unstuck

I keep collecting stickers, badges and pins. Most every state, every site, every shop, stop and grab a key chain. I’ve coozie cups and key chains filling the middle drawer. It’s cold this morning, this is the 3rd day where it has actually been chilly in the morning, the 3rd day where I haven’t been suffocated by heat and humidity. The people of the south love it there it seems, they are proud of their slice of America. I think the place is an armpit, one that spent all day at the gym without deodorant and left without a shower. It doesn’t smell of an armpit, but it is sweaty, hairy and nasty like one. Although I was extremely fond of Baton Rouge, especially Spanish Town and really the whole downtown area, and where my cousin lived, nice neighborhood. Jekyll Island in Georgia is beautiful, one of my favorite stops so far. North Carolina had somethin special about it too, the way the ivy crawled up the tress and covered every square inch of them or the fields of soybeans or the color of the aging tobacco leaves. I like North Carolina, not enough to move there tho.

A lot came to me as I drove yesterday yet I never pulled over to write about it. That’s the trouble with me, I don’t stop when I should. I’ve been trying to remain more conscious of that the last two days, well remain conscious of being precise in what I do and go slow at all of it. As far as I know, I’ve all the time in the world, unless God has different plans for me. I drove east/northeast from Wilkesboro, North Carolina, stayed at a little reservoir there. Headed up to Virginia, I never knew the moto here was ‘Virginia is for lovers’ and here I am alone in a van. I woke up this morning not feeling to well, a little under the weather and little lonely, a little sick of the routine. I pulled over right when I got over the border from North Carolina to Virginia and took a nap in the visitor parking lot. There was a lady there with about 10 puppies, I think she was giving them away – I really wanted to take one. But a puppy on the road is a bad idea, maybe when I settle, I will get one. After waking from the nap I started out again, heading to Appomattox, that is where Lee surrendered to Grant and ended the Civil War. The history of the war holds tight in the south, so many statues honoring their generals and serviceman. They like to refer to anyone not of the south a Yankee, like I’m a different bread of person, kinda like the way they used to treat the blacks. There’s almost a tinge of resentment in their tone, like black people being mad at white people today for slavery that happened well over 100 years ago. These resentments make no sense, all resentments make no sense.

I saw Appomattox, spent the better part of 2 hours there walking the grounds. From there I headed to Twin Lakes just east of there to mountain bike and camp. The campground was overpriced and full so I paid the 7 bucks to park in the day area and go for a ride. Average ride, nothing to boast about, it was more of a walking trail than a mountain biking trail. I’ve come to find that if you have seen one Civil War battlefield you have seen them all. Some would defiantly disagree and maybe they are right. I do know I was totally off in thinking Virginia was more northern than southern. I had no knowledge of the Civil War leading up to this trip, like none. I knew the flags were different and the North wanted no slaves and the South wanted slaves, but that was it. The war was won in Virginia, great battles were fought in that state amongst other states. I had no idea that 720,000 men were lost to that war, that’s 2% of the population back then. And even after the North won and the Emancipation Proclamation was written, they still enslaved people. Them were some low-down dirty people in the South, pay a feller a wage you tight bastards. Did you know Washington had something like 360 slaves, all those guys did. I don’t really remember reading any of that in school, well truth is I didn’t really read in school, but I never heard of it. Like after Abe signed the EP he ordered the death of like 12 Native American chiefs, like really?

My information is legit, I literally just learned all this stuff but I just don’t have the smart words to make it sound legit. We constantly cover stuff up in America huh, constantly in other people’s business, swaying wars by arming the opposition so we can slide in the backdoor. Anyways, I care not to haggle over right and wrong in that area, I’m sure there is someone, somewhere saying we need to be that in order to be the most powerful or create peace or some excuse for our actions.

