Category: Personal

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The “New Atheists” and Transpersonal Psychology

Over the past few months I’ve become acutely aware of my relationship to the various forms of media and technology clamoring for my attention. It used to irk me when my more “progressive” friends would seemingly brag about how they didn’t watch (or sometimes even own a) television. My (internal) response was usually “F-you, you f-ing f-hole.” After all, who doesn’t watch a little television every now and again, to wind down? Oh yeah, YOU don’t. I forgot. F- hole.

Of course, these same folks might spend hours on the internet watching YouTube videos, or reading novels or listening to music. Distraction is distraction, and it’s how one relates to various forms of media that determines whether or not it opens one up or shuts one down. I have to admit though, most of the time when I watch television I may as well be shooting crack into my eyeballs. There are exceptions of course, like the entire five seasons of Six Feet Under, but for the most part my relationship to the media is like that of junkie to dealer.

This week has been one of those exceptions, as I’ve enjoyed hours of video from the so-called “New Atheists” (Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens). I was also blown away by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an ex-muslim refugee from Somalia, whose story is as compelling as her stunning beauty. I watched hours and hours of discourse on religion and atheism, all on Google-video or YouTube, and not one moment of it was characterized by the passive trance and drool dripping stupor of my typical viewing experience. On the contrary, I was left inspired and energized, and certainly inclined to think about my own position vis-à-vis matters of faith and reason.

While I’ve championed Sam Harris on this blog before, cheering from the sidelines you might say, I’ve avoided getting too deep into the issues at hand. I’ve enjoyed the various talks and debates vicariously, passively, unclear as to what the implications might be on my own life and process of inquiry. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s point about the implied activism involved in rejecting dogmatism really hit home. Quite often I am dismayed when friends and relatives read a profound book, say they “enjoyed it,” yet seem utterly unaffected by it, uninspired to explore the implications of the new ideas and insights, how they might impact their day to day lives. I’ve been guilty of the same thing myself, many times, and my failure to really explore the implications of the “New Atheist” movement is a prime example.

I am with Sam Harris all the way in rejecting the label “atheist” altogether. In fact, much of the problem with having productive dialogues about such things lies in our sloppy use of language and lazy reliance on unclear terms. The question “Do you believe in God?”, when answered with a simple “yes” or “no”, leads to zero increase in mutual understanding. Like the word “atheist,” such a question is nothing more than a trap, in the form of a conceptual maze, within which true dialogue, true understanding, cannot exist. If I’m against anything it’s these closed thought loops, the displays of distorted and downright piss-poor thinking that characterize much of the discourse about religion and spirituality.

Ranting aside, here’s what I’m thinking at the moment: The only remedy for what ails us all is a radical shift in consciousness. Such shifts are normally understood as “spiritual experiences,” which have typically been explored within the contexts of various religions. Unfortunately, most religious thinking is riddled with dogma and the egregious misuse of reason, thus the spiritual gold is, for the most part, left unmined, too often replaced with either blissful ignorance or dangerously unconscious behavior. Even the word “spiritual” is a hindrance, so I’m going to throw it on the fire next to “atheism.” “Transpersonal” is a much better word, and there is no reason why experiences of self-transcendence cannot be studied and explored within a broadly scientific context, shorn of the superstition and bogus metaphysical deadweight of religion.

Transpersonal Psychology seemed to hold so much promise when it was envisioned by the likes of Abraham Maslow. Like many great ideas of the 1960’s, Transpersonal Psychology has — as far as I can tell — gotten too bogged down in sloppy New Age thinking to significantly impact mainstream academic inquiry. I wonder if it isn’t too late to resuscitate the field, freeing it from the New Age horse-shit so that it might provide a suitable refuge for the clear-minded exploration of our deepest experiences.

I will do some thinking about all this.

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Out of the fog

So, I just set up wireless internet at my parents’ house. I thought I’d be more psyched about it, but now that I’ve been back in the States for several weeks, the novelty of internet and TV has all but worn off. In fact, it seems to be wearing me down in some ways.

Now, granted I had major surgery two weeks ago and I haven’t been overly concerned about succumbing to distraction. Sometimes it’s okay to settle for just getting through the day. But I’ve turned a corner these past few days. I can walk, sleep without discomfort, handle the routines of daily living without assistance or a massive energy drain. I’m back in action, baby. Which is to say, I really don’t have any excuses anymore. I can continue to indulge in distraction if I want to, but there’s nothing compelling me to do so except for the bad habits that I seem to have reacquired.

