Kansas' hit song, "Carry on Wayward Son," is a song I used to run to the radio to turn up as a kid. Growing up in a really tense household, it always seemed like these guys were singing just to me. "Hang on kid, just carry on, it'll make sense some day."
I've always loved wandering. My family moved nearly every year when I was a kid, which I eventually realized was due more to our family's dysfunction, than my dad finding a new job. When we landed in a new place, I would start wandering the new neighborhood, the local woods, and the area around. I did this as far back as I can remember, even at about 5 years old. I would wander off into the woods, along a creek, through the cornfields, or whatever was around.
To me wandering is the essence of exploring, going off in a direction, with no goal in mind. I'd head off one place, and see something off in the distance, and wonder what it was, or what was beyond it. So I'd head that way. When I got to that point, I amble around a bit and explore the area. Before long, something else would catch my eye, off in another direction. I'd head off that way. There were times later on, on a family camping trip in Ohio, in the desert of southeastern New Mexico, or the miles and miles of open sagebrush country Boise, Idaho, or on my BMX bike, around San Jose or Southern California, where I'd walk 8 or 10 miles, or ride 15 or 20, just exploring by myself. I still wander on a regular basis.
BMX freestyle led me to Southern California, and to writing. My wandering went inward as well, at age ten I remember pondering whether our lives were predetermined or whether we actually had free will, since I couldn't make too many of my own decisions then. I wandered through a few hundred books over the course of my life. I've also wandered into my own thoughts, good and bad. I wandered through a weird series of odd jobs, from menial restaurant work, to a couple of BMX magazines, into working as a TV show crew guy, sweating as a furniture mover, producing and editing a bunch of BMX and skateboard videos, and driving a taxi for years, among other things. I feel now that my working life has come full circle. I stumbled into writing with my first zine, in 1985, and soon worked at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN', and then for almost a year at the AFA newsletter. I was just starting to think of myself as a writer then. Then I went out into the world, wandering, for about 30 years. I somehow came full circle, back to the San Fernando Valley, where I first started "getting serious" about writing, back in 1991.
Looking back now, from well into my fifth decade of life on Earth, that it couldn't have happened much differently. Obscure little things that happened, and lessons learned at one weird job or another, made sense, or came into play, many years later. While most people see me as a homeless loser who can't seem to get his shit together, it's much different from my point of view. I've lived the last four years, through the whole pandemic, on the streets of L.A. county, mostly. I live and sleep and wander alone, without a weapon. My average night, with the multitude of "street zombies" shuffling by, tweekers, crackheads, and crazy motherfuckers of many varieties, my nights would scare the shit out of most people. Yet I manage to get a reasonable night's sleep, all in all.
I wake up, get something to eat, and sit in the early morning light doing my own weird little meditation. I once was a kid with a never ending string of fears running through my head. I was afraid of everything. Now I can empty my mind, for short periods, to a point of no thoughts at all, only sensations oozing through it, mostly traffic sounds. I then pack up my stuff, go to my favorite fast food place, and suck down some iced tea. I never drank coffee, and recently gave up my long Diet Coke addiction. Iced tea, usually with some lemonade, is my caffeine fix now.
Then I come here to the library, or some other place I can get online, and write. I look up things that interest me. I do some research along the way. I write blog posts about things that I'm actually interested in. And, I have some people read what I wrote, day after day after day. My blogs have steady readers. Not a huge amount, but some, day after day. Later on I may draw for a while, or spend an hour or two reading. This is what I love. This is why I'm here. I just don't make a living at it... yet.
As hard as it is to imagine for most people, I didn't fuck up. Every blog post I write, well over 2,500 of them now, is the result of of 57 years of wandering the physical world, the world of books, speeches and YouTube videos, and other content, and the world of thoughts and ideas. 57 years of this crazy path are behind every sentence I write, every picture I draw. My life makes sense now, in a way it never did 35 years ago.
And there's more to come. Hopefully a lot more. Time will tell.
I've started a new blog, looking into ideas for side gigs, and small businesses. Check it out.
As of late 2023, I'm doing most of my writing on Substack, a platform designed for writers. Check it out:
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