After Appomattox I spent a few days with my aunt and uncle at their place in Alexandria, Virginia. I hadn’t seen them since I couldn’t tell you when, 15 years? After my grandfather passed away, my father, aunt and uncle all kind of went their own ways, something divided them and that’s really lame. I guess they are all in some contact now but not like a family, it’s pretty sad. That’s life though, nothing is permanent, even family ties. We would like to think that being family we would be held together tighter but that’s not always the case. In the end I am grateful to have contact with each of them. I appreciated spending time with my aunt and uncle, talk with my uncle about old times at my grandparents place, refresh my feeble memory. I was lucky to have the opportunity to be there, not everyone gets to see their family.

From there I left and headed to Gettysburg, walked the museum and drove the grounds, it’s a big battlefield. It had a slew of information for me to take in, but truth is by this time I have seen my fair share of Civil War places and artifacts. I wandered the museum in a quick step fashion, got a key chain for my daughter and split. I think we all have a filling point when it comes to information received, I’ve hit that point. It will all eventually absorb into my brain and I will be ready for more, just not anytime soon. I think that’s why tv is so desired at times, the ability to check out. Drugs, drinking, woman, objects, all these things used for the wrong reasons at times, or is the right reasons? Who’s to say checking out is bad, I guess it would depend on how often you choose to do so. My checking out with the drugs and drinking was bad, my checking out with the flirting and sleeping around was bad, kinda like the way I eat ice cream. It’s crazy how I can feel myself change when I eat ice cream, my thinking stops and spirits lift, like when I would take some X and it would start to come on. And since we are on the subject of drugs, I’ve been learning about psilocybin and the effects it has on depression and the way it changes the neural pathways in your brain and it is said it gets your mind ‘unstuck.’ I find this interesting, I’ve been one who has suffered from depression my entire life, although I have yet to be depressed since I left on this trip. I haven’t really cared to take the antidepressants I’ve been recommended to take at times, they are to chemically it seems. But small doses of mushrooms doesn’t sound half bad. Not enough to get you high, just enough to hit the reset button in my brain.

Problem is tho I’m in recovery, I’m a recovering drug addict, I cannot take any mind altering, mood changing substance. Altho I have taken pain meds over the years from mountain biking accidents and I have eaten Xanax over the years just the same. Luckily, I care not for downers, but if cocain was a cure to something there is a good chance I’d be fucked. Now all that aside, I’ve never been huge into psychedelics either, I was more of a drinking beer, snorting coke, smoking weed kind of guy. And I would be taking the mushrooms for a purpose other than getting high and if I take the right amount, I wouldn’t get high. But if I take the wrong amount, then what. But I have gotten high off the pain meds some, there’s no way you can’t not feel something when you have to take oxy’s. Yet in the end it is not doctor prescribed, but I take the Xanax on an as needed basis, maybe that’s not the same. If you’ve never met a drug addict in recovery, well, welcome. This is what happens when you have some recovery and you are trying to justify using something that can be considered a relapse. It’s motive right, what are my motives? I’ve been told to eat edibles for my anxiety or for my sleeping disorder, but I fear getting stoned, I loved getting stoned. I loved everything about it, the ritual of loading a pipe or bong, rolling a joint. The smell of the weed burning, the smell of it on my fingers, the way the smoke hung in the air. Defiantly the affect it had on me. I loved smoking weed, hence the reason I have yet to try it for anxiety and sleeping, I fear I might like it and use it the wrong way.

How did I get here? One minute I’m in Gettysburg and visiting family and the next I’m trying to determine whether or not eating a milligram or 2 of mushrooms is a relapse. I take my recovery very seriously, it might not sound like it with all this crazy talk, but that is an addict for you, well a good recovering addict. We examine all the facets of something to determine our motives and whether it’s our disease talking or our true self. If you’re really into recovery, not only do you practice self-awareness but you bounce everything off another recovering addict, we are phenomenal manipulators, better than you could ever imagine, even with ourselves. I am not going to self-medicate with mushrooms, although it does sound like something I might benefit from. Not for the fact to get trails and a body high, I don’t even like taking the .125 milligrams of Xanax, but because it ‘dislodges’ the thought patterns and changes the way the brain works. I don’t know one person who couldn’t use some of that, brain dislodging. The antidepressants just chemically alter you, every day, for years. It’s like putting a band-aid on the problem. Altho I am no doctor so don’t follow my advice, maybe you’re eating the antidepressants and they are doing amazing things for you and that’s fantastic, don’t stop using them. Not like you would do anything I am saying, I’m just some random guy with some weird thoughts.

