WEEKLY WTF
11-11-24 Edition
Happy Veterans Day
Happy Mother’s Day all you Veterans! Wait… I mean,
Happy Veterans Day all you Mothers!
That’s better.
Blackbird
I have a strange warmth in my body. So strange, so calming.
Yesterday my family attended a Benefit for our girl, Maisie Mae, put on by the Rio Nido Roadhouse. It was a Chile cookoff/ raffle/ auction. A stone thrown in any direction would have hit someone I loved. Dear friends buzzing around like worker bees helping with the raffle and auction. Bubbling chili steamed and wafted through the open air gathering as if swirling in a pot- the smells mingling and contained under the redwood canopy lid.
This warmth I feel, wtf is this? And no it’s not just the ensuing chili farts, it’s deeper, and it doesn’t smell bad.
Hundreds of people attended, so many smiling faces and wet concerned eyes. So many people I love. I didn’t quite realize how many people I actually loved, but turns out it’s a lot. And yesterday, it became more. My extended family and my friends melted me that day. But so did total strangers. Like a guy named Wayne whom I’ve never met who drove 70 miles with his daughter just to show support, like the giant with a shaved head who silently shook my hand and left a hundred dollar bill in it then walked away without a word. So many hand shakes and hugs. And look at this fucking amazing artwork donated by Emily Maniere! I very roughly designed it but she brought it to life and I couldn’t love it more. She is @aaapplesart on insta so for fucks sake follow her because she refused to let me pay her so this is the least I could do. But, of course, I’m not the boss of you So many sweet souls who communicated to me how touched they are by our situation and or something I’ve written or posted in the past. So many more… I kinda fell in love with them too. Stress and despair is a bubble and seems to have a popping point. Love though, it seems, has no boundary. Like the cosmos, it just keeps expanding.
This warmth in me, it’s fucking weird. It makes my guts calm and my racing mind slow and measured.
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt love in a physical way, like literally in my body. Yesterday at the Roadhouse I was blasted with microwaves of love. It cooked me and I still haven’t cooled off. My bones are glowing a hot red and within my chest cavity one could bake bread. After months of cold hell, yesterday was like a bubbling hot tub full of love and chili and I thawed out in that brown elixir. Ok that visual is kinda gross but fuck it.
Before all this I was settling in to be a content curmudgeon. Then this tragedy came along and broke me, but it only broke that in me which I no longer need. It broke the hard shell I built around my emotions as a young boy. Then came all the incoming support and love since day 1 of this tragedy which culminated in yesterday’s microwave of love- It melted and cracked the old coating around my heart that kept love away, the coating upon which was written that I am not worthy of love. Through those cracks I feel the loving heat flooding in filling a long cold void. It’s still flooding, filling me in entirety with warmth. I am grateful to lose those shitty shells. I wish it didn’t have to be like this but: whatever is, is the way. Without a hammer swing like this, both the tragedy and the subsequent love, I would have likely remained trapped and unable to experience a more comprehensive scope of living and feeling.
Wifey poo hates crying. She goes through great efforts not to. But on the drive to the Roadhouse she sat in the far back of our rented wheelchair van fighting and failing to stop the tears. Our friends were texting her photos of the incredible set up. She texted back “I hate you guys I’m crying” Maisie and I shared a smirk. It’s cute watching her grumble and cuss to stop crying but cries anyway.
As we drove up we realized what a massive event this actually was. This was Maisie’s first time in public. She hasn’t wanted to go anywhere or be seen by anyone. People stare and it hurts her, a hurt that she deals with by getting pissed off. It pisses me off too. I previously asked her how she was going to deal with the benefit when she doesn’t even want to go around the damn block. Her reply was that this is different because she’ll be surrounded by friends.
As we approached I saw realization dawn in Maisie’s eyes what a big fucking event this actually was. Previous to the accident she had anxiety quite frequently, her guts would churn and she’d randomly throw up. As we drove in I asked her if she was nervous. she said “I only ever got nervous in my stomach but now I can’t feel my stomach, so I guess I don’t get nervous anymore” Our girl, she’s a fucking brick.
