But I love working for myself. I booked a job for monday and left the house with my dog to go get coffee. I hadn't been drinking it these last few weeks. Trying to detox a little bit. But last night was a late night and goddamnit i needed it. The day is beautiful. It feels like spring. I decided, fuck responsibilities. I'm taking my dog to the woods.
My whole life I've always been attracted to the in between places. Woods, ditches, empty lots...anywhere that 95% of people wont go because they don't want to get their shoes dirty. I guess I've always been troubled by people. For years my favorite spot to go to was the railroad tracks on what is now called the Greenline. Now, I'm not complaining. Memphis needed something like this. I'm actually surprised they did it. Memphis usually only supports things that are dumb and safe and only suitable for the great unwashed. The greenline is free and you have to go through the woods for a bout a mile. People might get hurt out there and not be within 20 seconds of a walgreens. I figured the Memphis Greenline would have vats of Ranch dressing for us to drink every quarter mile. In a way, they took a sacred spot from me, but I'll gladly give it up if it means people getting outside and off their fat asses.
The bridge over the wolf river was a meditative spot for me. I spent many hours sitting on that bridge, smoking cigarettes and looking at the stars. It was a perfect crossroads. You could go east, you could go west, you could plunge into the woods or you could jump off and die. Just like life, except sometimes in life your choices just aren't that clear.Me and Brian Moore used to swim in the pond that the greenline crosses. We'd actually wait for a train to come and when it got real close to us we'd jump off the tracks into the water. If you swam down to the bottom it was cold and if you plunged your feet in to the muddy bottom it would release a sulphuric smell. It's funny the dangers that we look past as children, just to experience life. There were snakes there. The water was probably polluted. We could've gotten hit by one of those trains.
As I write this the memories that I made there come flooding back. One of the first times I went down there was with Grant Fey, who just offed himself a few weeks ago. It took us forever to build up the courage to jump off the tracks into the lake, and I was the first one to go.There used to be a train door that floated on the lake like a raft and we would push it around with long sticks, sometimes with 5 kids on it.. One time me and Jason and Chris Forte bought a watermelon at Easy Way and went down there with a .32 and blew holes in it, imagining it to be a girl that one of us was dating. There was the time that about ten of us trudged through the swampy woods at 4am with one flashlight looking for an alleged pot plant. Or when a still mulleted Joey and I hung out down there even though we were arch enemies at the time and someone pushed me in the lake.
One of my all time favorites was when Jason ran away from home in the 8th grade. We had not been friends very long. He couldn't stay at my house so we decided he was going to live in those woods, and still go to school. We camped out that night in the cold, ate chunky beef stew out of cans by the fire, smoked poison ivy and walked to school in the morning. During first period, the cops showed up and took him away.
It sucks what we have to settle for as nature here in memphis. A paved track with thirty feet of trees on either side of it, strewn with garbage. The river it crosses is really a channel cut by the Army Corps of Engineers. That's why it's big and muddy and straight. If you want to see what the river is supposed to look like drive out past Rossville. It meanders through woods and under fallen trees and you can see to the bottom. Once a crew of us drove out that far and thought we could canoe back to Memphis. We were on that river for 9 hours with our homemade oars getting eaten by mosquitoes and scratched up by fallen trees. when we finally gave up and got a ride back to our car by some Deliverance rednecks it took ten minutes by road to travel what took 9 hours by river.
Since the water now gets rushed through Memphis and no longer floods the woods are slowly being choked out by privet and scrub brush. When an old tree falls a new on can not take it's place because the brush deprives it of sunlight and nutrients. One day it will be a forest of privet, which is itself a non native species. The lake will be taken over by the invasive chinese carp, that eat every other species out of the lake until it is deprived of diversity.On this day presently, I didn't go down there. It's not one of those in between places anymore. It's a major thoroughfare, and sometimes I just need to not see another soul for a moment. To not hear another voice. I was trying to explain to someone tonight about how I hate people, but I was trying to not sound like an asshole. Maybe I am. But I understand that evil does not exist in nature, only in man. Animals are never sociopaths. Honestly, if I could blink a billion people out of existence I would. For the greater good.
People I know joke about me being a hippy because I have respect for nature. I resent that. maybe hippy meant something different at one time, but to me hippy means slacker. It means lazy. Stoned. Apathetic. Non violent out of sheer laziness. I don't believe in non violence anymore. I think we should have public beheadings. BP execs, wartime presidents...off with their heads. Most of the people that call me hippy don't give a shit about anything.
I spent that day at Shelby Forest and left the trail, just plunging headlong into the woods. I could hear nothing. No planes, no birds...nothing. I found a rusting car in the middle of the woods and wondered how it got there. After walking several hours I found that place in myself...that clarity of mind that I can only find when I get away from people. I thought about how I used to have memories and get these "pangs". It was a longing for time I had left behind. I would physically feel a pain shoot through me when I thought of a time I had loved. I don't get those anymore. Sure, I long for the presence of some of the people I love, but I never long to be in the past anymore. I've never felt more content or clear of my purpose and who I am than right now in my life. I have no confusion as to who I am or where I am going. I have no void to fill with a relationship. This may pass, but it's a great feeling, a great place to be at. To love who you are and what you do and feel totally sure that you are on the right path. But I think I earned this place.
I was explaining to someone tonight about the rule of 5%. The rule of 5% is a Nation of Islam teaching, and although I think most all religions are hogwash, I really like this little teaching. Basically 85% of the world's people of all races and faiths are the deaf, dumb and blind masses of the people who are easily led in the wrong direction. These 85% of the masses have neither knowledge or wisdom and are manipulated by 10% of the people who have knowledge but use it for their own personal gain. Those 10% are said to manipulate the 85% masses of the people through ignorance, the skillful use of religious doctrine, and the mass media.
The third group referred to as the 5%, possess both knowledge and wisdom, the righteous teachers and are at constant struggle and war with 10% to reach and free the minds of the masses of the people.
This person asked me if I felt like I had wisdom. I said at the time that it would be unwise to go around making claims like that about myself. But I have lived, and I have an understanding. I see a greater picture and am aware when I'm being manipulated. Things that hold importance for most people hold little for me. I see a lot as foolish, as petty, as a waste. At the same time I have a sense of peace, but it is peace through experience. I feel like I see something that 95% of people don't see. I'm not going to name it. I'll let the feeling speak for itself. It's 1:30 in the morning and I'm rambling. none of this means shit.
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