Where I have been is not where I am from Part I

Where I have been is not where I am from Part I

By R.M.Oliver

I suppose I am up so late because I decided to drink this evening.  I’ve had a bad sinus infection for the last two weeks, have missed too much work-although in this epoch I could do everything required of me at my day job from home-and have plunged into a thick fog of depression.  The strong cough syrup the doctor provided-can you say hydrocodone-along with the familiar fog leads to the easy solution.  But recovery is only an ancillary part of this piece.  This is about where I have been and where I am from, and they will never be the same.

In April I’ll have been back in Dallas for a year.  That’s too long.  No, not just for Dallas, for anywhere.  My natural disposition is wanderlust and right around three quarters of a year of living somewhere and I’m ready to pack what I can carry, toss what I can’t, and hit the road.  Where too next?

Here’s a quick rundown of the places I have lived since I graduated from high school in 1995.  I lived in DeSoto Texas at the time, a suburb on the south side of Dallas.  I start the clock from the day Dad tossed me out of the house.

Glenhaven-Plainview Arkansas 7mo	1995
Ft. Leonard Wood Missouri 2mo	1996
Ft. Sam Houston Texas 3mo	1996
Ft. Leonard Wood Missouri  7mo	1996-1997
Dallas Texas 3 years (36 months)	1997-1999 (From Jan 97 to December 99) The first bit and the middle bit and the last bit were living with the folks again.
America’s Keswick-Whitting New Jersey- 7mo	1999-2000 (New Year’s Eve 1999 to late July or Early Aug. 2000)
Glenhaven-Plainview Arkansas  3years  5 months (41 months)	2000-2003 (July/Aug 2000 to December 2003)
Russellville Arkansas  5mo	2003 (week after New Year’s to May)
Mexico-(yes that’s Old Mexico the cities of Puebla and Cholula) 2 years (24 months)	2004 to 2006 (from late May 04 to early May 06) This was back again with Mom and Dad.  Interestingly enough it is expected for single adult children to live at home in Mexico.
Dallas Texas- 2 years 7 months (31 months)	2006 to 2008 (from early May 04 to late December 2008)
Glenhaven-Plainview Arkansas 1 year 8 months (20 months)	2008 to 2010 (from late Dec 08 to August 2010)
The Christian Home-El Paso-Texas-9 months	2010 to 2011 (from mid Aug 2010 to Mid April 2011)
Dallas Texas-to date 9 months	2011 to 2012 (I arrived here on April 14th 2011 and am putting this together on Jan 4th 2012)

TOTALS

201 months since leaving my parent’s home as a high school graduate.  This is exactly 16 years and 9 months.

5 years, seven months and a week or two total at Glenhaven Youth Ranch

6 years, four months in Dallas

2 years in Mexico

3 years, four months in limbo or perhaps a better way to express it would be in transit, the time in the Military was a mistake-for me it was a mistake for many young men it is precisely what they need.

That formula comes out to 207 months which is exactly 17 years and 3 months.

That’s a six month difference which I’m sure would be accounted for via inexact figuring of the months I left or the months I arrived in various locations.

With some help from my parents I’ll do some figures for the rest of my life.

I’m pretty sure Dallas beats them all out for the most time as a resident which is kind of depressing because I am somewhat ambivalent about this area.  Some days it is a cool city full of cool city beats and a hip city vibe.  Some days it is exactly those beats and that vibe that crushes me and makes me long for endless miles of dirt road, a couple of joints, and either a six pack of High Life or a fifth of Evan Williams.  Add to that a shot gun, a snub nosed .38, and a .22 magnum and say goodbye to pests who feed on garbage and leave what they can’t eat strewn across lawns.

But one thing is clear to me.  I love to travel.  If I could get a gig traveling.  That’s the real dream, that’s the real goal.  Oh sure I’d have a base of operations, most likely somewhere within a quick strike of those dirt roads-the absence of the joints and booze notwithstanding.