She had a great time flanked on all sides by her sweet friends who were on guard and took the responsibility very seriously. And dear Ferniculous came and lurked in the shadows and kept his eye on her the whole time for me, ready to tackle threats and slit throats if necessary should any danger come her way. Just kidding he wouldn’t do that. Probably. Ok maybe
There isn’t a thanks big enough so I’ll just say the words- thank you. But please know that those words are a tiny hole through which an entire ocean of gratitude wants to flow. Our dear friends who have our back in every way, friends who are helping get our house together while we take care of Maisie at her Grandparents house, total strangers for kind words and donations. Fuck, I’ll never have enough words for you all and for all you’ve done. And also I’m grateful for you dear reader for without you reading I’d never have an impetus to write.
I shall conclude with a song that I occasionally listen to nowadays to help me cluck out a few tears when I feel myself filling up with the pain of watching our girl go through this. Blackbird by the Beatles. Toodaloo.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird, fly
Blackbird, fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise”
Flick The Switch
I flicked the switch.
It’s that one deep in your middle that’s not quite discernible. You can’t exactly feel where it was or how you did it, but you did it, you flicked it. Almost 70 days after my Daughter broke her spine, I finally fucking flicked it.
I knew I had to let myself feel this tragedy fully lest it become yet another traumatic memory choked down into deep freeze. A frozen trauma which inevitably would thaw then fester and percolate to the surface years later presenting as panic attacks and/ or PTSD or some other hideous manifestation. In truth, I’m not sure I could have held this one in even if I wanted to. I don’t think something like this is containable in that chilled numb way I unsophisticatedly developed as a fourth grader who grew up a bit too intimate with death and who marinated in feelings of abandonment during some very formative years. Even before this tragedy occurred my cup already runneth the fuck over.
So I flicked the switch.
In order to fully feel this I allowed my default system to take over. I let grief and its cobalt flames of despair lick their way out of my smoldering heart to consume me. I kept from combusting by crying an ocean of tears and an entire ocean of tears yet remains- pushing behind the dam of my eyes. Everything looks strange when observing the world through so much salt. But actual crying feels good in its own strange and terrible way.
Then I flicked a switch.
I was was in a nose dive. I was descending you see, my psychological default setting did not have lift or thrust enough for the gravity of my grief and I found myself crash landing upon a vast and unthinkable frozen tundra, a personal hell. I’m not a stranger to its lonely terrain. For whatever reason, or no reason at all, or all the reasons- my path through this life always veers through this terrible region dense with ice tinted suffering. Hell is often thought of as a fiery pit but it is in fact endlessly flat and horrifically cold.
Inexplicably, it seems, I must occasionally crash upon that icy tarmac and walk for a time through the painfully frigid viscosity and long blue shadowed hellscape before I can garner enough light and warmth to sustain my egress back to the surface of life. Because unfortunately Hell is where I figure it the fuck out. Only in that cold barren cerulean wasteland can I fully wield that ineffable fire of life.
Hell is where I find my power.
In hell I flick a switch and just like that everything immediately changes. Just- Like- That. The switch is like a spark in the middle of your mind whose heat grows exponentially and thaws out the rest your hell frozen brain. Flicking the switch doesn’t make a clicking sound, it’s more of a silent warm woosh of momentum. It’s like a summer wind that blows through your winterized body. A morning light that illuminates your twilight mind. The switch clarifies the salt water from your inner eye, it transforms your frozen heart into a warm, soft and supple clenching fist and you feel it cough and sputter back to life. Flicking the switch jettisons that dark blue density so that you can once again walk without a bent emotional back. Suffering is fucking heavy.
Flicking this switch is not something you can exactly describe, you’re not quite sure how you did it, but you definitely did it. It’s like a decision that’s born in your bones. It’s like tossing a big boulder of resolve into lake “Me” that kerplunks and exponentially fans out waves of inspiration to not just carry the fuck on, to not just to ascend out of hell, but to surf the waves of your life- just as it is. It’s a determination not just to survive, but to thrive for no other reason than because you fucking say so- that’s why. It’s more than a decision, it’s a command injected into the quantum heart of reality itself. It’s not just a thought it’s a mental infection that takes over your consciousness and makes you feverish to succeed.
