September 28th, 2013 The Highlands, Grand Tetons National Park

It's raining so hard right now. I'm sitting in a familiar place trying to re-cap, make sense…put myself in the proper present. I'm awake alone, drinking shitty beer. I'm in the Grand Tetons, in park service housing, a quaint little cabin at the foot of the Grand Teton mountain range. I finally have the time to sit and think and to be honest I want to crawl into my mummy sleeping bag…read my Oliver Sacks book, drift into another land of neuroscience and someone else's observations and research. But I can't. Rarely do I have time to be alone. Rarely can i just sit and listen to my own wandering thoughts. I've been, for the majority of my life, wandering, listening and wholly at the whim of others, their lives, their ideas, their plight, their whimsy. In a sense I am a parasite. I only get to be here in the Tetons because my friend is employed here. And so, I get to experience this time.

  Being able to have this time alone is a godsend. In the past month I have traveled vigorously…visiting friends in their lives, in their situations. what I have learned is that they do not sleep. At least when I am there. I have devoured the lives of many folks in a month, in my lifetime. I have tried unsuccessfully to document all of those people. To understand them properly, to tell their story though my journals and through photographs. I have realized at the age of 33 that this is not only maddening, but utterly impossible unless I discipline myself better or become addicted to amphetamines. Early in my life I realized I had a gift (or a curse) to relate to people to the point that they wanted to share everything with me. And I could understand them, each one of them, where they were coming from, what they wanted, what they were capable of and where they fell short. I was good at listening and providing an answer (sometimes harshly). I am not meaning to sound egotistical. Any of you who have spent time with me when I've been doing fairly ok, has had the time with me…the time where we sit and talk and I fill you so full of fire that you feel inspired.
  After so many years of listening to other people's hopes and dreams and failures and achievements I became exhausted. And I realized after my own life was pulled out from under me not long ago that I had been listening to others for so long that I had no idea how to take care of myself and had no idea what I myself truly wanted. I had it and I took it for granted in a sense. Fuck these mountains for making me think so much and making me realize so much. My body is so tired. I've been saying that I'm tired for a long time now. I don't know how to stop or to relax or just BE HERE NOW. I'm trying in this quiet moment and even now…my brain, will not let me be. Memories and ideas and thoughts and feelings are at an all time battle, clashing and exploding in my brain. The thrashing rain is not helping and I have to remind myself to SHUT UP and breathe. Perhaps this is why I listen to everyone else, not because I have a gift but because I am scared. So scared of my own wants and desires and aches and pains. Scared of what it is I think of. Perhaps listening to others is like watching television…a distraction from everything I am so scared of.
  Let's just get back to basics because that is easy. Experiences. Descriptions are always the best place to start. I can start with now and perhaps work backwards. The things in my head that I have to write down are so numerous and so full that the thought of doing that much work is harrowing. I need a month or so…but I do not have that. I have this moment, this hour or so. And we'll see how this unfolds. Let's work into this like hypnosis.
  I'm in a cabin. A tiny cabin in the Tetons. It is raining outside. The wind is blowing violently through the trees which are yellow and turning. It's autumn but feels more like the onset of winter. I woke up to snow two days ago that came down delicately. Now, nothing feels gentle. It is early. 9:30 pm. The elk are in their rut and even though it is raining I can faintly hear their alien bugeling. Bucks give out a throaty mighty screeching sound to call out to female elk all hours of the night. They are full of hormones and in serious need to reproduce and sound as such. It's a beautiful sound (at least to me) but it sounds almost desperate at the same time. It echoes all across the valley and it's primal and almost haunting. On a cold crisp autumn night it feels as though it moving through you. Now, it is muffled in the rain. Amongst the rain and the bugeling I can hear the slow hum of the refrigerator and I am reminded that I am in fact in a civilized dwelling with amenities. I may be in the middle of nowhere in one of the most beautiful preserved natural places in the country, but there is a stove, electricity, two toilets, a shower and the most comfortable bed I have slept in in a very long time. Elk may be trying to spread their seed outside and I'm sure it's snowing uncontrollably on top of the mountains, but I am warm and comfortable in this tiny little cabin built so well it withstands some of the harshest weather winter over winter. In a sense, I feel like this little cabin. Weathered and lived in and left when the seasons change.
    I've been carrying heartbreak and betrayal around like a heavy suit and over my travels the past few months that suit is finally worn down to rags, almost exposing the simple body I've been roaming around in my entire life. My body looks different and unfamiliar. I stretch my face in the tiny mirror in this little hovel and look for traces of my past, maybe wanting to hold onto the pain for a point of reference…trying to remember laying next to someone I knew I loved (for the first time in my life). Maybe I want to look into the  dead headlights of my eyes to search for a glimmer of the hope I used to posses, the undying pure love for every being that came into my existence. Maybe I want to see the toned muscle of arms that hugged anyone that needed it or didn't. I want to see the teeth behind the smile that came easily. I want to see the laugh lines around my loud and unnecessary mouth…the lines that were deepened by so much easy bellowing out. I don't see any of that. I see a face and a body that I don't know. A new structure. An older place. It doesn't look bad, just different and unfamiliar. I suppose I was scared before, even when I shared my life with someone I could not see the end with. I began to not recognize my face in his mirror. And I suppose I cannot hate him for setting me free and having to face that difference. In a very human moment of thinking I had found true love I guess i was hoping to have help to recognize a new face. Instead I put on garment after garment of pain. And I covered myself so I wouldn't have to face myself. And now I am in rags…almost naked.
  It's not as scary as I thought it would be. My body, my face, my reality, is so very removed from what I have known, but it is real nonetheless. And it is mine to carry all alone. I have no one to answer to. No one to succeed for. No one to provide for. No one but myself…perhaps these hours I am able to have alone will span on longer…perhaps they will stretch out for days or months. And perhaps in that time I can learn to take care of my unfamiliar self until it becomes familiar to me. And maybe I'll be able to understand what it is I want instead of being scared to the point that I don't even try to think about it let alone manifest it.
  It's stopped raining. The wind outside is gentle. I'm sitting outside on the wet wooden porch.

