Paris to Lisbon

Arrived today in Lisbon after sleeping most of the two hour flight from Paris. Something about cabin pressure puts me out, almost meditative, half in and half out of sleep. There were so many thoughts that I watched from underneath in my meditative wakefulness. Thoughts about going home, thoughts about the unknown, thoughts about this plane crashing into a fiery death trap. Thoughts about the couple beside me and their tenderness; a hand on the knee, a kiss on the check, a reflexive glance. Do I want a Kit-Kat, no I don’t want a Kit-Kat, a coffee would be nice, but then I would have to get up, apologize, and ask for cream. What language do you speak on an English flight from Paris to Portugal?

I arrive and find the bus, 745 not 44 as I assumed. Someone else asked, I just used the information. Winding our way, I get my mid-afternoon introduction to this, the first city. I moved in and around the crowed space on the bus. Bag on, bag off, beside me, in-front. Then it hits somebody’s legs and I realize I don’t know how to apologize. I don’t know how to say anything. Ola. . . well that won’t help. I’m back to square one.

Off at Rossio, centre stage, the curtains open and I cross the square. Sache, sache pirouette, watching for cars and pickpockets, thieves and goblins in my imperfectly choreographed ballet. It’s amazing, somebody gives you a date, a time and a place in the world and there you are. And there they. . . Where are they? My couchsurfing host was no where to be seen. No panic. I’m just alone, in Lisbon, with no where to stay, at five o’clock in the afternoon. There are channels that lead out of the this square that lead majestically to the sea. The sea, the sea! I was tempted to the end.

My host and I finally did connect and he delivered me a short distance away to his small flat, resident corner drug dealers in place for my welcoming.

We passed the night in endless amounts of discussion. Bottle of wine over dinner, pint of Guinness at the Irish pub to play trivia. I lost, but gained in knowledge of UK game-shows. Did you know the aqueous humour was in the eye?

The night continued with erratic twisting and weaving through roads that looked like allies and allies that looked like gutters. Carnival is just a day away and the costumes were dusted off and the dull Sunday streets were shaded-in with people, just in time to start celebrating early. We spoke of drunks as being under the weather, which is, I’ve decided, the only way to talk about them anymore. I also learnt what a ‘lights-on’ bar looks like at 3 am for a glass of wine, on the house, including a very cordial response to my attempts at Portuguese to the packed house of card playing Somalian refugees. Bom Nuit.

Day 2

My streak continues. I am not a reincarnate of a cartographer of Paris; I simply have a good sense of direction. This is not something I would have ever believed about myself given all the other ‘logistical’ tasks I am so bad at, but there we are, or there I was I should say, directionless in the void of wandering through mosaic streets and still not only finding my way towards monuments and moments through divination, but finding my way back.

I am the only person I know of to have gotten lost in Stanley Park though. . .

Lisbon is an amazing place, the most amazing of which is the way it smells. Like fresh laundry in sea-salted air. Breathing is like taking bites of candy, you can sip it in all its Mediterranean glory. The city rises in on seven peaks, of which I only explored one, but it was enough to see it cascade and dance around you out to the sea, palm and orange trees in every glance. It remained cool, but the tropical vibrations are unmistakable. Frescos, churches, cathedrals and castles, mosaic tile arts and pushy street vendors. Classical guitar buskers and human statues. This seaside port city has caught all over hundreds of years of gill-net fishing and spilled and squished back it into this remarkable homily of history, religion, progress, destruction, construction and change.

I am horrible at gauging safety and like always as I adjust to newness I am intimidated and fearful of everything. But the smell of fresh roasting cod, the hue of white umbrellas and fresh mineral water was too much to pass up as I sat down to enjoy a patio lunch by myself, though surrounded by family.

This is the first time I have felt compelled to take pictures in a long time. This city has a story and it hasn’t been, told, sold and re-hashed like its more famous cousins. There are things still worth explaining. This city remains.

Continued Exercises in Simplicity

Sitting in a crowed café in my mind,

really just a bed,

a bottle of wine

and repeating Elliot Smith.

Starving myself

towards perfection.

I don't want to see anyone anymore,

ever again.

Don't want to be let down,

don't want to realize just how much,

they are going to let you down.

Everyone is human,

those human traits,

those human people .

They say you hate what you know.

I am the second loneliest person I know.

For it is not me that is lonely specifically.

It is not the person

but the spirit that spits and sputters around the universe,

looking for its mate.

Its utilitarian equal,

trying to be reborn at every turn,

to find it's mommy and daddy again.

To find its roots in the abyss.

Getting excited at the stupidest things.

A passing comet,

or a new blaze on the horizon,

through the darkness,

a light.

Hello Moon! Will you be my friend?

