wonder what they see. If in the day, a child and I play subway games, and at night my presence alone causes great freight, then what of a world which holds it all?

Well it was late and I ran to the train. No point in waiting so I ran the length of the dark graveyard full of stories and grass fed by tears, towards a train station where one other man was waiting, smoking and leaning on his car which had boxing gloves hanging from the rearview mirror. He looked at me as he smoked, confident that his battle would be won. His arms barely stayed inside the sleeves of his dark colored t-shirt. I try not to make eye contact. He stares anyway. I ran all the way, and I think I made it on time but its the last train. If I missed it, than I have to walk south to the city and east to my house, fifty kilometers of night. And I don't want that.

The train slides in, gushing cool winter wind, threatens the resting of my hat upon my head, and opens its doors. Three cars on this train. Inside are five men. All of us, with me now making six, look suspiciously at each other waiting for a fight. What was earlier a place for games with sweet smiling children is now a potential battle ground. We wait for each others moves. He stands, I ready myself. The guys behind me act up, I jump for the front. We wait. We all sit and wait.

Te train arrives earlier than expected and we exit together walking separate ways towards stairs leading up and down, into a world where we no longer have the company of our combined momentary fear, our temporary readiness for anything. At the top of the stairs people run and laugh and hold hands as they head for the moments that lie in wait. There is a main entrance full of ticking clocks and people on phones calling the others they were supposed to meet. A man is kneeling in front of the steps with a camera pointing up. He holds steady his discomfort, taking a picture that I see before it gets immortalized. Three men walk by in white Saturday night shirts which aren't tucked in. One dances in front of the camera in strange and rhythmless steps. The camera man smiles and waits patiently. The man walks onward, content with his awkward behavior. Perhaps he was deserving of the high five given so gladly by his fellow mate. But I couldn't help but think that this man would never play as good a game of hide and seek as I, especially on a day time train, with recognition of a world in pain.

Then a bottle of whiskey from an overpriced pub near Federation Square. And back to the platform to wait for the next train. I smoke next to signs with circles and crosses drawn over burning cigarettes. Heavy fines apply. And I swig the brown of expensive American whiskey purchases in the middle of this Australian town. A train conductor walks by and smiles as I exhale my toxic breath. He holds up his smoke and takes a drag. Let's break the rules together. And I smile while saying thanks for that moment.

Another eruption of metal on metal between man made stone walls. I look up at the sign blinking above and board, taking a seat across from a man in a clean jacket, with a clean shaven face, eating gummy bears one piece at a time. I notice his patience as he rips apart each candy, chewing slowly on each head and set of gummy bear feet. He wraps up the bag and places it under the side of his tightly crossed legs and looks over at me, a strange bearded man in flannel drinking whiskey.

I wonder if the train will crash. Sometimes I hope for strange things. Maybe an adventure will just barge into my existence, maybe a new story will simply explode in front of me. An old man watches me drink. He smiles and nods. Maybe a former drunkard, acknowledging what once was. Maybe he hopes I too will leave the bottle behind one day. His smile leads to a yawn, and back goes his head to rest against the yellow plastic seat.

The train reaches home and I step out, walking quickly, thinking of people, and places they'd be. I hop on the tracks as the last car flashes by. The jump is so high that I stumble and nearly fall, but with my feet back on the rocks between the wooden ties, I feel comfortable like a man who is a child again, if only for a moment, and all of the whiskey and all of the wonder makes me want to get home early and see what tomorrow brings. But first I walk to the casino and have a few pints. I empty my pockets of money and hit buttons to watch it go. I place my empty glass beside the door with a sign that now says closed and walk home alone.

My steps fall slowly and I can't drink enough to stumble. I raise the bottle, threatening a smash to the sky, and place it back in my pocket. There's something to be said for growing up. Something happens when we walk alone, waiting and wondering, but always alone and most often at night. And this is what I do. I walk alone. I walk at night. And instead of breaking my empty whiskey bottles after nights at the casino where I am playing the games but wishing for a conversation and losing twice at once, I climb a tree for the sake of climbing.

