Cracked Pot Meditations – Voyages

Meditations for January 23rd, 2016

Voyages

We all came from somewhere. A lot of us call somewhere home. As we travel the world, we always look back at home fondly. If we move somewhere, we become a stranger in a strange land and we look for something to anchor us and that is things that remind us of home for a lot of us.

Well stop. People don’t want to know about streets and people from where you grew up because they don’t know them and don’t care. Yes, it’s different in other places, but you had to end up there, so claim it. You could go back “home”, but it won’t be how you left it anyway, so you’ll just become a stranger there too.

Wherever you are, there you are. You think you need to explain some sort of genesis chapter for yourself so people know you started out somewhere, but you don’t need to. Just assimilate to your new home and stop bothering people. Yes, people don’t know how to drive here. Yes, they don’t have good coffee. Yes, people are so fake. Yes, the streets don’t make any sense here. Yes, dogs bark like idiots here. You are now a terrible driver with bad taste in coffee who is fake driving terribly on horribly planned roads listening to dogs bark like idiots. Welcome home.

Remember people call the place you despise home. They didn’t want you to come here and let them know that their ways are backwards. Be a good guest and be fucking gracious.

Prayer

Gods of the Stars,

hear my cries,

as I navigate your world,

finding new places,

with stange ways,

and learn to accept them.

Learn how I can be patient.

Learn how I can accept my new home.

Learn that where I live now will never be where I came from and that if I don’t accept it I’ll be a miserable wretch who smokes in front of bars mumbling about the lack of In & Out Burgers or Dunkin’ Donuts or whatever terrible culture I had there that they don’t have here and wonder why no one wants to hang out with me, but maybe I also blamed my lack of being able to date because women here are fake and stupid and not like the girls I knew back home, but maybe I didn’t date much there either, but maybe that red head at the video poker machine will bum another cigarette from me and maybe she’s had just enough Jager shots to think I’m good looking enough to hang out with me – OH, GAWD, I’M SO LONELY!

Bonus Prayer

Oh, Great Architect of the Universe!

I lay on thee hollow grounds,

and watch the Wretched & Lepers migrate to my great Jerusalem!

They mock my home, my peoples and my Cultures!

Give me strength!

Oh, My Great Employer!

May I walk past trendy ice cream shop lines with no judgement!

May I walk past Heavy Metal bars without thinking harm on the Peoples of Sacramento!

May I walk through my own city not a stranger, but your Voice!

Let them know thy power of thy Home,

or let them all be Smyted!

May they see another Jerusalem,

and may they flee to Her Bosom.

Amen.

Craft

Make a fake band poster playing at a real venue. Name three or four bands that don’t exist. Say it costs $5 or less. Make it cool looking with a skeleton smoking marijuana or a naked pin-up girl riding a bullet. Be creative. Make a hundred copies and put them up on telephone poles near your local youth haunts and hip neighborhoods. Show up to bar that is supposed to have the fake show and see who shows up.

Goal

Don’t ever move. Stay where you grew up. Don’t even move too far from where you went to high school. Ignore anyone who moves to your neighborhood from anywhere further than a hundred miles. Point at empty lots, sigh, shake your head and talk about what used to be there. Blame someone who moved there within earshot.

It’s never the way it used to be.