on passing

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied: Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way...Minnie L. Haskins

i haven't really come to terms with the passing of another decade yet. as i look back, at this time ten years ago, i was just settling in to my little apartment in san francisco's sunset district, with two old friends living next door. i was working in downtown sf as a corporate travel agent for a mega travel firm, and starting a new life. all that changed drastically, first with being transferred to a suburban location into a very homophobic and dysfunctional office for a big genentic engineering firm in south san francisco. i remember feeling as if i'd landed in purgatory.  then i got kidney stones, probably from the accelerated consumption combined with an anti-retroviral or two.

whatever it was, it was enough to scare me into stupid. i left my job, and began the process of unravelling. it was not pleasant to do, and i'm sure it was an excruciating thing to watch. i slid back into old behaviors of the late 80's when i silently had a death wish. not really wanting to die, but just no longer wanting to live really. i had never really worked through those feelings, i just set them aside, and now 12 years later they were alive and kicking like the fire had never really gone out. and they were too hot to handle and already burning out of control. i found myself angry, frightened, and wanting to run- from everything.

as scary as i was, and as pariah like as if felt during those days, what followed has really been quite fairytale-like. i guess i had to literally let go of everything i had accumulated both emotionally and physically during my life, to simply clean the whole fucking house, in order to redo the foundation and more secure a saner and more sensible life. i'm not sure if i would actually use secure or sane to actually describe myself or my life, but with an adjective added or another syllable like "er", it is something i can live with.

and the shift has been remarkable. the ups and downs that were the fabric of my life before this decade have downshifted into perhaps a rolling hill pattern of movement. lithium, lack of alchohol and stimulants, the release of a thirty year tobacco addiction, and an embrace of a pastiched spiritual belief system have turned this once decaying 2 story mid-century eyesore into a functional, live-able refurbished and modernized denver square.

so here i am on the crest of another decade, and i find it compelling to review before i look forward. dear god- this has been a tumultous series. one that perhaps i knew i would have to go through as i reviewed my decision to enter the birth canal all those years ago. i have lost, i have cried, i have hurt, i have lied, i have revised, i have released, i have restructured, i have recanted. i have begged, borrowed, and stolen, and thrown away all i had. i have reviewed, rewritten, and downloaded a new operating system. this decade has been a full 20 percent of my life and i think i have done all the major work within its parameters.

and i could never have done it alone....

I've been roaming around, I was looking down at all I see

Painted faces fill the places I can't reach

You know that I could use somebody

You know that I could use somebody



Someone like you and all you know and how you speak

Countless lovers under cover of the street

You know that I could use somebody

You know that I could use somebody

Someone like you

today's sound choice is probably my favorite song of the last few years. each time i hear it coming on my car radio, i feel an electric current run through my body, because the haunting deliver of the vocal tears at my soul. here is kings of leon with "use somebody"




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