“The devil you know..”

I love wine. Have for years. In times low and high, good and bad, it was always the ideal elixer to what I felt was a world gone west. Not imply the taste, but the feel of the bottle, the artistry involved in the craftsmanship, the history, the lineage and parentage of thousands of years parcled out into the study, maturation, and execution of a the very grapes. The regions of France, Italy, Chilie, Argentina filled to overflowing with proud and noble wine traditions. The affluant asthetic called forth. Linen shirts, summer breezes, rustic cuisine, fireplaces-all introverted though joyous. Celebratory yet subued.

I myself had my brands of choice. I loved a good Barolo, Cotes du rhone, and Cabernet Franc. Unlike Fortunato in Poe’s “Cask of Amantillado”, I never fancied myself a connesiour. I knew what I liked, but if you wanted to know what kind of seasonal red pairs best with dry fruits and a beef wellington, well sir, I can only play it by the ear- or shall I say- the tongue.

At the end of an arduous work day, nothing was finer then sloughing off layers, a lengthy shower and a tall stiff red, paired with whatever the hell in the fridge looked appealing. Or on days off, firing up a turntable, cracking open a Cotes, fill a glass and letting it weave its sublime spell whilst I was whirled away on a cloud of bliss to to the tune of The Doors, Miles Davis, Adele and Nina Simon.

Now, here is where it pivots. 

I look over and the bottle is almost gone. My muscles ache. In the trajectory of an hour, I am numb, and have gone over every emotion. Randomly texted people I’ve not spoken to in years, thought at length about the song I want played at my funeral, and ordered about 3 new items on amazon I’ve not the funds for, but ration I must have them. I am in a feuge state. I am not myself. I’ve gone off the deep end. This is not artful whistful unattachment from one’s self. This is a stupor. …and it’s nightly.

I don’t see it. Yet I wonder why my sleep suffers so. I wonder why I have no apptitude for work. Why my excerise is a parody of itself and I leave after a piss poor 30 minutes on the treadmill. Yet of course, I stop at the market, get my two bottles, coveted like dragon’s gold, and speed home, placing them in my wine rack with the sacred attentions one would give a rare jewel like the Hope diamond. Then, I do it all again.

This is alcoholism.

I don’t see it though. I don’t see how the rings under my eyes are expansive. I don’t see how I have no energy. I don’t see the gut that has formed on my normally slender abdomine. I disregard the hazyness. Also the fact I sometimes start as early as 11 am, rationing the old phrase “it’s 5 pm somehwere!” Yeah it’s funny-until its your life. Being as I am, I rationalize it with hero worship.

What great artist didnt have some maladdiction? Some chemical coping mechinism? Cocteau, Rimbaud, Bukowski ( my god) Plath, Stein, Falkner, Piccaso, Polleck- the list is endless. Then, the deeper part of me, older wiser and more mature, which seldom get’s a word in chimes up. “Yes” it say’s-“and you’re not them”.

-and why would I want to be? Yes, they did create great and meaningful work, but I never saw the stupors they walked it. Saw them rationing those last bits of change to buy piss cheap brandy just to numb themself through another day. Saw the trackmarks on their arms. Saw the pain the addictions caused, the caustic relationships with loved ones, the isolation, the depravity. Perceptions formed by romanticism and the seasoning of time can do alot to twist what should be clear perceptions. I won’t lie- it can be fun. A feeling of perfect abandon. A sinful vice that unifies you with nothingness- makes you ( at least chemically) free. Everything becomes so bareable. These were my rose colored spectacles. I wore them proudly, and drank away.

I have never had some clear breaking point. Never had some cataclysmic internal awakening. Nor did I awake in a hospital bed, an iv on my arm, or open my eyes and gaze the the ceiling on the inside of an ambulance. No great reckoning. In truth…this is how it stopped. It just stopped being fun.

I went one day with no wine. I had no side effects. No “Leaving Las Vegas” level nightmare detox. No hell hangovers. Then it turned into another day. Then another. Before I knew it I had myself down to a glass on the weekend…and then, it just lost steam. That’s it.

This is not an experiance everyone relates to. Some people take years, decades, and lots of shed tears to stop.

The other night, while watching a movie at home, I felt a bit casual and decided to pour a glass. I refused to do the dramatic “dump it all down the sink” none sense because, that was still money being squandered. Upon a few sips, I set the glass down, continued the film-and forgot it was even there. Then the film eneded- the glass still there- and half empty. I finish it. Slowly. I realize, as the substance, this coveted sacred thing I held in the same reverence as some venerated saint, slid down into my stomach and through my system…it felt- off.

Foreign.

Like something that didn’t belong in me. I may as well have consumed a Mountian Dew or some vile bargain basement softdrink. Had it been that long? It wasnt’ a slow burn. It was no burn- and I felt no desire to continue.

As of this writing, my bottle sits in the rack. The ghosts of vintages past lay there too- like gilded corpeses. Reminders of many decadant nights, haphazard phone calls, dillerious, confused ramblings, headhaches, sleeping pills that do nothing, skull ripping agitation, and hundered of dollars I barley had-gone.

They are a monument. Now only a memory.

Since I cut back, I must admit- I feel better. It’s the most sublime feeling to have those euphoric feelings and know that they aren’t from a glass, or an overpriced bottle- but innate. Mind you, I have not vanquished wine entirley. I do still embibe but under restrictions. With a meal…one glass only. That in and of itself has galvanised me into changes I never imagined. Stomach flat-eyes-clear- sleep- ideal.

I turn 40 this year, and that had shocked me into making changes I never though possible. I want no shackles no crutches and no binding. Just authentic atualization. Now, for the first time in a while, I feel I am standing at that embankment. There’s still alot to do, but I move forward- one stap at a time. 

It’s amazing how much ground you can cover

-with no empty bottles at your feet.