The TV has been a killer, lulling me into a trance that, until now, I haven’t had the energy to snap out of. I’ve said before how being in Mexico seemed to be a tonic, in terms of wakefulness and motivation. There are fewer distractions there, fewer (or less familiar) ways to check out mentally. I’m understanding more and more just how important it is to manage my attention in ways that keep me connected to present-moment sensations in the body. I’ve noticed how many daily experiences — from sleeping to singing to thinking, writing, crapping — have been noticeably diminished as I’ve allowed my attention to get caught up in various distractions and addictions.

It never ceases to amaze me how difficult it can be to stay focused and live life according to one’s deepest insights. Now that I’m back on my feet, I hope I can get some momentum going again. My leg may have gotten stronger these past two weeks, but my head is just now coming out of the fog.

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Bad connection

I vaguely recall a scene in The Shining where someone is attempting to call for help on the radio and the connection gets cut. Even more cloudy are memories of movies — or dreams perhaps — where someone is desperately attempting to make radio contact to no avail, the connection being too weak or fading from barely audible to dead fuzz. Whatever the source of these memories, they produce a sense of fear and distress in me that I’m at loss to explain.

Last night I tried to call my wife in Mexico from here in New York. The connection was terrible, and I could just make out that she was having a hard time and missing me, etc. I tried to call her back seven or eight times, but each time the connection got worse. I could not understand anything she was saying, her voice fuzzy and cutting in and out something terrible. From what little I could make out, the phone situation was only serving to further my wife’s sense of upset. As for myself, I felt like jumping out a window. The sense of frustration and helplessness was almost unbearable.

I hate this whole “being apart from the woman I love” deal. But staring down at my swollen, bruised, sewn up knee, I know there’s nothing I can do about it right now. By all accounts, I seem to be doing well at the six day post-op mark. I was off pain meds by day three and I reached the one week rehab goals by day four. Yesterday and today have been tough, though. My pain increased so much (presumably from all the exercises I’m doing) that I needed to pop a pain pill last night at 4am in order to get some sleep. Presently I’m in a fair bit of pain and feeling sick and tired of being disabled. I just want to be next to my wife.

Being at home has been nice in some ways, but I’m totally out of the groove I was in while in Mexico. Reading, writing, meditation practice, Spanish lessons, guitar playing — these things are all on the back burner while I focus on rehab and getting through the painful periods of the day. One week from now I should be out of the woods and better able to focus on deeper pursuits, better able to establish that sense of presence and connection which has been driving the bus lately.

Shit. The pain is getting too much and I’ll have to sign off for the time being. The connection is getting fuzzy, breaking up, fading out…

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To catch a leaf

I’ve been walking around the neighborhood every afternoon as part of my pre-hab regimen. My route takes me past a hilly patch of maple trees that if followed through leads back to the dead end of the little street where my Grandmother lived (and where I’m living now). I remember vividly as a kid the first time I explored these woods all the way from Grandma’s street to this end. It was like discovering another planet. “Who are these people living in these strange houses?” I thought to myself. This little patch of woods was like a whole world unto itself back in those days. It looks so small now, so insignificant.

A few years ago I walked through the woods at the end of the street I grew up on, a much bigger patch of trees but still, nothing compared to my memory of it. These were the woods where David Woodburn and I discovered a pile of porno magazines; where Jason Gillam and I saw a “walking stick” crawling up a tree. There was also the mysterious “underground fort” we found in a hidden clearing, covered by a big board and surrounded by empty beer cans. David and I smuggled the B-B Gun into these woods once. I remember the thrill of lining up my first bird, then the shame when it dropped dead to the ground. And, of course, who could forget the “sand banks,” that ledge from which we would leap down onto the sandy slope below, sometimes tumbling all the way down to the apartment complex at the bottom, the one where all the poor people lived.

There was also a teeny tiny patch of trees–long since cleared away—directly behind my house, and this is where all the neighborhood boys convinced Cindy Wilson to pull her pants down and show us all what was going on down there. Afterwards there was talk of how Frankie Dalton stuck a stick up her crack, but I don’t think that really happened. But we DID build several forts back there over the years, most of which were eventually torn down by rival groups of kids living down by the “brick road.” Of course, we would search for, find and destroy their forts as well, for good measure, although who knew started the whole mess. We built some really cool tree forts and one huge fort on the ground that was like a little house. Our parents even let some of us sleep there one night. Carry Woodburn was there, and the rest of us conspired to try the old “warm water” trick on her after she fell asleep. And did it ever work! She pissed herself right through the sleeping-bag .

