Conversations Among the Ruins

I used to trip on five and

somewhere down the line

five turned to fifty, to one

hundred - into the triple

hundreds to five hundreds to

now the thousands. If

one

single

person reads this

I will write it the same.

I will always write it all

as honestly as possible. Do you

know what it's like to be so out

of yourself that you never consider your

future when you put a web domain

in your name, puking your emotional

guts out like clockwork - and to sit

at a job interview, praying as they

study you that they just don't type your

name in on the internet.

Considering, that could be a lot worse.

I know well that at some point I will

reach the point that I will not be able

to continue to write like this. As I

grow so do my boundaries. Some things

I re read make me want to slap myself.

Some comments

bring me to tears

because it just amazes me that

I have a voice. I wish you could see

the dozens of worn out, faded

notebooks I have in boxes

stacked - the times those structures

lead me to remember are like some

looking glass I keep in a jewelry box.

Too sharp, too vague, so far from right now -

same sun - same moon - bigger crystals.

With a big lock that I throw up the key to

daily, to this screen. I am grateful

for the time whomever you are spends

on here. I'm sure the reasons are pointed

and random and wholly your own -

but I thank you and I hope somehow you find

whatever it is we all seem to be trying to

find.

I'm working a six day
week of twelve
hour days.

I have three hundred
menu items to have
memorized for one job,

statements need to
be out for the other
job by tomorrow,

and a few hours of
homework for my
other job a night.

I leave the house at
eight thirty a.m.
and get home at
ten p.m.

For now I accept it.
I'm catching on
quickly, answering

things correctly, and
not taking being
the "new person"

too seriously.

Today I had to cut
a hundred dollar
lobster at a table.

They said "Everybody
is normally so afraid
at first."

I laughed tiredly
and heard myself
saying

"I've learned lately
to just get the
fear

over with."

About five of my
new co workers
and two of my

new bosses
stood behind me
as I butchered
that lobster,

laughing fluidly
with my guest
about how you never

seem to see
this part

on the deadliest
catch. And nobody
behind that line

ever saw what it
took
to just say

"fuck it"
to my fear
and do

what I
should. But I did.

I feel it in little
things like that.

It was a good day
today, where my
feet hurt and I'm

scrambling to
stay awake to

write out an entire
notebook page of
every item, it's
description,

abbreviation, garnish
and selling point.
Driven by

fear
that I will not
sound as smart

and capable
as get to know
today

that I am.

It's Wednesday which
means I get about

three hundred
spam comments
on my blog.

Thanks. I'm
not discussing it
here but

I'm not quite
following along
with the bullshit

as I seem to be
expected. I

see it in how
they watch me
quietly.

Not one single
person is ever
exempt

from anothers
behavior.
It just isn't
me

yet.
But I know
full well
soon it will be.

Anyway. The reason
I even said that
was because it

drains me. I
come home and
have to be

somewhere else
in a few hours.
Today
that place

was Rachel's
birthday.

My head was so loud
driving that I
got off on the wrong

road. Lost, but
on time. Story
of my life.

There were about
forty women
in that room, so

I kept it short,
and thanked her
for being

what I asked
of God one day.

Which was
for some way
to make my life here

work.

For quite a while
I was very afraid
to tell her about

how much I love
a man.

And her answer
to me was that
no matter what,

ever, in my life
happens,

she will never
reject or judge or
leave me.

People go
their entire
lives

not hearing
that. Let alone
believing it.

I said goodbye to
everybody, walked
through the parking lot

until it was quite. Got
into my car.

Out of gas, out of
cigarettes, no phone
battery. And I

was happy. That I had
artichokes to cook
for dinner,

and a place like this
with all of these women
to teach me how to

live. Some days
I can stop and
love my life

a lot more easily
than other days.

Last night I
slept very little and
cried slightly at my
desk. I ran out of

coffee and mailed
out checks. I fussed
over my feet and
my hair and a copy
machine.

But I did it
living. I hope that
you

can say
the same.

Because they say
that God is
in the
details. That the
Devil is in the
details.

But neither of
them
are cutting my

payroll.

Respect
your
outrage.

Take yourself
somewhere

nobody else
ever took you
before. That

reminds you
of nothing, and
creates thoughts

for yourself.
Wonder what
having buckets

of money would
be like to pass the
time in

traffic. Don't
take
the traffic
or the
fantasy of wealth
too seriously.

Be aware of your
choices as you sit
in a Taco Bell
drive thru. Don't

limit the choices
to pre selected
combinations as

advertised.
Remember to
remind yourself

why you love
where you're at
because someday, you
won't be

and the minor
details of what
brought you joy

in a place far from
where your at
will be
important.

React accordingly
to your own
acceptance.

Accept
the consequences
graciously.

Live it.
Instead of
dealing
with it.

Get as routine
about loving
your body

as you do
about applying
your
makeup.

Don't put
yourself in
situations

that cause you
to calmly
throw up.

l i s t e n intently.
Fall in love quickly and

walk to places
where you can
read a book alone.

Be mindful
of remembering
how you

got here.

Instead of
just
asking

why.

There is no love like my love for the desert.

I opened my eyes with my head on my office desk on Saturday morning and decided I needed to do something. Something ridiculous and inspiring. I needed some movement within all of the insanity. I had no idea what I was going to do, but it included leaving. Just getting the fuck out of Vegas.

I don't drink or do drugs any more but I needed something. Just some head fuck that didn't include the current state of affairs, that didn't involve chemicals. I woke up this morning in Phoenix. Took an old dog to Starbucks with some burners. As I put on makeup he says to me

"There are over millions of you within you. I could know you for this whole lifetime and never really know you. You flip. Stop putting that makeup on, don't need it, another flip."