You know them.

We all do. Some write them off as anxiety. Passing through another day. Yet this is another kind of animal. They cut deeper. Stay longer. Your heart pounds. Your mind whirls with whirls with catastrophic delusions. Your mind is oversaturated with what ifs. An interminable heinous unending hell carousel that spins onward and onwards, no end in sight. This isnt anxiety. The blues. Feeling “Off”. This is the “mean reds”.

The term was coined by Holly Golighty in the classic “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. To quote our girl Holly directly, when asked if they were like the blues…”No , the blues is when you wake up and you think you’re getting fat or something- you’re just sad that’s all…the mean reds are worse…suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know why. You ever get that feeling?”

She then offers an idealistic solution of going to the high-end boutique of Tiffany’s for a nice dose of window shopping. Charming, for certain, but not an impulse everyone can identify with. Living in a small town, with a scant number of cultural outlets, my impulse is to go within myself, avoid any and all human contact, shun social media, and pop a hydroxine. I’m not proud of this solution. I know people who take such maladies in far more stride. They go on leisurely hikes, sail through two hours at the gym and force out some much-needed endorphins. They call up comrades and train their brains to go elsewhere. I sadly, am not yet of that mind.

The thing about anxiety and panic attacks, is they are very much like professional snipers. They strike out of nowhere and pierce you to the core. You can’t move, can’t eat, can’t think. Breathing is difficult, and engaging with another person is bordering impossible.

Imagine if you will, being assailed by a legion of hungry mosquitoes. Or Standing next to a balloon with a large pin half an inch away. Holding a scorpion in your hand. Imagine loud sudden knocks on your door, loud abrupt voices, feeling invaded, feeling utterly alone. If anything, “the mean reds’ is far too light a term. I find “the horrible dreadfuls” far more apt. If one could parse out a visual, look no further than classic art. Google image search “The temptation of Saint Anthony”. An elderly holy man is assailed on all sides by legions of ghastly demons. Not about to succumb to them, they strike. They come at him with weapons, gnashing teeth, piercing claws. To my way of thinking, this is panic, and anxiety exemplified on canvas.

Panic may look like quite pensive contemplation to the outside, but to the one experiencing it, it feels like hell itself if trying to claim you. I have been brought to the floor in a shuddering mass of sensation by my ” horrible dreadfuls”. You can try to counteract them and ask, why am I feeling this? What’s the reason- because if I know that, I can escape it. Therein lay the real torment. Anxiety doesn’t listen to reason. It just lives to consume you. In a way, it reminds me of the film The Howling. The guy doesn’t choose to become a werebeast, it just takes him over. All else anyone can do is run.

How does one move through this? Well, I’ve tried medication. This has been a decades-old battle for me. I was on Klonopin when I was in 5th grade, something I have a dark sense of humor about. I’ve tried yogi breathing, went through a zen phase. I’ve spoken to counselors, friends, doctors and even a Buddhist monk. All I got in return were well-worded platitudes.

” Distract yourself”

“Go to the gym”

“It’s all your choice”

“Take this pill”

Now, far be it from me to turn this into some mental health diatribe. Though I think taking care of your inner self is of the utmost importance and to an extent, I’m glad we are shining a light upon it these days more and more, I find the whole modern “self-love mental health” doctrine to be a little too superficial, forced and borderline obnoxious. Seeing everything through social media-ready rose-colored glasses can also inform its own problems- and so the cycle goes.

I can only take this day by day. Not all days are bad. I sometimes have days where I feel inexplicably synthesized and everything is as it should be. Thoughts are clear, birds are chirping, bliss. But the bad days? Drawn blinds, hands cold, studdering, and a fight or flight impulse that won’t quit. Sometimes, there’s a between- much of the time, I have only to wait it out- like a passing typhon.

It wasn’t really my intention to be as confessional in this piece but it was what was on my mind. The feeling was with me today as I awoke. Perhaps this will be mutually beneficial to any lone readers who saddle up to my cobweb covered corner of wordpress.

In any case, I’m here. Flaws and all .

No Tiffanys to escape to.

Yet fall is upcoming, the days more brief yet beautiful.

I think a walk will be just as fine.