Bummer though that I have to walk through hell periodically to find it, but it is what it is. Maybe it’s not just about me. Perhaps one day you or yours will embark upon a similar terrible trajectory. Mayhap you can follow these words like frozen bread crumbs and find your own power in that endless pressured flatland and flick your own switch. Never waste such a valuable trip to hell for fucks sake.
Here’s a fun word, it’s: “phaneron”. Phaneron is reality as it exists based on the totality of your own ability to perceive it. It is how your consciousness experiences sensory data. It is in fact an interpretation of reality based entirely on your own psychological filters. It’s the ones and zeros of your existence. The implication here is that reality is not some static thing, it is merely a flavor of your perception. Reality is a tootsie pop and as we lick through the flavors of life we wear it down revealing its strange gooey center.
Phaneron.
This rarely used word, in its ideal form, is actually a realization. It’s more about integration than understanding. It’s not the switch itself or the flicking finger, it’s the motion thereof. Consider that reality is in a state of perpetual neutrality. Reality is smple syrup waiting for you to stir in the flavor of meaning. The switch that’s flicked represents the tipping point that topples you from despair to positivity. From stagnancy to growth. From desperate frozen hell to warm cozy life.
We make multi colored snow cones of meaning with our pheneron syrup.
Slurp.
The switch is not based on a narrative. Oh how easy this shit would be if I could just adopt some religion or resurrect some philosophy or belief system to lean upon in order to make sense of things- but I am not capable of easy outs anymore.
Reality tries to break me. To be clear I mean break but not destroy. As far back as I can remember I’ve been mad for the truth of things. I’ve pleaded towards every conception of what I thought might be holy and I have argued with every ancient philosophy and did crazy ass unorthodox and extreme shit in an attempt to finally know. I did this countless times, begged for whatever “IS” to take anything and everything it wants from me in exchange for THE truth. But that pleading all occurred before I had kids. Shit changes after kids. But once, long ago, everything was indeed taken from me, everything I thought I was became consumed in some mysterious process which disintegrated my identification and triggered the process of waking the fuck up from the slumber of life. I was fully broken and what was left of me for this ultimate sacrifice was simply one thing true. A thing that cannot even be spoken. But that’s a story for another time.
Reality wants to break me because in my longing for truth I had asked it to. I didn’t know the form it would take but here it is.
Whatever is, is the way.
The stakes keep growing higher and subsequently the cracks are growing exponentially wider. Something unfathomable lurks in those cracks but it’s ensuing light illuminates the subtle background stories of what I mistakenly thought reality was and how it works. It makes that subtle story hiding in the background quite obvious and even absurd. A tragedy like this is so contrary to all of your previous notions that you can’t help but break. It’s a rare opportunity to let it all go.
In those times that reality comes a’ callin and swings it’s great hammer cracking your paradigm- there is a very brief moment in which you are free. Free to just feel and experience purely in the moment as a carbon based substrate for consciousness, aka: a human. To allow your emotional system its salty flush, but be warned it is extremely brief. If our belief system is broken and cracked we immediately fill those cracks with something else. We cannot bear the emptiness. The Japanese fill the cracks of broken pottery with gold. It’s beautiful but for this purpose, even gold obscures. We find or fabricate meaning to plug those cracks so as to be lulled away from chaos in order to maintain some illusion of control. It could be either personal control or the faithful act of handing the keys of our life to a concept or belief or religiosity. But this universal tendency is dangerous because as soon as reality knocks our dick in the dirt again we suffer anew and have to find some other paradigm to seal our cracks and sooth our inherent terror of what lies underneath who we think we are.
Fuck it, I flicked the switch.
It’s not bypassing, it’s accepting. It’s not defining, it’s allowing. It’s not controlling, it’s letting go. It’s a razors edge that must be walked between total allowance of what is whilst singing brand new notes into your phaneron song. Delicate and careful melodies orchestrated to steer you upwards out of hell that you may be carried in its sweet but mournful melodies back into your life- your life just as it is.
Just as it is…
The phaneron, aka the way in which you think reality into being, is composed of these vibrational thought strands. It has to be made of something so why the fuck not make them uplifting and positive. Why sing reality into a song of misery or regret or guilt or rage? If that’s your default then the first order of business is to realize that’s your default. Stop humming those dreadful notes.
