i will follow the sun.
take me under,
blind me.
without cover,
you will find me.
burnt,
blistered,
baked,
in a blanket of heat.
my only relief will be
the sea.
and still
i find you there.
so i dive deep,
to follow the sun.
san jose :: santa cruz :: san francisco :: humboldt/burnt ranch :: sonoma
i'm off.
solo mish.
nor-cal awaits.
hope to regain
some much needed
peace,
perspective,
passion.
from great traveler/writer/poet/maniac jack kerouac, while he was on the road:
"what is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. but we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."
"there was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars."
"the best teacher is experience and not through someone's distorted point of view."
anyway you slice it, travel remains a wander-ful, lust-ful necessity.
i'll be heading out on a 10-day nor-cal road trip in a couple days #solomissions. i hope to get motivated to go even further. to all the homies floating around our humble planet, just keep swimming. to those stuck in limbo, let this move you.
the further you go, the closer you get to understanding humanity and yourself. . .all the while growing creative inspiration.
My cursor has been blinking for four months now. A quarter-inch black line on a pale screen, haunting me. "WRITE SOMETHING," it silently screamed. And I, like so many uninspired souls, found it all to easy to ignore. I'd like to say it was something profound, breathtaking, or life shattering that finally got me writing again. But it was fear.
Today I started thinking about a world full of people lacking inspiration, and the danger that would ensue. I reflected on the last four months of my life and all I could come up with was...Pilates. Pilates? After four months, the most profound thing in my life I could muster was a mat exercise?! Sure my core was getting stronger, but what about my core. When I lack inspiration my slate is blank, my spirit empty, and all I am is matter moving aimlessly through what I dare to call life.
Can you imagine a society of souls, barely afloat, with no purpose, no energy? In today's world of sustainable living, creative inspiration is one energy source we can't afford to overlook. The minds of artists and innovators are boundless spheres of ideas and creations, but to cap one's potential is to put a limit on what humanity can achieve. To fall victim to life's mundane tasks only to forget the unique human ability to see the artistic beauty in everything around us, is to overlook one of life's greatest blessings.
For months now I've wrongfully blamed my surroundings for being so uninspiring. By definition artists are creators, and are responsible for manifesting their own inspiration. Because without it, they seize to exist.
So for the sake of meaningful existence, take a lesson from my momentary lapse in motivation. Above all else don't just seek inspiration, BE inspired.
And if your "cursor" remains at a stand still, spend some time with like minded artists. I promise you, creativity is contagious. So while I while I muster the inspiration to pull new poem out of my pocket, in the mean time...
Now that the holidays are here and we're getting close to the end of the year, I've been thinking about all the things I am so grateful I experienced in 2010. This year I was fortunate to knock two big U.S. cities off my "must visit" list...only to add both New York and Chicago to my newly created "must visit again" list. Here are a couple rhymes I wrote prior to arrival, with only hearsay and heart desires telling me what I'd find. Needless to say the "Big Apple" and the "Windy City" surpassed any and all expectations.
Sense and the City
I hear beatbox
and hip hop
on the corner of a Queensbridge sidewalk.
I see building tops
climb nonstop
then hit the clouds and make rain drop.
I smell a Chinese wok,
a pizza box,
a deli with fresh shmear and lox.
Though I've just walked
my first day of blocks,
I taste my tongue's new city talk.
Let the Great World Spin
All I've ever heard
was the wind.
But I took my chances
that maybe it would blow
the blues my way.
A gust of BB King
would waft over me,
settling my hair
in that perfect,
unkempt way I like it.
I'd tap my toes
to the soul
that only the soul knows,
and just one lick
would make my hunger grow.
I'd swallow in all the angst
and art and struggle
and love.
And I'd still have room
for the soft city lights
painted on the lake
with a hot dog on the side.
Growing up surrounded by Hawaiian waters, you understand the skill possessed by those who master the art of riding waves. To become one with something as shifting and temperamental as the ocean, however, lifts you above athleticism into a soulful status.
The sudden passing of surfing icon Andy Irons left many shocked and saddened. And it left me also speechless. How could someone who so perfectly subdued the sea, be himself conquered?
With nothing in my creative core to offer such a paragon of surfing--and legend of Hawai`i--I instead decided to dedicate a verse from Pablo Neruda, a poet who harnessed the ocean, even if with only his words. An ocean-minded friend of mine shared this poem with me years ago, and today I pass it on to all who find as much meaning in the sea as Andy did.
I need the sea because it teaches me.
I don't know if I learn music or awareness,
if it is a single wave or it's vast existence,
or only it's harsh voice or it's shining
suggestion of fish and ships.
The fact is that until I fall asleep,
in some magnetic way I move
in the university of the waves.
-Pablo Neruda
May you rest in the eternal lull of the sea.. (07.24.78-11.2.10)