Chris Cipollini/ 9/18/23

Still anxious after all these years

When it rains, it pours.
Some wise observant soul once said. Today has poured.
I’m exhausted.
Because I’m not formally working doesn’t mean I’m not doing the hustle. I woke at 3:30 as if like clockwork, to see if my rent assistance went through. It did. Whew. So I go to my rent portal online to pay said rent. ..It’s almost 100 more than what I have just deposited. I break into an actual sweat- mind you-I’m still in bed. So at this point, I begin to do this sort of little circle dance in my head. It’s a bit like my own internalized panopticon, an octangular shape from which all others can be observed. Prisons are designed this way, funnily enough. I find myself in the midst of this, the more contained methodic, version of myself who knows things were and always are going to be fine. He stands guard over this wild being who is less like myself and more like a coked addled Tasmanian devil. Fight or flight. Panic mode.
Of course, I sorted this issue out but I won’t go into the vast nuances of how I made one end meet the other because it’s frankly not interesting enough. Consider this only to be my jumping-off point for the topic at hand- anxiety.
What am I afraid of exactly? The dissolution of my little world? One I have said at length I’m only passing through? Ruin? Of what exactly? Some un uttered confirmation of this singular lack of means that signifies- no- you’re not ready for life- you are a person of bad quality. You have poor character.
It’s awful what a little deviation from our ironclad expectations can do to us, and what tailspins it can plunge us into. I wipe my forehead- which is at this point dripping with perspiration- and realize sleep simply isn’t an option. My chain is broken and I’m properly rattled. So I walk about my complex in pitch blackness.
I admire the stars. For years at my old place, you would be lucky if you saw one. On an average night here, I selt whole belts and constellations.
I keep on the lookout for javelina or two. I think I hear an owl, though I could be wrong.
This is when the isolation hits. I could be in a city, where friends and neighbors are close by, but this kind of internal havoc is so personal, and not relevant to anyone else. The game of havoc, the chaos dance, the internal whirlwind- whatever you call it- its awful- it’s depleting and speaking for myself-it wrecks you. It thins your hair, blights your sleep and hampers your ability to think rationally. Like blood in the water to a great white, the smallest thing can call it on. A pending charge, a bounced check, a hateful glare, an unanswered message of precarious circumstances. Self-medication is an option but it seldom yields lasting results. After the buzz wears off, the hangover fades, the guilt subsides, and there it is, like a gunfighter in a spaghetti western, emerging from the haze-ready to emerge and take me on.
It knows what scares you. It knows when to strike. It knows how to tailor itself to your situation in life and strike in all colors and fashions. It knows how to break you down so that your day is one continuous overlap of panic, still, more panic, less stillness- but never totally without. I’ve had people tell me that to overcome this I simply have to relinquish my need for control. Flow like a river, float like a feather, pass through like a cloud over the Rockies. I’ve heard EVERY maddening esoteric, poetic collerary, metaphor and analogy. My counter to that- how does that fix anything?
I think I’ve established that panic is awful by this point.
I frankly don’t know what do. I’ve chanted and fasted. I’ve tee totaled and purified. I’ve meditated and stretched myself into back pain. I’ve honestly thought sometimes that I’m cursed. Even as a kid, I was always worrisome. My parents took me to Disneyland as a kid and I wanted to go home halfway because- i was worried about the dog. I was so neurotic that at Christmastime I would call stores that had an item I wanted, have them hold it, and then tell my mother where it was, what person I spoke to, and how much it was. Always here to help Santa!
Still, I was stressed. I dreaded PE as a kid because of the coach’s whistle and the antagonizing tribalistic cruelty of the other boys. Having to use a locker was a trigger. What if I forgot what my combination was? What if the bell rang? What if I wasn’t able to get my stuff? Or another class came in? Or I had to find my class in an empty hall, and then walk in late- all eyes on me. It was all too much.
I took Klonopin when I was learning phonics. I was on Prozac while watching PBS. My parents did what they could, and in all fairness, it was the early nineties- the halcyon era of doping your kids into a comatose version of normalcy.. Looking at it now, as a 38-year-old man, I can only imagine what a high-strung chemical cocktail I was to my peers and teachers. I don’t say these things to elicit any type of victim woe is me narrative. Nor do I say this to invoke some abstract line of questioning as to why we medicate. I have neither judgment nor condemnation here. Do what works for you. CBD has never been an option as I now stand. I get lightheaded, feel almost nauseous and my paranoia doesn’t need assistance. Perhaps I’m simply at the mercy of my own thoughts. I honestly hope not. My own thoughts can be terrifying.
So, what does one do?
No really, what do you do about it?
I’m treading ever closer to 40 every day and I’ve yet to figure it out. My objective in all this is not a pity party, or to feel like some sort of victim of circumstance. I can lambast my generation until I turn blue, but I will say one of the topics that I feel we have brought to light in recent years is mental health. Not feeling alienated or alone in a circumstances is a powerful prophylactic in the long run. Yet the first step is acknowledgment. I must admit, when I looked at some of my earlier writings from years back a few months ago, they are fraught with the most flowery purple prose you can fathom. I may as well be riding a white horse. Which is not a bad thing for a time, but if one is going to put themselves into the world, why hide behind a waterfall of verbal sugar water?
Well, so I write. I could journal til my thumb throbs. I could drink my wine or not. I can sit on my settee sofa and watch this small world go by and try to grasp some higher meaning, whatever it may be.
Or-none of these things.
Maybe this sounds more and more like bidding than anything, and I for one am okay with that. I don’t write these entries so I sound like some culturally perfected person on a chaise lounge reading Byron. I write them to offer myself to you- take it or leave it.
Perhaps in these writing,s you shall find some form of relatability, and maybe- if I may be so bold- absolution.
So here I am.
Dancing shoes intact.

I’ve hit a blank spot.

I know them well.  I’ve done all I can do today and yet there is still some part of me bristling beneath the surface. Outwards, I think I come off as quiet, focused and calm, perhaps a bit raffish and with a certain excitable energy-depending on your perceptions.

Case in point, this morning.

After a fragmented sleep, mostly because Im staving off alchohol to clear my head, I wake up, french press myself a strong black coffee with a tea spoon of ice cold water and pour it into that nice muted white distressed mug I snagged as a parting gift from my last job. Okay, I stole it.  Don’t tell.

I shuffle back to bed. I would like to think that at this time I would like to:

A- Be in the arms of a partner

B-Sit with my thoughts

C-Start writing my manuscript for the great work for which I’ll make my name

I regret to inform you- this is not the case.

Instead, I look through my phone. Then I look through my phone some more. Then I check my bank account (You know, just in case I had any sudden impetus to shop on amazon in my sleep) after which, I contemplate the day . Idleness can take a lot of time.

Scroll, scroll.

Oh, nice room

Oh, whose the hottie

God why does EVERYONE have a beard now?

God, I hate meal prep services

This person is lame, why am I following them?

Mm, I definitely prefer French Minimalism to Japanese Minimalism

Oh, I need that

Shit, I can’t afford that

Jesus Christ people I don’t care about your dogs.

How did THIS photo get in my archive?

