sober is the new fucked up (again)

Last night I dreamt that I was fully and completely off the wagon, to the extent that I was blacking out entire evenings again. Failing to retain memories from adventures still fresh in my bones, absent in my mind. Unable to be accountable for things done or said. MIA in my own life.
The dream gave me a hang over, and I sneered out at the grey skies, all right, all ready. I get the picture.
I met this person a few nights ago and had awesome connection, conversation. you know when you're immediately able to trust a person, that instantaneous feeling of familiarity and attraction. The conversation turned to sobriety, which was surely an anomaly behind the pub we met at, and I told him, I've was sober from 4-20 last year to about the middle of march this year. Now you're drinking again he asked? and goddamn, but I don't have an answer to that. Did something happen that acted as a sign to me, yes you have this thing under control and you can drink now, and it doesn't matter and its not a waste of time?
No.
I was uninspired and depressed and in a foreign place where no one would remind me that my sobriety is one thing at least that I'm proud of.
Yikes. I feel almost obliged to write this here, to make my frame of mind accessible, because I want to understand. I want to know how the booze-y stuff works in my brain and body, and I want to know how you feel.
Is it unexamined in the vast majority? From 17 a beer in the hand is just Plain Old Normal, like a smile on your face, or a light on your bike. Does it make you question your perspective ever, or is that just the affliction of those who spend too much time inside their own heads? Are you thinking about what you're putting into your bodies?
More importantly, is it real?

“The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love”
-Tom Robbins

your feet smell like cheese puffs

oh, i love a good montage...
picnicking with my dad on fish and chips on the bowling green above Bishop's Castle- a small, laid-back village with steep hills and friendly folks, talking to a couple of hot air balloon pilots (drivers? captains? what's the correct title?), riding horses up at the Foxholes on a grey Friday morning, driving cross-country with my dad with ShugE's live in florida cassette singing in our ears, getting lost in the smooth green hills of the Welsh border, drinking my way through a few evenings of old friends, meeting a soft-eyed gardener in the dark courtyard behind a divey pub called "the vaults", rocking out to Jeff Grimes' band playing Sex Machine at their free gig before they continue on to London, getting tackled by gangs of small cousins with wild, crazed eyes, and incoherently adorable accents, serendipitous meeting with some sexy gipsies from Manchester sippin tea fireside at yee olde family farm house listening to my dad tell stories about coming to that place as a kid, carved above the fireplace : we're simple people here,we like it like that, we keep our heads down and don't no one come near less we want 'em.
philisophical blatherings with optimistic undertones, sunburn peeling, eyes burning from the hot hot love this screen delivers to me (sorry, spending too much time googling " merkin")
where the fuck am i going to get 60, 000 greasy green american dollars?
the hustle continues...

last day

this page isn't big enough, or i don't know enough polysyllabic words, to tell you how good it feels to be here. my hands aren't big or quick enough to draw you a picture on this screen of life here. i want to whisper it in your ear and leave you with a pistacchio gelato kiss-print and the smell of the sea in your hair. i want to tattoo this tale on the back of your arm so you need a mirror or a friend to read it. I want you to fall asleep in the sunshine and dream this dream I've been living, and wake up and tell me, ok.
my last few days in sicily were spent ducking baby Mediterranean waves, hitch hiking in big trucks and fast cars, climbing on ancient obelisks and crumbling castles at odd hours, doing ceramics with the kids of Calatafimi after school, walking in the sun forever. Running around under the fat fat moon, and fava beans are the most delicious thing recently. More pubs and driving around very fast at night. Learned how to say the most important word in Italiano: soletico (tickle). Explored the ancient temple and theatre of Segesta. Learned how to slow dance (i think). Rode on a motorbike, worked in a greenhouse, moved a HUGE pile of wood. Deflected the Italian machismo. Bam!
For a few days I put up with the increasingly greasy approaches of a man who worked on the farm. I overlooked his overt grossness, telling myself that he was my friend, it wasn't a big deal. One morning I'd had really bad dreams (that Seward was cemented over, randomly) and when I woke up he was at it again, "why didn't you come to sleep with me? what's the matter, you don't like men?" I suggested that he give it a rest. He said, "ohhh, in italy it is tradition for the men to joke about the sex with the women. bla bla bla"
so i say, "oh really? that's part of your culture? ok. let me tell you about part of my culture. when an old man makes bad jokes about sex to me i say fuck off. or in italian, va'fanculo."
This, apparently, is a good way to make a point.
Everyday for the last three weeks I have walked down a big hill to let the chickens out of their coop, then hiked back up. In the evening I would go down again and feed them and collect eggs. Climbing that hill never got any easier, but I got stronger. The chickens did not get any less freakily aggressive, but I got braver. Life is fucking amazing, if you let it be.
Right now I am enjoying the hospitality of my friend Francesco in Palermo. We just looked at his work, which is documenting the plants and animals of the nature reserve that I lived in for the past few weeks.
Tonight, to London.

