I've made a small home of red sand

More than 35 hours in five days… My Explorer—probably more of a home to me than any shack, apartment or house I’ll ever stay in—took me to Albuquerque, New Mexico last week. I was calling the trip a small introspective experiment in dealing with utter aloneness. I knew not a single soul, and the closest relative or friend was about 10 hours away.  
I found myself eating New Mexican food in small cafes, where voluptuous Hispanic servers delivered huge plates of eggs, peppers and beans smothered in red or green Chile to tattooed immigrants, alone. I was drinking my liver into submission in seedy bars alone, viewing the skinny-jeaned hipsters and quiet, mustached homosexual artists, all with something quite intriguing in that head I was sure, if only they’d notice me.

But as I was screeching open old rusty cabinets and rummaging through sticky notes in my own brain, I found every so often under stacks of crumbled papers thoughts of the others around me. My lips twitched as I mouthed the words they would say and what I’d say back, being cool and witty of course.

Is introspection not also extrospection? Is there ever a difference between the two? What you have seen and heard and felt all has an effect on your mind—aren’t they all parts that couldn’t work correctly without the mind—so maybe it isn’t that they are the same, but that introspection doesn’t really exist. But then again, after watching a TED video by Julian Baggini, I don’t much believe that we as humans even have a core—a real you—but merely we create what we are and in turn can be absolutely anything we please, at any given moment, especially if we don’t have to perform but instead only speak.

This led me only to another experiment. Be someone else. It would only take a creative mind and a good lie, but think how interesting it might be to absolutely trick someone, maybe even depending on what they like. It would be as if the two of you were meant to meet, or at least that’s what the other brain would think.

I’m not really sure what the implications are to this kind of experiment. I didn’t try it in Albuquerque, merely because I met a lady the first night I was in town, getting a drink at a crimson glowing pool hall.
I asked her, “How far is Sante Fe?”
She said, “About an hour. Hey my friend bailed on me for pool, want to play?”

It was that easy—the beginning of a great friendship. I suppose not all first meetings go so well, but Luck and I get coffee every morning.

There was something about that place. Who knows if it’s because I’ve been dying to move but I came here thinking I wouldn’t leave. That I would just stay and make a new life for myself. How hard could it be with $300.
When you meet someone that you can talk to for hours and the conversation never ceases to interest and before you know it you’re five drinks in and you walk to the bathroom and the mirror whispers to you, ‘You’re drunk,’ it’s hard to find motivation to drive out of the city.
Albuquerque wasn’t the most beautiful town I had ever seen, but the way the buildings were tinged with red dirt and the small immigrant businesses, probably started with only $300, showed cracks and scratches from the winds whipping hard work and tumble weeds across the façade, got to me. The stories of the War Zone and gang battles—the Padilla boys and the West Siders—pushing cocaine and heroin and shooting their guns in the streets on holidays, I was immediately entranced.

For me the stranger the better. I enjoy the filth, I relish in the grime and I’d much rather play in the dirt than sit pretty with dolls.

Is it the paper or the keyboard that is my friend?

I’ve had two too many libations. An incoherent fragment I’ll make.

Do you know how many times I’ve hit that foreboding backspace button?

I was in Cape, driving past those houses that hold every ounce of trauma and joy. On that dark old street I drove past a house—after we broke up, before I was over it all, even though I was sleeping with your cousin, when I seizured in front of all those “friends”—and thought, ‘Are the ghosts still there?’

Is beer can shrapnel still not stomped into the ground? Is the memory of you making my face burn and then my father burning it again, for your sake, not ingrained there? The baseboards tense in terror and the walls shutter at my name screamed and then the floor catches my fall, wraps me in harsh words and handshakes, till I—who I was then—start a new life. Then someone unknown starts theirs. But do they feel that presence?

How many times will I drive past this house… no matter how many times we lied, we cheated, we loved.

I still see the same fucking house. The same fucking people. The same fucking party. I same fucking “It’ll be okay; I’ll go talk to him.” The same fucking friends looking at you in the eye wanting to be your friend but knowing in a small town like this, ignorant friends are easy but ignorant friends with ignorant parents are slightly more difficult to come by. The same fucking place. The same fucking… that made me who I am.

I had wanted this to be short. Ole scrap paper, my confidant—a withered piece torn from an unused checkbook, left too long on a dusty computer desk where he has stalked me silently—how you inspire me. 

Only God can judge me...

I understand why people get this painstakingly tattooed all over their body... They're renegades, losers, outcasts. They've been picked on and scrutinized. They've been told they're wrong. They've been shunned. I'm right there with you... but... but...

But how could God, a man/alien/invisible arrogant entity, that made us and loves us, judge us.

I have loved and I love now. There’s a blond-haired, blue-eyed rambunctious 6-year-old who breaks every toy car he gets and only eats frozen corn, cinnamon waffles and whole watermelons, that is the love of my life. He’s family, he’s blood, I tear up every time I have to leave him and I didn’t even make him.

But I love him… And never, no matter what he failed, what he questioned, what he snorted or what he killed would I ever wish to see him hurt. I would give up my eyes to hear that boy say, “Belly, I love you.”

Everyday people get hurt; people suffer for no fault of their own. Where is the God that loves them? Don’t tell me it’s divine… It’s only narcissism.

If there is a God that made me and loves me… Would he not be watching me now—writing words that contradict what “he” is in every religion—and think, ‘Look at those fingers floating above those keys as that dark independent cerebral jumble turns.’ Would he not say, “Look at those intense eyes that hold the weight of every outcast. Look at that smooth skin that hides her grief. Look at how everything’s working so beautifully and all her past has worked so well to make her the way she is.”

That’s the God I wanted to believe in, so as not to fear a meaningless death, until I realized I was only using my imagination.

Because no matter what atrocities may happen to the world, my friends, my family, myself I will not believe in evil. From Charles Manson to Ted Bundy, they were all someone’s Cole. Yeah, it seems a fuse busted, a switch was flipped, but that’s psychological not devilish. Right and wrong has been based on societal ideas and what works forever. We don’t kill people today on the regular because we know that kind of justice just doesn’t work all that well… Eventually the dad, the mom, the minions of the murdered might murder someone close to you. It’s cause and effect, it’s problem solving, it’s the evolution of a thought.

And after all this explaining of how the mysteries of God work, they say, “You’ll have your epiphany.” But no good people, it’s not a revelation it’s the realization your life is relatively meaningless. It’s no epiphany but an effectuation.

But wait…. Although your life might not have some vast all encompassing meaning that everyone sees and knows it can have meager meaning that impacts so much… it just happens a little at a time. So instead of trying to make an impression on that godhead in the clouds, why not focus on making an impression on the people around you. Our lives aren’t about working towards an afterlife; they’re about working to keep a life after ours.