DM for collab- Fuck you-reported

Necessary idleness past, I walk into the living room. A refreshing thing since I’ve but only occupied studios til now. I rinse my cup, shuffle toward the bathroom and gander at myself.  Apart from my hairline, I think I look decent. My model days are over. P90x, protein shakes and local mall jobs were a fab ego boost when it lasted, to be sure. Still, I look good. I am not out of shape, I forbid it- so long as I can help it. Still, I can pick myself apart all day

I wish I had a lower hairline

I wish I had a stronger jawline

Your shoulders look good but why can’t you tone your abdomine?!

Maybe I should run more?

The press half full, I pour another cup, splash some icy h2o, and sit in an easy chair draped with a long tan throw blanket I sort of love.

I have no tv, no music is calling me and I’m already annoyed by the content I see on my phone. So I sit. Silence is a tepid drink.  Its at this point I feel a small feeling I seldom acknowledge working its way up my solar plexus, past my ribcage through my core and into my consciousness.

“Hello, hows the coffee?”

“Who are you, may I ask?
“The feeling inside you. “

“What would that be?”

“Malcontentedness”

Oh dear.  I know him well.  In this span of time, Im already at its door.

“What brings you here?”, I ask.

“You summoned me, you know just as well as I do”

At that moment, I take a pause. He can be rather antagonistic, but god knows he leads me to where I need to go. What brings these feelings about, I wonder?  What’s the nexus of “the big empty”, as they say?

Well, at this point in time, I live in a small town called “Cottonwood”, in Northern Arizona. I will be the first to tell you that post my overseas travels, it was never on my itinerary. Please don’t construe this as snobbery on my part. The people here are always cordial. I’ve got me a nice quiet little spot where the silence is sublime in the morning. The air is clean. The Rio Verde river is barely a mile away and there are plenty of places to hike, run, or aimlessly wander. In the desert at night, usually at 2 during my semi frequent insomnia spells, you can hear coyotes. Javelinas ( basically the rodents of unusual size from Princess Bride only significantly smaller) roam parking lots looking for trash. I’ve encountered camel spiders on morning walks, which are about as intimidating as a thimble when seen outside of Reddit.

Outside the critters, there’s Old Town, with its  touristed commercial charm. Wineries.  Yes, apparently we have wine and cafes with the usual 5-dollar drip coffee avocado toast and overpriced spins on basically Dennys. Antique shops in case you need a lifesize John Waye cutout, Marilyn Monroe doll or coca cola advert.

There’s also, and let’s not forget, podunk. Plenty of it. Remember.  We are in Arizona.  Trucks and  “all-terrain vehicles”..ugh.. laden with every reprehensible far right tableau you can excrete from a a truck stop level intellect positively litter the bumpers.  Hey, I’m not political, just observant.

Its a truly interesting mix out here. A cornucopia of bohemians who couldn’t really “manifest” the enlightened lifestyle 1900 a month sublet an unfinished room in Sedona and had to settle for Cottonwood, and people who look like supporting cast from an episode of “Roseanne”. One night while walking home from a former job, I noticed, I kid you not , local high schoolers hot rodding. That still happens? Another time ,  on a run, I saw several little boys on thier bikes  riding through a forbidden wash, challenging one another to go in. Being a child of the late 80’s and early 90’s , I can only conclude that they were on some stranger things type of quest to

A- initiate a new kid into their gang

B-Summon an evil spirit

c-Initiate a new kid BY summoning an evil spirit

What I’m basically getting at is- I’m in a new world. One that should be familiar yet isn’t. Like some of sort half baked late eighties type of Americana with offshoots of New Age woo-woo thrown in. I don’t know how to identify with this. I’ve traveled the world-I doubt many of these people have left the valley.

So what’s home? Cause I don’t feel it.

“Wait a minute and hang on”, chimes that  voice -“you didn’t feel it in vegas, or France for that matter!”

That’s true, I realize.  This malaise is driving met to drink! Only a writer could think so much about thinking about something. 

Ive been between jobs for a month, so i find myself at this standstill, vacillating between illumination and gnawing agitation. 

So, here I am. In Cottonwood

Just the name alone evokes stagnation. Antiquated ideals. Tired concepts. Diners. Chewed Americana.  Now now, I take pause, lets’s not be harsh on this place. I mean you crash landed here, its just being itself. It can’t help that you have your big city ways… you know, like enjoying stores other than wal mart.

When I got my place back in April, I knew from the 2nd night that it was not a permanent situation by any means. Only but a stopping point. A dull safe little berg to pause, realign, shake off the dust,get back in step with my country and proceed to the next venture. What is the next venture then?

Home?

Companionship?

Relatability?

Creativity?

There’s a darkness to being out of work that extends beyond lack of income. A little click here and a few scanned papers there and you’re out of the woods, if not a bit tighter.

No, the real danger is too much reflection. Too much idle time. The siren song of overthinking. That’s what I dread. When you’re in a town that you don’t synch up with and have yet to find a common relation with, what does one do? Attempts to find like-minded souls have only yielded forced awkward and pitiful results.

 Go inward. What does that signify? More thinking. That’s when the doubts show up. The embarrassing happenstances and incidentals you have put out of your mind. The frenetic moments you thought long slipped into the furrows of your brain. There they are. Calling out.

That indecent proposal. That strange comment. That lost moment. That fretful glance. That series of seconds from years ago you would give your soul to take back. The fear. The regret. The jetlag. The moments are not unlike this. Wondering whats next.

So, dear reader, I circle back to my currant place of residence. Cottonwood.  A town as lively as its name. Where cicadas are your wake-up call. Where dyskeki-clad crystal jockeys rub shoulders in the checkout line with NRA hat-doning Darrens. Where slacks are considered dress attire. Where the Mexican food is good, but not great. Where A “day out” to me is trip to goodwill and the print center, and maybe the bank.  Where I can hear the local football team every friday night from my window. Where hot rodding is apparently still a thing and ma and pa taxis are your lifelines to places open past 10 pm.