ps, my pits are sunburned, baby.

an essay

"you done good"
its official. you've paid you're 2o dollar membership fee to the good people of WWOOF, chosen a destination, and now you are waiting. Waiting, at an abandoned Sicilian train station, a sunny airport terminal, a gas station in North Cali. Your stomach is dizzy with anticipation. What will you new WWOOF host be like? Your mind races, but a complacent feeling of opptimism hypnotizes you. They arrive, usually in a dirty jeep or pick-up truck. Maybe they are sauve behind cat eye sunglasses, or borderline-psychotic with overactive facial features. They make you feel awesome, or they make you wish you were a karate master in a different time zone.
Sometimes it sucks a big one. You have to know that. Sometimes your sleeping bag gets peed on by an inbred, lice-ridden cat, with you in it. Sometimes your WWOOF host never acknowledges you. It happens that you have to make a daring escape, and it feels like the universe has disemboweled your naivete. Maybe you get cornered in a cabin by a shirtless farmer who just wants to give you a quick back rub before his wife gets home. Its creepy sometimes, and you're compelled to pack abruptly and climb over the back fence one fine Saturday morning. You know who you are and what's good for you, so you don't hesitate to go looking for it.
More often than not, you find it right off the bat. The perfect farm, a place to unwind and build calluses and breathe lots of clean air. Its sublime.
You stick your hands in the dirt and feel pure bliss. Baby tomato and basil plants make you feel like a mother or a magician. You put your back into it and your best face forward.
You get over your fear of chickens, the dark, huge insects and isolation. Maybe you start to get over yourself. You get sunburned, stoned, and sweaty. You get to use big tools with cool names. You watch the clouds drag their shadows over the contours of the valley and feel your heart as big as a watermelon inside you. You entertain fantasies of your eventual return home. Never again will you take for granted the luxuries of toilet paper, technology, running water, and the happy buzz of a busy life in the city. You write impassioned letters and experience hourly revelations.
Around the new people in your life you are shyer than usual. Social ineptness plagues you, and childhood recollections confirm your fear that yes, you ahve always been strange and unknowable. You get over it, and make friends wherever you can find them.
You play Texas hold-em on the porch when it rains with a 50-year old man as tan as a Cuban cigar. You escape the farm with a Hawaiian kid named Ezra and kayak in the ocean. You explore an underground pub in a seaside village in Sicily. You dance your ass off at drugged-out electronica parties.
Flying on mushrooms on one of said parties, dancing on stage with your leg brace, sweat and glitter, you are privy to the secretely emormous capacities of living each moment fully.
You form rock-solid friendships and get involved in the most convoluted seedy sex-things. You start/stop shaving your legs/ wearing underwear. It feels great!
Back at the ranch, you get word that a new WWOOFer is coming. Yipee! You dream of a wickedly devious co-conspirator, a new best friend, a fling. Somtimes its a sexy Canadian and you end up getting raspberry kefir slurped off your decolletage at a nude beach. Sometimes you just awkwardly take turns hitting the bong before going outside to work "in the hole" in silence.
If you are extraordinarily lucky you get a double whammy of North Carolina's finest, a couple of wise kids fresh from their cross country bike trip. Together you create the best improv slow jams known to man and the strongest ganja biscuits and of course your heart breaks a little when you go your separate ways.
Other times its a whole passel of surrogate sisters and the seven of you have hilarious hitch hiking adventures to and from the beach. "who could resist?" you say and giggle maniacally.
Oh, hitch hiking is mode of transportation du jour for the WWOOFer. Your thumb gains new respect and in a moment of unfathomable dorkiness you write a poem about it. It catches you rides on the backs of motorcycles and countless pick up trucks. Tourists pick you up for the novelty, locals pick you up out of good-natured habit, creeps pick you up cuz they can't help it. You learn that saying No to a sketchy ride produces a better rush than slamming a 40. You find that the least aggressive stance on the side of the road is a relaxed face, eyes focused on the yellow line down the middle, not making direct eye contact until they pull over.
You are given beers, pizza, a bitchin' dance mix, pears, joints, life stories, coconuts, chocolate, a Kahuna's blessing, adviece, incence, invitations to eat pastries, go swimming, and milk a cow, all for being foolhardy enough to ask for a ride. One time, at a truck stop in North Dakota, you are offered a live turkey.
You watch the sun set a couple hundred times, and you never get bored. Beyond the internal revolutions these experiences incite, you are making good ripples in the Big Bathtub. Don't that make you stand a little taller? You are helping an individual sustain their vision of organic farming, and you are manifesting the truth that We Can Trust One Another.
You feel like a scout, sent out to ascertain the truth that the world is a safe place. You are testing the waters bravely and finding that yes, it is safe to visit foreign places on next to no budget , leave your cell phone, and spend inordinate amounts of time alone, outside, or doing manual work. It'll make you honest yet.