All this from passing a little patch of maples. The other day the wind was blowing briskly, and I noticed a few leaves drifting down from these maples onto the road in front of me. Suddenly it occurred to me – I hadn’t caught a leaf this year! It’s my own little Fall tradition, to catch at least one leaf as it falls from a tree. In years past I’ve been known to run down a promising leaf to the to ends of the earth if need be, often diving onto the grass in an attempt to make the grab. I even got Mary Alice into it last year, although she was a little less willing to do whatever it took to make a legitimate catch. It has to be fresh from the branch and caught before it hits the ground. Nothing off a roof or blown up from the ground will do. Anyway, being crippled in Mexico this Fall, I had forgotten all about Leaf Grab ’07. There was nothing to do but catch a friggin’ leaf, come hell or high water. To fail to do so would be a disgrace of the worst variety. I have said it many times before, that the year I go an entire Fall without catching at least one leaf, that’s the beginning of the end, a sure sign I have given up the ghost and lost all connection to reality.

Well, let me tell you, it’s not as easy as you think, especially with a torn ACL. In fact, I only had two realistic opportunities to make a grab over the course of my walk, and both times the leaf suddenly changed direction just as I was about to gain possession. This, of course, is the whole challenge, the whole fun of it, but the bottom line is I returned home without having made a grab. Now, it’s always preferable to catch a leaf in the natural course of things, as one is walking along and notices a leaf drifting somewhere within reach. But it being late Fall and there being no guarantee of another suitably breezy day, I resorted to standing under the big maple tree in my parents’ backyard. I stood there staring up at the leaves for about forty-five minutes, until my neck started getting sore, but still I was unable to make a catch. Five or six times maybe I had a legitimate shot at one, but whether it was the knee or just wanting it too badly, I just couldn’t get it done. I went back inside to get my bearings and to let my mother know what I was doing, in case one of the neighbors called her to report the strange goings on in her yard. To my surprise my mother admonished me a bit for giving up so easily, and with that I went back out for round two. Within a minute or so, I made the grab. A leaf hit me square in the face, and all I had to do was reach up and pin it to my nose before it had a chance to slip away. But there was more work to be done. I had to catch one for Mary Alice, as she probably had a better chance of seeing a tarantula fall from the sky than a maple leaf. Again, within a minute or so, I had corralled leaf number two. After releasing it back into the breeze from whence it came, I strutted back into the house victorious, rewarding myself with a salami and cheese sandwich and rich cup of coffee.

It seems there’s still a bit of magic left in these old Trojan Maples.

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You told me

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Mom and Dad were out for a few hours yesterday, so I decided to make some noise. This is the second time I’ve recorded a demo version of this tune, although it morphed significantly while I was in Mexico. What’s it about? I don’t know. You tell me.

You told me.mp3

You told me I was everything and you loved me more than life
And then you cut your wrists up with a rusty kitchen knife
They found you in the bathtub and your eyes were opened wide
With Mommy’s little angel always right there by your side
Don’t worry Momma I won’t cry
I’ll just bury you inside where nothing ever dies
Now Momma close your eyes

You told me I’d be free if I would pray down on my knees
And if I’d open up my heart and then just one kiss begged you please
You told me not to tell or that we’d both end up in hell
But if we’d ask him for forgiveness then the world would soon be well
Now common Father, don’t you know
We can push it all below where even He won’t go
Where even He won’t know

You told me that you loved me and that you would never leave
But when you left I felt like I was nailed up to a tree
I hung there with the leaves until a cool September breeze blew in and
Carried me back down where I laid sleeping on the ground
And as I wake up with the rain
And all this lightning in my brain
And all your faces start to fade
Like a dream that drifts away
And all this madness floats down stream
And all the surfaces wash clean
But never underneath
You know what I mean

Purity comes when the eyes in your head
Are wishful and warm like the sun on your bed
With the wait of a while in the twist of her smile
She said…

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HTG 2.0 — Ready for liftoff

For the past several days (and nights) I’ve been revamping my web-presence. The result — a complete overhaul of Headthegong.com.

The biggest change, besides the overall design, is the delivery of the music files. I’ve gone all capitalistic on your asses, even installing a “Donate” button (although you can still listen to and download a lot of stuff for free). Don’t be put off. All this is really just a way to light a fire under my ass, giving me some motivation to consistently deliver high quality content. Speaking of which…

Damn it, I’m just too tired, so I will leave you with a couple of video clips from Saul Williams, a man who embodies the “Head the gong” ethos exquisitely [Thanks to Holons for the Saul tip, and thanks to Tad Dreis for technical (and moral) support regarding the site design]:

Black Stacey:

Telegram:

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The harvest

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[A snippet from a writing project in gestation, which will probably make very little sense if you haven’t read the preceding snippets on the the Zia page.]

