weaving in and out of love

love has always been a strong subject in my life from as far back as I can remember. I was raised with love. My grandparents raised and taught me the importance of not only loving others, but of a humbled self love. They showed me that true love could exist and flourish just by example as their marriage lasted well beyond 60 years. They took the lines, "till death do us part" very seriously and followed through. Yet I have seen other examples of love, and how it can go south. I watched various family members, and friends through out my life go through divorce and breakups, all my life.. Most of these relationships that where ending, seamed to end very messily. Rarely does one hear tales of a relationship ending and the couple maintaining a friendship afterwords, especially when children are involved. What is it that defeats love the strongest force on earth, what is it that has gone so wrong that people in love cannot work it out? Somewhere along the lines, maybe it was just building up over time but love has died, maybe it wasn't meant to be in the first place, people together just to save face, to hide who they truly are. Sometimes relationships are built out of desperation and we really don't love the people we are with, we just go for them because of the fact that they want us, they show us attention, the crave us. In my life time I have had many loves. some puppy love, some mild love, some hard core love, and some love, that was more like infatuation, or a strong like. I have thought many times I had found the one, only to be left alone with a broken heart knowing that what I thought was right, was oh so wrong. I have been with the girl everyone warns you about, and the one ya take home to mom, if only I had a mom to take her home to... I was born just like anyone else, with a mother, but was never able to develop that bond, due to her death of leukemia when I was 7 months old. This is probably why I get mixed up with the wrong types of women. This is why i find the ones who sets off my triggers and makes them worse... We all have our traumas making love that much harder to find as we must find those who compliment our own faults....

Nationally lampooned Vacation

So as the story goes, this palm weaving rose man needed a break, a vacation. Life was a hustle and a bustle, the rat race was strong even in a small city like San Diego. Several years in this lifestyle can wear a person down, and in the years I have been living as an artist I rarely allotted myself any sort of break. Now one might say, "you're a full time artist, and work your own hours, isn't your whole life a break.?".... The truth of the matter, is that it doesn't matter your profession, there are stresses that come with anything you do. Work is work, doing something you like doesn't change that fact it only makes the day go by quicker.. As a street artist, I have many stresses, "can I meet my own quota for the day in the time I have, or will I have to work longer? will the people walking by today notice my work and want some of it?. will they pay fairly?, as well as the anxiety and stresses to working in public with people all day.... Its no different from any other job. I live day to day.... So it just so happens that a friend of mine Dwayne was moving back to Texas and needed help with gas and driving the 1400 miles to Texas... So we plan and save, and prepare for the trip as best as we can, while dealing with the every day responsibilities life has dealt us and the days ran by to the day we where to leave. A couple of weeks before the planned date a mutual friend of ours, Summer, came into San Diego to help with the move as well. The night before we are to leave Dwayne And Summer pick me up in the Nation Lampoon Vacation car.... I post pics on facebook.... The lampoon begins. The day we are to leave, we get up at 6 am and head to Dwayne storage. While there, Summers loyal dog that never wanders off, disappeared. So for three hours we look around the area, along with basically terrorizing the storage worker to see the video footage, because we where all convinced someone had stolen the dog. After 3 or so hours of being there, we decide that we are going to give up looking for the dog... And the journey begins.. We make it an hour from storage in Palm desert Ca, when the car overheats. We pull over and let it sit an hour to cool, then drive to a gas station where we patch the water pump after it sits an hour or so. Then we drive to Pep Boys and buy ourselves a new water pump, then start the long job of removing parts.... Luckily I had a digital camera with me to take pics after every two or three steps... Later while Dwayne was trying to just get the water pump out I walked around gathering desert palms. By the time it was midnight we had the new pump in but everyone was exhausted so we crashed out in the car the best we could for the night, but none one got any real sleep. The next day we finally get it all back together by noon. We stop at a medical club get enough meds for our trip and drive on our way.

We make it an half hour into Arizona when the car overheats again.. (we forgot to change the thermostat) So will sit an wait in the brush to get shade till the car cools down... This time we didn't have any drinking water. while we waited we stacked rocks and medicated to keep ourselves entertained.... An hour or so later we were on our way again... We made our way to Phoenix to a friend's house, and we stayed the night, caught up, and rested. the next day we spend a few hours in the pool before starting our journey again.

On our way out Dwayne wants to stop and see an old friend of his in Phoenix, and when we arrive at her house not 30 minutes away from where we stayed the night, the car overheats again. We sit an hour or so in the heat waiting for the car to cool down, then we start our journey up the 17 towards Sedona, and Flagstaff. About 2 hours into the trip and we overheat again and sit at a gas station till the car cools, for about an hour. Then we start up the hill, another hour into it and the car overheats again... We finally make our way into Sedona Just as it is getting dark. so we get dinner and sit and chill at the bell rock vortex for about 3 hours. The we start our journey again through Sedona up the mountain to Flagstaff.

Sedona was a beautiful town Full of creativity and spiritual energy, but the ascent up the mountain filled me with ecstasy. The air was filled with a pine smell and was cool and crisp, I had to put on my jacket. A couple of miles near the top a car was blinding me so I decided to pull off one of the turn off's, it had a hump I did not see and the car was low to the ground loaded with Dwayne's gear.. Turns out Somehow I had rapped the tail pipe around the rear axle, luckily Dwayne had a power saw, and was able to remove it an hour later. We make it to flagstaff stop and get gas, and continue our journey. By about 6 we make it to Gallup ,NM. The rest of the journey was less exciting. It was hot, dry, and tiring. Though we did stop and see the grave of Billy the kid in Ft Sumner, NM. We also stopped at the big Texan steak house and enjoyed a very tasty steak... We finally made it to our destination in ft worth Texas at 6 am on Friday... Our Trip took many hours longer than we had planned and it was a relief to arrive at our destination, which had seamed like an impossible task with all of the hell we faced on our journey. All in all though it was an experience and an adventure....