Road Healing

When your trauma of “he touched me there …and he did that to me” beckons and you wonder where God is taking you in your life

When you crash a car and almost die and aren’t sure where to heal or find home and you wonder whether everyone is happy because you silently suffer, like somehow the fantasy is that it’s a zero-sum thing, happiness; there’s us and them and either we or they can be happy but not both

Fear of choosing a side that leads to power and status but death

Fear of choosing a side that leads to fame and fortune but death

They never told me when I was young that you have to not only live for your dreams but die for them too

Something about seeing the sunset towards LA from 1028 frontage near Portal, NM

And seeing dark clouds towards my hometown in South Texas

LA and my hometown each 10 and a half hours away - the midpoint, I found it

Border patrolman named Ramos coming to my cracked window saying “making sure no one’s dead in here”

Oh God I wish I could tell him everything - save me, I've been homeless for so long, been crying for so long - help me help me!

Sleeping in my car that carried me and my mom to San Antonio for her doctor’s appointments, not sure whether I’ll get to where I’m going in it much further, bills are due and I won’t be able to pay them

My mom’s cancer and my car accident - traumas - arm tremors - callings - I need help, can’t breath, keep driving keep driving

The lingering smoky scent of tobacco pressing up against my fear that I haven't let go of all the emotions and attachments in me that lead me towards self-destructive habits; my last hoorah perhaps, at least I had fun I guess

That place in between my family's divisions is like a birdsong calling your heart to choose to grow

Grow something, anything

Grow as a person be best

Sometimes it's the memory, the fractal trauma, ringing in my head like white noise from FM 98.1 in New Mexico - it's funny how that station worked in Benson, where I had a flat and met Garret

It's the red hot chili pepper in Sea Dragon's Kung Pao chicken off Vermont Ave tasting like it has the power to change your fortune

It's Paramore's "In The Middle" reminding you yes, your blessings are coming and no one can take them away from you...except you yourself, perhaps? God please don't let me take my own blessings away.

It's the allure of your parents' cooking providing sustenance - or those daily tacos from Stripes, not knowing when that last one will come - you love and hate your father equally and feel hard pressed to pursue your dreams as he ages

It's a calling to see sunset at Griffith park at just the right moment on the Hollywood sign, to hear passers-by discuss their outings cheerfully

It's the cold water of the pacific baptizing you in a shallow pool off Pismo's coastline

It's the way a stranger can look at you and you just know they know that you're going through something

It's how after, what 13 storms, LA has never had cleaner air I imagine or you'll hardly ever smell anyone smoking cigarettes ever

Touching random trees and posts in Culver City, that place that felt like home when you saw city hall one time last year - just something there for me, but don't know what, something safe, something real; but is the bark just a bark?

It's that desire to give your blood, sweat and tears for the WGA strikes because who knows what happens with AI and Hollywood - is this a separation brewing? I'd like to be a screenwriter amongst the others

The feeling of your last quarter slipping through your thumb and index finger as you give it to someone begging for help, not sure whether it's the last quarter you'll ever have yourself

It's a lingering voice in your head saying it's okay - "you can pass through and you don't have to choose now, God is with you" but the fear that you're missing moments - critical ones where you can make a difference.

Seeing an osprey sitting on a post and an osprey soaring through the sky like the difference between a dreamer dreaming the dreams or a person living the dreams

You can choose what to think, feel and do, but it's when you find it impossibly difficult to choose to choose - that's the trauma

Letting go of the world and attachments means not knowing for certain what you're sacrificing

But when your sensations go, your sense of peace may stay knowing at least you committed to a choice.