“Ohmygod what is going on” - Nick Fiend in the song “Camel”
I can barely see straight now that the drugs have kicked in, but I want to communicate with you before I go into this dark tunnel for the next three days.
The last couple of days have been so surreal to me when I step outside and see yellow diffused sunlight on the ground. I keep looking up at the sky and instinctively looking for storm clouds. Yellow diffused light in Michigan means “storm’s a comin’”.
Normally in California, the sun shining down leaves crisp, white light on the ground. Not yellow. The yellow of course is because the skies are still thick with forest fire smoke.
This month marks eleven years that I’ve lived in California, and yet things like yellow diffused sunlight on the ground still throws me right back into instinctively looking up at the sky to check for storm clouds. Because I spent the first twenty-five years of my life - my formative years as they say - in Michigan, I don’t think I’ll ever let go of a lot of instinctual habits, or of certain words, or behaviours.
And over the last couple of days, I can’t help but to just stare at the ground, marveling at the yellow light, then looking back up at the sky a second and third and fourth time, hoping to see storm clouds. When my gaze comes back down from the sky, I hope to see giant maple trees in the full bloom of summer, the thick lush green grass and trees everywhere, and to feel the humidity that sets it all in place.
But instead, I get dry, yellowing grass (where grass can be found), California poppies, palm trees, the crazy viney ground cover that people out here jokingly call Kudzu, and dry, dusty air.
I find myself wistful. I miss home. I miss a good summer storm.
Blah. I’ve got iTunes playing on ‘random’. The first iTunes song on random was “Third Eye” by Tool, which makes me really miss home and people from back home, and a time in my life where I really did open my Third Eye.
And the very next song that came on? “Mary” by Oingo Boingo. Which of course applies perfectly to me.
Last night I went into an emotional tailspin, having flashbacks of my childhood up through my early twenties, and all the bad shit that happened to me, growing up in poverty and watching crime and shady dealings all around me.
Some people have dreams to tell them what’s going on in their life. Sometimes I have magickal synchronistic iTunes.
“See I think drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor, go home tonight and take all your albums, all your tapes, and all your CDs and burn ‘em. Cuz you know what, the musicians who made all that great music that’s enhanced your lives throughout the years? RrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrEAL fuckin’ high on drugs.” - Bill Hicks, quoted in Tool’s song Third Eye.
My head hurts.