And what would I do with that time?  Well just soak it all up of course.  Just check out the tucked away places, the dark corners, and the bright avenues, and all the teeming mass of people.  Just check it all out.

So where to next…

I think I’ll start again in Arkansas.

From there maybe I’ll strike out across country.  Visit LA and San Francisco, maybe stopover in Arizona and see how my buddy there is doing.  Hopefully he’s got his ranch back.  I’d probably go visit the aunts and uncles and cousins on the west coast whom I have not seen in dog’s year.  Then I’d do the same for the Midwestern relations on my mom’s side.  I’d most assuredly go visit my Dad’s oldest sister Nancy in Pennsylvania.  That’s some one hell of a big dose of culture shock for them I am sure.  My aunt Nancy and Uncle Gordon lived most of their married life in Castro Valley-just east from San Francisco across the bay and south of Oakland.  I think it’s been something like 5 years since they left the big western city and followed their oldest daughters family to rural Pennsylvania.  I’m not sure what town they live in but it is near Hershey.  My Uncle Gordon grew up in Watts where being a six foot white boy made him a minority.

And amidst those hello’s, and I’m doing wells, and how you’s to my parents brothers and sisters I suppose I might as well go ahead and track down the others as well.  What others?  You know the others I’m talking about.  The one’s you didn’t meet or only meet briefly at family reunions.  I suppose that’s not quite right.  I gather there are people my age who have spent their whole life in the one place their parents spent their whole life, and their parent’s parents spent their whole life, and their parents’ parents spent their whole life, and their parent’s parents’ parents homesteaded the place and a dime gets you a dollar folks like that are fairly closely connected to that larger family.  Hell they probably live a mile away from their grandmother’s brother from his great grandfather’s second marriage to that widow woman from Upstate New York.

But where to next?  Well I suppose in between all these howdoyoudo’s and so your’re Roger and Marcy’s son, I’d like to visit some bigger cities.  I mentioned Los Angeles and San Francisco, I’d probably check out Portland again, and Seattle, and Chicago.  I’ve been to all those places but would like to see them as an adult.  I hear San Diego is pretty.   I’d at least drive through Las Vegas.  New York City is a have to stop, as is D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Birmingham, Mobile, New Orleans, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  I’d like to check out Columbus, any of them I can find.  I’d also stop off at some of my childhood places, most especially Fayetteville North Carolina.  Which would inevitably lead me back to Central America.  I’d like to visit Panama and Honduras again.

But where to next?  When I’d done all that and of course written a couple good selling novels or non-fiction essay books about it I’d have that hankering to see where the old people came from.  The old people?  You know who I’m talking about.  I’m not talking about the old people as in those sturdy souls who make it north of 80.  I’m talking about the dead ones.  Most of mine would be from Europe I know, the British Isles, Germany, Sweden.  I hear tell some of those from Sweden stopped off in Russia for a while, back when the United States of America was just a few colonies, before heading to Germany.  My grandmother has a poem written by a Peter Krehbiel regarding  his families exodus from his native land.  It is a sad poem in which Peter says farewell forever to the mountains and valleys of his youth,  but he is forced to go because his government will not allow him to worship Jesus as he knew him.  It is a haunting piece of family literature.  So I guess to honor him I’d like to go check out those mountains and valleys.

But where to next?  Well let’s see so far I’ve covered from sea to shining sea.  I’ve traipsed around Central and South America, and visited the land of my forbearers in Europe.  Perhaps Africa and the Middle East.  If some news source-liberal, conservative, or libertarian no matter-said Bud we want you to tour Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan and do a series of human interest stories I’d only have to ask when my flight left.  I long to see India, China, and Japan.  I’d love to go backpacking in the Siberian wilderness, and do a walkabout in Australia.

