Who the fuck am I fooling?
I sit, and I think of what I'd be happy doing. What I should go to school for. What road to take that will be the most beneficial for a "someday" family. What will pay my bills, and what will erase my debt.
I come up empty.
I come up fucking empty.
We're not talking sleepy-time dreams here, I'm talking about my life.
And I'm saying that none of that will make me happy. None of that will make me a better person. I'm just not made for it.
I am an angel-headed hipster. "Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night . . ." - Allen Ginsberg
Angel-headed hipsters don't like to follow the rules. They live for life and dreams, and nothing else.
So for those of you who remember what I've written back to February. . . I had a huge trip planned.
Well, it wasn't a trip. . . it was a life. A complete lifestyle, with a total sense of recklessness.
A life filled with every single semblance of adventure, experience, riotous fervent excited lustful abandon. . . life. A life filled with "life."
Well what happened?
Why are you still here, instead of in Odessa, Ukraine, figuring your way to get to Istanbul?
Why haven't you seen Barcelona yet?
What happened to that best friend of yours?
That Dave Keane?
That soulmate who you came upon by chance?
What happened to all of that?
What did happen to all of that?
". . . It looks like whilst on the road we will both be doing some pretty good writing - staying up late, drinking, partying, and writing it all down in a frenzy, then laughing at it in the morning before it's published the following Spring as a "classic". Excellent." - Dave says. Within a few days of knowing him. I take it to heart.
". . . On the way home from work tonight I was thinking about how we are both 21, and what we are about to begin, and it got me thinking about how for so many people, this is the age where they begin to settle down, and all the crazy and wild periods of successive changes come to an end, replaced by the mundane, ordered lifestyle of "adulthood", in which every morning you can say with a fair degree of certainty what is going to happen.
"And that isn't going to be the way for you and I.
"We are going to see something new and different every day. Our lives will be unrecognizable from one month to the next, yet always the same; the same thirst, the lust for life, fresh experience, growth, parties, intoxicating madness, scrawled reams of poetic midnight splendor, and a thousand beautiful people littering our trail across the world. Will things ever be the same again?
"I read a great quote from Dante Alighieri today: "Remember tonight....for it is the beginning of always." Wow. It got me all jittery and lustful for adventure. On the night we embark - we must remember that line. I think it's beautiful. " - Dave says. I take to heart.
". . . That quote is fantastic, it carries with it such a sense of urgency. Gave me the same jittery lustful feeling myself when I read it. You know, I can appreciate the fact that you were thinking of the age we are, and the place we "should" be in by standard order of operation, and how it's just as unappealing to me as it is to you =) I've never been the sort to be held down, or to concede to "normalcy" in any way, life is too short to watch it speed by. Better to make of it something to be envied, to be so deliriously exciting that people will hear the stories and believe them to be fiction. To wake every morning with the anticipation of the unexpected splendor that we thrive on will be a gift in itself, and to be touched by each new experience and each new heart along the way will only source to fuel our fire. What a delicious adventure we're about to set out on =)" - I reply.
A segment ot two from one of the many correspondences.
I am the angel-headed hipster, he is the beatnik-boy. And no, this isn't romantic, it's just kindred spirits.
". . . You are giving your life over to yourself and the night, to wander the world and find that you belong everywhere you've ever been and everywhere you'll ever go. You'll see and feel and love and live more in one moment than most will live in their entire lives. This is going to be beautiful." - Dave says. I take to heart.
". . . Tell me what you think it will be like to meet me. Do you think from our writing we have got to know each other at all? Do we know each other well, or not yet at all? What do you think about me? I have so many questions. This last email has cheered me up somewhat, which is funny. =) I'll go to bed now. But I'll read some Bukowski first. I finished Big Sur, by the way. The end is quite sad and scary. But we can talk about it once we are on the rod. Like subterranean angels of the night, restless but honest." - Dave says. I reply.
". . . Do I think we know each other at all? Sometimes I think about it to myself, and I think no, I don't know you, I just have an idea in my mind of who I want you to be, and you may not be that person at all. But then I read what you write, and I realise that you are seeing me as the exact same thing, and we are both on opposite sides of the world dreaming of the same places and the same schemes, and the dreaming the same dreams, and then I know, I know who you are." - I say.
". . . We are two balloons. We started our existence tethered to a child's wrist, and are now being let go to fly freely in the breeze. We are so frequently desired, but so easily forgotten by those who don't see our use. Dave, we are destined to fly up, up, up, up and away." - I say.
For month after month after month after month, we write. We write each other, we write these huge, brilliant essays, we write and write and write. We make these crazy international calls, only to giggle in awkward half-sentences and silence.
And then I lose hope. I lose hope in myself, a month before I'm scheduled to leave. I stop writing back. I don't take the calls. I pretty much disappear from the world of Mr Keane, like a total jack-ass. Don't start with the questions . . . I don't have the answers.