Then it's 3am and I think of all whom I have ever loved and what it all means. I think of moments passed and desires for day. The wind knocks against each window on this house with the help of branches, of course. I go outside and smoke each time, but I no longer want it. If a cigarette was a friend, I'd never be alone. But while I'm here, while walking and nights alone with whiskey makes up my life, I think I'll smoke and see if I can get by. So I rest when I can, knowing that hope is something saved and needed, that I must be ready for train games with children and moments of potential madness with men, that I must not smoke too much to make me grow old, so I can always climb a tree when I drink alone.

Here I sit, in everywhere at the same time.

From the Belly of the Human Beast: a moment different, yet exactly the same.

I've thought that my mind is playing tricks on me before. There's a recognition, an awareness, that keeps me from believing that these tricks are more than that, more than a trick. The truth is that it might all be a trick, a combination of perception and proposed reality that we teach and tell ourselves about. I've done a fair amount of drugs. Hallucinogen induced madness is something that I can comfortably say is a familiar state. When I imagine that I'm hearing the song that was playing but isn't anymore, when I feel the touch of someone thousands of miles away on the surface of my skin, when something happens that doesn't make sense I can chalk it up to a life of misused mental energy, a side effect of drugs. But was that a mistake? Were drugs a waste? Maybe not. My first time on acid presented me with a depth of horror I had never known. I laughed and many stories were born in that moment, but what I realized during that trip that probably looked so happy on the surface was the same thing I'd known all along, the same thing that my “mental illness” provided me with at an early age. Each moment, every perception, anything that has ever existed or could possibly exist is real under the right circumstances.

Earlier today I wanted to write some words reflecting my current situation which I will do my best to summarize briefly as it, in itself, is no longer my objective of tonight's words. There's a woman I love whose love and connection with my life, has changed and birthed such a positive level of new possibilities. I am forever grateful of our minds and the human condition. We, as a life form not much different than any other on the most basic of levels, are the ones who express love in words that others hear and read. There are stories born from the hope that love provides. But what is hope? This is the reason I write. Although I'll organize my intention and breathe deep in order to finish the goal of summation first.

Not only has a new reality of love revolutionized my life, but my choices and the consequences of them are providing a similar level of new awareness. I've done what I thought I wouldn't, what I dreamed I wanted and have learned to be false. I've created the isolation that always fueled my perception of myself as some self diagnosed wanderer. After realizing how little a life of wandering means, I've finally achieved it at it's best.

I work with children. This is one explanation of what I do. My reality, the way it feels, is far different and can not be embodied in the term “youth worker.” The work done by myself and the others in the field of social services, those who, for whatever reason, do the grunt work of the field, are playing an essential role to this human existence and no matter how hard the day and how good the day off feels, there will never be enough recognition for these people. Humans throw away humans, and those are the people we work with. The grunts do the work that no one wants, in places that people ignore, at houses where the neighbors watch out their windows at night while clutching the phone, ready to dial the police. You see, I am here, in a suburb of a major city like any other. As we humans, one form of life, are not much different than insects, for all we know, I am in anywhere that people have been. This is New York City. It's the outskirts of L.A. It's the belly of the beast, the last ditch effort of the perception of pain, by our mistaken minds.

Two kids leave the unit and return with a pounding of a glass door. It didn't shatter, but it should have. If it did, nothing changes. This work requires one overall task. If nothing else, there is a reality that this one objective, the only real job description, gives me a simpler job than most. I have to do my best to keep these kids alive, for the hours that I work, and nothing more is required if I accomplish that. There's no need to worry when I go. On the train home I'm already on thoughts of my own little circus of pain and sorrow. The thoughts of these kids, the idea of caring for them the way everyone and everything, should be cared are not an option. At least not in the way we love our mother. You don't get caught up in this work. There's no choice on whether or not to attach. If you do, you're gone. You'll burn out faster than candle in the ocean, and then the kids are without you, as a worker, as a momentary protector, whatever that means.