Much has happened over the course of the last week or so. Circumstances have changed rather significantly. Severe weather and lack of sleep made the journey from Mexico to the United States seem as much psychological as it was geographical. A dreamy haze clouded my thoughts and perceptions as I rode in cars, taxis, buses and airplanes, at turns sitting next to smokers, snorers, pants-poopers and pill-poppers. There were lifetimes floating through space punctuated by sudden quantum jumps through wormholes. After thirteen hours of agonizing discomfort getting to Mexico City, I found myself in a fancy hotel lying in a bathtub full of hot water, splashing around and laughing. Molly and I didn’t even take a nap, despite being up for three days straight. We zipped around on the wireless internet, ate big, delicious meals, and snuggled up to bad movies on cable. It was heavenly. Next thing I know my heart’s breaking as Molly tearfully waved goodbye, me rolling away in a wheelchair toward the airport security checkpoint. I had never seen Molly cry quite like that, as if I were heading up the big celestial escalator on my way to see St. Peter. Then, what do you know – I’m in New Jersey. And let me tell you, Newark never looked so beautiful.

My parents were there to meet me at the airport, despite my prior assurances that a four-hour trip to Albany by bus would be no big deal. I regaled them with tales of Mexico while my father drove and smoked, my mother hardly concealing her joy that the prodigal son would be returning home at long last. The following morning I saw the doctor and he didn’t waste time getting to the bad news: “The ACL is out.” Which means the middle third of my patellar tendon must be “harvested,” along with bone fragments on either end of it. This slice of me will be used as the graft that will take the place of the torn ligament. A guided drill will then bore holes in both the tibia and femur so that the graft can be threaded through and screwed into place. No hay problema!

I don’t much like the idea of being “harvested,” even if it is for my own benefit, but it’s either my patellar tendon or my hamstring tendon, unless I want them to harvest tissue from a cadaver. I like the idea of having some random dead person’s body part in me even less than I like the idea of being harvested. Besides, I’ve been through the whole thing before with the right knee, although that was before Google, so I didn’t know so much about the harvesting and drilling. I just knew I wanted to play sports again, and despite the pain and hardship, I was able to get another seventeen active years in before crippling myself again.

There was some additional bad news that I hadn’t anticipated. The doc said he couldn’t do the surgery until I regained a healthy range of motion in my knee, which I would need in order to emerge from the trauma of the procedure with a decent chance of normal recovery. All those weeks clamped down in the immobilizer did a number on me, apparently. The doc seemed almost as concerned with the atrophy that had set in than he was about the torn-up tissue. He told me to lose the crutches as soon as possible and commence with the most rigorous “pre-hab” regimen that I could stand. The surgery could not even be scheduled until I met his minimum strength and mobility requirements. How long that would take would depend on me, and my willingness to work hard. This pre-hab scenario puts a major crimp in my plan to get back to Mexico before the turn of the New Year. As it stands now there’s no telling when I will be able to return—to Molly, to the mystery of Whipple and his Scroll, to the new spiritual orbit that I was on the verge of establishing. If only I had been a split second faster to the ball—or a split second slower—I would still be building momentum, strength, steam. Instead I’m back to square one. Further back even. Back to the bosom of family, the tomb of the withered womb.

Things are happening so fast and furious that my head feels like it’s literally spinning. At times during my meditation this morning I felt as if I was going to fall off the bed. And my focus has been terrible, my thoughts bouncing around my skull like popcorn kernels. After only a few days exposure to TV, the internet, and various magazines, I can palpably sense the clutter re-accumulating in my mind. The addictive grasping and clutching for stimulation and distraction has already reasserted itself full force, as if all it needed was the tiniest bit of attention to fully reactivate and crowd out all but the faintest trace of the still small voice within. It’s important I take measures right away to catch my breath, to reestablish some equanimity and clarity. I may already be losing touch, forgetting, falling back into the old ruts, but I still have hold of the thread. If I’m not careful, I’ll slip back into the trance, and then there’d be no telling when I might snap out of it again.

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The tube

[A snippet from a writing project in gestation, which will probably make very little sense if you haven’t read the preceding snippets on the the Zia page.]

In Spanish the word esperar means both “to wait” and “to hope.” Brings to mind a young woman sitting by the window, waiting for a word about her husband, hoping he’ll return from the war alive and in one piece. Or maybe you’re picturing a man lying motionless in an MRI tube, wondering when his tormentors will at last allow him to scratch the twenty-seven mosquito bites on his legs.

