You know that saying, "You're going to have hell to pay"? Well, this was the year the bill came due - the hangover year, where people would tell me later how fucked up I had been. They didn't have that phrase, then: "whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas". Or in my case - Mardi Gras. I didn't know I was just supposed to sow some wild oats, go to confession, and come home free and clear. Instead, I had to keep it. I had to carry Mardi Gras around with me for the rest of the year; a bug in my ear, telling me to live free at any cost.
But that's the problem: There was a cost. I had already gone home with the first man who asked me to stay. I was in love, for sure, but I didn't know what to do with love once I had it. The other part of me - Miss Free Love 1985 - was furious, and she wasn't giving up without a fight.
After my trip to New Orleans, I stopped trying to be good. I dropped out of school, fell into love triangles, had an affair that I wouldn't stop talking about, got engaged way before I was ready, got drunk and did interpretive modern dances in rooms full of strangers at parties I wasn't even invited to. . . you name it, it was that kind of year. If I told you everything I did in "poor judgement" in 1986, I don't think I'd have your sympathy. There were some prize-winningly bad ideas, which sent me well on my way to becoming a true asshole (in case I wasn't already).
Out of college, and with no other prospects for the future, I tried vocational school, followed by a summer in the back room of Dairy Queen, washing dishes and dipping dilly bars. I found myself relegated to that humiliating position because I was completely incapable of pouring the perfect 6-ounce ball of soft ice cream with the curly-q top that DQ was known for - just as it had always been done. In the fall, I advanced into a soul-sucking waitressing job at a pizzeria, where I worked the day shift (who eats pizza during the day? NO ONE), served the same homeless man with the dark eyes that pierced my soul every day, and couldn't wait for the night servers to come so I could flirt with them before I headed home to my fiance.
That was all bad enough. But the worst part was how stupid it all made me. The writing nearly stopped. I lost the poetry that sustained me through so many other hard times, and I had nothing to show for my supposed brilliance except for a wildly dysfunctional relationship and a barely decent restaurant job. At least, that's what it looked like from the outside.
If the fall of '83 had been the first shoe to drop, 1986 was, most assuredly, the second shoe. '83 brought the painful reality of growing up, and being ultimately alone in the world. '86 was all about learning to function once I was out there. For a radical dreamer, these were the hardest lessons I'd ever confront - lessons that keep coming back to me even now, in so many reminders that I need to be present in my life and responsible to the real people who count on me.
Even though I wasn't writing much, the Vision was still guiding me. The Vision was what I called the voice that came to me in my dreams, and spoke through my poems. It gave me my poetry, but never asked for anything in return. It was a part of me, but distant. Not wanting to live anywhere near solid flesh, the Vision just floated around in my subconscious, waiting for me to get out my pencil and write. It seemed harmless enough.
But something happened. I had a bad mushroom trip. Nothing terrible came up at the time, except I saw ancient spirits of the forest in the wood paneling of my boyfriend's apartment. But an incredible sadness fell over me after that. A darkness possessed me, and I felt that the Vision was suddenly pulling me under water. I wasn't depressed in a way that I could write about, this time. It took me a long time to figure out it was suffocating me, and that I might need to send out a flare or search for a life preserver. In my previous depressions, I had let the whole world know, and friends came to my rescue. But this time, I didn't have the words to call out. I couldn't define it, but I felt that it was trying to kill me.
Then one night, I had a dream that it - whatever it was that possessed me - was a big, fat, poisonous spider. I took a large, hardcover book and smashed it against the wall until the blood spurted out of its abdomen. And that was it. I woke up, and I knew it was gone. It WAS gone. The unknown curse was lifted.
As much as I call myself a dreamer, deep inside, I've got to be in control. That's probably the only thing that saved me back then. I didn't have a prayer to call upon, but I had my stubborn will, and once I realized the ground was slipping out from under me, I willed my way out. I did it in dreamtime, because that's where the whole scene was going down, but it had a tangible effect on my life. I started to breathe again.
If you think this is when I turned the corner, it's not. Surprise, surprise. . . This is actually when I stopped writing. I decided that if the Vision wanted to kill me, I'd rather be a pathetic, drunk, love-torn waitress than a dead genius poet. If the Vision wanted me to suffer for my art, then I was just going to skip it. I was pretty sure I could live without the glory, but I knew I didn't want to live my life without love, and a shot at happiness. Even if I fucked up at it for years, even if I hurt a lot of people along the way, I wanted a solid chance. I couldn't give up on my dream of a happy ending.
So, ironically, I had to ditch the love poems in order to feel real love. I stopped being "a writer", and set myself to the task of being human. I'm maybe halfway there. I've even learned to speak, instead of containing all my feelings on a piece of paper, and slipping it under a door. The language of people talking to people - the listening, understanding, and the constant adjustment - still eludes me at times - but it's the best work I've ever done. I still, in fact, have the pencil to paper connection. (As you must know, this isn't the end.) But now, I nurture my life, and hope the words will follow. You are why. You are the reason I'm still here. Whatever this is, whatever I have since I woke up that morning in 1986, unbound and imperfect - it is for you.