I didn't plan to go there, I planned to go to Phoenix. But I saw the airport sign for Sky Harbor Airport and it was done. Abruptly I turn and say "I am going to Tucson. Right now. I"m going right now."

And I find myself, on the 10 East, watching the hook mountain, shaking. All one million of me. Nothing fakes sanity like deciding to go sit on the porch of the house where the man you thought you'd get old with rotted to death next to a burnt spoon. It's been seven and a half years and I've debated greatly ever returning to Tucson. Today turned out to be that day.

In 2008 I promised the pair of cowboy boots I bought that before I died they would hit that dust. That dust. Not playa, gravel. The gravel of change, death and total life abandon in the deepest aspects of the desert I continue to hide from. I told those boots that they would walk the rocks that surrounded that house. I didn't at the time possess the mind to understand what condition the person wearing them, myself, would be in.

I watch the hook mountain for a half hour. I've written on it and ON it dozens of times. I have never looked at it sober. I shift to another shape. Keep driving. Adjust my sunglasses. One hundred and five miles per hour. The sun is blinding, the mountain dwarfs all one million of me.

When I hit Speedway I almost throw up. Turn up the volume always the volume/ higher. Lo meets me at Coffee Xchange. I used to work there. Robb would walk in and put his head on the chin height counter. The place is exactly the same. I order a coffee, catching the eye of an old man that used to sit there every day when I was working there. He does a double take and goes back to his paper.

"The Artisan" we always called him. I want yank the paper from his face and tell him I'm an artist now. I sit down and watch the girl behind the counter. The volume of my head is a blown million dollar system, and suddenly, I take a deep breath, and I'm simply in a place I was at a different point of my life within a different life.

My stunningly gorgeous friend shows up and saves me from myself, hands me her phone and lets me chat with her mom for a while. The past is mute, the present is now. I keep the wave of the paragraph before this one.

Lo was an art major at UofA. Our original bond in life was when she read my first novel while she was still in Tucson.

When we get to the house I simply stare at it, Flash Brothers on the ipod. I can't move. I can't make a fist. I can't cry. I just watch it, pointing. "We lived in that one. Phoenix lived right there, he had a cactus garden. We did laundry over there, parked the car there. There used to be a living room set on the roof. I used to move the ladder so they'd get stuck up there when they were -"

I stop talking and get out of the car instead, walking slowly up to all of the rocks.

"Should we go up to the door?"

I watch her.

"And say what? Hi I lived here once and everybody else is dead? No way. If the landlord answers he would probably put a cap in my head."

I simply stand in the middle of the four house enclosure. I am not sad I am one million, and it dawns on me, I didn't come back here to check out, I came back here to remind myself just how far I have come. I am not standing in this enclosure to remember Robb and Luke, I am standing here to remember me. Where I come from and what I am capable of overcoming.

"He took his last breath here." I keep thinking to myself, and the shape shifts again and "You took your last breath here, Heather."

Because we all
died.
I was just the one that did it standing. Standing, solid, in front of this fucking house. I see it, everything that happened in all of these rocks. I watch Luke Robb and I, Phoenix, Mariposa, Roy, the cars, the clothes, the bags of shit from goodwill, the chalk drawings, and even the double rainbow, because it's fucking raining in Tucson like the last day I saw this sky seven years ago. I watch at Godspeed Luke walking out on me in the sunset. I hear the mustang running over the rocks too fast and the Jimmy Eat World CD I was obsessed with at the time, and I take a deep breath and make a decision for it to stop.

Because I am standing here, a solid shifting shape of stability.

Lauren says nothing. It is as if she is waiting for me to breathe. I stare at my boots, kick the dust up. The gravel rocks of change, death and total life abandon in the deepest aspects of the desert I am way too evolved to continue to hide from.

"Lets get the fuck out of here. I officially never have to do this again. I thought I could come back here an cry about this, but I don't even have tears for it. Looking at this makes me proud of myself. Proud of what I got the fuck out of, and alive."

Walking back to the car I press the rocks under my feet as hard as I can, so they feel every choice of which I have made in my life that has equaled out to standing in this place, solid, for the first time in my life. We cruise by the park on 4th to see if Chicago is there teaching a bible study. He was one of my only friends, the ring leader of the homeless kids. No sign of him.

Lauren takes me to U of A. We walk art galleries and all of the art buildings her classes were in. I had never seen this part of the campus and it's gorgeous. She tells me her memories of breakfast burrito stands, chairs she'd sleep in in the courtyard to get her tan, the teachers she loved. We stare at art and photography and I'm alive at one million. Every piece of art inspires me.

We walk quickly past girls in sweat pants.

"That's the 711 that didn't hire me because I failed a math quiz to even get an application." I laugh. "Really?" She stares at me. "Really."

"Do you realize that we are adults? Don't you feel old on this campus a little? Like together, dressed, and how fast we walk? Like, we are "old" to those girls. We look like adults with our lives together."

"Well we are." Is all she says.

I stare at the giant concrete "University of Arizona" sign, catching my reflection in the glass behind it.

"Tucson is the exact same place it was, and I am privileged and amazed at the parallel difference. I will always love it here, because the love is for myself. The millions of me and the millions of you, right here, in this moment."

We hug goodbye. A house across the street from where Robb Luke and I lived had been evicted. They were artists and all of the pieces were of eyes and crosses. We dug through the mess for a while, until I found an eye with "Death Life Angel" scrawled over it and

for everything I lost in this trippy desert down, I sure as hell it got it all back. One million fold.

Fuck the details.

HL

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