identify yourself by other means

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I did the walk from SF to San Quentin Monday, except I missed out on the first 8 miles because of work. It was a completely mixed experience. There were moments that connected us all to the each other in a very personal, very intense way, like when we got word that clemency had been denied, and the final stretch of actually entering the "town"of San Quentin. At those times it felt like so much energy would have to go somewhere, do something. But there were also experiences like two of the marchers using the murder of Tookie Williams as an excuse to display anti-abortion signs; the Pepsi-owned, animal-and human-exploitive, packaged food given out at every rest stop; the decision made by one guy (who was designated leader due to seniority) to appease the cops on their second request and take an alternate route where for a mile and a half the only things acknowledging our existence were trees and empty houses; and (this wasn't the group's fault) the insane media circus at the so-called "vigil".

I don't know if I thought this march would feel different from the others, would feel like something would be accomplished other than hundreds of people showing up to cry in outrage and then go right back home again. I'm lying. I did feel like it should be diferent. I felt like such an obvious atrocity deserved some sort of reaction to society as a whole.

I didn't wait around for him to die.

( Crime for Crime )

So with this all in mind, I'm not sure if I should do the bike trip down South. I want to just go grab land and start shit, but I also feel like I need the right people for that, and I'm not sure where to go to find them.

There was a fight at the hotel the other night. It involved two black, poverty-stricken-since-birth, poorly educated, crack addicted, females (these are all facts the two have confided in me since living there, I'm not assuming anything). The first one (who has severe schizophrenia) came into the lobby holding a stick and accusing the other of stealing her key. The second then came into the lobby with a metal pole and started beating the first. The husband of the one with the pole was able to break it up before anyone was hurt past a few bruises and scratches, but God, I can't even put this into words. It was ugly. It was a picture of the injustice in our society boiled down until it errupts into a violence that's inevitable, but hidden from the eyes of those who cause it. I couldn't talk for at least ten minutes because every time I started tears streamed from my eyes. I felt shaken to the core, like an earthquake had ripped open my entire being, exposed it to ugly, horrible truths that need to be seen, because they're real, but have no right to exist and need to stop. This needs to stop.

Last night I was lying awake next to Shana, plagued by the heat, a swollen throat and a headache that'd been going two days strong. I should've been paying more attention to life and less to the headache, but I wasn't, and before I realized what was going on I felt a massive amount of concentrated energy above me. From before I can remember I've both been terrified of and wished ceaselessly for an experience with some sort of presence that goes beyond everyday reality, and my fear won out in the fact that I kept my eyes shut as tight as I could from the first instinct that some such thing was happening, but, after the feeling persisted, despite ten seconds of instinctual resistance, I became really calm and decided to accept it and fully open my body and mind to whatever it was. It'd been comming closer and growing in intensity from the start, and when I finally welcomed it, I felt the energy come into me. It came into my body first, then entered my head in an explosion of the universe I've known since I was born. Physically, my body felt completely and utterly Whole. Afterward I tried to speak, or move, or something to get Shana's attention, but couldn't for at least ten seconds. I felt completely paralyzed. I was able to elbow her slightly after about 5, but couldn't follow through with words. By that time I realized that my headache was gone.

I dreamt there was a barn where three dogs were kept, one in each section of the building- all isolated. Everyday, a drunken man would come in and beat the dogs with a wooden plank. Sometimes it was two men, or two men and a woman- all full of hate and rage, all armed with a barrage of degrading slurs and a fistful of blows for each of the animals. And everyday, my teacher and I would watch. We would come into the barn and watch from the rafters. We would watch and I would fall to the ground as I felt my stomach tying into knots of pain and rage and helplessness. We would watch and I would collapse into a pile of skin and bones and tears- my soul dying with the dogs', abandoning me for not fighting to save my fellow creatures from this torment, this agony. We would watch and I would know that it was like this everywhere- that every dog on earth, save a lucky few who remained wild or had been adopted by the people of my tribe, went through this every day. We would watch and I would know this and I would feel that I had never known real pain until that moment.

I'll tell you one thing I'm gonna make noise when I go down.
For ten square blocks they're gonna know I died.
All the goddesses will come up to the ripped screen door and say "What do you want dear?"
"I want inside."

I remember making my way back to Arcata in January. Four days of standing in a blizzard with my thumb out- the snow soaking through my clothes, my skin. Feeling like the very marrow in my bones was turning to ice. Wind that not only bit, but clenched its jaws tight around my entire being until every last bit of warmth was sucked from my body and replaced with its chill breath.

That was nothing compared to the cold felt when your sister kicks you out of her apartment 4 days before you leave the country forever, so she can spend time with a boy.