There’s a term that I heard recently that stuck with me.

“It serves us in the moment”

Providing what is needed, when its needed, with no frills, only purpose.

Last but not least, a river runs through it.

I envy that river.

We’re opposites.

It knows about how to flow.

That’s all it is.

Its movement. Its purpose. It’s pure.

Things at this moment I feel I am not.

I’m tainted. I’m rattled. I care too much.

So, maybe, just maybe.. that’s why I’m here. Not in Bismark, or Baltimore, or Brooklyn, Seattle or LA. No places of urban stimuli. Because that’s how you get distracted. Thats how you don’t do what you’re called to do, whatever it is. Ive got some moments in my back pocket world. I need to share them. Perhaps not on a grand scale, or on a flashy stage. Christ, I don’t even know whos reading this. But, thats not my business. My business is to write it.

So, thank you Cottonwood

-I guess I got some work to do.

I haven’t written on this thing in a while. I don’t really have any good excuse. New home, frenetic work and I still haven’t even set up a Wi-Fi connection. Though I doubt anyone is keeping tabs it certainly doesn’t hurt to keep you in the know. I have a lot to say about my journeys last year but it’s still metastasizing into something that might be palatable. In the meantime here’s a little cautionary tale from 2020.

In Japanese folklore, there exists the legend of the hungry ghost. Generally thought to be a person who led a wicked existence in the flesh, there was a world of being constantly craven. Everything that sparkles shines and shows isn’t good enough, and they were forever pursuing that next fix. Be it drugs, alcohol, cars, money, sex, food, the list was endless. In the Japanese afterlife, they become the hungry ghost. These are grotesque beings that have bulbous bodies, and pencil-thin necks. Hunger roars within them all the time, but they are unable to satiate themselves due to their impossibly thin gullets, and so are forever condemned to do what they did in life, instead of perfecting themselves, becoming loving and escaping the wheel of karma,  they chase a craving that has no end as self-imposed starvation rules their days.
There’s a quote from the film “The lion in the winter” where Katherine Hepburn says with much pathos, “I wonder if I am hungry out of habit”. A line that sears itself into my being with the alacrity of a red hot poker. Why am I so craven? I have a personal parable about hunger and want that ties into this rather well.
In 2020, the year of the great quarantine, I came into some money. Alot of money. Receiving a succession of stimulus payments in tandem with unemployment backpay,  I had more pin money than I had ever known. Rent was on a pay-as-you-go basis, since most people were out of work, so the funds added fast. I watched my coffers triple. Yet, travel was still not an option since the virus raged. So in lieu of this, I sat home like a glutted prince and indulged every whim short of crossing borders and timezones. I took to grocery delivery and made gourmet dinners on the fly. I bought wine by the box. I bought things I didn’t even fathom wanting but somehow gathered I couldn’t be without. Clothing. Artwork. Artifacts. Like Mr. Havisham, I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, but dammit if I wouldn’t be perfectly dressed.
Then one day, I came upon a posting for a pair of boots. Not just any boots, reader. Jimmy Choo Moto boots. They were metallic gold, calfskin leather, as though suited for the feet of a flamboyant though gritty dandy. Something about them struck me. My inner Midas reeled. I wanted them. Nay-HAD to have them. As with most gluttony, you have no rhyme nor reason as to why you’ve indulged. Had that second bottle. Cleaned that second plate. Snorted that first line. Maxed out that 5th card. You just operate on pure tactile adrenaline. You rationalize. You say “I deserve this because (…….)”, but there is no because. There never was a “because”, nor shall there ever be. Nothing justified such a purchase. I wasn’t going anywhere. The places I frequented were few and even so, nobody would care- but this was poppycock to my inner Midas. Every time I listed a reason as to why this was an idiotic unrealistic extravagance, he countered with an aesthetic counterpoint.
“Overpriced”
-Italian leather
Ostentatious
“Gold brushed leather”
Where would you where them?
“You DESERVE them!”
Well, I succumbed. I clicked a button. I put in my card info. I checked the tracking daily. After what seemed an interminable time, I got the boots. Yes, they were attractive. Yes, the leather smell was divine. Yes, they sparkled like the eyes of Tantalus reaching for the fig tree. Yes, the buckles with polished, so beautiful.  …yet, well, thy didn’t really fit. No really, I fought and fought and tussled and thrust and could BARELY alight one boot to its twin. Instead of celebrating my new sartorial treasures, my newfound obsession was making them fit. I took large bottles of water and thrust them into their recesses and places them into the freezer so as to open them up. I crammed my feet into them and reeled in pain, hoping they would expand on their own. I had nowhere to go, so this was my project. My heels were red, my toes blistered, and my arches in woe. But- dammit if they didn’t look wonderous…expect, well,, they didn’t. They looked-silly. I looked, foolish. Nobody looked down at my feet and said what wonderful boots, how they sparkle and look so fine on you.  In spite of my wincing, nobody noticed.
I may as well have been wearing 30 beat up 30 dollar sketchers. I tried to make them work. …yet, I felt- foolish. I shed my boots, along with perhaps a layer of skin, and placed them next to my trusty flip-flops, running shoes, and second-hand combat boots. Footwear that was much less feted but had still served me.
These goddamn boots.
They represented all that was wrong inside me, made flesh- or shall I say, gold. I looked at them. They were so lovely, but I could scarcely wear them- and even if they fit like tailored gloves, they were still extravagant to an almost grotesque level. This thing I felt was the emblem of me, WAS in fact me, but the worst possible version. Heedlessly grand and vainglorious. Seeking validation from a world that could really give two shits. Fashion houses, name brands, and fine leather mean nothing in the grand scheme of things if you aren’t comfortable in your own skin. I wasn’t. …and my skin throbbed-particularly, my feet.
The months passed. I collected my money. The boots sat there, like some sort of statue. How poetic. I should have grabbed a pen and gone full Byron…. “every morn I gaze at the glistening boots I couldn’t wear….”.
One night I had a gruesome dream where I whipped out a knife and determined to fit them, vanity overtook sanity and like cinderellas sisters, hacked off hunks of my heels and toes. Blood gold and beauty made into a macabre fantasy. I woke up shaken. There they sat. As if to say “why don’t you like us? Why don’t you wear us? Don’t you love us?”