www.wwoof.org

Things are lookin up. Thermal baths and circling hawks and new friends. love.

damp

when you're learning a new language, it crowds your mouth like peanut butter with no rice dream. your natural tongue lies there like a phone number you never call anymore.
another wwoofer is coming to this farm in a few days, and some french-polynesian tourists. Horray! the introspective-wallow can retreat to the back burner.
I discovered a huge cache of nutella in the kitchen. oh dear.
recent neat stuff, built a fire this morning to dry my one pair of pants over. also suceeded in only packing one pair of pants. hiked down the side of the mountain to put the chickens away and feed them, got caught in an icy hail storm. hung out in the chicken coop until it passed. can have 3 year old- level conversations with people on the streets of Calatafimi.
soon: will continue to collect the awesome pieces of old silician pottery that stick out of the mud. will stop having weird violent dreams. will attempt to translate the italian copy of Siddhartha that i found in the house. will not consume entire jar of nutella.
one of the dogs is in heat, and these two weird dogs showed up for a day. they were the saddest dogs to run free in beautiful Italia. they reminded me of lame girls who drink Smucker and date lame guys.
after my last post i walked home, got totally fucking lost, could see Villa del Bosco far away on a hill, it was this little speck in the distance. the sun started to go down and i ran back to town because it was getting dark. hitched a ride with the nicest man to wear a plaid fedora. slept like a baby. life is awesome.
grazie, shugE, Eric. Show me some pictures, yo. Babies and Pasties.
my gramma can swear at your gramma in Italian.

liscio biccelecletta

Sicily is under my feet and in my mouth and filling my ears. I woke up in an empty farm house speaking english in my dreams, after staying up trying to learn Italian. The patience of people rocks my world. My "often" is as convuluted as your "spesso".
Even the birds speak Italian, faster than American birds. Is it lonely? I found a copy of the backstreet boys' "show the meaning of being lonely" when i was trying to get the radio to play. ick. am reading "crying of lot 49"..succeeded in getting the jazz station. now the only english i hear is Louis Armstrong, and the rest is slow, giggly half-english, half-italian pantomimes of conversations. I will walk back to Villa de Bosco soon, along skinny streets- steep cobbled 10 ft wide streets between old apartment buildings with laundry hanging and old men walking slowly and kids smoking cigarettes. Sicily is trashy and classy. Ancient monuments and neon graffitti. (my favorite has been i (heart) hip hop). Beautiful sicilian men and women with bright bright make up. At night I am alone the only human for kilometers and kilometers (no miles here, kiddo). it is beyond tranquil. it is calmer than a vicodine enema. the thing i am facing is me. the only obstacle, as always between self and bliss, is self. is it cliche?
"where ever you go, there you are".
by the way, if you didn't know, your comments make me wriggle with joy. yup.