Lately, I’ve found myself engaged in some fascinating conversations with all kinds of people — from an old work colleague to a college classmate passing through town to a total stranger camped out on a makeshift charging altar at the local Taco Bell. Everyone I spoke with expressed some concern for the new world order, across a spectrum ranging from Que Será, Será to Hail Satan.
“Consciousness is just the universe experiencing itself,” said one friend during a marathon hang sesh involving a glorious walk along the lake, hours-long arepas, and attempted dancing on the ceiling. In a class with Carl Sagan, Alan Watts, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, my friend gets all the besos and bonus points for connecting the dots for me in such a beautiful way and on such a beautiful day.
I encourage you to discuss matters of the heart, asking questions of the universe and your/our source. Our time here is short (even shorter in the grand scheme of things). Maintain an openness to new experiences and you’ll find yourself connected to all the beauty, wonder, and yes, heartbreak too, that you are meant to feel, see, touch, hear, taste, and speak in this lifetime. None of it should be missed, even if the mind is just a hard drive.
-G.V
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Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
The more re-integrated into society I become, the more I question whether I’m doing the right thing. Recently, on two separate occasions, folks have commented on the possibility that I might suffer from adult ADHD. “Hey there, stoner,” one friend said. I don’t even smoke weed, but I am distracted. Trying to take care of the basic necessities while navigating the massive bullshittery that plagues the land and living a life of purpose can be quite an undertaking, even for the most focused mind. So I ask you all to cut me some slack, because it could be worse. I could be operating under the trance of total thoughtlessness or with evil intent (aka malice). You can probably count on two fingers the number of times I’ve acted out of spite. I’m not a vengeful person, but I admit that I’ve probably come off as inconsiderate or callous more times than I’d care to admit.
I vacillate between thinking that total thoughtlessness is worse (or better) than acting maliciously towards someone else. I’ve been the target of random and specific acts of evil, but more often than not you can grasp some sort of motive behind such acts. My kindness towards others often goes disregarded or overlooked (or worse yet, mistaken for gaslighting). I can be a total asshole, pouting my way through a situation that’s unfavorable, or I can disengage and let the cards fall as they may.
But thoughtlessness really chaps my hide. It challenges another person’s humanity, and while often short-lived and circumstantial, enough of these types of interactions over a period of time can leave you feeling like you don’t want to invest anything more in one-sided relationships. As I get older, I worry I’ve grown increasingly thoughtless myself. It’s something we should all keep aware of and try our hardest not to fall victim to the overwhelmingly blasé attitudes of our current era.
Do you ever actually think about what humans need to exist or rather, the essential elements that must be present for existence itself? It all began with light emanating from the darkness. In my case, it was the fridge light that enabled me to find the tin of cat food, which in turn helps my cat survive. It’s vision that allows us to see the light coming from some other place, outside of ourselves and separate from our own planet Earth. All of our beginnings can be traced back to some source. These basic realizations led me down a path of word association the other week, which uncovered a few fascinating things. Here’s my working Top 20 that I found to make up our existence:
1. Source
2. Light
3. Space
4. Matter
5. Sound
6. Vision
7. Heat
8. Power
9. Process
10. Curiosity
11. Knowledge
12. Language
13. Memory
14. Movement
15. Balance
16. Determination
17. Rigor
18. Love
19. Loss
20. Grief
Two other fun factoids: Time is a construct of human perception, and Gravity is a prison. More to come over the coming weeks.
A hodgepodge of the mundane and unremarkable, here are some everyday sights from the past couple of months:
Editor’s note: Welcome to Week Two of The Mother. I realize I spent a lot of time last week explaining my family tree. While some of its branches have stretched long and wild in the sunshine, others grew backwards — gnarled by drought, invasive species, or neglect. Most became firewood for fending off the loneliness of a cold, dark night. I labored over these obtuse family tree metaphors to put off telling you what my mother really meant to me. So here — some words on a complex woman who no one ever really knew.
“Go out there and get mad,” my mom told me as she threaded my head through the shoulder pads and onto my small, weak shoulders. She gave them an unconvincing two pats of confidence to reassure me that this was a good idea. This being Pop Warner football, which I played to get to know the kids at my new school.
“Why would I get mad at someone I don’t even know?” I asked. No answer was given that day, but years later I realized my mother was telling me not to keep things bottled up inside, which was her tendency. As Cancers, lack of communication was both my parents’ M.O., which led to my mother and I leaving my father three times during our 18 years together as a family, always returning the next morning having barely unpacked my bag at Miss Cindy’s house.
The coach approached my mother to give her a halftime report. “Your son is a very polite young man, but every time I ask him to go in, he says, ‘No thank you.’” My mother thanked him for letting her know and said she would address the matter. I never had to play football again. Instead, I played basketball, baseball, and golf.
That same year, I still struggled to assimilate to the small Texas farm town where we had relocated after the oil crash. My father became a long-haul truck driver, so we didn’t see him but one weekend out of the month. Luckily the paychecks arrived at a greater frequency than he did. My mother and I both needed a break from this fresh hell, so we ventured north to Arkansas to spend a week at my godfather’s gay estate. Yes, godfather’s gay estate. Somehow my mother and lesbian auntie thought a reprieve from the backwater elementary school would help. It only made me more gay and us more co-dependent.
The story goes that my mother couldn’t find me and started to panic. My godfather pointed her upstairs, saying “Old Queen Cole might be in the floral room.” I did rather enjoy arranging flowers (a whole room in the mansion was dedicated to just that) and hanging out with Max the Cockatoo and a Great Dane named Sarge. The other residents were a gay couple named Daddy and Jolene. Yes, Daddy and Jolene.
I eventually fit in at school, strategically befriending kids from all walks of life and from every power circle and eventually becoming an Eagle Scout and valedictorian. Kitten was ever the dutiful wife and mother and did everything she could to ensure my happiness and success. There was never a dish in the sink (because “things have homes”) and every need was met. My family was caring but not touchy feely. And sometimes the love felt contingent, but that was probably for my own good (because “everyone needs some motivation”).
My mother was a housekeeper, cleaning the homes of five local families on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. I worked as a drive-thru bank teller all through high school and managed my family’s finances. My dad quit jobs without having anything to fall back on — just my mother taking on second or third jobs. Yet every morning, breakfast was delivered on a TV tray; and every night, dinner was delivered on a TV tray. She’d quiz me on test material and said nothing when my dad cheated at Pinewood Derby (we won three years in a row). We did all the fad diets together (Susan Powter’s Stop the Insanity! diet, the grapefruit diet, the South Beach diet, anorexia), and binged on soap operas (her fave was As the World Turns, mine was Guiding Light) for a full two hours every weekday during my summer breaks.
My mother was my best friend, so when she died freshman year in a car accident, I was devastated. Yes, she loved me too much. But that’s better than not being loved enough (because I’ll never get her back). Motherhood for her was about sacrifice, almost to a fault. She denied herself so many things so that I could have a nice life. The guilt I feel whenever I fuck up or act selfishly is always a reminder of all that she gave and serves as a course correction in my life today. The guilt I felt when my parents stayed together but should’ve divorced or the opportunities that she missed out on has lessened over the years (because “we’re all adults and do the best we know how”).
We’ll share a final thought on mothers on May 14, this upcoming Mother’s Day.
Taking a break from publishing Dispatches this upcoming week to hunker down on the job search. I’d like to share my portfolio site, which I think is a pretty thing. If you know of any opportunities (remote, on-site, anywhere) or have any introductions you’d like to make, feel free.