– It was all too much.
I contacted a nearby consignment store. Well, consignment is speaking too well. It was a snotty hipster thrift store-but that offered cash trade-ins. I wasn’t expecting a financial boon, but I would be glad to cast them off. I couldn’t deal with the mental hula hoop game they thrust me into. Sending them back wasn’t an option, as no larger sizes existed and the return process was interminable.
So I brought them to the store, along with a few other items. No harm in purging. There, amid bottles of topo chico and cardi b music playing, I was offered a paltry 60 dollars.  Apparently, some scuffs from one of my many forays in and around my neighborhood had lowered their value significantly. I reluctantly accepted and handed them over. I couldn’t grasp the owner’s indifference. Didn’t they see what I saw? The burnished leather, the metallic finishes, the Jimmy Choo London logo?
These arent a Nike shirt or some fubu you brat, this is ART!!!  I went home in a daze. Thus ended my great gold boot sojourn. I went in and out of the store several times in the intervening months. There they were sat, marked up to 80, and on a shelf next to some forgettable Steve Maddon sneakers.  The plots of numerous “silly symphonies” ran through my head.  Would they converse with the other footware when the store lights went off? Would they speak well of me? Or would they say ” he brutalized us, scuffed us and sold us for cheap? So glad we got the HELL out of there!”
In the end they went to a middle-aged woman from the suburbs. Maybe she wears them to her kids soccer practice. Or meeting the girls at Panera. Or getting Yankee candles at Target. To be sure, she has the fanciest feet at Hobby Lobby. She is, to say the least, progressive.
All I know dear reader, is as of this moment of writing, my feet are bare. I have what I need, some of what I want. There a bottle of wine on the counter but just one and frankly Im not craving it. I no longer live in that apartment, not that city. When I sat down to write this, I wanted to use this boot story as an allegory for want…. like the hungry ghost…Its never fullfilled. Or we think it is and that which we want ends of being a lopsided contorted caroonish version of what we truly need. ….and I can tell you, there’s much I have and much I desire, but the only thing I genuinely want, is the finest version of myself…..and that comes in just the right size.

C.Cipollini
7-16-22

6 am.

A hellish guttural sound works it way across a dimly lit road in a secluded French village.

The sound repeats itself several times until it becomes a recognizable braying of a lone mule. Petrifying in the dead of night-tedious every time after, with or without Pinocchio undertones. So donkey serves as my rooster out here. Its cold and getting colder. Few are up, other than perhaps a scattered selection of country eccentrics. A gaggle of stray felines. Perhaps a farmer moving his livestock, and nocturnal creatures calling it a day ( or night) and me, clad in my runners attire, ready to cut the track, which is more a a lengthy road in Chateau Chinon, a small set away village 3 hours outside Paris, yet may as well be three decades away. The roads here are windy and twisting medieval roads. Offering beaucholic views at the price of a queasy stomach. The place is picturesque almost to the realm of absurdity. Dimly lit mornings with the sun scarcely risen, caterwauling magpies heralding the turn of the morning and bemused livestock still ignorant to the lingering and mercilous butcher’s blade.

Through this environment go I, existing communally with a hodge podge of characters coming and going. There’s Colin, philandering former techie from LA, Marrten, a Dutch stonemason, and the curators, whos temperament ranges from measured to intensely irritating idealism. Currently, I’m hauled up in a “dorm”, a small building across the way from the worksite of this project we are working on. A strange creation that the poetic aspects of myself seeks to appreciate, but the pragmatic attributes of myself see little meaning for, if any. A haphazard “gothic” chateau built from the ground up, using “organic materials and sources…etc”. The notion of such a place in a land famous for gothic chateaus seems self serving and pointless. A bit like building a replica of a livestock barn in Nebraska “using organic materials” ( naturally) all the cowbells and whistles included. I swear to Baudalaire, the next person who waxes on about “organic” anything in my presence is getting shanked.­

In the moments of this realization, the futility of this idea, I happen on a much darker realization. Perhaps its the travel. The crisscrossing. The permeant sense of the impermeant, the lingering miasma of “what now”, and the endless circles back to the train station and three months of beats and whistles in my eardrum having yet to be alchemized into some kind of meaningful sound.
-I’m cynical now.
When did this go down? When was it? The time, the place, the hour, the moment of its dark conception- WHEN DID IT HAPPEN? I wrote on a sheet of receipt paper several months ago after some long forgotten purchase “disillusionment is a sniper, an assassin, and strikes the idealist when hes not looking”. Christ. Foreshadowing much?
At this moment, I don two pairs of socks per foot, in deference to the oncoming chill. I look at my suitcase, clad with stickers of personal icons, coats askew. My bed, comfy though unmade- my stuffed parrot- a childhood talisman who always comes at my side that I adore without apology, a half full bottle of water, a biography of Marchesa Casseti I’ve been dipping in and out of since leaving the US- and I realize yet another thing.
There’s a singular term that describes my mind in this moment-“devil may care”.
Nice. Good wording. Darkly cadenced. Halloween appropriate.
What does that mean? Nonchalant. Ambivalent. Careless. Raffish.

