The Search for Place

Since returning to Missoula last week, I've found myself mostly surfing from one couch to another, part time car sleeping, wandering around in semi-aimless circles like a lunatic. The sad sight of bare ground in front of the courthouse, where big beautiful maple trees had covered the entire area around with shade and beauty as little as a month ago, triggered a moment of outrage.

Why do the horrid wretches in government waste time and energy destroying such beautiful landmarks central to the life of downtown? Is it because they hate homeless people so much that they would destroy the shade in areas where those with no where else to go often congregate, just to try and get rid of them ? Or did they come up with some other supposed justification? A friend on fb said the official reason the government gave was that the trees were "old", and the official plan is to replace them with new young ones. Sounded like bullshit to me and everyone else who observed how healthy and green the trees were, right up until almost all of them were cut down.

For comparison, here's another photo, showing the same area, taken a few years ago. There are tents because it was during the 2011 Occupy Missoula encampment. But see all the trees? Those trees were there long before I came to town; I grew so accustomed to their constant presence that I came to take them for granted, assuming they would never disappear. Now they are gone.

After staying a night on the couch of an old friend whose house has been turned into a Krishna shrine, I moved on to stay for a bit with another long-time friend who had invited me to crash for a while. Things went fairly well for the first couple days; they were both very kind, sharing all their meals with me, pots of coffee brewing all day. The hyperactive kids could be a bit taxing at times, but nothing I couldn't handle. Then the next night, the alcohol came out. My old friend and his partner are both fairly frequent drinkers. They shared some whiskey with me, as I had been sharing my weed with them, all well intentions and good vibes. But after a couple hours at the alcohol, I began to grow increasingly uncomfortable. with the energy.

Took a walk outside, then sat back in the car and reclined the seat. I didn't dare drive anywhere right then at my current level of intoxication, but just sitting back in that little metal bubble parked at the edge of the street felt better than the chaos inside the house. After a while, my old friend came outside, knocked on the window to check on me, asked if anything was wrong, and invited me to come back in. Reluctantly, I returned.

His partner, who I haven't known nearly as long or as well, started talking about how much they care about me, that I'm welcome to crash there in her house anytime. Then she told me that while they know I tend to be like a cat, it was rude to just disappear like that, and why not spend time catching up and hanging out in friends' company?

Yeah, ok right, I thought, maybe it was rude, and I need to put my introverted tendencies aside, and just hang out for a while, cause how else do we build and maintain bonds of friendships anyway? But from there, the weird got turned up several notches, confirming my own misgivings about the place.

I loaded a bowl, my friend's partner sat next to me on the couch, touching up next to me with body contact, closer than we had during past safety meetings. No big deal, as people brushing up against one another on a couch is a fairly routine, and I'm not touch-phobic, presuming it to be incidental. But then after my friend went outside to smoke a cigarette, she started asking me questions like, "Tell me something, why don't you have a girlfriend? You know you're good looking, right?"

All very flattering. Of course it caused me to wonder if she might be meaning what such a statement could easily be construed to imply? Being fairly sloshed anyway, I laughed and shrugged it off. Either way, nothing was going to happen between us. Of that I was certain, because on my end, even if she wasn't the partner of a friend I have known for many years, I felt no attraction of a sexual nature toward her.

We all got up and started walking around again. She went back outside, and I was growing increasingly tired. Went to the room with the bed where they said I could crash, turned out the light, closed the door, lay down, reveling in the simple chance to relax.

Minutes later, the door opened. Without warning, she entered the room, hopped on the bed next to me, and laid next to me, grabbing hold of my body. I didn't move. Both of us still had all our clothes on.

"Tell me, are you afraid of me?" She asked.

I burst out laughing. Unstoppable giggles. The situation was simply too absurd. I wasn't returning her advances, just laying there like a dead person, laughing continually. I laughed loud enough for the whole house to hear. Her 11-year-old daughter, now awake again (if she had ever really gone to sleep at all), walked by in the hallway. A minute later, my friend entered. "[Name redacted], what the hell are you doing?" He was addressing her. I didn't move.