At the end of the day, I can take comfort in these thoughts. No, I don't worry when I am not here, about the kids who I know are in more pain than most have known. Even while I'm here, I don't worry. Someone raped these children. This is a literal statement for some, and an ever present truth for all. People can break, and stability is a joke to those who know only harm. I'll never give up hope for these children, or any child who has ever been through immense trauma, but the reality is that they are broken. People are capable of more resilience than any of us can even understand, but there are those, the kids who never had a chance, that may do nothing else but live in pain, causing pain for others as long as they exist. Hate is all they know. Like a child passing through the early years during the development of language processing abilities who doesn't get the gift of being taught another language at such a perceptive time, these kids might not have the option or desire to believe that love is anything but a bluff, that fear and pain are the only true constants. If I told you that I had dark skin, that of a native African, while you were looking at my Caucasian colored face, you'd call me a liar. That is the reality of these kids. Love isn't real, so stop trying to rename pain. If there ever was an uphill battle worth defining that age-old phrase, trying to help a broken child learn love and hope is it.

So again I am sidetracked, but not far enough to lose the point of these words. My reality, the world I have created by believing that love isn't real for me, that wandering is the only way to happiness, the truth that I no longer live by which states that love could never be more than a transient experience and thinking it lasts is the greatest mistake. Thankfully, and much credit is due to the woman I mentioned earlier who has helped me to learn so much about my own heart, I believe in love's endless possibilities once again. And it's not just love. Life is potentially infinite, with all the facts of science and the power of faith crossing evenly and forming a center, a dot, the mix of the outside and inside, the universe and the mind, we are exactly where we must be. We are the dot, but so much more if we choose.

When I arrived at work last night I was lectured in an almost hostil way by my coworker for walking to the house where we work. She mentioned many logical concerns. We'd never met before last night. As this woman who didn't know me explained intently, with positive intentions forming the base from which she spoke, that I should have take a taxi instead of walked I began to wonder about what I should do next time. Melbourne isn't special. There's a vast amount of violence currently being reported by the media. Random beatings occur daily and are even caught on surveillance cameras and then shown to the public to ask for their help in finding the assailants. People are beaten, even killed, many put in such distress physically, that they are barely alive and may never be the same again. These people are caught on camera, the only true system of policing in this country, and still they are not identified. There's no stopping the reality of life. It's the only true reality. We live. We die. It goes on. Or stops. It has been, and always will be. But what is life without the perception of it?

Gangs of Sudanese refugees were the primary reason that my coworker was so concerned last night. She told me about the beatings that these groups have committed, and their reasons. These refugees, the ones that do perform violent acts, are much like the children I work with, only even more extreme. In Sudan, from the little I know, their daily reality might have been worse, even for a single day, than the worst day of your life or mine. What if you not only suffered the death of a family member but witness it as well? What if it happened often, family members died, were tortured, deprived of anything good about humanity? Would you believe in anything else? There's no point explaining to a group of people who have been through so much trauma that they don't fear death or taking a life that my life is worth living. If I meet one of these groups and they've made the choice to attack, I am helpless. Buy a gun? Use a knife? No. I'm not a liar. Those things wouldn't do anything to protect me from a group of people who exist without our western perception of a soul, that little thing that we all have which makes us all really good people underneath. I won't be biased. I won't fear these gangs anymore than I will fear the deadly spiders, no bigger than a dime, which hide under toilet seats in this country. The truth about life is almost half about death. If I die, I die. That is all. We can talk and remember but eventually, all memories will fade and life will be there or it won't. So it goes.

The woman last night was right to remind me of the natural hazards of walking through these heavily crime stricken areas to my night shifts. But what I wanted to say, what she couldn't hear, was that my reality, all of our reality, is exactly that way at every moment. We are always being threatened.