It’s been four weeks now since my knee gave out on the soccer field, four weeks of waiting and hoping, hoping and waiting. Although I knew before I hit the ground that I would need surgery, it’s taken four weeks of hoop jumping to procure the requisite slip of paper that makes it official. You see, they have a thing around here called “Mexican time,” which basically means that—if you’re an American anyway – you will feel like you spend most of your time waiting. This, of course, can be a good thing – a growth opportunity, if you will – for us hurried, stressed-out clock-jockeys, but it’s easy to lose sight of that when your leg is atrophying into a toneless slab of liverwurst right before your eyes. Whatever the case, around here you will simply have to wait, and that is that. Best to learn how to wait, if you want to hold on to your sanity. Lose touch with the hope and you’re toast.

When we arrived at the MRI facility, the lab techs told me to take off all my clothes. “Even the underwear?” Si. Wrapped in a thin gown, they taped my leg in place, stepped out of the room, and eased me into the MRI tube by some remote switch. When I was in up to my nose, a wave a panic rose up in my gut, accompanied by thoughts of being mistakenly shoved into a morgue vault and then buried alive.

Curiously, they left me without a word of instruction (not even “don’t move”) and without a clue as to how long I’d be in there. Fortunately, I had been through this twice before, back in the States, so I knew to stay completely motionless, keep my eyes closed and go to a happy place. Last time, it took about forty minutes, perfect for a long meditation session, so I pictured myself lying in bed and began following my breath as it came in and went out.

Feel the belly rise, feel the belly fall. Feel the belly ri – “Man it’s cold in here. Don’t they realize I’m naked under this gown? The AC is blowing right up my skirt and my boys are getting a little chilly down there. Oh yeah…” Feel the belly rise, feel the belly fall. Feel the be – “That ch ch ch noise sounds like a train chugging along, doesn’t it?”

Suddenly I’m living back in Little House on the Prairie times. I’m seventeen or so, decked out in suspenders and a hat just like Pa Ingles. I’m tired of life on the Prairie and want a fresh start, so I hop aboard an empty boxcar and head off to wherever. Leaning back on a bail of hay, watching the countryside rush by through the half open door, I’m abruptly catapulted back into the MRI tube as it kicks on with a deafening roar, making a pulsating sound, like a distress signal. “Goddamn, that’s loud! Sounds like a military distress signal, a warning that we’re under enemy fire.” And before I can catch the next breath, we are under enemy fire – me and the other soldiers. Incoming! Incoming! Everyone man your positions! The ch ch ch sound has become the oxygen flow into my tiny little quarters deep within the hull of a World War Two submarine, where I need to wait motionless for my next set of orders. One false move and the Germans will blow us out of the water. I lie in wait, spider-like, ready to pounce into action at the slightest shift in vibration. The MRI machine kicks off. “Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, shit…” Feel the belly rise, feel the belly fall. Feel the belly rise…

A few cycles later, the machine kicks back on. It makes a new noise this time – still deafening and skull shaking, but now somewhat more hypnotic. I start to hear words in it. WAL-rus, WAL-rus, WAL-rus… The words keep morphing into other words: RAW-fish, RAW-fish… FRIS-co, FRIS-co… COLD-dish… DIS-co… GOLD-disc… SHOW-us, ASS-hole… GO-to work… GIDDEE-up…

Suddenly I’m back in Prairie times, galloping away on my horse. I can hear the train pulling away in the distance. I come upon an old house on the outskirts of town. There’s a girl, a beautiful girl, living all alone. We hit it off, and she takes me in. One thing leads to another. Sex. Love. I eventually find out why she lives alone. Syphilis. The whole town considers her a harlot. I don’t care. I still love her. I’ll take her away, I say, where we can start over. Next thing, we’re on the horse, galloping away, her arms around my waste, the train chugging along beside us. Time passes. A new town. Cured of syphilis. She starts to flirt with other men. Soon she’s sleeping around. Harlot! Just as my heart’s breaking, the MRI machine cuts off.

“Whoa. Guess I drifted off there. Shit, how long have I been in this tube, anyway? Let’s see… Each cycle lasts at least ten minutes, and I’ve been through at least six or seven cycles. Eight maybe. Must be at least an hour by now. Almost done, I’m sure.” Feel the belly rise…