Off track again. I started this with mind altering, mood changing things, cuz I have been all filled up with Civil War information and sometimes checking out is a good thing, if done in a healthy way. My check out comes in the form of riding my bike, well that and this trip – this trip is a big check out. I was dying back home, I can’t believe how sad I was, how dead I was inside. That’s where I started looking into the psilocybin, I needed something to change the way I was feeling, to get me away from the disinformation campaign my head was feeding me. No amount of riding was helping or no 12 step meetings was working, no shopping or ice cream or women would have worked. I about bought another Harley, but the high of a new toy never lasts, I would be buying for the wrong reason. I had a sponsor once that would always ask me, ‘what are your motives.’ What are my motives? Funny thing is I’m not really sure anymore, not like I’ve ever been 100% convinced in anything I’ve chosen, but right now I’ve no motives. What motivated me to leave, well seeing my sister and I was done living in that sadness. What has motivated me to stay gone this long, the fear of going back to that same life. But it stops there, I’ve no idea what to do from here.

I’m 50 days deep today, some time spent in hotels, some time spent with family, but most of the time spent in my little white tin can on wheels. My little home, my mobile home, my 6 foot wide, 12 foot long living space and I’ve yet to lose my shit in it. Maybe all the meditation has paid off, learning to just sit with what is happening, how I am feeling and be there with it, unattached to it. Not trying to change it or understand it or determine whether or not it is good or bad, just being here now. You know once we start labeling things good or bad it all goes downhill, you know that right. We have been taught to avoid the bad and go towards the good. Even if you consciously try to not do this, subconsciously we are doing it, it’s been ingrained in us. When deep in the “bad” we think ‘I’m just going to feel this, go through it.’ ‘I’ll do it while gardening or talking to a friend or I’ll play some music and eat some ice cream, I’ll get a little loaded.’ But what if you didn’t see things as bad or good and just experiences, then all the things you would do while feeling a “bad” feeling would just be things you are doing. It wouldn’t be in avoidance of a “bad” feeling, it would just be going about your life. So simple it sounds complex and untrue. It’s training your mind not to attach itself to things, feelings or experiences. ‘But I want to feel the good things and not the bad things.’ Well, you cannot have good without bad and bad without good, that is their duality.

So what have we found here, I think too much? I have emotional ADHA? I’m just some random person still working at finding a path to a truer happiness than the one I had the day before? I’m finishing up this entry while sitting on my bed in the van while parked on Franklin and Green in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. I couldn’t tell you how magical it felt driving into the city, it was euphoric on so many different levels. I’ve always loved this city, even back before I visited 5 years back, there is so much movement and life here, it is non-stop. There’s a flavor in the air that you can taste and no it’s not filth and grime. I was born and raised in a city; they hold a special place in my heart. Driving through the Holland Tunnel and driving up Canal Street, bumper to bumper, getting cut off, horns honking, people J-walking like ants running from water. It’s the craziest ever and I love the crazy, the unwell and misfit to the strait lines in life. Give me erratic and uncontrolled, chaos and disfunction. That is where the heart truly lies for me, in the areas that are unbound and free, the places where fear doesn’t exist and life swirls around like leaf’s caught in an itsy bitsy tornado. New York is like that, people walk right into you, on occasion stop to give you the right of way. Everyone going somewhere, even if it’s just to the park to sit under green trees on black wrought iron benches to watch the pigeons hunt for food.

I’d like to live here for a while maybe 3, maybe 6 months. I think I could really get my mind unstuck here.