But where to next?  I suppose by this point I am old.  I can only hope my soul is so stout as to persist for 80 years which is not likely considering the chemicals I have ingested into my body.  And if I am still alive by then, I have plenty of dream money to fund this dream, I’ll probably be splitting my time up between those dirt roads-as I cannot imagine their magic will have worked itself loose of me-and some throbbing city.  Most likely though more of the time will be spent in the country.  Who knows where humans will be traveling in 2056?  Maybe I’ll take a cruise to the moon?  Maybe Mars?  Not a likely thing were you to want me to wager on it, but not impossible either.

I figure by then, sometime in the summer of 2056, shortly after my 80^th birthday, I’ll be aching for my homeland.  I’ve never seen it but the longing in me to travel this earth is nothing compared to the desire to go there.  The former is akin to one’s desire for home cooked pie or cake and ice cream after a home cooked meal.  The latter is akin to a parched  man’s yearning for just one cool drop of water.  That is where I want to go.  And why on earth would I want to spend the in between time gallivanting across creation?  Well I have heard the master of that realm will want to know what I did with the gifts bestowed upon me.  Well if I have a gift for words and a gift for traveling I might as well use them.

And that’s enough of that…for now…I haven’t been to sleep yet, I have the hiccups because I’ve been freshening up a fat dip of Copenhagen for the last ninety minutes or more and have inadvertently swallowed more than a little bit.  The hiccups are annoying but I know just how to get rid of them.  In the meantime I figure I’ll get at least a part II out of this deal, having been sufficiently cryptic in part I.  Plus I’m curious about how my early life breaks down were I to parse it out on a chart like the one at the top of this piece.  Shouldn’t be too hard this first chart covers just over 17 years and 9 months.  The next one will only have to cover 17 years and 3 months, but I’ll probably just round it up to 18 years though, make it easy.

All this talk of years and months makes me yearn even more for my home country.  I can’t imagine we’ll even mark time there.

Love you all…Bud

3 boxes and a trash bag

This sounds like a fantastic idea I found at Own your ADHD.

Get three boxes and a trash bag.

Go through the room, pick up one item at a time.

Whatever stays in that room goes in box 1.

Whatever goes in another room goes in box 2.

Whatever you’re unsure of goes in box 3.

Whatever is trash, you know where that goes.

Once you’re done, whatever is in box 2 take immediately to the proper place.

Throw away the trash.

Seal up box three for 3 to 6 months.  If you didn’t need anything in that box during that time then toss it.

wash, rinse, repeat.

What strikes me most about this advice-http://www.adhdactionguide.com, and also check out http://www.everydayhealth.com/ownyouradhd-is it’s practicality.

I don’t much care for debates on is ADHD real-or Bi-Polar-or any other so called disorder.  It’s like asking is the sky real.  Of course the are real.  Do I believe mental health care professionals see the whole picture?  Of course not.  And especially not when we live in a nation which so readily dispenses drugs to deal with symptoms.  Not to mention the notion that a person with such a disorder will do certain things.

When I lived in Arkansas I visited a country doctor who told me once he thought he might be a little bi-polar.  The man worked twelve or more hours a day, still did house calls, and yes would sometimes get depressed.  He never said bi-polar wasn’t a real thing he just sort of implied that perhaps these so called disorders are more common than we know.  In other words normal.  The issue is how we handle our physiological and psychological health.  A host of factors, too numerous to fully account for, can push one person with an internal chemical tendency towards mood swings, into drug abuse and wanderlust, while another is pushed in those manic moments towards becoming a doctor.  The former has a disorder.  The latter never gets diagnosed.

But what is the disorder?  Is the disorder simply that the internal mechanisms of their brain have gone awry?  I don’t think so.  The disorder is the behavior which is not determined by the brain alone.  Factors too numerous to fully account for might be family life, spiritual and religious experience, geographical location, age of the mother when the child was born, number of siblings, socio-economic status, education, age of the father when the child was born, whether or not the parents drank alcohol or used other drugs, the type of  government of the person grows up under, the period of history the person lives in, culture, the list is truly endless.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am not trying to devalue mental health care providers.  I am merely stating that it is not a magic bullet.  That perhaps when we place too much emphasis upon that one explanation we become like the blind men in the Indian folk tale.  In that story each blind man is examining only one part of an elephant.  They each stiffly argue that it is like a rope, a fan, a snake, a tree, a wall, a spear.  While they are all in their own way right they are all wrong in that they only have an incomplete picture.  I sometimes wonder if our modern obsession with psychological endeavors is much like these blind men.  They are not wrong but the picture is incomplete as it is so focused on one aspect.  And this is why I am not convinced that ADHD, Bi-Polar, depression, and even Schizophrenia are disorders.  Of course they can become disorders depending on the other factors.  But they don’t have to be.

