Night of the Living Dead

I smoked pot last night for the first time in four-and-a-half months. It saddens me to say it was mediocre. Once the plant possessed me I ate half a box of chocolate almond ice cream bars, an entire package of chocolate chip cookies, listened to obscure female psychedelia from the 70's, did yoga, had a conversation with my plant, and then felt conspicuously guilty that my music was keeping my neighbors and their barking dog awake. Somewhere amidst the miasma of burning cannabis, shaved vetiver and vanilla, soft blankets, and warm, freshly washed sheets, I watched Allen Ginsberg recite a poem written while on LSD.

Then I smoked the other half of the joint. I fell asleep. Either because of the sweets or the weed, or both, I had hyper vivid dreams of surviving a zombie apocalypse and the subsequent government cover up. There were some pretty vicious scenes in which I skewered the skulls of reanimated corpses with long fruit knives, forks, and screwdrivers. Sometimes it would take more than one piercing of their head's hull to stop them. Each time I woke, which was often, I fell back into the dream where I had left off. Once everything was over, my girl had a nervous breakdown and left me, and then they killed her. I alone carried the weight of what had happened.

During the day, before the night's beastliness descended, I strolled around in the sunshine, listened to jazz in North Beach, and later in the Haight. James and I had an interesting discussion on free will, questioning exactly what part of it is free. The answer, we think, is little, if any of it. Change is often precipitated by an outside force; a vision of beauty or an earth-shattering idea, a moving piece of music or prose, an act of selfless sacrifice from another or a display of genuine kindness; the love of a woman. For change to take place there must also be a willingness from within. It is predicated on a certain intellectual aptitude and the recognition of a shortcoming, the desire to transcend. Also a readiness to let go, to surrender, to move into an unfamiliar space and explore parts of yourself previously unknown. We are free to change, but only after influence. Perhaps this is why we are such social creatures; drawing insights and making comparisons, learning, cultivating unique ideas and empathy, anticipating how our actions might be perceived; taking the role of another. Wandering through the corridors of funhouse mirrors in our minds.

It is telling that love and its loss are the strongest motivators for change. The arrival or departure of another is a profound impetus. These are times when our sense of space and personal identity are most vulnerable, and volatile. It is only when standing at a crossroads that the dizzying drunkenness of possibility becomes momentum enough to choose a path. The pursuit of the unknown, and of adventure, seems both thrilling and terrifying.

We are all hanging by one hand from a ledge, waiting for someone's arm to pull us back from the encroaching abyss.