After a minute, she got up, and they went back out into the other room. I could hear him asking her repeatedly, "Why were you doing that?" If she responded at all, it wasn't loud enough for me to hear from the other room, but I heard him repeat the same questions, again and again, for what seemed like hours. "Why were you cuddling him? Why would you act like this in front of your own daughter? Why you trying to cheat on me?"

My brain went into a half-asleep, half-awake state. Just resting.

The door opened again. This time, it was him who entered, very drunk by this time. "Would you come out here and talk about what happened? What she was doing? Tell her why what she was doing wasn't ok, acting like a whore like that." So he had gotten me out of bed because he wanted me to join in with him in berating his partner? Now I was laughing uncontrollably again, this time in his face.

I kept laughing, but got up and came back out to the living room. He asked me, in front of her, to talk about what was going on.

"This is all absurdity!"

She was like, "Damn right, this is absurd, I do not have anything to apologize for."

What was I doing in the middle of this? There was nothing to do but laugh some more, now at both of them.

Next, the 11-year-old came back out to the living room to speak her piece. "Mom, why are you always such a drunk idiot? You get drunk and act like a disgusting animal, it's like you turn into a different person! Why you make such a mess of your life like this?" The child continued to lecture the adult, until her mom told her in no uncertain terms to return to her room and go back to bed.

Eventually, everyone passed out and/or went to sleep. The next morning, I quietly packed up and left before the others awoke, and decided it would be best for my own overall well being not to return there for a while.

Continued orbiting town, feeling increasing urgency to just find a place I could call home base for while, checking craigslist roommate ads, apartment ads, looking for likely possibilities.

One place I looked at seemed very promising. A 4 bedroom unit with 3 other people, the basement room I wanted to rent had lots of room for a workspace as well as bed, a private bath, with fairly reasonable rent, and a nice chill atmosphere to the house. I thought about it a bit, and the next morning sent a message telling them I would like to rent the room if still available, when can I bring my deposit by?

A little later, I got a response saying another person had already rented it. Finding rental spots in this town was never so hard a few years ago!

Another ad showed potential. A single 1-bedroom apartment, with rent slightly higher than my share would be for most multi-room situations with roommates, but I could have the whole apartment to myself, with rent still within my range, just barely. Or so I thought. I made the call to inquire. The person on the other end asked a few questions about me, rental history, and income? I answered honestly that I do web development on a contract basis, so my income can fluctuate depending on what projects I'm doing. I was told that while they could show me the unit, my application would be almost guaranteed to be rejected, so there was little point in going any further right now. "If you come back in a few months and can show us pay stubs or proof of a monthly income consistently 3x(!) the monthly rent, then we can talk again."

How utterly absurd. Very few people working at the wages most businesses in this town typically pay would get anywhere near that! My rage at the tyranny of this entire wretched system of property, debt, and rent slavery bubbled up. In a huff, I posted the following statement to fb, in all caps, via my cheap old phone:

WHEN CAPITALISM SEEKS TO DENY PEOPLE A LEGAL RIGHT TO A SPACE IN WHICH TO SIMPLY EXIST, IT MUST BE SMASHED!

Short, pithy, to the point, it was a form of venting. I was also using frustration at my own personal situation to fuel motivation to agitate for more radical political changes in the way people think. Most politicians and media outlets on both "sides" of the left/right aisle utterly omit from consideration the absurdly unjust way that "big government" has arbitrarily decided to distribute land and property ownership allocation to certain favored parties for the past several centuries in the U.S., leaving entire populations effectively disenfranchised from ever getting what should be a basic human right: land on which to reside and derive at least the barest subsistence. (The system says, "Sure you can buy your own land! Just take out a loan, go into debt for the majority of your life, work most of your waking hours like a slave so you can turn over most of your paychecks back to the banks to pay off the mortgage, and by the time you're almost dead, assuming you haven't hit any rough spots, defaulted, and gotten foreclosed, the loan might even be paid off before you're in your grave. What a deal!" I call bullshit on anyone who claims such a system is ethically justifiable in any way.)