 The yellow glow of other folks lives are lit up in their tiny cabins along the way. It's cold and nice and I can hear that bugeling every so often. Those elk are screaming for everything they want and need. I'm jealous. I wish I could just yell at the mountains in my new found vulnerability. I wish I could shout out for every desire and hope I have within…and hear it echo all across this pure place…and see it find me in the morning the same way I see those bucks frolicking with their cows as the sun is coming up. I suppose I'll settle for the rushing of the river next to me…I'll keep moving along like those currents,  hoping to pick up what I'm supposed to find along the way. I'll keep gathering. I'll become bigger and better than I was before. I won't have to yell and scream to get what I want. The general enertia of keeping on will make it more apparent. And then I can give back again. Symbiosis.

this happened 10 years ago.

3 Prophets

Part 1

  I woke up one morning a couple of weeks ago-the sun was so warm on my body. My room at Nate's parents' house didn't feel so cold. I got myself together and for the life of me couldn't rush myself. I was enjoying that time to myself. The big house all mine, every little creak in the floorboards all for me…The sound of the furnace clicking on to warm the big cold emptiness. I stepped out the door into the light. It felt like it was shining just for me. It was the first sunny day in a long time. I had my polaroid camera in my hand, where it belongs. something made me stop and photograph the roses standing in our yard. The sun was shining through the petals, exposing all of the veins, and even in the frigid morning they stood tall, needing attention. The blue sky surrounded them in my photograph. 

   I walked down Foulkrod St paying attention to too much. The leaves were falling on my favorite little tree. People walked by and nodded to me, their hot breath coming out in smoke signals in the winter air. The house where the folks live (who collect trash the night before trash day and then re-sell it at flea markets or porch sales) had cats and kittens all nestled together to stay warm in the chilly day. I see those cats every single day. Almost always I feel bad for them, I worry about them. Today, this day, I seemed to understand, and it didn't pain my heart. I took Penn St instead of Foulkrod to Margaret. As I walked down Penn looking at new things-different houses, the obvious class change, the social structure change-the light itself seemed to change. It looked almost brighter. I nodded my head and gave a silent "thanks" to a god I swear I don't believe in. Everything in all of it's trash looked absolutely breath taking.