The nightly news just aired a report on Asian gangs suspected of similarly brutal beat downs of random bystanders. A new tax has been proposed on bars and clubs, a massive lift in permit fees, which the government hopes will stop the third major cause of these recent reported violent incidents: drunk people. So here we have it. The police chief of Victoria is on the news daily responding to the media's reports of his officers failings. There's not enough police here to do the job. He said, on a report last night, that some of the responsibility for this type of violence falls on the people. He said that it's important that people communicate about the wrongs of violence. It's a clear last ditch effort. The media blames the police. He blames the people. The people are free to blame whomever they choose. But the reality of my life, my manifestation of this time of wandering, is simple. I've moved to a foreign country, into an area where an American accent might be the reason I get beaten near death instead of just robbed, working a job that is by far the only activity I can equivocate with hiking to the peak of Everest in flip flops. The place is full of logical fears, the job as well. The woman I love has the fear that I'll make the same mistakes I've made before. I tell her things have changed. I know they have. I'd trade all of this perception, all of these lessons that everyone says I'm supposed to go through, for a night with her. This brings me to love, the other factor. Knowing it and being so far from the woman that I dream about, is yet another struggle. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I eat every day and always have a place to sleep. I'm alive. But, without realizing it, I gave myself everything I ever feared and asked for during moments of pure brash arrogance.

The life of a wanderer must be fueled by something. I've given myself that life, for now. I'm in love with one woman, struggling to be the best man I can be at every moment, while knowing that no matter what I do, whether I smoke or not, am rich or poor, I could get killed on my walk to work every single night or soon after I arrive. This isn't an irrational fear. The medias reports locate the main areas for violence. These are the places that I walk through to get to the houses where I work. So I can quite smoking, be calm and compassionate at all times, and here's the other side, the other truth, that could theoretically make all my understandings pointless, or just the utterings of a man cut down by life: There have been massive increases in local violence. The causes are racial and substance fueled. If I make it through the dark paths lined by barbed wire and far from the security cameras that barely can be called protection, then I get to a house where kids live who have blank eyes. Some of them, most of them, are sad children. But there are those few who, if you don't give them a glass of milk when they ask, would see no reason not to kill you or burn the house down. If I make it to work, through the slums, and survive the rabid possibilities that working with abused youth provides, I can take a shit and get bitten by one of the many deadly spiders in this area. Death is always haunting us, and this moment is no different than any other. Life is always paralleled by death and in this period of my existence, that fact is utterly inescapable.

If I ignore the the gangs, there's the drunks. If I ignore the kids violent behaviors, there are the behaviors of their parents or even some guy they fucked with that day who could show up looking to kill someone. At the end of the list, if I ignore the spiders, the snakes could kill me just as well. It's a game, or maybe it isn't but one thing is for sure. Life is fragile.


A moment comes and the phone rings. I'm currently working at a house, with the ever present dangers that I just described, with my best friend Pete. We're working together on the night shift. There's no better company than that in a job like this, or any for that matter. The phone call was from the emergency DHS worker who explained that one of us would need to go provide a transport for another client who is in the hospital at the moment. I hesitated on the phone with the man, hesitated to say that things were fine and the one night that I happen to be at work with my best friend, one of us will need to depart and actually could because we've stabilized our house. But it's my job. Things are calm here, for now. But they're not calm everywhere. At this house, there are two overnight staff who need to remain awake for the purpose of having an extra person in case something like this happens. And Pete broke his wrist and elbow yesterday. Not a life threatening injury, but it's worth mentioning that it happened within the first ten minute of Pete receiving a new skateboard in the mail. He got on the board, went down the hill, and slid out, falling backwards. He didn't get it from the gangs, the kids, or the spiders. Life is fragile. Pete got beat up by his skate board.

What this means is that Pete, who knows the area well, is unable to legally drive the company vehicle and therefore I am the designated floater and it's my job to find this hospital, in a world of right sided steering and left lane driving, and bring the kid home through streets that I have never seen. Life is fragile. So is each moment. I'm glad I had a chance to talk with Pete about life and cars tonight, some of our favorite subjects, before this moment. I'm glad I appreciated my best friend being here before the endless variables of life manifested in a phone call. Whatever comes next, nobody knows. Waiting for what we think will happen is pointless. This job provides a heightened experience of that truth. It's fragile. Every second where all are living and are well is potentially the last before the worst kind of metaphorical shit hits the blades of the whirling fan of life.

