If That Were True – Solace and Peace

I know there is always a sense of peace. I know there is.
I know this because I have found this, even in the worst of places.
Even when times are wild or when chaos is everywhere, I know that there’s always something out there.
There’s always someplace to look or somewhere to find peace. Even if this is only in our minds, the truth is peace is still out there.
I know that there is something out there, more beautiful than my words can describe and more lifesaving than crash cart or an ambulance. I know there are rescues for the soul – everywhere.

I look back to a time in my troubled youth. I was living in a facility for young people. I suppose this is a kinder or perhaps this is only a gentle way of saying that I was in mandatory treatment facility. I was here in place of an alternate sentence. My reasoning for this placement was a result of alcohol and substance abuse disorders.
I had the weight of this around my neck as well as other behavioral and emotional challenges which made my early years a bit more problematic. I had scars in my skin. I had the symptoms and signs of a youth in crisis. I was also dangerous in the sense that I had no real comparison of life or what real life should be.

At that point, I was faced with the harsh and traumatic facts of how life works. What I mean is, life decided to show up and in combination with the results of my actions and the consequences of my behaviors, I found out how real life could be.
I was just back from a home visit which was not a visit for a good reason at all.
No.
I was there to say goodbye to my Father.
I was in town to be there when they lowered the casket so his body could rest in peace.
I say his body because to me, the spirit of my Father is elsewhere.
Maybe out at sea.
Maybe in the Kingdom of Our Father or the castles in heaven.
Maybe The Old Man is in the paradise of his last dream – unending.
Or maybe he is only in the span of my heart that reaches back as far as my memory serves me.
Either way, the spirit never dies.
The body, however, lowers into the ground which is where he rested.

I was numb. I was in pain and I was in shock.
I could hardly move or understand the surrealness of what took place.
I was at a strange new beginning and ending at the same time.
I was only a boy, just a kid.
Young. Rambunctious. Troubled.
Wishing and dreaming. Hoping and searching.
As well, I was me at the core, the inner child, alive, but hidden by walls made of fear.
This was me.

I lost most of my childhood to depressive thinking, bullying, behavioral problems and learning disabilities. I had legal problems and school problems. Aside from my chemical problems with substances and alcohol, I was uncomfortable in crowds and uncomfortable in my skin. I had no way to find peace nor could I relax, nor calm the mad thoughts that come with heightened alerts of social anxiety.
Everything was anticipatory. Everything was a threat. I was afraid yet I had to try and find some kind of method or way to relax. I had to find something to bury my thoughts of shame or cover my insecurities. I needed something to soften the edges of life and to somehow wash the sensitive nature of shame for my body, my thoughts or for me as a person.
This was me; therefore, I needed to find something, by any means necessary, to relieve myself of the constant volume of thoughts that spun in my head.

And in my case –
The drugs helped.
Of course they did.

I did my share of time with the narcotic and opiate gods. I offered my sacrifices to the gods and the demons.
I paid at the gates. However, I was unaware that there was no way out.
I offered my share of flesh to the demons in exchange for some kind of euphoric bliss. As a matter of fact, I did this to euthanize the nervous system for a while or to calm the receptors in my mind. I did what I had to.
This way, I could shut off my central station. I could disconnect the antennas and remove myself from the constant broadcast of war-time news. Yes, I used the dope gods to cancel the red-alerts so that I can rest and slip into this cocoon-like splendor.
And true –
I might have looked like death or like I was dying on the outside, pale as ever, thin and zombie-like, swiveling down, slowly, nodding off as if I were dangling from the invisible strings of the demons – and while yes, I know this sounds harsh and I know how bad this looked – my eyes closing slowly, like the half-shut blinds that slowly roll down across the windows of my soul – my long hair was scraggly and matted with sweat. My mouth hung open, as if to prove my loss of physical consciousness yet, inside, I was lofty, lifting upwards in defiance of gravity. I was high.
Like I said, I was slowly dying in such a beautiful sway of weightless and painless ecstasy.
Crossing the threshold between life and eternity, staggering between the tragedy and victories of the arrivals at Heaven’s Gate, I stuttered between the pause of inhale and exhale, numb to the world, and abandoned, like an old ship that carries ghost tales to the magic ports of an imaginary sea.
This was me.
There was no pain. There was no chaos. There were no worries about the sirens that passed by the buildings or even the enemies at the door, or at the gates, or whether the threats were foreign or domestic, here or abroad. I was out of this world.
More to the point, I was out of my head – swiveling down into suction of a water funneling down the drain – I was sinking and submerging in the warm sleep that dies in tiny tragedies, so beautiful and exotic – haunting, like the spell of a witch.
I knew this all too well . . . the dragon, the beast, and when the the wings spread, the demons block out the sunlight to keep us from feeling a traditional warmth; to keep us from feeling anything pure or anything else, except the warmth from the drug.

