Hello Everyone,
Well, in a few days, I head back for New York. Its hard to believe that it has been six months since, being saddled with good fortune and feeling the pain of the need for change, I left. Everything feels so different, or, I should say, I feel so different. I left a good job with good enough pay and friends for coworkers and threw up my hands in an email and asked for that change. My dear friend, Cristina Duran, was the first to get back to me, with a lead to work on a horse ranch in southern Utah, which she had come across in her own search for herself. I figured, "hell, I'm a gemini, and an alcoholic, I can make that drastic of a move," so I told her to see what she can do. It all fell together in a matter of days. It was just too big a thing in my path to ignore, fate was palpable, so I turned myself in that direction. I left on July 22nd. At 8am I was in a cab in Manhattan, 8pm that night I was on a horse deep in a canyon my mind could never concieve without seeing. I told myself, "This is your life now," and I meant it. It was hard to at first, but then I let go and it became real. I was also thinking, "Just don't fall off in front of anybody."
I planned to stay on the ranch for the whole six months I was away from the Big Apple, but my dad's health issues were weighing on me so I decided to leave the ranch and spend some time with my family. My parents did an awesome thing and drove up to the ranch to get me. We went to the Grand Canyon together, and though I'd seen pictures of it and thought I understood it, my mind could not grasp the cosmic event that is the grand canyon, even in its presence. It is an event, the Grand Canyon, that is the only way I can describe it. I'm looking at a picture of me and my dad at the Grand Canyon right now...that's just it, isn't it? Life, moments, events can't be grasped, can they? They stop for no one, they just change us forever and all the way through. It didn't stop during my attempted crossing of these United States, that's for sure. Its been so good to spend time with my mom and my sisters, even with dad gone. I haven't spent much time with my family in the last ten years, but questions and principles that I had all that time just aren't that important anymore, so I'll be spending more time down here in Texas, which is my home, and no matter where I go, I'll always be a guy from Texas. That was an answer I was running from all those years, but no more. Events have changed that.
I've grown a new affinity for Texas. However, when driving down the highways and farm roads around south Texas I marvel at all the new hospitals and medical complexes. Illness is big buisness in Texas right now, just like Prison construction was about 15 years ago. Hell, big business is big business in Texas. But I've guessed they've mined out the mountains of crime and have moved on to the mountains of sick people which are far more vast, and lucrative. Unless your poor, that is, then you better just get tough. But with the hospitals and renal, cancer and heart centers and assisted living quarters come new pharmacies and hotels for the families to stay while they debate pulling the plug. That's a tough decision to make, but thankfully there is a whole slew of new banks and credit unions to pull your money out of just in case you haven't spent enough time and money on the whole business of sickness and dying. Oh, and if they appear to be jackpotters, that is, long term patients and sickos, you can just take out a mortgage on a new house in one of the many burgeoning subdivisions on land that used to be a farm that once grew vegetables that are good for us. They're safe to live in, but you never know, so get a handgun just in case....you can carry it around with you if you want to!
On these drives, I take a look at all these buildings, hospitals, houses, nursing homes, pharmacies and even the banks and I can't help but think of that iconic capitalist creation: The Lowest Bidder. I see a society moving in and out of buildings that couldn't even handle the smallest of biblical winds. And all things biblical are big business down here, too. As if the old Protestant churches and one Catholic church in each town wasn't enough, you see - like glass mountains rising out of the plains - the ever imposing mega-churches altering the ideological landscape. How can anyone find Jesus now with all these churches in the way? Oh, thats right, the evangelicals on the various and sundry "Christian" television channels will tell you all about him, and of the myth of the dinosaurs, and they'll tell you how YOU can support them...cha-ching...the sound of another glass mountain oozing out of the ground.
One would think Texas was soooo rich, with all this building going on. And, many Texans thought the state was rich, because Gov. Rick Perry told them it was. A 25 billion dollar surplus! Wow. That's almost enough to secede, but apparently it wasn't, because they didn't. And, funny how, after the November elections, nobody seems to know anything about any 25 billion dollar surplus. Thats crazy talk, because, ladies and gentleman, we need to make budget cuts here in the Lone Star State. We're in a recession, and the end times are coming, for God's sake. And, now, friends of mine who are teachers down here are worried about their jobs...and all they can do is pray. But, hey its just education....why worry about substance and what's underneath when we have lowest bidders to make the outside look so pretty, but in a masculine way, obviously. Gov. Perry's a handsome, fella, he's got nice broad shoulders and perfect hair and a profile that reflects so well off a mega church window underneath that Sunday sun. And, I honestly don't know what's underneath his surface, but it is worth the citizens to rent for him his $10, 000 a month mansion? Lean in and look real close with your good eye, is there anything underneath? Is that a shiny new Moses, or a low bidder? Well, he did get elected. Elections are expensive. Winning them, that is. Losing an election only costs money. But winning them requires lies. Maybe even 25 billion dollars worth. Time, that unstoppable juggarnaught, always brings lies to light, but in regards to whole societies, they don't come to light until after the poison has gotten into the water. And whereas one person's lies usually fall back on the liar, in a bigger picture, in a society, the sufferer is the next generation, the children. The children who will soon have less teachers to teach them.
My friend was telling me that there is legislation in the state house right now to make it possible to carry concealed weapons on university campuses in Texas. Personally, I'd like to see more students on university campuses, but hey, maybe that's just liberal talk. Guns have a colorful history on campuses, down here, after all. But maybe I shouldn't worry, without teachers in primary and secondary schools there will be less students on college campuses in the future. Whew...
But I love Texas. I believe that a beautiful, quirky, cosmic awareness can be attained when tuned in to its varied and beautiful landscape and its varied and beautiful people. The "hippy cowboy" is a beautiful creature and neccesary for the betterment of humanity. There is a sound connection to the Source of all things when one's feet are planted on Texas ground...and when one's mind is absent of lies...and fears. And, I hate it when the bravado and swagger that is associated with Texas gets more ink. All that bravado is is smelted fear. It is misleading, blinding, and a lie. It is a skin that must be shed to reveal the truth underneath...the essence.
I don't have any applicable answers, I'll be the first to tell you. I only have questions. I like to call myself an artist, answers and money are not plentiful...but questions and ramen noodles sure are. I can't eat a question like I can the noodles, so I have to ask them. They will kill me, us, if we do not ask them, sure as a gun will.
One question I will never have to ask: Did my dad love me? I have no question over that, whatsoever. He made sure I knew every time I saw or talked to him. And, as the shock over his death drifts away and I move down a path of deep sadness, that I believe is necessary to walk down, I just hope he knows how much I love him.
Thoughts as grand as Texas society and politics, thoughts as big as the Grand Canyon, take a back seat when I think of him. I start thinking inward. I left New York in an attempt to answer some questions I had of myself. What I'm here for and what I'm supposed to do and whatnot. Some of those questions I searched for and found answers...some were answered for me through love and loss. Some, of course, are still unanswered. That's ok. I thought I'd take a break from New York, and it became something so much more...my life changed. I don't know what's in store but I'm sure it won't be as bad as I can forsee or as brilliant I can forsee...but if I throw out trying to forsee it period, it can be something I never imagined. I'm gonna believe that for awhile. Life, peace, the essence is in the moment, living in the past or the future is just living in the lie. And to all those I have told that I love, that is not a lie.
Take care, and remember, even if its 99% true, you still gotta call it a lie,
Todd