More cycles. They shift my position in the tube, using the remote switch, once, twice, three times. Each time, I think I’m about to be set free. The sense of restlessness is getting unbearable. “Fuck my breath.” Now I’m just waiting and hoping. Hoping each cycle will be the last. Waiting for the techs to pull me out of this wretched tube. “Maybe they left for the day, went home and forgot about me. An hour is one thing, but there are limits to how long a human can remain perfectly still. Fuck! Another round. You gotta be kidding me.” I hear words again in the deafening pulse. “WHEN-WILL-THIS-FU-CKING-SHIT-END-YOU-STU-PID-MO-THER-FU-CKERS-YOU-BET-TER-LET-ME-OUT-OF-THIS-FU-CKING-TUBE-OR-I-WILL-KILL-YOU-YOU-SAD-IS-TIC-BAS-TARDS…” It eventually morphs into a steady KILL-KILL-KILL-KILL-KILL…

I try praying. I try going back to my breath. At this point, I can no longer feel anything from the waist down. My hands are still folded and resting on my chest, I think. I can’t feel them either. They could just as easily be down at my sides or wrapped around my frozen package. I keep thinking: “There are limits, there are limits…”

At some point just shy of a freak-out, they pulled me out of the tube. I asked Molly how long I had been in there. “Two hours” she said. I guess I didn’t know my limits after all. They must have been working with a dial-up connection and a Commodore 64. No matter. The important thing was that I was no longer in the tube. “Whether I have syphilis or the Germans invade or the sun goes out – none of that matters, so long as I’m out of the fucking tube. I’m out of the tube!”

We returned the next day for the results, which confirmed a badly damaged meniscus and probable ligament tears. We took a taxi back to the bus station, where we had to wait ninety minutes or so for the next bus to San Pedro. By this time, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and my knee was badly swollen and inflamed from all the bouncing around on crutches and buses. I was just about to launch into my usual litany of complaints, when we noticed several men in wheelchairs roll through the gates. Molly cleared her throat telepathically, urging me to attention. A kid, about seventeen, rolled past us, glanced down at my leg, and then made eye contact with me for what must have been a solid second. For all I know he was thinking: “Now there’s something you don’t see everyday – a white guy on crutches!” Whatever happened on his end, his eyes hit me like a pair of cannon balls, knocking me back in my seat, leaving a giant crater in my chest.

Now, it wasn’t one of those “It could be worse” or “There’s always someone worse off than you” kind of moments. That makes it sound lame. Or maybe it was that sort of thing, I don’t know, but I always hate it when someone responds like that to a good tale of woe. Of course it could be worse! And yes, it could be raining, too! Acid rain! “Some people are born without arms and legs,” my friend Doug was fond of saying, usually after having just suffered some sort of defeat or humiliation. But this kid, the look he gave me, he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself at all. He looked happy, hopeful even. That’s it, I think. That’s why I felt so pierced by his gaze. He caught me with my pants down and my shirt up over my eyes, hopeless, killing time, being killed by time. I was just waiting for a bus, a bus that would take me to another bus, then another taxi, then more taxis, then airplanes and operating tables. Then what, the hearse? I had completely lost touch with the driving force behind it all, namely the hope that I will be able to walk again and return to an active life. For me, this is a solid, realistic hope – one founded on good fortune and privileged access to advanced healthcare. It’s the kind of thing that should not be taken for granted, that’s for sure.

The folks here on the Pueblo don’t seem to get why I’m going through all this rigmarole: doctors, MRIs, travel, surgery. Why not just go to the local Huesero (traditional healer) and have him straighten your leg out for a few pesos? That’s because, around here, it would never occur to someone to have knee surgery. It’s not an option. No one can afford it. You heal up, and if your knee locks or pops out of place once in a while, so what? At least you can walk, right? Maybe that’s what the kid in the wheel chair was thinking. Maybe it was one of those “gratitude moments,” nothing more, nothing less.

Hey, whatever man, as long as I’m out of the tube.

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Checkmate

[A snippet from a writing project in gestation, which will probably make very little sense if you haven’t read the preceding snippets on the the Zia page.]

Right now I’m thinking it would be a miracle if I can get this knee taken care of before Christmas. It took days to figure out where the nearest MRI facility is located. You’d think the doc, given his area of expertise and the fact that he’s the referring physician, would’ve had an address or phone number for us, but no. “I think there’s a place in Veracruz, in a building across from this other building…”

The next day, the phone cuts out while I’m talking to my insurance rep. No more minutes left. Can’t get to the internet place or it’s closed, etc. Finally, I waded through the mess and got an appointment for next Friday. Then there will be another set of hoops to get tangled up in, at best resulting in me lying on an operating table somewhere in the United States sometime in the next month or so. “No te preocupes Bug,” Jesús is always telling me. “Don’t worry. Every problem has a solution.”