Its been almost 3 months. In this time I’ve felt levels of upheaval I didn’t know existed. Straddling feelings of partial confinement and odious need. I’ve been upended like a linebacker in the 4th quarter. I mean, what am I looking for in this journey? A sense of place? I struggled with that back home. I’m so past dancing with all these self made maledictions and vacant platitudes. I want so much to reach out to someone and truly tell them how I feel about this journey. Yet, facetime is tiresome, the wifi is fragmented and intangible, language barriers are strong and-the hardest pill to swollow- “the world isnt interested in your problems”. That was a tough one to reconcile. Yet stacked with a hard truth I’ve had to come to terms with again and again.

There is a part of me deep down that just wants to eat crow and say “alright you win. I miss my old place, my green sofa, my glass of bodega wine and films. Scores of trader joes chips and hummus. My parents place on the weekends, cinnamon coffee on the balcony, my fathers rum and coke, tarot sessions and doordash and my friends home, meaningless walks through the arts district-where amateurs hour ruled, yet I was never far from my base. Now that base is shifted. My problem isnt exclusive to me. Friends move, parents move. You leave a spot you’ve known to be stagnant for years and suddenly the Rip van winkle complex rears its head, as people moved on, places close or change and you’re feeling as alien as a penguin in the prairie. Homes you’ve known for decades sell, the temperatures drop and a million and one variables drop into the picture, shaking things up so you either piss or get off the pot, sink or swim, shape up or ship out, get the best of it or let whatever “It” is get the best of you.
4 months ago, it was still sizzling in Vegas. My apartment was 80 percent boxes. My day was a morass of music, cleaning and cold ( or hot) comforts. I jogged in the morning, kept rigid control of my finances, only occasionally going out, and binged on French films and culture to warm up the cultural burners. I analyzed every nuance of Paris ’til my eyes were as red as a glass of Bordeaux. Yet then, if you asked me, where I would like to be it would be Paris. Berlin. Florence. Traipsing through the country like a renegade. Yet now? Up the road from my old place at Golden Fog coffee. Oh, they do have great croissants. And vegan black bean breakfast burritos, a divine morning protein.

What if I sat still? In that way? Indifferent to good or bad decisions, but riding the moment? Well then, I’d sit for hours. Have coffee. Maybe more. Willing away the day with the happy unexpectant idleness of a dubious fisherman with his pole. Staring with happy judgement at the awful local art- I’d pop in my earbuds, god bless that free wifi, and listen to soundtracks. Nothing high concept, mind you. “La la Land” “Rocky Horror” ” Sweeney Todd”- setting the tone of my day- depending on my mood. Soon, it’s time to go. I wave goodbye to the employees, a genuinely friendly gaggle of southwestern hipsters, and walk back home. I turn the key and walk in the gate. Maybe get some laundry done. Chuck, an obese boozehound with an untethered chihuahua and a heart of gold, waves as I make my way up the steps. I can see the glossy overphotographed tower just on the horizon. My parents home 5 miles away. My old high school 6. My best friends, 8. The span of almost 30 years in but 15 miles at the most. Its suddenly colder. A frigid 76.
I make a mint tea, put on a turtle neck and sip.

Later I’ll have a bath. I got some great eucalyptus stuff delivered. Yes, on Amazon. Piss off hipsters. Anticapitalism be damned. Nothing like a made to order soak. Maybe I’ll make it up to 2 hours. I’m the king of short and sweet tub baths.
Later, laundry done, bowl of seasoned tomatoes and couscous digesting, I’ll slip under the sheets, watching the lights of the imperfectly perfect area glisten .
“This is my life”, I murmur in a discordant fashion.
I’m neither blissful nor morose. Neither elated nor somber.
I’m here.

I open my eyes. My laptop facing me. Back in the dorm.
“This is but a moment”, I say to myself. I catch my potential plunge off the cliffs of nostalgia and malaise just before the nile crocodiles appear in the rivers below.
Par for the course. Part of the journey. Yet begs the question, how long will it last?

-devil may care.

As of this writing its currently the second week of October. Yes, I’m still in France. Currently Ive shifted my surroundings from as isolate chateau in a town that was so small if you blinked you missed it, and the boulangerie was the most happening place to be. I’ve made and parted with some new friends. Had time to reflect. Squandered. Rationed. Panicked. Replenished- and squandered again. The seasons are shifting here. An Autumnal expanse has come over the city of Paris, the countryside and the suburbs. Its aggressively rainy some days, and other there’s a picturesque stillness that seems tailor made for anyone with a kodak, no filter needed.

Its almost as though the weather is reflecting my inner nature. Somedays are good, great even. Days when everything synchronizes and aligns like a perfectly orchestrated structure and the second guessing ceases. These are the days when the conversations are more meaningful, the espresso richer and air as crisp as the crust of a fresh baguette. Amid these days you’ll find me at my best, traipsing along- affable – almost too much so- with a bliss cooking on all burners and a stride that is my own, feeling sublime.

Then there’s the other days. The days when the self questioning and the ghosts of poisoned spiders of doubt find their way into my consciousness. When I feel cut off. My mind basically becomes an ill lit basement where I dwell on my own vacillating between truth and mania- with nobody to bring me back to earth. Going to such lurid extremes that I sometimes dream about them and feel they are going to come to pass in my waking hours.

“Okay-” I say to my self, “enough of this. I’m where I’m supposed to be, that hurdle is passed.”

So, why does everything still feel off balance?

Is overthinking and manifest destiny an occupational hazard of being a creative?

I’m starting to think it is. That constant lingering fear that I’ve gone to such elaborate lengths to simply piss in the wind.

Now let me say right now, this is not an admission that my move here has been for naught. On the contrary- in the past month I have been privy to experiences and conversations that have rocked me, experiences that have transcended anything in my past life back in the states. Ive seen so much beauty I almost feel jaded to it. The palace of Versailles, the countryside of the Loire, the hills of Montmartre. To say I’m daunted on how to alchemize this all into a work of some sort ( which includes ample poetry, stories and journal entries of truly memorable experiences) is an understatement.