   I walked down Arrott St. Three young black kids were chasing each other around the rotten porch of a house. One girl who couldn't be older than ten years old sat on the bannister looking out into the world. She looked elegant, pained and beyond her years. Seeing her created a little space in my chest. I wished her comfort and looked at the boys playing and my hollow(ness) was replaced with a happiness for innocence. I stopped at Arrot St Terminal even though I was very late. I pulled out my cigarettes even though I didn't want to smoke. The sun was playing games on all of these peoples faces at the terminal and it illuminated a hispanic man as I asked him for a lighter. Blue collar man in well worn work clothes. His bus came as he was reaching for his lighter and he handed me his cigarette and rushed past to hop on the 59 bus. Immediately the old woman who was standing behind him said to me "Hey, do you want that cigarette?". And I did not want a soggy half-smoked newport. She said"Why don't you ask one of those fellers over they want it?' She pointed at two down trodden men dressed in rags, looking flushed with alcohol, looking tired from living hard and with no recognition of the life happening around them. I politely told her I was too shy, so she took the limp cigarette from my hand and asked them if they wanted it. They looked up and one of them became alive and animated instantly. He smiled wide and said "Lady, I've been trying to bum one of these for three hours…thank you so much!" She made his day, or his moment, or whatever. Her simple thoughtfulness made me remark on it. I told her she was kind for thinking of them. The sun was on her fully. She looked almost angelic. Her head was wrapped in an ancient scarf riddled with holes. It was dirty. Her coat was ragged. She was layered in clothes that were beyond repair. Her face and hands were wrinkled beyond her age. Lines ran deep like rivers down her cheeks and around her gleaming eyes. She gave me a big smile from behind her withered lips. I saw gaping holes where her teeth once were. For the first time I noticed a big, jagged scab on her nose. She was so pure. Something shined from within her. 

  We started conversing. Her voice was burly, deep and scraggly. She had a thick Kensington accent and I loved it. She kept talking smiling and laughing. I told her she was beautiful because it was bursting out of me. She just said "Yeah, 'cept this cut on my nose." I asked her about it and she explained that she was walking on Kensington Avenue beneath the El tracks late at night. The Street light above her was out and she could;t see very well. In the darkness she stumbled and fell face first to the ground, scraping her nose. She said "You know what the funny thing wasThe light went on as soon as soon as I fell." The she burst out with a big "HA!" She told me "you just have to laugh. There's too much in life to make you cry, so sometimes you just have to laugh." The she crinkled up her face and said "Hon do you want to hear a joke? It's corny but clean, like my life" I replied that of course I'd like to hear a joke. This 86 year old woman proceeded to tell me a silly ass joke about cockroaches of all things. It only made the Kensington come out all the more. It made me laugh hard. I told her a pirate joke and the laughter that bellowed out of her filled me up. It made me feel whole, made the day of work ahead of me a concept that didn't seem so bad. We stood and talked for a couple of minutes, those hazel eyes gleaming at me the entire time. She touched me, touched my arm and said "remember to always smile. Don't let life get you down. There's more out there to make you sad than happy…but you gotta laugh". This would be the first message of the day. When she touched me with her withered hand a warmth spread right through me. Her bus came then. She told me her name, Marion. She smiled that big decaying black smile and wished me well. I floated up the steps to the El. I felt like that God I didn't believe in was on my side. I couldn't stop smiling. I was in my own happy little world. Everything looked wonderful and my neighborhood was my neighborhood. 