Yes, this was me.
Young. Small. Sliding down the chute of an opiate nod.
It went from 0 to lightspeed in the blink of an eye, but I’m not sure how.
I was on a trip one day to East New York, Brooklyn. I was running fast and started with a high that was fueled by the cocaine gods in the beginning – then sizzled in a glass pipe.
However and inevitably, I traded wings that went from high-speeds to a low, slow and hardly steady crawl. I went from soaring through the clouds to a slithering like serpent crawling across the infections of Mother Earth.
Yes, this was me.
All that led up to this was me as well.
All my angst.
All my trauma.
All my witnessed abuse.
All of my unwanted touches that would never leave me alone.
All of my hate.
All of my rage.
All of my wishes for something (or someone) to rescue me.
This was me.

I was lost and unfound.
I never had the chance to see or do some of the rites of passage that come with young life.
I never walked in a graduation ceremony or received a diploma on stage.
I never went to a prom.
I never even went to a school dance nor did I ever sit through driver’s education.
No.
My education was different. Hence, my chaos and conflict was the opposite of peace.

There I was – standing over the cold, frozen ground where my Old Man was lowered into a hole for the dead  – and please forgive the haunting nature of this pre-explanation. However, my point is true and soon; my point will be clear.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust – one man was born, one man was taken away; one life was removed and one life was restored. 
This was me.

I was removed from my previous surroundings and living on a farm. I was removed from my sins and removed from my geographical problems – and at the moment, I was moving around in an unknown geography. I was on a new venture, equally surreal, and extending from where I was and where I came from and next, I was immersed in a new revelation of life and mortality.
This was me.

Like I said, I was stunned.
I was beaten into the strange sense of temporary submission. Reality struck me.
I was like a child after a punishing slap and caught between the realization of punishment and pain from the sting that slapped my face, there was that minute or realization that yes, this just happened.

Either way, death does not stop life.
Nor does this eliminate the presence of beauty.
Nothing stops.
Life does not stop for anyone. Time moves without regard or sympathy for anyone else.
No matter how we wish for something or what we ask for, time is an unstoppable machine and life – life is both inevitable and eventual. I know this now. Like the wheels of an unforgiving locomotive, time keeps moving at the same pace despite our appraisals of good or bad or anything in-between – nothing stops the engine of time. Not The Great Mother of All, not The Son of Man or even The Father above – nothing stops time –
Ever . . .
I remember the weeks after The Old Man passed. I was still in shock.
I could not believe that this was real life.

There was a snowstorm that hit the farm. I remember this.
I remember the next day too.
All of the world around me was covered in a blanket of white. The sky was blue and the sun was as bright as could be; however, there was no warmth, only the colors of sunlight. There was no kindness from the winds either, only the whistles and the whipping sounds of a cold January in an upstate mountain town.
The farm was big, huge in fact.
The pastures where the cows would roam were covered with more than a foot of snow.
The land was in a bowl-like circumference or from a more panoramic sense, the farm was caught in the palm of a mountaintop which nestled between other mountains that raised above us.
To set the stage, I’d like you to picture this – see it if you can.
The farm. The big red barn. A few small farmhouses around and one large, main house, which is where I congregated with the other so-called members or patients (or inmates, depending upon opinion).
The view was spectacular.
The mountains in the upstate parts of New York are tree-lined and the trees were naked for the season. However, rather than appear as empty trees with gnarled branches, like broken fingers, the trees were covered in white, like a crystalized version of themselves, cold in sight, but beautiful and heartwarming.

But wait –
How could anything be beautiful?
How could life go on after someone’s life just stopped?
How could anything be heartwarming in such an otherwise cold or painful time?

I remember looking out from the window of the farmhouse.
I could see for miles because of our elevation which was high and pure. Close enough that even the hawks that flew above were close enough to reach or tickle their bellies. 

I remember the day after the storm.
The sky was clear and blue. The world was white with snow and the trees took on this enchanted appeal.
I have never seen anything like its equal.
I had never seen anything so beautiful or peaceful.