One prime example from history is a story I heard about Winston Churchill.  I will have to check all the details of course but I trust the person who told me this story claims to have read a biography of the British Prime Minister and I trust this person.  He told me Churchill’s office was made up of many tables built into the walls standing waist high.  When studying or working on speeches, he would have multiple books open on these tables around the room.  Next to each book was a note pad.  Churchill would walk around the room, stop to read a page or two from a book, scribble notes, and move to another to book.  He had a secretary who would file the notes for future reference.  Is it possible one of the greatest leaders of the last century had ADHD?  Yes.  Did he have a disorder?  No.

But that is not my story.  I have used a lot of illicit drugs, although I am sober now.  I have been prone to wanderlust as an adult-we moved around lot when I was child.  I have a tendency to run from struggles, and sabotage success.  I have been given a preliminary diagnosis of bi-polar II.  Several therapists told me my drug use makes a firm diagnosis difficult.  But what I believe now is that even if I am bi-polar, what doctors used to call manic-depression, it is not a disorder.  What is a disorder is how I have chosen to respond.  I’m not saying that I shouldn’t seek out medical assistance.  In fact I have been seeing a therapist for the last couple months and at some point plan on visiting a psychologist or psychiatrist.  And I very well may end up on some medication or other.  I will refuse lithium as it makes my jaw hurt and I become somewhat zombified.  I had okay results with Carbamazipine and I am curious about possible benefits of herbal supplements.  I also wonder if nicotine and caffeine intake don’t exacerbate the problem in much the same way as alcohol and marijuana.

Of one thing I am certain.  Today, at 35 years old, I do not have to let this thing in my brain control me.  Metaphors and similes are powerful things.  I choose to believe that my brain is the hardware of my soul.  I am not a brain I have a brain.  And I can choose to take practical advice like that listed on the websites above.  This view, this metaphor, this choice to see myself as more than just the sum of my physical parts, gives me great hope and freedom.  Yes I have a great challenge ahead.  But with courage I can face it and I do not have to face it alone.

Drama

I have an opportunity to volunteer with the burgeoning drama department at a local Catholic school.  At the moment there is only one staff member running the whole thing and obviously she is a bit overextended.

I am terrified.

The prospect of loosing my hours of hermitage frightens me.  And yet at this moment I fear more the crushing loneliness that I know it’s something I must do.  I can only shut myself off for so long before the allure of chemical respite will grow too strong to resist.  Be it wine or weed they will entice me again and again I will fall into their pit.  We addicts are told we have no power.  This is true but perhaps a bit misleading.  The power exists and is there to grab, to lean on, to stand under, and I must approach it on it’s-or on His-terms.  I’m talking about God of course, the source of power.  Not a being that has all power but a being that is all power.  If I’m an electric lamp I must be plugged in to give light.

This weekend I did not plug in and so the crushing weight of my personal madness nearly killed me.  Saturday I was supposed to go to the wedding of a co-worker.  I skipped it.  I don’t really know why.  Fear?  Embarrassment?  Shame?  Crushing depression?  Its selfishness ultimately, depression as a form of self-absorption.  Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on myself?  Perhaps I am just an intrapersonal genius to use Dr. Howard Gardner’s term for those who are aware of themselves.  In his book 7 Kinds of Smart, Thomas Armstrong even supposes their might be more than seven as we move into the future, perhaps even a metaphysical or spiritual intelligence.  These are people who are aware of their relationship to the deepest questions of life.  Perhaps their really is nothing wrong with omphaloskepsis and we naval gazers should say so when derided by our more social peers.  It’s a real word I promise (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/omphaloskepsis).

