A Self Aware Wormhole
“Days like this they just don’t grow on trees. Because days like this only exist in dreams.” The lyrics are still echoing in my head from last night. I’m still remembering the sound of the guitar strums and his raspy voice as he danced, jumped, and bounced with passion to a crowd of a couple of street kids as we sat in a circle in an all too familiar place. A place that none of us had been before but a place that resonates home just like mom’s homemade meatloaf. A place that gives a feeling of warmth, love, and comfort with a side of ketchup. Or in our case a couple PB&J sandwiches that we made for each other from the ingredients that were kicked down from a nice girl who didn’t want to throw out the loaf of bread and sandwich supplies. None of us had anywhere better to be and all we had were the streets and those that shared them with us. We passed around a gallon of orange juice in the circle as if we were getting high off of the pulp and sharing it with a brother whose name we didn’t even know. Hit it, but save some for the next. As long as you’re in need I’ll give you whatever I have. It’s the mentality of those who make this their life. I’m not sure where I fit into this whole lifestyle, but without hesitation I felt accepted as soon as Caveman saw my backpack and said, “hey, did you just get into town?”
I threw the plan out the window a couple years ago and have since learned to just go with the ebs and flow and accept all that is thrown at me. It’s the only way to get the most out of life for me. Yesterday when Elana asked me where I wanted to be dropped off, I suggested little 5 points. I was going to hit my favorite coffee shop, write a bit, and then see where the tides took me. Aurora Coffee closed at 8pm and I had to go. On the way out I noticed they had taken all the bagels from the shop, put them in a garbage bag, and sat them next to the trash can. I pulled out a spare grocery bag and filled it with enough to feed myself for a bit and left the rest for someone else. I headed south down Moreland Ave and just stood in front of The Vortex for a bit. Eventually I was pulled inside and plopped my bag down and ordered a Belgian Strong Ale that bore the name “Lucifer” and at 9% alcohol it was a tasty treat that I could see would be hell if I only had a few more dollars in my pocket.
“There’s raisans in my beer,” the fellow next to me said in quite a deliberate opening for a chat. I knew he was going to say something to me before he even thought about talking to me. I watched the entire conversation in my head before I sat down. I’m just being strung along and watching my life unfold before my eyes with each step I take. Tor is from Mineapolis and was drinking Midas Touch by Dogfish Head. He came down to Atlanta for work with IBM and doesn’t get to travel much, but enjoyed the break in the weather from that of his northern home. He’s staying in a hotel downtown and went out of his way to check out the Vortex. He said he didn’t want to go to the one in Midtown because he wanted the eccentric vibe of little 5 points and wanted to walk through the skull that adorned the entrance. He made a good choice. The midtown location is charming in its own right, but it lacks a bit of authenticity that is present in L5P.
I told Tor my story from start to finish. I’ve gotten quite good at telling it and spew it out in a matter of minutes now without even stopping to breathe. Sometimes I just hear myself telling it, but I’m so detached from the words when it’s all done I keep waiting for someone to ask me if I’m speaking English. Judging by the smile on his face and his positive reaction, I knew I once again vommitted out my life without blinking an eye. I’m good at this. He gave me a lot of encouragement and reminded me that I have to keep going if only for the sake of giving a tired business man from a cold climate an interesting story in a foreign place. He thanked me, took my card, and bid me farewell.
I was browsing craigslist from my blackberry as I always do looking for jobs. I found one looking for a Brand Ambassador for the next 3 days and quickly pulled out my laptop so I could email the person. The bartender informed me that the bar is too old school for wi-fi so I packed up my belongings and headed to the yacht club around the corner. I knew they had wi-fi and $3 yeungling drafts. I started thinking that I’ve been spending way too much money on beer and I need to start budgeting myself better. Bars are such great places to meet folks, it’s hard to stay out of them. I sent out another email using all the key words I needed to use. Punctual. Enthusiastic. Positive. It’s just part of the game and my formula has gotten me this far. My favorite line is, “…and not afraid to show off this smile that years of braces gave me.” That one goes in nearly every letter I write. I asked the bartender what’s fun to do on Monday night and she suggested I check out “15 minutes of fame” at the spot across from the Vortex. I packed up and headed that way.
I got to the plaza on the corner of Euclid and Moreland and heard someone ask “Hey, what’s up?” I turned and saw a familiar person that I’ve seen in my travels before. He’s pretty recognizable. 6 foot tall, black, handlebar moustache, and a purple top hat that is adorned with buttons, pins, feathers, and even a purple heart that I haven’t heard the story of yet. I asked him where I may have seen him before, and it turns out he was at Rainbow this year in Pennsylvania. He told me about staying late for clean up and summed it up best by saying, “it’s good for your heart.”
With Caveman was James who is a traveling musician from up state New York. With a short stature, he makes up for it with a powerful voice that he has no problem bouncing off the surrounding buildings. He’s out on the road getting inspiration and recording songs in each city he visits. When it’s all said and done he’ll have a compilation of travel songs inspired by those he meets on the road and the adventures he gets into. He’s ambitious and told me ideas he is in the talks with some bigwigs from the warped tour about doing an all street performer concert. Instead of renting out a large concert venue, it would be easier to rent out a city block and allow acoustic acts to setup on the street corners the way music has been done for eons.