So now, after four pages, I come to my point. Distance, like all feelings and perceptions, is no more real than we make it. As my best friend, Pete knows what I'll like and what might make me think. Tonight, about an hour ago, he handed me an article and told me to read it. I put down the magazine I was reading and started reading the article he had suggested. It was about biocentrism, the best path science has presently to take in the pursuit of their scientific goal of making sense of it all. It was a fascinating read. As I knew it would be. And in it the writer reminded me of some of the other central truths that our world provides. According to Einstein's theory of relativity, distance between objects mutate depending on conditions like gravity and velocity. This means that there is no absolute definition of distance. Space is not empty, but instead full of potential particles made solid only by our perceptions. Distance is a perception. When I leave, and Pete is here, there is no real difference. As far as what we know from scientific studies, we aren't any farther apart than we were while sitting right next to one another. It's all subjective. I'm not trying to say that me being outside and Pete being inside is the same thing as us both sitting next to each other on the couch, but I will say that I am not sure it is at all different.

And my love, the woman that I speak of, the woman whose love and heart, whose strength and beauty, has shown me a new potential, although theoretically on the other side of the world, may not be that far from me at all. If space is not empty, than there is a line of potential particles which, if I focused on directly, could connect me directly to her at every moment, regardless of our individual placements in the percieved universe.

That's the point of these words and here is the brief summary. Life is fragile. Love, in my opinion, is the great gift of the thinking, expressive human mind. Love is the combination of the minds ability to create and the desire we humans have to believe that our hearts think too. Friends are never further than they feel. And fear should just as well be thrown out in general, rather than be something we apply to life's moments. If I fear the gangs, the drunks, the kids, or the spiders something I trust, like a skateboard, could jeopardize my health just the same.

At this point I feel the need to thank any of you who have read this far and hope that there is something that you have gained from these words. That is the goal of all of my words, of communication in general, to better the interaction, to heighten the experience. If someone has read this far, thank you for giving me the credit of thinking I know what I'm talking about. That isn't a self deprecating statement. It's the truth. I'm merely observing. What I know, I may never know. All I have is my perceptions and I thank you for indulging in their importance.

To any and all who support my writing, please note that it is not a choice and never has been. This is my favorite strength. I'll never stop writing. I'll never stop learning and watching the world. It is who I am, who I choose to be.

Since the realities that we are aware of, since the concreteness of everything is more subjective than we think, I'm going to pretend that I hear a violin in my ears for the remainder of my night. If I desire it, it will happen. A melody will accompany each step. A tune, soft as an angel's wing and as full of purpose as a bullet in a gun, will carry me through until tomorrow. If my mind likes, it can decide that it's a figment of my damaged senses, broken from drugs. Or I can deal with the other side, the one that I believe, the one that takes into account the immeasurable nature of faith and hope. With enough want, anything is possible. Throw in faith and hope to the scientific equations that leave us with little more than the truth that life is far more intense and complex than anything we have imagined so far and we've got a reason to live throughout any pain. If we know that we can manifest a sweet melody when logic says it isn't there, than anything, and I truly mean anything, is possible at any time. Every moment I spend living, thinking, sitting or standing, I am doing the most important job. And so are you. We're being human, one form of life. We're living, surviving, evolving. Life evolves. It is the only job. If we live, than we are doing whats best. Faith in the infinite nature of science and faith, of hope and a humble heart, is all that I need to carry me through until I reach the point where I just know that life is about to end.

We must trust our instincts. Although mine tell me that there is a serious need to worry, that this path I am walking is far more dangerous than I am even aware of, I have faith that I will survive to live the next important moment, whatever it is and wherever it happens. If not, I've lived and felt love, while knowing that all melodies are little more than manifestation available at all moments. That is the reason that I am happy to be a man and not a bug. But I know nothing of the perceptions of a bug so this is purely one sided.

The truth is mostly about not knowing. Discoveries lead us to more questions. Maybe it just is. Not that we shouldn't ask why and pursue the answers, but maybe life just is a combination of natural elements and the human creation of hope. Even if that's all we've got, I feel blessed to have it. Until next time, create your world exactly the way you'd like and you'll have it. Don't worry if it comes out a different color or if the shapes don't match your dreams, you've created exactly what is in front of, and inside of, you at all times. We are human. We hope. We know. We don't. The rest is up to you and I and anyone else who has ever lived. So good luck on your journey, I know I'll put importance on the idea of luck throughout mine, and I'll take the good luck you send back. Farewell, for now.