What Gets Your Goat?

So, hello sportsfans.  It's been many moons.  Well, the same old moon, but many different appearances in the sky.  Waxing and waning.  About a year, really.  Since I posted last.

So I'm trying to get 'er done.  Get back on the horse and ride a bit.  Hope she don't buck me.  And sift towards the sunset.

Lots has changed.  Like my location, for one.  I'm back in Escalon, the town where I graduated high school.  The town where I had my first sexual experiences.  The town where my parents have owned a home (mortgage) since 1981.  Well, not exactly true.  They've since paid off the mortgage.  But it wasn't always so financially expedient.

We moved here (to Escalon) in the summer of 81.  I was excited because the girl I had been crushing on for the better part of my sixth grade at Creekside private school in Modesto was from Escalon.  I somehow derived what street she lived on (via the phone book) and took to riding my ten-speed bike over to her neighborhood regularly.  Alas, we did not ever chance an encounter.  I wonder where she has ended up in this great wonderous world.

My parents originally faced great odds-- they had a mortgage rate of more than 20%!  But through the years, the house has serviced the needs of the family.  A brand new home, it was completely unlandscaped.  And had a punch list of items to be corrected as a stipulation of purchase.  But we made it through somehow, and I left my room for Grinnell, Iowa at the end of the summer of 1987.

So many things have transpired since then.  For instance, mom and dad moved out and rented the place for a few years, while they relocated to the Bay Area, following better working conditions (and better pay).  But they're back now, and they own another home that they are quite fond of.  My sister and her family live in the original house now.  My room is housed by my youngest nephew, named after me.

So I wonder now, what's the point of this exercise?  Well, I'm hoping to get back in shape, writing wise.  I want to take advantage of the situation I'm in and make some inroads towards what I want to do ultimately with my life.  I'm still searching for the perfect turn of phrase, and to write a complete work.  I mean, besides my other efforts to date.  (Note the existence of The Raging, Flaming Goat of Samos, available on Amazon dot com and Barnes and Noble dot com.)  I still hope to do a memoir recounting my experiences in Greece and the ensuing journey through the mental health spectrum.  So stay tuned.

Truth is I'm a bit scared to try and get all this shit down.  I'm afraid of succeeding in gaining an audience.  I don't want to have to field questions about this shit.  I just want to get it down so that others might enjoy experiencing through me what it's like to go mad.  To be suicidal.  And to live to tell about it.

I don't purport to have any answers or parables or shit.  I just am trying to figure it out my own self.  To get at the basic components and ride the wave, glistening, on the edge of destruction.  I feel an obligation to revisit my fears and make some sense of them.  I want to find the golden ore in the shifting granite.  I want to elicit the elixir made of shed blood and broken spirits.  I want to lay down the coronation blanket to comfort the fragile infant.  I wish for understanding.

There are bits of it in music-- songs from my childhood, and from other chance encounters-- and there are pieces earned by suffrage and yearning for a greater good and balance.  We must not give out the white flags.  There is glory in continuing the struggle.  There is nutrition in the stone and dirt.

I don't know why or how.  I only know that I want to know.  Do you know what I mean?