Whistle while you work.
The switch you flick is like a radio dial. All potential radio stations are constantly and simultaneously broadcasting. Every iteration of reality exists right now, what determines your experience of it, your phaneron, is determined by what channel you tune yourself too. I’m not talking about manifestation, that is a misunderstood phenomenon related more to the pheneron than anything. Not discounting quantum weirdness, I’m saying realize that the dream of reality is dreamt by you, it’s determined by the frequency of your phaneron. That’s it, it’s a choice to turn the dial or to to flick the switch. And if I can make that fucking choice while the person whom I love more than anything in the world is currently a quadriplegic, then perhaps you can too.
Perhaps you can too.
But I’m not the boss of you.
After more than 2 months in various hospitals we got Maisie Mae here to her Grandparents house while we await a custom elevator at home, among other things necessary to her condition. Upon arrival her 450 pound motorized wheelchair got stuck on the spongy carpet of her new bedroom, wheel spinning, sweat beading on my stressed forehead. We spent our first day dismantling her new room, Grandparents carrying shit hither and thither. Me manically ripping out carpet and nails and sanding splinters whilst wifey poo pulled out staples. We got her into her new hospital bed that night though, damn right we did. You do what you gotta do.
Turns out being in a home starts out harder than the hospital, harder by far. It’s fucking hard. There’s no nurse button to push, no daily doctor to ask. People go to college for years to learn how to do this shit.
Maisie is occasionally depressed because… of course she is. Someone once asked her “why do you look so sad?” To which she replied “well, there’s a lot to be sad about.” Someone else once asked her “what are you upset about?” To which she replied, “because I’m paralyzed.” She didn’t say “duh” with her mouth but her eyes definitely did. Maisie is not without humor. She also smiles, she laughs, she teases and she glares with her steely blues -a lot- mostly at me and the dumb shit I say. She seems to be letting herself feel it all and it’s a lot. More than we can even conceive. But incrementally her force of will and fierce nature is prevailing. We are all lucky to be surrounded by so much love. We are so very grateful to be here and grateful to Ama & Apa for turning their lives upside down for the devastating landfall of hurricane Boland.
We are so grateful to so many for so much. Seriously, fuck. Strange to feel so much gratitude in such a difficult and life changing situation. But we do.
We are all going through it but I can only speak to my own experience. I’ve had days of absolute despair. Days of irrational rage. Days in which I didn’t know how I’d make it into the next minute, but I did. I slogged through the sub zero viscosity of hell, step by step, until I remembered. Until I reclaimed my power and flicked that fucking switch.
And how strange it was when I did. The very next morning everything was just better and has remained so. The difficulties and despair and mutual frustrations usually experienced each morning clumsily trying to get Maisie dressed and sketchily transferring her via slide board to her chair suddenly transformed to smiles and a relaxed atmosphere. Not every day mind you but the morning after I flicked that switch it was like waking up in a slightly different universe with slightly different people. Or perhaps I have become what’s so different. Maybe I’m a different me.
When you flick the switch it seems to alter reality in such a profound way that it might as well be a positivity virus that infects those around you. You need not say a word or even smile, it’s not triggered by words or cues of any kind. You’ve altered your phaneron and therefore altered reality because, after all, reality exists entirely within you.
Could it be that you now look for the positive and notice it more than the negative? Could it be that you’ve splashed the quantum foam? Could it be something much stranger? Could it be all of the above? My answer to that is: who gives a shit. Why fuck up a perfectly good thing with categorization. It’s a rare moment in between when our reality has broken and we have not yet filled in those cracks that the magic exists. Any aspect of science that is more advanced than we are able to comprehend is historically perceived as magic. Our wrinkly pink meat computers don’t have enough bandwidth to know what the fuck reality or even consciousness is. Enjoy the magic, this magic moment. It can be terrifying letting those cracks remain empty. It’s worth it though.
It’s worth it.