Thoughts speeding up, mind changing pace, nervous agitation as I sat in the car seat, parked here or there, thinking about how to proceed from here. I could tell I was starting to get near my edge. Accepted refuge, here and there, becoming thankful again for trustworthy, caring friends as I walked the edge between spinning my wheels in isolation, and getting burned out on social interaction. Another fb post, written last Friday evening:

The problem with couch surfing is that it generally requires dealing with people, and while that might not be such a big deal under ordinary circumstances, after a while that social energy gets depleted even when hanging out with the most agreeable sorts of people. my ordinary response under such circumstances would be to withdraw and recharge for a while, maybe even a few days, and then after a while find myself back up to feeling like socializing again. normal cycle. but when there's nowhere to really withdraw to without having to deal with yet more people every step of the way, what then? This car isn't so bad, in fact as far as mobile space to take a break, it's been damn helpful these last couple years. that said, in many ways my ability to flourish has been blocked. this is why I feel I must find a way to a spot that I can make into a recharge zone, creative workspace, healthier food preparation area, writing, coding, etc. what sacrifices does the universe demand I make in order to attain this, and am I truly willing to make them? seeking some kind of truly workable way forward.

Mental wheels continued to spin. Lack of sleep can turn into a feedback loop. Even on my friend's couch that night, exhausted, I found myself laying awake, mind churning through options and possibilities, over and over. Self-examination? Were some of my own flaws and weaknesses getting in the way of my own advancement? Seeing my own hypocrisy, recent tendencies to indulge in ways that might momentarily alleviate worry via sensory fulfillment, but violate many of the ideals I stand for (or at least aspire to).

Grounding has begun to falter. It gets to the point where each moment begins to eclipse the previous moment to the degree that I'll think about doing something, take a few steps in that direction, and then forget where I was, or what I was thinking about just seconds ago. So even just little stuff, like taking a few steps to the car to retrieve my laptop, can involve multiple detours, tangents, distractions, and then, "Oh yeah, I was about to..." But now, here I am with my laptop sitting and typing, so there's that. So what was I planning to write into this thing again, anyway? It doesn't matter.

Short term goals: 1) Listen to music, 2) Maybe go hang out at the kbga studio later this evening, if enough mental coherence can be maintained in the hours ahead. Thanks to the Krshna house, I had a nice spot to lay down and sleep a bit last night. Thanks to the OAO temple, I feel that for the moment, there is a spot I can be safe and surrounded by peace, even if my grounding does falter sometimes.

This is also an opportunity to confront the ways ego has been running the show in ways I don't always like to admit, and maybe start to get that in check again, like... if i'm serious about "smashing capitalism" in an effective way, it might be helpful to curtail my own fast food habit. Again. Of course I know better. Excuses and rationalizations can be invented, but all of that is irrelevant. Berating the self over past actions does no good either. All that matters is making the choice, moment to moment, and knowing why. In that regard, with help of good people in my life, I think things might be starting to resolve in a positive way...

Well, the trip to radio land ended up not quite panning out last night, but something even better happened: I got to spent some quality time with another old friend, talking late into the night; we did a fair bit of mental processing together, found common cause in some regards, and worked through discussing some personal issues that can be uncomfortable to bring up, especially in the moment, but I've been coming back to seeing how getting it out in the open really is healthy for the friendship, as now we both know where one another stand, and have greater trust because of it.

So now, having gotten through lot of that mental processing, I now see more possibilities as attainable, and begin to plan and consider once more my choices, from a more positive frame of mind, flowing with the changes as they come along, adapting and evolving. Regardless of whether the system tries to deny me, I will find ways through the cracks in the prison. I've done it before, and I'll keep doing it as long as I'm alive.

Now I've been sitting here writing this long enough, so to finish, I'll post this pic, taken last week from a seat in slightly different position, of my favorite coffee shop, along with what I wrote about it at that time:

I found myself stopping at a fair number of coffee shops while wandering between here and the coast, but now, being back here again, i gotta say this spot remains my overall favorite. Chill atmosphere, roomy seating, generally good wifi (sure it can lag sometimes if people are hogging bandwidth, but even during busy times it usually manages to be quite usable), abundant power outlets, nice friendly baristas, and off course excellent coffee... This place does it right.

Yes, Break Espresso is awesome. (I swear they didn't pay me to say this... just provided the nicest place I have access to for working my creative flow on the computer lately while I chug down coffee refills.)

Really, I'm done with this for now! Might post more about these evolving plans as things develop, and life turns more corners.... Keep on rockin, keep on rollin.... Keep on steemin!