Nevertheless I should have gone to my co-workers wedding and will have to apologize in a couple hours when she shows up to work.  I’ll try and make it up to her with a gift as well.  And I will also have to join this teacher-one I know is single and I’m guessing is going to be painfully cute.  Cute girls are always a pain to me, they remind me of what I lost in Old Mexico.   But enough of this pity party.  I have been granted a new day and so must pursue it with whatever courage I can muster.  I’m thankful for this outlet.  Thankful for life.  Thankful for friends and family who are patient with me.

Got to jet now.  Talk to you digital acquaintances latter.

ENTERTAIN ME

Tired
not sleepy
cigarettes
pacman
hours
of what to watch
what to do
what to eat
should I go out or
just plant myself here
forever
forever
a thought like vise
grips me
as if God and I
have been playing poker
and he just called my bluff

HOPE

The room is small. Suitable for a single person or band to record, more than suitable, its designed for recording.  Not an odd thing for a place called Cake Mix Recording.  What is odd is the room is set up with chairs facing the two way glass.  And a stool for the guest of honor.  Well actually we have several guests of honor at this event.  Rafael, Pinky, Carl, Yakko, the opportunity guy from the Honda commercials, Bobble, Tripwire, Slingshot, and numerous others all cross the mystical distance behind the screen and into this world in the form of Rob Paulsen who carries those characters in  a quiver and shoots them out faster than Legolas surrounded by a horde of orks.

He talks for about 45-60 minutes straight.  Handling some millennial precociousness with great tact he speaks on how one moves from rocking the show in Flint Michigan to voicing cartoons in LA.  Quite a journey it seems and my mind flashes to Chapter titles in a possible memoir; Chapter 1: The Best Band in Flint, Chapter 2: Have you done any “real” acting?, Chapter 3:Cowabunga Dude.  And so on and so forth.

But this posted is called HOPE.  What does all this have to do with hope?

I have lived in a fog of despair for so long.

Despair, crushing, grinding, slobbering and drenching me, making me want to scream at people who won’t smile back, and scowl while saying they’re having an awesome time.  Despair that I’ll end my life alone, a babbling old man on the streets, reeking of cigarettes and Old Milwaukee.

But hope comes back in simple things I think.  Simple moments of guileless kindness.  We are taught to be polite and yet have a million ways to display distaste.  But those ugly people are people after all.  The socially inept as well.  You know humans.   And that’s the hope I want.  That humans will, in history, be made into something greater than we can now imagine.

I used to think the only hope was for Jesus to come riding in on a white horse and just level the whole thing.  Like a nuclear sword will shoot out of his mouth to go medieval on your ass.  Your ass, of course, not mine, mine would be protected because I had accepted Jesus.  Don’t get me wrong I still do.  I couldn’t get away from him if I tried.  But now I find myself praying that he just brings more of himself into the world, today.  More Jesus in the world?  Hmmm?  What would that be like?  More kindness, more grace, more tact.  Like fresh air, like every woman looking fantastic in a sun dress, and every man carrying true scales, and every child having someone to wipe away the tears and pain that come from the challenges of life.  We’re not there yet, still a long way to go, but if a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle can be the hand that wipes away that child’s tears, giving her strength to push forward when mommy and daddy’s faith in each other dies…well then perhaps we’re a little closer today than we were yesterday

Thanks again Rob for reintroducing me to my old friend HOPE.  Thank you Brad and Kathryn for bringing him out here.

So a practical concern.  If I’m going to say I’m a writer I ought to write…right?  So maybe if I can just commit to one of these a day I’ll be doing okay.  Yeah, I think that’s a good start.

check out

http://robpaulsenlive.com/

and

http://www.bradvenable.com/

and

http://www.cakemixrecording.com/

Thanks to all for the inspiration…