The long periods between medical interventions mean, of course, more days and weeks sitting around in the room immobilized. Fortunately, I was born without the gene that makes one prone to boredom, and I have always enjoyed solitary pursuits. I discovered the chess game on my computer the other day. It took me a few games, incrementally increasing the computer’s level of stupidity, to taste victory. I doubt I’ll play much more, though, as it ceases to feel like play if I have to think for more than ten seconds before making a move.

I never really enjoyed chess, mainly because I never played a match without it feeling like a personal evaluation of sorts, as if my opponent and I were comparing SAT scores or dick sizes. My college buddies and I set up a tournament once, and it turned out to be more stressful than final exams week. My friend Josh and I made it through to the finals where, if memory serves, I prevailed after an agonizingly tense battle. We sweated and strained for hours it seemed, hoping the other would make the critical mistake, which Josh finally did. The feeling of having superior intelligence did not materialize as expected. On the contrary, I felt rather like a shallow prick for wanting to win so badly. And as the blood slowly descended from the confines of my skull, I felt sure I’d never play chess again as long as I lived.

A great guy, that Josh. Always at the ready with a big smile, and possessing a robust, jocular disposition that kept his belly jiggling. I remember when he lost that belly, deciding one day out of the blue to dedicate himself to jogging. I was in the process of rehabbing from major knee surgery (again with the knees!) and happy to have a running partner. We ran grooves into the pavement and tore up the nature trails all across campus. After two months, none of Josh’s clothes fit him.

A year or so later, in order to look lean and mean for the big, college-ending trip to Cancun (again with the Mexico!), we stepped up the jogging routine again. Josh also convinced me it would be a good idea to hit the tanning salon, in order to get a “base tan” to protect our lily-white hides from the harsh tropical sun. We returned from our first session looking like a couple of boiled lobsters. A few hours later, as I was readying myself for bed, I began to itch a little. Within another hour, I was scratching myself like a flea-ridden chimpanzee, every inch of my body screaming for relief. I ran upstairs to check on Josh, finding him with his shirt off, scratching his back with a towel. He let out a big laugh, then said “It feels better if you take a shower,” and so I bounded back downstairs and ran the water over me till it was ice cold. Not two minutes after drying off, the itching returned with a vengeance. It was no longer a laughing matter, it seemed to me. I had to be at work the next morning, 7:30am sharp. It was already approaching midnight, and I surely wouldn’t be able to sleep standing up in the shower.

It finally hit upon us to run to the 24-hour super-center down the street. We frantically searched through the rows of boxes and bottles in the pharmacy aisle, ripping open boxes right then and there, pulling up our shirts and spraying each other’s backs with every anti-itch remedy we could get our hands on. We were lucky not to have been thrown out of the place, such a spectacle we were making of ourselves. Grabbing several bottles of the stuff that seemed to work best, we raced back home and proceeded to empty the contents within an hour or two. Relief lasted a few seconds at a time, at best. Noticing that running seemed to bring some relief, and not knowing what else to do, we strapped on our running shoes and jogged all over town, for what must have been a couple of hours. It had to be about 4am when we finally exhausted ourselves and headed home to take long, cold showers.

Soon the sun was up, and I needed to call in to work. I had a thing for never calling in sick. I don’t think I missed a single day of work in my life up to that point. I decided to tell the plain truth. To my complete surprise, my supervisor was very understanding. In fact, she had experienced the same thing once – “UV rash” she called it. I don’t know when the itching stopped, but eventually we passed out and woke up to long awaited, sweet relief. Needless to say, we cancelled our next tanning appointment.

In Cancun, sitting around the table at a restaurant one evening, out of the clear sky I suggested to my friends that we play a little game. When your turn came, you had to come up with a synonym for the word “fuck.” Any phrase or euphemism would do, from “shag” to “hide the salami,” but the first person to either get stumped or offer up a repeat had to swim naked across the hotel swimming pool when we got back. I assumed (wrongly) that one of the ladies would be first to get flustered, but after a long while, having exhausted nearly every fuck word ever uttered, in multiple languages, Josh slipped up, forgetting someone else had already said “bang.” I still have the photograph of Josh climbing out of the pool, his lily-white ass gleaming, his head cocked as it dawned on him we had taken his towel and clothes.

Later that night, I began a vomiting spree that lasted three days. The meal I enjoyed during the fuck game came up in barely digested chunks. At one point, I pulled a piece of chicken out of my nose the size of a McNugget. At this, none of us could contain our amusement. But I eventually got so sick I began to fear death was imminent. I ended up spending a considerable portion of my vacation money on getting medical attention. I was given injections of unknown substances and told I may have ingested some virus while snorkeling, or else was subject to Montezuma’s Revenge. In any event, I spent the rest of my vacation in bed, while my friends partied and parasailed and did their best to look bummed-out when they returned to see me curled up in the fetal position.

