Keeper of the Dam

          Funny how time runs out long and slow in front of us, but then when looked back upon, it scrunches together and overlaps in short layers of memory. My time in Michigan spent with my family stretched out for a very long six weeks. The weekends were punctuated by ragers with my brother, where we would microdose ecstasy, shrooms, acid, marijuana, cocaine, and then drown it all in gallons of Redbull for 3 day bangers in which we slept for 1 to 2 hours a night. On Sunday we would float on our backs in his pool, strung out but still too wired to sleep. Our eyes focused hazily into the distance and a hard-cider in hand. We were clever and never drank too much, and stayed hydrated through it all so that by the time Monday came around, he was able to go back to work and I could sleep a solid 9 hours and wake up in my mother’s empty house to binge-eat on the couch while watching old episodes of Mom (a comedy-sitcom about alcohol and drug addiction) and wond...

Culture shock and whiplash: two great words to describe the feeling I've had jumping from the towering world of NYC, to the vast sprawling hills of LA, down to the quaint coastal villages of Mexico, and back up to the eclectic streets of San Francisco. I’m not complaining - the journey has been marvelous and eye opening to say the least - but my skin is definitely screaming in protest. The cold, humid winds whipping off the coast of San Francisco are a big adjustment from the gentle, warm ocean winds that circled around me in Mexico. I wake up in the mornings with my skin red and tight from the abrasion it fights while travelling on my bicycle the day before. My skincare routine is changing as quickly as my plans, and I wonder if that process will catch up to my mind sometime soon. How am I to know that these expeditions I embark on won't unwind some vital path of synapses I rely on and rewire me to an even more messy version of the person I am now? I suppose that's a risk ...

     The sweat beaded on my forehead, collecting on my nose and cheeks; the temperature was an unseasonable 95 degrees in LA, and I was in black jeans, my long-forgotten boots, a blue chambray button-up, and my trusted red cardigan. With me I trolleyed along all my worldly possessions, packed just so because of the ungodly outfit I layered on (did I forget to mention the undershirt and jean jacket?). With rideshares on the fritz and traditional LA traffic putting on an early morning show, I was running late to my train up to San Francisco. One large suitcase, a backpack, a duffel, one folding bicycle, and a matching bag; I was overflowing with unnecessary items for my month-long trip.      Arriving at the train station, only a bit hassled by that point, I was greeted by an overtly charming woman who chauffeured me down the tracks, helping to push my luggage and hand deliver me to the train. For someone arriving late, I felt like I was receiving first-class ...

     According to my email confirmations, I have a flight coming up that will steal me away from this life I’ve made here in Mexico, and drop me off into the arid, dirty landscape of LA. At least, that's the first thing I think when I wake in the morning and count one day closer to my departure. I suppose I can’t blame anyone else for the ticket that I mindfully purchased. And really, there is no blame to point. I am looking forward to the return to LA, a return to my friends that I have left behind, a return to the amenities I have been without, a return to my sheets and towel and sunhat and yoga mat and bicycle and hot water and chilled nights and favorite restaurants and familiar beaches. I look forward to packing up the bags and jetting away toward another journey. Escaping up the coast of california, spending a spring week in San Francisco, hiking the hills of Big Sur, standing in awe of the golden coast. Perhaps I will even zoom over to New York to stand in my stora...

     Easing into Puerto Escondido has evolved into a sensation of feeling at home. At first, that feeling was warmly accepted, but recently the sensation has flipped. I am now becoming restless, a different version of those churning nights here where I roamed the streets and hopped from bar to bar. This is the same restless sensation that forced me out of NYC, out of LA and the greater California area. The previous two days I left my sweltering room only to grab water and snacks from the closest store, or to watch the sunset before slipping back into the swirling vortex of wind my ceiling fan is constantly creating to stave off the thickening humid air. The biggest routine I am grateful for, yoga, even slipped between my fingers as I slept in too long and dragged my feet in getting ready, resulting in me spending another endless day surfing my phone and binging Netflix. These characteristics are my least favorite part of myself - even though I am slowly learning to love a...

     I’m trying to decide if it is the power of Puerto Escondido that is making me feel like life is possible again, or if it is simply that we have all been shut off from the daily activities we are so used to, that mere contact with humans at bars, restaurants, parties, community activities, and in-person dates, has brought a part of me back from a deep coma that we have all been put into for the past year. Since I am a little more familiar with my past than most, I will say that I have not had a sense of community and eagerness to make friends and meet people, like I do now, than I have in nearly 10 years. Something is awakening within me while I roam the streets of Puerto, while I swim in the oceans, and while I run amok in the streets looking for the next best drink/food/date. Moving here - even if it is so temporary - has had the exact effect I was looking for: freedom to be whoever it is I want to be.       I’ve begun to find a sense of communit...

