Life Is Beautiful

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York

Marie bought bamboo blinds for the windows yesterday in Chinatown. The apartment felt cooler today, secure and secluded even though it was hot and glaring outside.

I sat at the computer having coffee reading an article about ayahuasca (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0603/features/peru.html). I'm supposed to be writing my own article about the stuff, but I haven't gotten it together. I just want to take the potion now and cast out the demons like the woman in the article did. The article got me thinking about my own experiences with demons, darkness, the devil, God and the light. It's happening, the battle for my soul, whether I'm paying attention or not. I'm going to start paying more attention. Focus on the light, like an Indian shaman in Austin once told me, not feed the negative thoughts - the Fear. It only has as much power as I give it. I forget this. It's nice to be reminded. The shamans in the article said the same thing. After reading it I felt a weight lift. Still, I want to go through the purification ritual. I've been searching for something like this for a while.

Riding through the bowels of the city on the subway I was reading THE ADDERAL DIARIES on my way to my therapy appointment. Stephen Elliot notes how we're the most medicated civilization in the history of the world yet our literature doesn't quite reflect this, rather it seems to tie things up in cute little palatable bows that never really happen in life. We're deluding ourselves, not looking in the mirror.

As the train rattled and lurched I thought about the book I'm working on and how I want it to be true to the untidy ending that I've found life to perpetually be.

At my therapy appointment I tried to explain all this - the dark and the light and the ayahuasca and my impatience with my search for meaning, and that meaning was what I was somehow trying to give my life by writing my book, and how this fucking city plays into it all,if I'm on the right path or I'm completely out off course, and that by drinking this jungle juice I might be able to finally kill these fucking demons off and see the truth about myself and write it - to my therapist who I often amuse with my ramblings. I used to just do this with friends in Austin at coffee shops. Now I pay someone. I think I felt better in Austin. But not much. Somewhere in the midst of trying to explain all this I realized that I've got to make the decision daily to make my life livable. That it's a choice. "Yes, it's your choice," she chimed in. I do all the fucking work in there. Now I sound like an after school special. But whatever, it happened.

I called Marie afterward and asked her if she wanted to go out. Cliche dinner and movie thing, but it didn't feel cliche. It felt like we hadn't done something nice and unplanned out together in a while. It felt like a nice idea. I love her and wanted to show her somehow, simple and as true as that...

As I rode across the bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan on the J train, reading, the sun faded in the far off distance gleaming over the water and I had the fleeting feeling that I actually liked New York. It felt like home...

We met in Union Square. A large crowd was gathered around a band with their shirts off playing sonic moody distortion without lyrics. A couple of them had mohawks. They were doing their thing for everyone to see. It was reassuring somehow. I don't know why. The sky had clouded overhead. The city felt how it's supposed to feel - gritty, littered, concrete calloused and steel. It felt natural. The trees in the background were just an afterthought. It is what it is and I felt like I finally accepted it, instead of wishing it were something else. I spotted Marie searching for me through the diverse and eclectic clusterfuck crowd of skateboarders, foreigners, high schoolers, chess players, craft sellers, businessmen and women, tourists, hipsters, drug dealers, panhandlers, cross dressers, gays and hippies. She looked more fragile, rare and beautiful amidst all the strange faces. I was surprised at how taken I was by her and called out her name. She turned startled as she didn't recognize me at first, seemingly having a similar experience with me, her blue eyes went wide in recognition and she smiled.

We took a cab to the hotel where I work and had dinner at the adjoining, 'in the now', restaurant. The place piped in loud hip rock music over the roar of the people talking and eating. It was so loud at times that I thought my head would explode. Oh well, I thought, New York's just like that, fucking loud. A constant dissonant and layered clanging clatter. They comped us a salad and desert, the gesture making me feel appreciated. I felt glad to have a job. I felt real. Like I sort of had a life. On the way out through the lobby I saw my favorite guest who's currently staying at the hotel, an older gentleman who looks like he just stepped out of a Guy Ritchie movie. He's pure London gangster classy all the way. Outside I introduced him to Marie who had stepped outside to have a smoke. He kissed her on both cheeks and said, "Ee luvs you to bits doll, you know that?" And she smiled...

We took a cab downtown to the Landmark Sunshine Theater to see Exit Through the Gift ShopExit Through the Gift Shop. Afterward we walked the sidewalk talking about the movie and the themes of art and propaganda, self invention and perception. We talked so long we never caught a cab, just kept on walking across the Williamsburg bridge as the sky dripped lazy drops of rain into the warm night as the trains and cars rushed past, a tanker sounded its horn in the dark waters below, as the city lights receded behind us. It's not so much that the city never sleeps because it's having such a good time, it's more that it just never stops going in a mad frantic rush, seemingly to nowhere. And it was nice to slowly walk, take it all in, and let the city rush by without giving a shit where it went, like the first time I came to visit Marie, nearly two years ago...

A relative peaceful quiet settled in around us as we came down the ramp of the bridge into Brooklyn, then crossed under the overpass where we came upon a piece by Space Invader from the movie we'd just seen, a pink tile mosaic of an asteroids creature on the top corner of two story brick building covered in graffiti, seemingly a cosmic sign for me to open my fucking eyes to the crazy beautiful life around me...

Love...