And so I find myself here again, whiling away my days in bed, watching the sun rise and set over Montezuma’s Empire, wondering when he’s going to call it even. He’s got me in a corner, setting me up for the checkmate. Down, but not out, I make my move, careful not to lift my hand from the ivory until the last possible moment, when just about to let go, lips pursed in an expression of subdued resignation, I suddenly, without a breath of warning, squeal like a pig being raped with a turkey-baster. I flip the board over wildly, scattering the pieces everywhere, grab my crutches and gallop for the door.

Every problem has a solution.

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Waiting for the miracle…

[A snippet from a writing project in gestation, which will probably make very little sense if you haven’t read these other snippets: Square one, No importa, New tables, Belly of the beast, No turning back, Memories, dreams, reflections, El campo de pueblo, Wait and see, Bug in the Jug, Only now, & When it rains.]

Finished Tropic of Cancer today and felt sad about it. Sipping cold Nescafé in the mornings, following Miller through the streets of Paris – this has been the highlight of my day, every day, for the past couple of weeks. Miller is a kindred spirit, no doubt about it, and it’s almost felt to me as if he’s been at my bedside, regaling me with his reflections and reminiscences, comforting me in a grandfatherly way through a trying time. That’s it right there, I think – his words truly comforted me, and comfort has been hard to come by lately.

I discovered an interesting synchronicity about a hundred pages into the book. Miller goes on at length about peoples’ tendency to wait – all their lives perhaps – for some extrinsic turn of events, for a surge of power emanating from outside themselves, to usher in a time of redemption and transformation in their lives. “Man looks for the miracle” is how he puts it, a phrase which immediately brought to mind the title of my latest collection of songs, “Waiting for the miracle,” which I finished recording and posted on my blog a few weeks before leaving for Mexico. As it is with my creative process in general, music and lyrics typically come to me in a flash of inspiration, which I record as quickly as possible, usually in one spontaneous take. I often get the sensation of delicately holding open a channel – to my unconscious or the muse or whatever – in order to allow the creative energies to flow through and take form in my conscious mind. “Waiting for the miracle” is not only the title of the album and the opening track (my personal favorite) – it is a phrase that has captured my imagination for the past year or so, as if contained within it might be some code I’ve yet to decipher, a secret transmitting in a muffled whisper I can’t quite make out.

Of course it’s possible I simply subconsciously lifted the idea from Miller. I did read Cancer once before, many years ago. I remember being rather unimpressed with the book at that time, telling my brother it was a disappointment in the wake of Tropic of Capricorn and Black Spring. For whatever reason, I savored every word this go around. It felt as if I were reading the book for the first time. Not a sentence struck me as familiar, and when I came across the “miracle” passage, the base of my spine lit up like a fuse, sending fireworks flashing across the dome of my skull for hours. It makes no difference to me whether the insight was born in Miller’s imagination or my own. Hell, if it were originally written on the stall wall of a Burger King restroom, or pissed into the snow by an Eskimo – all the better, I say. Nobody owns the truth – or ideas or song lyrics or melodies, for that matter. We’re all playing with the same wad of Play-Dough, and any one of us can roll out a perfect hot dog once in while, if we’re earnest or lucky enough. In any event, Miller and I gazed upon the same star and thought about this miracle, the one we’ve been waiting on as long as we can remember, the one that promises to turn everything the right way around. This miracle, we realized in a meteoric flash, is a phantom, a no show, and what’s more, it will never show, at least not in the way we always hoped it would.

As with all truths, we can always choose to look the other way, to simply ignore the bare facts of the matter. Or we can still hold out for the deathbed, as many do, for who can definitively say the miracle does not breeze in with the last breath. However, the moment it dawns on us we’ve been waiting for a ghost-train, one is either crushed like bug or completely unburdened. All middle ground is quicksand.

Having just related a rather hilarious anecdote about how an acquaintance of his (a disciple of Gandhi no less) mistakenly shit in the bidet at a French whorehouse, Miller imagines how wonderful it would be if the big miracle we’ve been waiting for turns out to be nothing more than these two lumps of shit, scooped from the bidet and served to us on a silver platter when the curtain finally closes on the whole drama. Miller, so it seems, found freedom in the utter hopelessness and absurdity of it all. And while my spine is still in tact and I’m straining to keep my eyelids raised, nonetheless it was long ago that I felt the ground give way beneath my feet. I’m in up to my armpits now, one hand on my bootstraps and the other upraised, waiting for a helping hand, or a lump of shit. Thanks Henry.