     Sand is only sand when it isn’t wet. When it’s wet: muck. Have you noticed that? We frolic in the plushy forgiveness that volleyball courts and cabanas call home, but find ourselves annoyed when we try to scrape and rinse off the caked-on plaster it can become. It gets into places we don’t want, and it collects in the sheets and carpets that we go home to luxuriate in. So why do we flock? For the water, perhaps. For the breeze off the shore. The minerals in the sea, and the vistas that ensconse it’s borders. The communal feeling of gaiety; that intoxicating neuron-firing chemical that catches like a cold, but through a smile instead of a sneeze.      And what becomes of it all when the clouds roll in and the sun disappears? I always thought the darker side of the beach - to balance out the bright shining part - was the nighttime. But perhaps it is the stormy days, those where the fog settles in and makes the water too cold for swimming, and the air too...

     Finding myself at another crossroads, and I can’t decide if it’s a good thing or not that this isn’t a reference to the 2002 smash hit Britney film. Rather, I’ve finished another week-long stay at the new place I set myself up with in the Bacocho/Rinconada neighborhood. It was the quiet, secluded spot I was looking for, even though the partying aspect of this trip went into full swing as I made the transition. I should have known better that it would take a little bit of time for me to fall in with a group of people who I would win over with my shining, drunken personality. Oh the wonders of liquor and drugs! But alas, my week long binge has come to a painful crash as my 32 year old body grinds through it’s aging gears, finding the mezcal to be an inadequate lubricant. Perhaps the time is overdue for the yoga and surfing portion of this retreat to start. Before that happens though, I am jumping at the invitation to join one of my new friends on a bit of a southerly j...

     Recently I’ve been waking in the morning with the same question in my head: What the fuck are you doing? And of course, the answer is simple: I don’t know. Because I answer as such, with it being the first thing to think in the morning, it trickles into the rest of the choices in my day and I question everything I do. Why that restaurant? Why eat right now? Why leave the apartment? Why go to the beach? Why ride the bicycle? Why try to meet a new partner? Why attempt to better yourself? Why even try? Well… I don’t know.       Now, let’s couple that with my crippling indecisiveness fueled by a need to always make the right choice. I live with a constant fear of “what if” and even if I do manage to pick my head up and take action in the day, I am constantly battling with the idea that the grass may have been greener on the other side. But if I can’t go back and relive that alternate universe where the other decision was made, then what's the point of...

     If there is one thing we can all agree on as humans, it is that life is full of ups and downs, hills and valleys. The first time I visited Mexico was to come to Puerto Escondido with my brother, his girlfriend, and one of my best friends. The timing of New Year’s was coincidental, but provided for quite an exciting addition to a trip with already high expectations. The journey was filled with adventure, excursions, new experiences, and nostalgia of stories past. So I wonder if the high of the trip was naturally going to be met with a low this time around. It’s not too far a stretch to understand that trying to recapture emotions that are still so fresh, in the same setting, but with a different scenario, was destined to fail. An answer to that from most would be the lows are there to make you appreciate the highs. But when you are a person who spends too much time in long stretches of lows, you start to forget what it means to enjoy a high.       ...

     Imagine if you will, you are 32 years old, alone, and surrounded by gaggles of people that are 10 years your junior. And not only that, but it seems like you may be the only gay person for miles. At least, that’s what loneliness will do to you: suddenly you are the only person in the world who is simply you. Somehow everyone was let in on a secret and you missed the memo. Not only did you miss the memo, you were out sick the day they had a meeting about it too. That’s essentially how I have felt every day for the past week, with increasing intensity while on the beach, when out to eat, when drinking alone at a bar, when sleeping in the dark of my room as what sounds like the entire hotel parties in the “shared kitchen”.       Having gotten that out of the way, what I really want for today is to not complain. I try not to look at it as ignoring the massive pull of the emotions that ride my mind like the heavy tides in this surf town, but rather, th...

      More days have gone by than I intended, based off of the work that I have completed. And by work, I do mean on myself, because who hasn’t been unemployed for the past 10 months? Right?       Today I find myself on the palapa of my hotel: Casa Piedra Parada, in Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, Mexico. This is techinically day 6 since I left my friends room in Los Angeles and jumped onto a flight to Mexico. I know, I know, we should all be staying home and isolating from the masses, I understand and I agree. But here’s the other thing to consider: I don’t have a home. I left mine and gave everything away - including my home of 10 years, spouse of 7 years, and job of 5 years - because something in me had died within that decade, and the smell was rotten. Jump to September of 2020 and I was suddenly homeless, crashing with my friend in California and wondering what the hell I was doing and what the hell I thought the outcome would be. All I knew was th...

      Why, I wonder, do I often find despair when faced with beauty? My second day on the beach of an all-inclusive hotel in a beautiful port of Mexico, and I can’t help but drown in my loneliness and sorrows, instead of getting drunk and drowning in the ocean or the pool. When I first arrived at the hotel (on my birthday, unnoticed by the hotel clerk) the woman checking me in asked what brought me around, and I said - honestly - that I was running away. From what? She asked. I thought: more like whom? So I told her: running from my family, from my responsibilities, from life, but mostly from myself. So you could imagine my surprise upon finding me in this hotel. The joke - perhaps a bad one - went unnoticed by the clerk. Confusion showing in her eyes but hidden behind the well trained customer service smile. And I’m sure lost somewhere in the language barrier, as it has so often been the case for me and ESL people. Well, actually, my humour is usually lost on most. ...