Hello Nebula! Will you be my friend?

Hello Meteor! Will you be my. .

Until it just gets tired,

of all the cold cosmic indifference,

and decides to float away in silence,

eating through its final millenia in quiet,

happy pairs of gravity addicted planets and satellites

gaily orbiting into the sunset.

It isn't me but my spirit

that sighs with discontent.

It isn't me.

Don't leave me alone. Don't leave me be. Don't let me down. Stop disappointing me. Stop letting me down. Don't leave me be. Don't leave me. Don't leave, please.

Fuck it.

I'll draw my own friends.

Eyes and ears on the things around me.

Give them an obvious name.

Don't need anyone.

Or anything,

just me and the things that don't move around me.

The inanimates can't sense my fear,

or desperation.

Ennui.

Backgammon.

Rage.

So many years I spent as a quiet little girl,

to end up this man.

Call me brother.

Call me anything,

but the name my mother gave me.

You have to know me,

to fit inside,

even if,

I once fit inside you.

But its just one, two, three

turns on the catwalk,

give 'em that grin

and let them in.

Gravity will pick you up soon enough.

No wind in your ears,

when your swimming through a vacuum,

just the resonate sound,

of the creation of everything

spilling into time

and outwards from the centre

of infiniti

We are all the same.

Peppermint mocha latte.

Don't tell me you can't see,

the parameters around you too?

And resent their impertinence?

Even just once in a while?

Fake lessons.

Writing our stories out.

In the silence

In the silence

In the silence

There is nothing.

It is not me but my spirit that gets lonely.

I'm OK.

But please don't leave me all the same,

surrounded by trash

and trying to walk backwards

towards some kind of infinite meaning.

Remind me that maybe it is good enough,

good enough today,

just to be alive.

Alleviate this burden

of proof

to unite everything

inside me,

with everything

out there.

I am speechless,

quiet for too long.

Nothing but loveless murmurs,

over the endless stream of lies.

Love You Baby

I Love You

Puss Puss

Bisous

Let be friends

until the end

until the end

If only we were able,

to mean what we said

said what we meant.

If only we were capable of meaning

anything at all,

using these stupid syllables.

Jettisoned through human lungs

across the void,

across the voie,

its meaningless,

and you can feel it too

that's why you hold me closer.

But its OK,

its not me that's lonely.

Endlessly searching

for the meaning in everything.

Forgetting to open,

  mypretty little mouth

and let the dust settle in.

After all,

that is how you taste the world

After all,

you open your mouth,

and wait.

- -

Decention

I will still go.

Despise my body,

and despite my mind

not overcoming

these feet will -

- are venturing forth.

They move now

for the prospect of a better future

and a different past.

For the prospect of pride,

we move.

For perspective,

we move

For all,

and for nothing,

we move

Left foot.

Right foot.

Anything else

just feels like a death,

in the immediate family.

All the disease

and sickness

just serves

to increase my knowledge

of how to heal myself.

Defying the culture of expert

that keeps telling me

to go home.

All fate does,

is repeat your worst fears

through exaggeration 

and symbology.

I have to see this through.

Literally.

Even if it kills me.

I have to see this through.

All the way.

All the way.

Though it kills me,

through nostalgia

and rage.

Through a mountain of debt

and self doubt,

stacking up behind me.

Only after the arm is cut off,

bleeding out,

will we be sure-

ABSOLUTLEY SURE

-that it is sharp.

That is the price.

To live disfigured,

And know the truth.

Quick.

Last chance,

to abandon this as hopeless.

As useless.

Last chance,

to be someone else.

Keep it together,

inside the shell

within the lines.

From this next step we accept,

all imperfections.

We will accept all.

I will never be them.

I will never be them.

There is no growing up,

just growing thin.

I will never grow into them.

It's over.

It's over.

I'm in.

And here's the surprise.

There are stairs in this rabbit hole.

You have to stop trying so hard

Descend one step

and accept who you are

Descend two steps

Its OK to think,

but not too much.

OK to ask why the stops signs in France say

STOP.

And the ones in Quebec,

say ARRETTÉ.

But not about why your here,

and about what you lack.

It's not about being perfect.

In fact,

asking what is it about,

is thinking too hard too.

If there is a light,

it will find you.

Paris still makes me smile.

For all it is,

and all it isn't.

Just like me.

Just like me. 

Descend three.

coragem minha coragem corajoso

Flaccid and blue is my courage. Where did you go? Where did you go? Sitting up here in hiding, again. Waiting, waiting, waiting – for a response – from inside. Go. Go. Go.

But I can't.

Stuck as if to two pillars, one pulls left, one pulls right, and the space between – oh the gap to be seen! It's fear, fear, fear.

Release me from these shackles please.

Relieve me from this burden.