I was broken and sad. My Father was gone.
My youth was unfortunate. My time on the farm was only beginning and my life was about to take on a new and intimidating shape.
Who would I be now?
What would I do?
Who would teach me how to be a man?
Or wait –
How would I find my place in this world?
Where would this be?
Would I ever find peace?
Would I ever find love?
I wondered . . .
Would I ever find that moment in life when I could see myself in the mirror, absent of my sin, removed from my chains or the collar around my neck? If this were so, and if this were true (at least to me) and if it were possible to adapt and change and essentially overcome this so-called affliction which kills people and leaves them alive, like a shell of themselves or walking like talking corpses, until they eventually die – and if I am to overcome this, then who would be there to witness this as my Father?
Who would stand beside me at times when I finally learned to succeed or achieve something – and who would be there to look at me, like a Father would look at his child and tell me, “You did it, son!”
Who would say, “I’m proud of you!” and who would be there to fish the ponds with me?
Who would be there so that I could say, “I did it, Pop!” I did just like you said and who would be there to hand this to, to be pinned on the wall, like a trophy or an acknowledgement – and who would be there to brag about me?
“Do you see him over there. That’s him. That’s my boy!”
These are words any son would wish to hear.
I know I do because this is me too.

I remember the emotions of this time yet as cold as it was and sad – and as surreal and perhaps as brutal as truth can be, I stared out at the world from the sliding doors of a farmhouse.
This was beautiful
There was peace out there.
I saw it.

I lost my Father yet I was about to regain my life.
I learned about myself. I learned that I was not a stain or a stigma.
I was not a problem child or any of the labels that were given to me, such as emotional disturbed or someone with a defiance disorder. I was not the label which called me depressed, learning disabled, stupid, a junkie, a crook, criminal, jailbird or otherwise. I was none of these things. Still – I am none of these things now.
No.
This is me.
(The real me.)

I was a young man beneath heaven’s sky. I was growing. I was evolving and returning to my true self.
I was removing myself from the hazy thinking and shedding the layers of sin while slowly reviving from the residual effects of my chemical reactions. 

I was clean. Yes.
I was sad as well. Yes, of course I was.

I was also privy to the fact that even in ugly times, the universe can be a beautiful place.
Life can be kind enough to show us that the same as time is unstoppable, beauty is also unstoppable.
And so are you.
(Yes, YOU!)
No one in the world is as beautiful as you are.
No one in the world has your amazing combination of sense or style.
No one can color the world like you can.
No one in the world has your DNA.
No one else has your voice.
No one has your fingerprints or your eyes or your soul.
All of these things are yours.
To me and to those of us who know you well; and from those of us who love and care enough to open our eyes to see the celebration, which I choose to call you and your life –
We understand that as beautiful as the heavens can be and as heartwarming as the heavens appeared to me that day, cold and all – nothing else in the world comes close to the warmth you possess.
No one else can be you.
Please trust me on this one.
To me, the same as that view of the mountains were lifesaving to me, no one else is more lifesaving than you are.
Beautiful as ever. Soft. Gentle.
Loving. 
I see you as a tearful eye, which is when the heavens rain, like a slow drizzle to calm the world to sleep.
This is you – a redeemer of man,
a person from my heart, my life and my soul –
You.

I told you about my need to find euphoria . . .
Well, I used to get high to find this sort of ecstasy.
I used to bring myself to the brink of death just so I could feel so alive.

I do believe in the wealth of the human heart.
I believe in the euphoria of the soul and the rescue of the spirit, which is what love does for the mind and body. Hence, this is what you do for the world. More accurately, this is what you do for me.

I used to believe that I was never enough; that I was ugly, that I was unwantable and unlovable and undesirable to say the least. I used to believe that my only entry to relief was through a stream of chaos. 
I paid for those crimes.
I paid more than my share.

My chaos has been solved since then. My heart has been soothed and my solace has been pacified for years.
But still . . .
It would be nice if he were here. The Old Man.
I think you would like him.
I know he would have loved you.
He’d have treated you like you were his own . . .
You would always be welcome around him.

I wish you were here now, Pop.
I wish I could show you a few things.
I’d show you a few of my collections and ask:
Would you believe that your baby boy does any of this?
Maybe you would’ve.
Maybe you always knew I could do more than I believed. 
Maybe this is why you were frustrated with me . . .

It’s hard to find peace sometimes.
Life is hard.
It’s hard to get away from that center of judgment or that internal persecution.
But there are times when the world is crazy and chaos is thick.
I swear there are times when I can’t get any rest or catch a break.
Then suddenly, something appears.
Beauty. As if to say, “Don’t worry, son.”
I’m right here . . .

I just wish I could hear you say this, Pop.
I wish you could sit with me for an afternoon.
Just to talk.
Just to see some of what I’ve done.
I admit it –
It’s hard to find peace out there, Pop.
But I know it’s out there.
So is she . . .
Perhaps you met her already.
Maybe you can talk to her for me
tell her I’m okay, that I made some changes and mistakes.
Let her know that I’m here, just waiting.
Tell her I’m looking to be young again so that I can grow old with her.
Let her know this for me.
Or maybe you already did this.
Did you?
Because . . . I think I hear her.
Here she comes.