That’s not to say this shits easy or to say we do not have really hard times and bad days but it seems we are all suffering less. I’ll take it
Suffering- it’s a funny thing. I’ve long contemplated it and have decided that it is simply an aversion to what is. That’s it. No aversion or resistance= no suffering. While things in my and Kristen and Maisie’s and Shamus’s life seem to keep going wrong and getting harder, we keep getting stronger and more resilient. Each hideous hurdle is becoming easier. It’s not because we are jumping higher over them, it’s because we just knock the fuckers over and keep walking. This is not a race, it’s a marathon and we will walk it according to our inclinations and intent and at our own pace. We are learning to stop playing the game by default rules and actually… we’ve stopped playing games at all. Stop playing, and start living, like actually living. At some point you have to just relax into reality, no matter what it looks like.
When the switch is flicked the complex becomes simple. Knots untangle. Tightness loosens. You are not reliant upon anything other than accepting this very moment exactly how it is no matter how fucking hard it may seem to be. Not internally narrating it as some fucked up thing nor mentally writing it into a Pollyannic placation or man/ mind made belief system. If you cannot do that yet it’s fine, because that is a gift as well because it is at least showing you where you are bound and stuck, so long as you are resolved enough to look.
Reality wants to break you so- why not let it? What you’ll find is a strange and unexpected serenity and deep appreciation for the moment “as is” once you get through the part where you’ve shattered. You’ll find a both miraculous and obvious simplicity to things hitherto obscured by mental and emotional baggage. It’s like realizing you’ve been carrying a miracle around in your pocket and finally just pulled it out.
The moment becomes crystal clear when we don’t obscure it by trying to define or control it or compare it to the non existent past or future or all the woulda coulda shoulda’s. The most terrible moment can be transformed. It doesn’t mean that “bad” is morphed into “good” though. It means you transcend the concept itself in favor of living the moment fully just- as- it- is and letting yourself feel it fully. You become a circuit of experience. The current of life flows through you unhindered.
Flick the switch. Look down at your feet, that’s where you fucking are you’re right here. Look around right now, now is when you are. If you remain still you’ll realize that in this brief sliver of a moment everything is actually ok. Just keep having those moments. Those moments which are actually fractals of one perpetual moment. Time is just broken pieces of the cosmic hologram. It’s a deep and still ocean with occasional turbulent temporal surface waves.
If you’re having trouble flicking or even finding the switch I think it’s helpful to stop identifying with and start paying attention to where you feel most fucked. What part of your system is being activated? Can’t stop thinking or worrying or regretting? If so then your mental system has been over charged because you lack a grounding wire. Are you raging or depressed or like that? Perhaps your emotional system is overheating because you forgot how to cool it down. Do you have weird pains in your chest or tight shoulders that turn into headaches or do you have churning guts? If so you are likely running mental or emotional current through your body and it’s not compatible with your meat wiring. If you at least try to notice which system is triggered then that awareness will give you a bit of space with which to view it. You have to take a step back to see.
Instead of identifying with the activation: “I’m so fucked” or “I’m so miserable” or whatever, you can view it analytically and start to problem solve. These electrical currents only become suffering if they get stuck somewhere. They start to fry your circuits. The only way to not burn is to let whatever shit you’re holding onto go.
Let it go and then you’ll flow.
It’s not easy. Not many folks are willing to give up the very scaffolding of who they think they are. For some reason though, this has never been an issue for me. But even with an intense willingness to shed the layers of this meat onion there seems to always be another layer. If you know what I’m talking about then my advice is to just keep peeling the onion and be prepared for what always happens when we peel onions. Hellloooo your eyeballs will sweat.
So- flick the switch. Fuck it- flick it. Flick the sensitive pink nubbin of the cosmos herself, she’ll respond accordingly. Flick the switch and change the channel. Re-write your phaneron. Initially it may not be possible but don’t be discouraged. The chance may only come after you’ve lived your suffering for a while. After you’ve walked broken and shattered through a frozen hell for a time. Be watchful for that brief moment between breaking and rebuilding and marinate there, marinate only in that moment letting it be whatever it is- if you can
That’s a whole lotta damn words just to say:
Happiness is not determined by circumstance.
It’s determined by acceptance.
Happy flicking you
Toodaloo.
Dedicated to Miracle Maisie Mae
Toodaloo