Give me just simple home,

just give me a simple smile.

An Exercise in Simplicity

Next Train

The cup casts a shadow,

the coffee leaves a ring.

I held back,

putting in the last bit of sugar.

I don't know why.

It made me feel good,

to be in control.

I licked the spoon too,

after stirring it in

and redundantly wiped it on the edge.

I enjoy taking my coffee,

en exterior,

hoping for sun

and feelings of contentness,

while passing the time

till the next train.

Those Girls

The longer I stay quiet,

the harder it is,

to perform.

And I wonder,

what would happen,

if they figured it out?

What would they see?

To be wrong,

to look stupid,

to stand out,

to miss the subtly.

Would be to loose my suspended disbelief,

that I actually belong.

Or could,

if I wanted to.

I don't like to be,

pushed out.

Perhaps they sense,

my disdain,

or unhappiness.

Overeager,

perhaps it is my fault,

I don't belong.

Can't belong.

Won't belong.

Even if I wanted to be,

Those Girls.

This Mess - UK Series

Miserable manic, pacing in a womb of boredom. I am a wretch, though not in the sense of a good and evil but in the way that I wait to know all things and disobey them.

Sitting in imperfect harmony with this chair and these five-star hotel room walls. Wanting always and only what I do not have. Crashing into the darkness of the unknown. Wanting desperately to advert my eyes from the glowing screen and to know surely that I will not be the only one off the street tonight.

If I just had the right words. If I could finally complete the picture of whats wrong with us maybe this would all go away. The burning and the bubbling that pile up and the thing that stares back at me in the mirror incredulously; Meerkats poking angular heads out of my hair to get a better look at the world around me.

But today I should really just be thankful. Today I should recognize the joy of good pens, warm covers, cool rooms, long walks and the rest be damned.

Today I can take the boil and put it on simmer.

A ghost is in my old skin. I have gone off to live somewhere else. Willing to loose it all and stare into the eyes of a madman. Needing to loose it all and swim naked in the eyes of a God I create. A God created in my own image.

Malkovich's door is just a piano shop in Camden Town. I have seen the inside of my own mind. A white piano, covered in newspaper clippings and old magazine photo's. Plastered shellack image collage, a most pulchritudinous thing. It is filled by other pianos. Askew and sideways placed in an awkward room which used to be a stable. Sheet music - all years, all genres - is re-shelved and rebound by staples and their desire to live again. Even the man, perched in the corner, gives me a knowing look and begins to play. Even he knows, this is my place, a room in my infinite house.

And although it should come as no surprise it does, this is about a lot more then just travelling. About more than a simple Thoreauian quest for simplicity or Ginsberg in the rain.

If only I knew where to start. . .

Lately, more different then ever, more so than ever, I feel a worm hole of change opening and pulling at my particulate. Its time to go, its time to go, the other dimension awaits. I see bits and pieces of it now in the face of a chair. A serendipitous moment. A late night or early morning. I can see it in myself, my face, my eyes, my hands. I can see the tides and The Self. Can see a self. Thinking now that not only is there probably something else out there, but this may be something else entirely. Fully realized you slip like a slimy noodle through a sieve. No pain, no anguish, no frustration, just motion and the force of gravity and never return. I've seen them go, you can see it in their eyes. Constantly fresh. Burning themselves up like navel orange rinds on a desert sidewalks; fresh and citric and careless. These indivisible creatures who dispute through passivity what dirt stains their faces. What is grit anyways? When it is under your nails? They can see only and be only because they are in constant transubstantiation. You can't aspire to it. You can't climb up to it or read it in a book. You have to, when the time comes, do as the indivisible do and say yes to the inevitability that is you, that is all around you; that is.

It may mean that you evolve, while those around you continues to revolve in the universe they've created for themselves. It may just be passing in the night. Even now, as you start to push them, you can start to see the holes in the linen. Their skin is not steel and knowledge but a knitted skirt through which the wind blows freely. Through which they are now to be seen as neither as man nor mortal but simply as what they are, a collection of things: skin, bones, tissue, rings, paper, muscle, a sailboat, skis, a slow beating heart, folded bills, purple paint and a fresh pair of underwear. Add one part silica and two parts saliva. Mix well. Kneed and let rise. And all of this stuffed into a button. Round plastic bubbles.

Allons my friend! Loose. Loose this hard button bubble shell and go oozing out into the night. Let them rest and continue popping around, tyring to step over you. But don't ever let them forget, its what's inside-out that counts. This mess will pull you through. 

This mess will pull you through. 

The Coach - UK Series

I have never seen anything more prefect than this moment. Here,on a bus last night's hangover still lingering, good times on my tongue, the night taking day hostage for the longest period all year today. I am caravan for all of the things I need. Warm, tired and moving. The world is looking back at me and having a good laugh.