Along with those 2 was a guy named Russell. He was a bit older and it probably wouldn’t be fair to refer to him as a street “kid” but he had the mentality and the passion just like the rest of them. We didn’t talk much until he pulled out his tarot cards and like an inquisitive child, I asked about them. He shuffled them a bit, handed them to me, and told me to mix them up to my hearts content. He flipped up the wheel of fortune and laid it down with a smirk and explained, “you’re in a good place in life right now.” He flipped up the next one and set it to the left of the wheel and said, “you’re content with life right now,” as if I needed any reassurance of that. The next card that he sat to the right was an upside down emperor and he told me that I’m not using my masculine energy the way I should be. He suggested that maybe I wasn’t saving money to provide for the family I desired to have, which resonated with me and my pocket full of beer receipts from my lonely nights at the bar. He flipped up another card and placed it above the wheel and said there was a pursuit in my life that I wasn’t following. He suggested maybe it was a girl as he handed me the deck of cards and told me to pull one more out. He flipped it over and before setting down the upside down female he said, “There she is. You want her, but you’re not going after her.” I told him a story of heartbreak, let down, and a lingering desire in the back of my head to take a one way trip to another continent to make sure those cards never come up again. He told me had plans of going to Colombia as soon as he got enough money and thanked me for the meeting saying, “maybe I was supposed to meet you for the motivation.” He’s headed down to Tampa now to do some work and then he’s off to Bogota.
Another character that joined us this night was Dow Jones. He’s a guitar player that does a unique style of acoustic R&B with a bit of hip-hop thrown in. Some guy from source magazine has been following him around to his shows and checking him out on the corner. He came by, got him and his boys good and drunk, and made sure Dow was taken care of for the night. The man has a voice, a unique act, and I’d love to see him on the cover of source one day and think back to that night in little 5 points where he bossed up on some wing nut for trying to get in a smoke circle without being invited.
We hung out for hours, sang about revolutions, and talked about dreams of doing something greater than what we were doing. I tossed the bagels in the center of the circle and invited everyone to help themselves. A girl came by and kicked down the sandwich supplies. A kid named Haze came in and chilled with us for a bit. He was hopping out of town that night on the tracks a few blocks away riding the rails west. He asked to use my phone so he called call some friends for suboxone so he didn’t have to kick on the lonely train out of town. I obliged. My parents would be happy to know that the phone bill they pay every month is helping a kid score some smack before he leaves town.
The night was going forward and more people joined us. Everyone was taken care of and I felt right at home with a group of traveling gypsies and vagabonds whose paths I won’t cross until another random trip into a city I’ve never been to or perhaps a family reunion at the end of a rainbow.
People began splitting off and James asked me where I was camping at that night. I told him I didn’t know and he invited me back to a spot he had been squatting for the past week. It was in a parking garage near a strip mall and he assured me it was safe, secluded, and he hadn’t seen security the entire time he was there. Seeing as how I was jokingly wondering if I could rent a parking space for a night and sleep in it, I felt it was fitting that I went with him. We walked the few blocks to his spot and talked about what it’s like out on the road. We shared our dreams of turning this wanderlust into something more, and gave each other tips on how to make the others dream come true.
We got to the strip mall that housed a Kroger, Barnes and Noble, a Target, and a few other places that you would see in a setup like this. We walked down the empty parking lot towards the residential unit in the back. We took the stairs down into the sub level, walked behind them, hopped over the railing, and nestled down in the shadows. He laughs and said, “I’m gutter as fuck when it comes to places to sleep.” I like to sleep in grassy, quiet, secluded areas so this wasn’t quite my style, but I enjoyed the companionship none the less.
He asks me, “are you good at rolling joints,” and he tossed me a bag. He said it was from a local kid who sells homegrown and there wasn’t much in there, but he said it was enough for the two of us and he was happy to share because he thought I was “cool as hell.” I added a bit of tobacco to the mixture, and I twisted one up under that stairwell. I hadn’t smoked since sometime before getting to Pittsburgh, so the couple hits I got was plenty enough to give me a comfortable high.
We talked for a bit, and before long he tells me he’s crashing and within minutes he was curled up in a ball, laying on his jacket, with his head rested on his pack. Wearing nothing but shorts and t-shirt he was sleeping like a baby in Mom’s arms. Just to be sure not to lose the details of the evening, I jotted down some notes on a blank page and worked on a song that I had written lyrics to months ago before catching a bit of writer’s block. The words flowed well tonight and it was good to get a bit closer to finishing something I started so long ago.
The last thing I remember before drifting off was the power of positive energy. Sometimes you need to quiet yourself and allow the power of the universe to draw you towards the source of it. You can’t see it, but it’s there. You don’t feel it until you find it, but you will be guided to it when it’s ready. When you find it, you have to magnify it because it chose you to draw it in and share it with the world. It made me think of the multi dimensions that supposedly exist and I wondered if the gateway between could possibly understand its role being trapped in whatever dimension it is in and then I thought of a quote from many years ago that a guy named Justin painted on the side of a piano in a park in Portland, Oregon. “Life flows through you, not to you.” I’ll make it my job from now on to allow that energy to flow through me in order to share it with those who seek it.
come. visit. soon.