Imagine your best friend being obliterated into the vast expanse of outter space. No trace. That's what happened to Dave. And I was that best friend. Gone.
And then I came to my senses.
And I wrote him again.
". . . I've been caught up. Messed up. Dried up by life in general, and let depression take its toll on me. The life that I lead being the farthest from the one I dream of. . . and the means getting farther and farther from me each day.
It gets hard; thinking of ways to speak with the people (person. *ahem*) who is in many ways dearest to my rogue heart. . . anyone and someone who will see my thoughts for what they happen to be and accept them for the beauty that they are.
Beautiful - how can I find the money to come meet you? Seriously . . . I'm sucked into a world of debt and despair. I just need somehow to make a grand or so. . . and I'm off. I'm off into the wild blue yonder, and the wild life that I've been meant for.
The wild life that is killing me. . . because I'm not there with you right now.
The wild life that makes me feel stupid about writing you. Ridiculous, right? I know. I shouldn't. But that's why I haven't =/ Because I just feel . . . like there was some way to make things happen that I just couldn't reach. . . I couldn't find it. And I was a big let down.
But the funny thing? The funny thing is I'm still trying. I'm still working my ass off to be able to meet you somewhere on your travels, and disappear with you into the craziness of the world. To live for each moment and relay every tangible moment.
God. Why can't it be now?
♥ your Angel Headed Hipster " - I say.
". . . Stormi, if there was ever a person for me, it was you. i want you so badly to come and find me. my advenutures have led me to Odessa Ukraine, where i am getting the ferry in a few days to Istanbul. From there Josh and i are planning on hitting north iraq just for the kick and the story.
But listen: never have i been so i need of you, although you meet the most amazing people, you miss those who you love espically those who you know are meant for you. I ask you this, please never ignore a message from me again, no matter what. i love you. ou know it, i know it, dont shy away from it, ever.
Also, please come and find me. You dont money at all, iv heard about places we could arrange to meet like an island called utila where we coudl live quite happily for ahilw e and find work. If we need to wew can always take refuge in my parrenst house in th e UK or yours. Please come. I need you Stormi. I love you always,
please email back as soon as you can, to not har from you again for so long would be so hard, i have done it son often now, but still not forgotten you,
always your angel headed hipster,
Dave/*Elian/stormi's best friend
xxxxx " - Dave replies.
I sit, and I think of what I'd be happy doing. What I should go to school for. What road to take that will be the most beneficial for a "someday" family. What will pay my bills, and what will erase my debt.
I come up empty.
I come up fucking empty.
We're not talking sleepy-time dreams here, I'm talking about my life.
And I'm saying that none of that will make me happy. None of that will make me a better person. I'm just not made for it.
I am an angel-headed hipster. "Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night . . ." - Allen Ginsberg
Angel-headed hipsters don't like to follow the rules. They live for life and dreams, and nothing else.
So for those of you who remember what I've written back to February. . . I had a huge trip planned.
Well, it wasn't a trip. . . it was a life. A complete lifestyle, with a total sense of recklessness.
A life filled with every single semblance of adventure, experience, riotous fervent excited lustful abandon. . . life. A life filled with "life."
Well what happened?
Why are you still here, instead of in Odessa, Ukraine, figuring your way to get to Istanbul?
Why haven't you seen Barcelona yet?
What happened to that best friend of yours?
That Dave Keane?
That soulmate who you came upon by chance?
What happened to all of that?
What did happen to all of that?
". . . It looks like whilst on the road we will both be doing some pretty good writing - staying up late, drinking, partying, and writing it all down in a frenzy, then laughing at it in the morning before it's published the following Spring as a "classic". Excellent." - Dave says. Within a few days of knowing him. I take it to heart.
". . . On the way home from work tonight I was thinking about how we are both 21, and what we are about to begin, and it got me thinking about how for so many people, this is the age where they begin to settle down, and all the crazy and wild periods of successive changes come to an end, replaced by the mundane, ordered lifestyle of "adulthood", in which every morning you can say with a fair degree of certainty what is going to happen.
"And that isn't going to be the way for you and I.
"We are going to see something new and different every day. Our lives will be unrecognizable from one month to the next, yet always the same; the same thirst, the lust for life, fresh experience, growth, parties, intoxicating madness, scrawled reams of poetic midnight splendor, and a thousand beautiful people littering our trail across the world. Will things ever be the same again?
"I read a great quote from Dante Alighieri today: "Remember tonight....for it is the beginning of always." Wow. It got me all jittery and lustful for adventure. On the night we embark - we must remember that line. I think it's beautiful. " - Dave says. I take to heart.
". . . That quote is fantastic, it carries with it such a sense of urgency. Gave me the same jittery lustful feeling myself when I read it. You know, I can appreciate the fact that you were thinking of the age we are, and the place we "should" be in by standard order of operation, and how it's just as unappealing to me as it is to you =) I've never been the sort to be held down, or to concede to "normalcy" in any way, life is too short to watch it speed by. Better to make of it something to be envied, to be so deliriously exciting that people will hear the stories and believe them to be fiction. To wake every morning with the anticipation of the unexpected splendor that we thrive on will be a gift in itself, and to be touched by each new experience and each new heart along the way will only source to fuel our fire. What a delicious adventure we're about to set out on =)" - I reply.
