Nowhere and Everywhere -Vienna

I walk around this city and do not know where I am.
I walk across this continent and feel like distance is a matter of how far you are willing to go and time is measured by memories, but kept in untouchable time-capsules made for gazing.

As I experience this place, I feel like an observer. I watch the people on the trains; those with solemn faces, those with nervous darting eyes -afraid to meet my gaze, those who coo and laugh to their children, those who joke so loudly to their friends their insecurity shows, those who smell of the street, those whose eyes are so heavy the fall asleep waiting for the train stop, those who have blue lips from some popular drug and are falling over, eyes closed, gone from this world.
There are those that stand out. The man with the beautiful, small feet in those violet heels. The woman who screams, indignant, at strangers. The laughing man on a bike, dressed in red, and speaking with a booming voice about the beauty of existence and of singing out your heart. The man who always wears all white and a pink blossom-tie, and carries bags.
Abraham, the street-performer with Diabolos, the Slovakians who come from across the border and do a poor and redundant job of breakdancing, the people painted up in gold and silver standing still as statues until you get too close, the guitar-players, the chinese girl who plays classical compositions on a piano in the middle of the street in Stephansplatz.
The silent statues and the gelded architecture speak to me when I listen to them; they whisper things in old Latin. I don't hear people running down the streets in this city. The ghosts are keeping council, but not running around. The night is always heavy. In Italy, I could feel the gaeity still kept alive. Here? I cannot speak their language. They know I am a different creature with different purpose here. They remember me, but I am not here to awaken ghosts that are still remembering war and bloodshed and hatred; they sit there, in the same world as those they have killed or fought, in the dark streets of this country and watch their children grow up. Their history does not weigh in my blood. I don't listen to their cries.
But naked, exposed, stripped of the dark history -which should not be forgotten, but should be forgiven- the city remains beautiful, timeless, and vulnerable. The delicate and detailed carvings of wicked cherubs casting deamon-witches into Hell... as an angel turns her eyes away. The serious-faced busts of composers whose music boiled in countless people's blood. The curving streets leading into cafe's where Foulks and Dali and Mozart and Mahler and Kafka spent many evenings.
I feel like when I walk into these constantly changing fractals of perspectives... things are shown to me. The world is like a beautiful virgin undressing by moonlight, exposing not only its' body, but it's vulnerable heart, its' eternal soul.

I never left California. And yet, I never returned, and never will. 'My' California is in another world; it is kept in a time-capsule I only can gaze at. The world I walk in is an endless path. I may cross the same street ten times and each time is new; I never can walk backwards through the experience; forward marching on and on and on...

and I feel like this world is a large playground, a museum of undiscovered art and treasures, of past lives and past memories that brush against me as a soft, warm breath of other-worldly, other-timely life.

I don't exist anywhere. I exist everywhere. I simply exist. A smile, an emotion, a ripple effect in the pond of thought. Watching the movie flicker by.... I daydream, always, of this life and of many others before, and of lives yet to be.
But then I wake myself, remembering nothing, thinking nothing, simply breathing. IN and OUT.... IN and OUT...

Perhaps when I die I will finally feel at home. A part of everything, but completely immersed, no longer observing, no longer thinking thoughts that keep me separate from those around me, no longer governed by an ego that says "mine" and "yours" or "me" and "you" and "them". Without "loss" or "gain". Without want or resentment. Simply everything. Simply nothing at all.
Just existing everywhere and anywhere.


Annie said "Your biggest wound is often the biggest catalyst for how you create change in yours and others' worlds. Do not be afraid of your shadow, stare it in the face, and conquer your fear...and you will free yourself and others around you ."
I'm really thoughtful about that at the moment.

and Olivier says, "you should start putting a little bit of trust in life, paths are no straight lines set forever, they are curvy tricky little suckers who take you up and down roller coaster but get you home safe eventually.... Why do you wanna know where your home is, enjoy the journey, the destination is inconsequential, the journey is everything!"

=)

I'm happy I'm me. The whole world is crashing down. Our shit won't mean anything soon. Our houses will be sold. Our stocks will crash. Our cars will stay parked, the gas will run out. We'll lose our corporate jobs. And eventually... we'll have to start working together to survive.

So come good, come bad; what's the point in changing my attitude? I don't want to ride an emotional rollercoaster driven by the ups and downs of my life. I want to be calm, peaceful, loving. Even death can't change that. To disappear and go Home is the last destination I'll ever reach... I welcome it when it comes. For now? I choose this road, winding on, and hope for good companions along the way.


I love you I love you I love you. Don't ever forget it!