Outside there is a moon like I have never seen before. A moon I have never seen before.

I have memories that are now apart of me. I now have something to go back to.

Off in Edinburgh. A night with the insane eating stolen shredded cheese, scarfing it down in the winter wind. More lies and false identities, thinking we are speaking when we are just mouthing old passages, pulling at the ropes that tie this bag around my neck.Paid not to sleep. Paid to keep my stuff - and meet you? Was it just for the that one question? Asked in the latest lateness of the longest night I have ever known?

Are you sure you are ready for what that means? 

Yes. I think. As Henry told me to do, I do. So I answer. Yes, yes, yes. 

In my confidence, all this fear. Like a set alarm, ready to protect me from nothing again. 

So be it. 

On the bus.

Edinburgh to London.

Changing pants under my coat.

I think this woman will probably cut someones head off before this is over.

I'm OK.

Further to hither in.

Delirious and hungry I close my eyes and see dehydrated carrots. It's hot, scorching me inside-out inside this coach. Manchester bringing reality back on in full. People coming in for utility, not pleasure. Who are these people? Why are they following me? London of course, but why? My bones hurt. My skin moves slowly and I loose thoughts before they are formed.

Am I communicating effectively? The preally in experience? Feeling as though I am wandering without aim, grabbing hold of meter sticks as they reach out from the shadows to whack me back into place. Sitting in a noon-day sun that appears to have left off at 5 pm and never returned. Its hue is all wrong. Its power decisive and relentless in yet weakened all the same. Today I am scared. Scared of myself and just how far this will go. Maybe not far enough. . . .

isolation.

isolation is the gift,

all others are a test of your

endurance, of

how much you really want to

do it.

and you’ll do it

despite rejection and the worst odds

I am afraid of fate like I used to be afraid of god. Afraid it might just actually exist and is getting enraged at my apathy; at my blatant disregard for its signs, my constant denial of its existence. I am afraid that one day I will just wake up and fate will be there, the ghost of Christmas fuck-you hovering over my bed, pressing its hot ghostly lips to my face and saying:

noooooooooooowwwwwwww.

I can do this, despite hearing glass breaking in my ears and I love you's from far away. These damn voices wake me up while I continue to flight against my tiredness to sleep.

The hosts on the radio are talking zombies. Tall black hoods with gangrenous flesh falling off the bone. This is all happening simultaneously. There is no here and there. Now and then. Me and you. The earthquake last night was me, landing heavily after the big jump. I still smell vegetables. The woman behind me is a drug dealer. The English prioritize the strangest things. You know what I should have done? Entered into a different Schengen country and crossed over.

Finally off my caboose I settle into the thirty minutes it takes me to wander around Victoria Station, find enough money to use the toilette and remember that I was supposed to call somebody I don't know. All I need is a shower. I look at the signs for hostels and the disdain behind the counter. All I would have to do is ask. One hostel please. No translation. No issues. Just a shower and a busy place to sleep. Possibly. Finally. Maybe? Or. . .

Monia – 0207341401 Gabreilla Monica's Mum - 0787623449

Victoria Line North Bound to Oxford Circus – Eastbound Central Line to Woodford

I make the call. Its cliched, but is really is now or never. No ones going to push you. No ones going to catch you either. There really is just your ideas and the faith you place in the unknown to see them through. Or not. It probably doesn't matter anyways.

She pulled on the attic pull chord and drew the stairs down. Monica lives up there? Is this a joke? I pull my pack off. Its heavy with strangeness I have rolled in along the way to this. Breathless, I enter the dormitory of my soul. It is as perfect as I imagined. An attic made of bricks and books and an artfical fireplace. It stirs and sits simotaneously as I pass my fingers over everything in the room, trying to devine some sense of who my host was. An hour later, showed in warmth and mincemeat pies she arrives, a lemur. She pops, bobs and weaves and woes her way up and immediately into me. Instantly all is known: Kaourac and the weight of thoughts, string theory, travel and biking South America. We steal the night for ourselves on unknown trains to unsure places, talking and walking, running, inviting it in with smiles. No fear. No fear.

She sips our cocktail from the fishbowl.

There is Amy Winehouse.

There is Brick Lane. I think.

There is me and there is you but there is a non-dual in between and it swells. Its so impossible to call it love, so we called it nothing and just laugh. Finally the self comes back to me. I had to travel far but no one can ever say - that it was all for naught- if she felt it too. We flew. Coo-Coo.

Birds of a feather.

But alas, it is always only to continue on to our destinations. 

Passing remaining days as a tourist. Photo-hogging each moment in desperation, but not mine. 

I only fit the picture.

And filled the mind.