Part 2

  I stood up there on the el platform at margaret and orthodox happy as could be, watching the sunlight move across the tracks, feeling possibility, feeling endlessness, just a calm warmth. Folks walked by, I watched them, their faces and differences. A woman saw me watching and immediately approached me. She was slightly heavy, fairly unkempt. Her long, dark brown hair was stringy and dotted with large dandruff flakes. Her brown eyes dances with a hint of mischievousness and curiosity. I watched her work the words out of her mouth before she spoke them. Her round cheeks pushing them out at me. "Hey, you goin to school huh?" I said "Naw, got work." She replied "Must suck. you like it though?" I said "Nope. Don't like it, but it's ok. I'm lucky to have work when the economy is so rough. " She said "yeah" but dragged it out. Something was off about her but I could tell she just wanted to talk. She moved about shyly but kept her eyes on me at all times. Her mouth was fun to watch, she half smiled as she talked. She looked lonely and tortured but smiled nonetheless. She asked me "Aren't you 'fraid to talk to me? You don't even know me." I said "nope. Your eyes tell me you're a good person. You don't mean any harm. You're just curious aren't you? Why do you talk to strangers?" She took a moment, looked at me with such full brown eyes and whispered like she'd get caught "so I don't have to listen to myself. It keeps my brain busy." I wanted to fill her with my warmth and honesty. I wanted to love her, touch her face. Here she was so honest and curious, so innocent, just in need of some validation. Doesn't anyone give it to her? Have they ever? She was not afraid to talk to me but she was socially awkward and she was extremely observant. something was strange about the entire interaction.

    The train came. I sat facing her. Things started moving fast, spinning almost. She barraged me with question after question. She asked me questions most people don't ask. "What do you like to do more than anything else? Are you scared when you wake up in the morning? Do you love your family? Do they love you?" She told me about her life. 37 years old, lives with her dying parents in the attic of her childhood home. She nearly whispered to me, looked like a scared child, but still smiled after each painful sentence. I couldn't help but love her. The questioning began again and just kept going. Her questions fierce an strange. I started getting goosebumps. The questions were getting serious. The train moved over North Philly at the pace of her endless inquiries. And she listened to my answers and I answered honestly, honestly to questions strangers shouldn't ask. They kept coming, her face becoming brighter, her eyes stronger. She knew me. She had me, and she wasn't who she was.  She asked me questions no one would know to ask but myself. They were in fact of the things I had been questioning of myself over the past month. It scared me. I looked in her face and questioned her with my eyes. I looked for answers in hers. Something extraordinary was happening. I don't know if I could ever explain it. The goosebumps spread all over me. 

    I asked her what made her warm? What does she love? Does she realize how special she is? Does she know how smart and observant and necessary she is? I told her that her bright eyes were lovely and warm and that she was setting me on fire with her words. She grabbed my arm, looked into my face and with all of the seriousness in the world said to me "You question yourself too much. Question the world. You look for answers every day. I want you to know that there are no magic answers to any of your questions." A hotness spread over me. I was dumbfounded. She took away her hand and I immediately felt cold. I looked up and all I could do was to ask her name. She simply answered in her shy nervous little kid way "Rose".  I looked down at the polaroid in my hand and something inside of me made me silently place it in her hand. After a moment I said "I think I took this for you when I left my house." She asked my my name and asked me if i knew of Saint Theresa, I said "of course, my grandmother is quite fond of that particular saint. She told me I had given her "the rose". She felt that God had blessed her with my presence and our interaction. She explained that "the rose" was Saint Theresa's sign that her prayers were to be answered. I remarked that she was in fact my own "rose". My own sign of Saint Theresa. She smiled. Her stop at 8th Street came. She stood, smiled at me at my eyes. She told me to remember what she said. She told me to have a good day. She said "Wish me luck finding nice plates at KMart." Her otherworldly powers shutting off. She embraced me and left. 

    I just sat there in a daze, trying to make sense of what had just taken place. Maybe god was making it hard for m not to believe. I got off of the train at 15th Street, that big giant clothespin above my head. Everything was bright and intense. I felt like i was dreaming and couldn't shake it for a moment. I had two very intense meetings in only 45 minutes. I shook it off and thought it a strange coincidence. Philadelphia is an intense place. With intense people. I just kept telling myself that as I walked up the steps, looked at Billy Penn and prepared to shoot a polaroid. 

