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The Coarse Grind: Part 19: Eleven Summers Left

Now, the practice of Yoga begins.
Patanjali, The First Yoga Sutra

A genius is the one most like himself.
—Thelonious Monk

This Labor Day marks the end of our twelfth summer left here together.  I have had to accept this fate. I can’t say what’s beyond 2031, except that maybe then I won’t have the profound privilege of my own solitude, won’t have the pleasure of waking up and brewing some dark roast, coarsely ground, and sitting here at the desk with a large mug of it and tearing into the work.  Neither perhaps will you have the pleasure to read it. Maybe the end will instead be by degree and we’ll all be trapped, much as we are now, and only wait it out nervously with the blinds down and our TVs and stereos loud with their barrage of white noise to assuage our fear that someone or something and even the whole world is on fire.  That doesn’t seem so bad at least not any different than how I live my life now. I’d rather accept it though, than wonder, and anyway should probably do more than either accept or wonder but I, like you, was born into this and I’ve got a column to write.

Acceptance was the first spark on the ignition of Yellow Lark Press and self-publishing for me, but it wasn’t pretty.  In what I know now as a moment of radical acceptance, I hovered above, and saw myself outside myself–clearly, so that when the usual barrage of self-hatred and unacceptance swelled I could rationalize it in a different and more effective way.  Literally the reaction was “What the fuck have I done with my life?”  Usually, what happens when I ask myself that question is an attack and onslaught of abusive answers such as You fucked it up, Jim. You blew it mate.  Jim Trainer’s an asshole. Jim Trainer killed himself.  The strangest part of what turned out to be a moment of pure self-actualization is, because I was on a small dose of antidepressants at the time, my complaint that the sharp corners of life had been rounded gave me the littlest bit of space between me and what ails me.  I was neither who I thought I was, nor my shadow and the overly critical part of me that we’ve come to revel in, here and in my work—an incisive, unforgiving and bitter voice that does well for a critic but is horrible for having friends and even self-worth. So, I had some space.  I could see the whole rig as it unwound. Dissatisfaction and unacceptance. Unacceptance, it isn’t even a word–but could simply mean wanting things to be other than what they are.

The other piece to this perfect moment of dread and re-ignition was the fact that I was 40.  Never did it matter more I do what I am here for because never was I that old before. Nor did I intend to be, Good Reader.  30 was a shocker. When I hit 30 there was a gratitude, the self same dread and a heavy scythe of the question What now? hung high and ready to swing.  I was an alcoholic. I smoked a pack a day.  I took the blue ones, the yellow ones, the white ones and in 2 years I’d hit bottom and hole up in a purple bedroom at 10th&McKean, getting high on my own supply and quarts of Budweiser until the sun went down and I’d do rails of coke off my dresser and peer through the blinds like a lizard.  My 30s weren’t good, Good Reader, and neither was Philly, for that life or a better one and things only turned gradually until I said Goodbye and came down to Guitar Town. I’ll spare you the additional grislies but assure you I found a Paradise down here, in the Pearl of the South.  I got my teeth fixed, thanks to the Capital Area Dental Foundation, saved money, played music and found Yoga.  I turned my life around and set myself up to see, for real and beyond karma or shame—who I really was and then realistically began to gauge how to get to where I wanted to be. Ha ho, I set myself up for the chopping block though, and 40 for me was as real as it got.

I can never live down what my heroes have given me.  They showed me the way but more important than the road or map told me by example it could be done.  I took them as my idols, they sat looking down from Olympus and there wasn’t a greater motivator for me than being just like them i.e. my own self hate.  I really thought I had to be like them and I really tried and as you can guess failed miserably…trying to be an upper middle-class punk rocker who founded his own press, a day laborer and unsung torchbearer of the Beat Generation who got lucky with movie money and won the most unlikely lottery of becoming a famous poet in his own lifetime, or a reporter with a voice as authentic as gravity and a truth that burned bright with anger coupled with a kind and romantic charm.  The night is over. I’m not exactly free now but I’m getting there. I couldn’t handle not being anything like my heroes but the truth is I couldn’t handle being me.  Though I took their example and worked as much as I could, I could’ve always done more when I wasn’t breaking down or hating myself or trying to get away from how I felt about myself. The trouble was that self-hatred was the whip and there’s nothing like a whip to keep things moving. There’s the carrot, too, and though I don’t know what the prize of this life should be I know now, more than ever, I am going to die.

I’m as primed as ever and I see no other option but to take charge and really make it.  It, to me, is Art. Books and poems and songs and shows. I’m invested in publishing and printmaking and in a weird way I’ve become the columnist I admired in Thompson and always wanted to be—I’m on the outside looking in like he was, except I’m really looking in.  Personal Journalism’s what I peddle and I hear it helps folks which, besides being beautiful in its own right, is what’s going to help me get it done. The poetry I still bang out on a machine plugged into nothing but the wall. I sat out putrid, shut in swathes of time without a machine this summer, and had, at times, to take to the cafes and supermarkets with a pad and pen for Christ sake.  I got it out somehow, even if not how I’d prefer, and this year’s collection from Yellow Lark Press has been in the can since before the summer began. I didn’t want this column to be motivational or attempt to give you instructions I need in my own nervous life full of sweat and daylabor, chaos and anger and romantic marvel, but sometimes the only way to tell myself something is to do it in writing and I always write better with you in mind.  Our connection is this currency I’m addicted to and can’t live without, I mean—I can, but it’s a shut in life that way, without hope and full of futility and processed food.

I’ve lived my life as a reactionary, the strongest motivators being what I didn’t want.  I never wanted to be trapped and somehow I got free. I’ve confused luck with privilege and I want to set the record straight.  I couldn’t have done it without help and without being born into the life and family I was born into. They supported me, if only financially, at dim and dire crossroad moments and I’d be fucked or stuck in a mine of daylabor if I didn’t have them or took their advice.  I’ve no college loans, no kids. Not signed on to anything except this 1-bedroom uptown until next June. The only imperative for me is Art. It’s nice to know that hasn’t changed. I’ve lived my life as a reactionary, I ran scared and I just ran but still—here I am. I’m picking my battles now and I’m terrified.  I don’t know if I’m going to make it but I am going to try. And I can’t do it without you. I need you to read me, reach out and sign on. We’re going to do it, Good Reader. Columns and poetry, Art and the rest. Going to festoon something bright and savage from the bizarre and calamitous shape of our pain.  The pain was a gift I guess.  As was death.  This life was too but they took it, ain’t they, and now we’ve got 11 summers left. It’s more important to me than it ever was and I still don’t know if I can. I get overcome with the smallness of living out these end days in this trap but eventually come around to the luck and gratitude of real life, as it is, and of love and Art, beauty and ire.  

If I went back where I’ve been
and I knew what I know now then
Well I’d probably do it again
’cause I’m just a man
Here I AmSteve Earle

 

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