A segment ot two from one of the many correspondences.
I am the angel-headed hipster, he is the beatnik-boy. And no, this isn't romantic, it's just kindred spirits.
". . . You are giving your life over to yourself and the night, to wander the world and find that you belong everywhere you've ever been and everywhere you'll ever go. You'll see and feel and love and live more in one moment than most will live in their entire lives. This is going to be beautiful." - Dave says. I take to heart.
". . . Tell me what you think it will be like to meet me. Do you think from our writing we have got to know each other at all? Do we know each other well, or not yet at all? What do you think about me? I have so many questions. This last email has cheered me up somewhat, which is funny. =) I'll go to bed now. But I'll read some Bukowski first. I finished Big Sur, by the way. The end is quite sad and scary. But we can talk about it once we are on the rod. Like subterranean angels of the night, restless but honest." - Dave says. I reply.
". . . Do I think we know each other at all? Sometimes I think about it to myself, and I think no, I don't know you, I just have an idea in my mind of who I want you to be, and you may not be that person at all. But then I read what you write, and I realise that you are seeing me as the exact same thing, and we are both on opposite sides of the world dreaming of the same places and the same schemes, and the dreaming the same dreams, and then I know, I know who you are." - I say.
". . . We are two balloons. We started our existence tethered to a child's wrist, and are now being let go to fly freely in the breeze. We are so frequently desired, but so easily forgotten by those who don't see our use. Dave, we are destined to fly up, up, up, up and away." - I say.
For month after month after month after month, we write. We write each other, we write these huge, brilliant essays, we write and write and write. We make these crazy international calls, only to giggle in awkward half-sentences and silence.
And then I lose hope. I lose hope in myself, a month before I'm scheduled to leave. I stop writing back. I don't take the calls. I pretty much disappear from the world of Mr Keane, like a total jack-ass. Don't start with the questions . . . I don't have the answers.
Imagine your best friend being obliterated into the vast expanse of outter space. No trace. That's what happened to Dave. And I was that best friend. Gone.
And then I came to my senses.
And I wrote him again.
". . . I've been caught up. Messed up. Dried up by life in general, and let depression take its toll on me. The life that I lead being the farthest from the one I dream of. . . and the means getting farther and farther from me each day.
It gets hard; thinking of ways to speak with the people (person. *ahem*) who is in many ways dearest to my rogue heart. . . anyone and someone who will see my thoughts for what they happen to be and accept them for the beauty that they are.
Beautiful - how can I find the money to come meet you? Seriously . . . I'm sucked into a world of debt and despair. I just need somehow to make a grand or so. . . and I'm off. I'm off into the wild blue yonder, and the wild life that I've been meant for.
The wild life that is killing me. . . because I'm not there with you right now.
The wild life that makes me feel stupid about writing you. Ridiculous, right? I know. I shouldn't. But that's why I haven't =/ Because I just feel . . . like there was some way to make things happen that I just couldn't reach. . . I couldn't find it. And I was a big let down.
But the funny thing? The funny thing is I'm still trying. I'm still working my ass off to be able to meet you somewhere on your travels, and disappear with you into the craziness of the world. To live for each moment and relay every tangible moment.
God. Why can't it be now?
♥ your Angel Headed Hipster " - I say.
". . . Stormi, if there was ever a person for me, it was you. i want you so badly to come and find me. my advenutures have led me to Odessa Ukraine, where i am getting the ferry in a few days to Istanbul. From there Josh and i are planning on hitting north iraq just for the kick and the story.
But listen: never have i been so i need of you, although you meet the most amazing people, you miss those who you love espically those who you know are meant for you. I ask you this, please never ignore a message from me again, no matter what. i love you. ou know it, i know it, dont shy away from it, ever.
Also, please come and find me. You dont money at all, iv heard about places we could arrange to meet like an island called utila where we coudl live quite happily for ahilw e and find work. If we need to wew can always take refuge in my parrenst house in th e UK or yours. Please come. I need you Stormi. I love you always,
please email back as soon as you can, to not har from you again for so long would be so hard, i have done it son often now, but still not forgotten you,
always your angel headed hipster,
Dave/*Elian/stormi's best friend
xxxxx " - Dave replies.
And I know from his ridiculous spelling and dislexi-fied words that he's had a bit to drink. And I love him for it. And it all picks up. Right where it's left off. When the fuck does that ever happen? When? I don't think it ever does. Dave is an exemption from the rule.
And yes, so that's the grand story.
And this is why I'm leaving as soon as I can.
VIEW 25 of 28 COMMENTS
You'll do just grand. With that stunning idealism you'll have it all in a cinch
Thank you for the birthday wishes.