Part 3

   When I looked up at City Hall an overweight Asian boy with a big horseshoe shaped scar on is head was looking at me and my camera. He was wearing shorts and a tee shirt. He was riding a scooter from the eighties. One of those scooters that is primarily an old skateboard deck with a metal upright handle. He rode it clumsily. He spoke too loudly at me. He said "Hey! Hey lady! Miss! You got a quarter?" I handed him two shiny dollar coins. He looked amazed, like I'd made a mistake. He said "Hey! Hey! This is two dollars!" I just said "yeah I know. It's all yours". He laughed a little too loud and very much like a child. He exclaimed "Yay! I got two dollars! YES!!!" I smiled at him. He smiled back. I opened up the polaroid to shoot the top of city hall. He saw me taking a photograph and said "Hey! Hey! Take my picture. Take my picture!" He was full of energy, excited. He seemed slightly retarded or mentally ill. His face was chubby. He looked like a bright shining buddha. He never stopped smiling. He looked like he knew something I didn't. Like he was in on a joke I'd never be able to figure out. I played along. I asked him where he wanted to be photographed. He moved to his spot of choice, in front of City Hall. 

  I framed the photograph and snapped. He let out a squeal of delight as the polaroid popped out. He dropped his scooter and ran to me, stood close to me. We watched the image appearing slowly. He giggled and blew on the photo. As he bent down close to me I noticed for the first time the social security tags hanging around his neck. The tags issued to someone with a disability or medical condition. Made sense. We shared space for a moment. He said "Wait till you see what I did!" and put his hand over his mouth and laughed with so much mischief. He then pointed to my back pocket and said "Hey, what's that?" I turned around to see what he was pointing at, finding nothing and looking again like a dog chasing it's own tail. I couldn't find what he was trying to show me and asked him what he was talking about. He laughed hard, amusing himself. He said "Ha!! Nothing! Got you! Got You!" I laughed. He composed himself, calmed down as much as he could and pointed at my chest asking me "What's that? No I'm serious this time, really. Promise." I said with my best fake curiosity "What? what is it?" I looked up and down and he poked my face with playful fingers screeching "Ha! Ha! Nothin!!! Gotcha twice" Then he snatched the polaroid from my hand and said "Ya gotta see this! You Hafta!" I looked down and laughed hard at what I saw. In the image he stood, smiling so big. He was giving me the finger. He laughed with me and said "Ha! Gotcha three times. That's three!" Then he put his big paw on my shoulder and said "You shouldn't be so EASY!" He just kept laughing And I laughed with him. I was having the time of my life. I asked him if he was cold in only shorts and a tee shirt. He stopped, stood tall, looked into the distance and said with all of the dramatics he old muster "I was born on a cold winter's day." It made me laugh. I asked him if he liked the cold. He just said "I like the cold, I like the hot." I questioned "So you like everything then?" He looked at me proudly and replied "There's nothing wrong with liking everything. It's better that way." I silently agreed with him. I smiled at him and asked him his name. He told me "My name's Alannnn, What's yours?" and shook my hand. I replied "kim". He jumped up and down, laughing hysterically. He yelled so loud "Ha Ha! KIMPOSSIBLE. Kimpossible. You make everything IMPOSSIBLE!" I laughed and felt strange because it fit me perfectly. How would he know? He stoked, looked at me directly in the face for the first time and said "Kimpossible, it;s time for you to go to work." Then he stood and put both of his arms out, pointing in opposite directions. I stood, puzzled, wondering what he was doing and asked him as much. He said simply "Whatever direction you choose will be the right way. You'll find your way, so keep going.Just go. " 

  I didn't know what to say. This was the third message I seemed to have been given in such a short period of time. I thanked him and started walking. I was confused and overwhelmed. Almost tired from the interactions I had had on my commute to work. He was the final prophet. I wanted to shake it off, blame myself for over sensationalizing the chance meetings I'd had with these three intense strangers. Something inside wouldn't let me. All of them had questioned me and gave me answers and some sort of advice that I couldn't throw by the wayside. I felt blessed almost or I suppose, how people describe being blessed. I thanked the nonexistent God one more time. I took in all that had happened and tried to digest it, feeling warm and pure. I walked the sun soaked bustling downtown streets to work, almost forty five minutes late and smiled at every single person I passed.