Yet, I recall my previous entry- the old refrain- ” Wherever you go- there you are”. So here I am. In France. The same baggage. Physical and mental. The same quirks. The same dumb forehead I wish was smaller. The same shortcomings in regards to daily life. The same penchant for early mornings, strong coffee, old movies and aversion to sudden loud noises, hip hop, big crowds, anything involving Jimmy Fallon and sweet potatoes. When I stand in the mirror of wherever I’m hauled up at the time, the scenery has simply shifted-like a backdrop or something out of a high school play. I swapped Blackjack for Baroque, the Arts District for the Eiffel, Vegas for Versailles and still- I remain this way.

Begging the question- whats the missing peice?

Perhaps I’m still looking for my stride. My “qui appartiennent”- my belonging. I feel as though my life is morphing into a Studio Canal film with an Eddie Vedder style soundtrack, complete with its own colorful assemblage of supporting characters. “Into the Wild”, yet not as rough. I don’t regret anything in being here. I know this is the place I’m meant to be. But it will be all the better when I locate that missing piece. What will it come in the form of? A job with high pay? A flashy new visa? A dashing lover with eyes that shine and a penchant for Proust? A place to call my own?

I sacrificed all to make this life happen. Gutted my apartment like a codfish. Gave and sold things. Watched items I held with the veneration of religious symbols disappear behind the cold gates of a storage unit purgatory. I’ve always been of the belief that your bounty is measured by your toil, what you place on the alter will signify the sum of your fires- or, being a former Vegas boy- “I went all in”.

Time to shine.

-Even though I loathe puzzles.

” Where we go, there we are”

At the time of this writing, I am currently parked in the shade, under an old oak tree, away in the grassy knolls surrounding a centuries-old chateau in the heart of the Loire Valley, France. A much romanticized area famous for wine and more castles then a storybook. I’ve been galivanting for weeks through this country, and though my 90 days is far from over, I still fell a strange impetus to keep my bags packed, an extra set of euros on me, and my routes charted.
My last place has come and gone. The guy was a somewhat somber figure.  Someone who wanted to be alot of things, but ended up hoisted with life, burdens, and the inauthentic happiness you must manifest when you cater to the public.  We certainly had differences, and I feel my sometimes brash persona challenged him in more ways than one. I left his domicile with few regrets, bid farewell to the two dumb dogs, the lazy cat the afternoon respites.  Now I find myself where I am of this writing. Typing just to type- as if in anticipation of some sort of great revelation.
It goes without saying,  this is certainly a moment in my life. August 20th I left and walked through the airport gates and tears gushing through my sunglasses.  In the past 27 days, I feel as though I have lived 50 lives.  I’ve experienced passion and romance,  creative inertia, self-doubt that left me unable to move, sheer raw panic, the poison of envy and the rapture of personal expansion, and a stillness that would appease a saint.  I’ve seen more faces parade past me in this almost month than I have in ages. Yet here I am, right now, looking at a 17th-century chateau. Opulent and pristine. One can only glance at its edifice to imagine the veritable parade of patrician faces that once road  horse and carriage up the path here, so as to partake of the country and the bourgeois politics of nobility. Therein lay the paradox. Im not living in there-moreover the Chateau is set so far away that there’s little to do around- so all that is available is something you’re not privy to. I work hard. I scrub pans, plan breakfasts and cater to the comings and goings of the prada laden tour groupies coming to call.

I’m fine with that, but it’s an irony worth realizing, I find.
Down the road is a small, village.  I seriously mean small.  Its about 2 blocks and a chapel.  There are no cafes to escape to during the day, a small semi-abandoned hotel and a ruinous chapel, and this is perfect to stop in and contemplate your place in existence in perfect contemplative silence. This I did yesterday. I hit a perceived wall and felt a sense of powerful isolation. Looking inside, it was quiet, serene and contained the wise miasma of wet stone and a pervasive echo.
It’s striking, what comes to a man in such silence. I realized- these feelings were not at all unlike the feelings the besieged me when I was in my little flat back home.  The same cornucopia of emotion. The same strata. The same lows and highs.  My mother gave me a saying long ago.  Oftentimes, things don’t always stick with me. Personally, I have the attention span of a 5th-grade boy, and its a regular struggle. These words, however, were particularly potent, cadenced and right on the money.
Wherever you go-there you are.
There you have it folks.  The mountains of Nepal, the beaches of Hawaii, the gothic fortresses of Britain, the chateaus of the Loire Valley even- yet only partial respite to the clinking clanking cogs of our own unimpeded neuroses.  Like a plant, repotted in a nicer valley. Its still the same plant. Perhaps the soils are a bit richer and the valley is a bit older and lusher- but the fact remains.
Okay, please don’t read this as an admission of defeat or disillusionment. On the contrary. Ive learned so much in this time, and there’s still more to go.  Its simply an exercise in perspective.
I never told you the reason why I was feeling so low the other day. Well, In this time of voluntary inconsistency, moving about and being buffeted to and fro with so much to learn, new languages, social mores, train routes, bus routes,  new places, new maps, new terrains, watch my money, watch my health, be up be aware, be resilient, guard against bad energy-to say the least – if you please-the most pressing feeling was a strong lack of belonging. In the grand scheme of all of this, where am I? I write, but is it good enough? Is it enough?    Then, this morning, I looked in front of myself and saw the chateau.. An opulent tower that was constructed well before the French revolution and would make an idyllic setting in the Borgias., Versailles or Reign.  Cinderella’s ball could have taken place here. Yet at some point, like with all things, it fell to ruin, went to seed and was left to die.
Yet here I am, looking at it, having found a way to keep on, despite all odds, be built, rebirthed, and enlivened.  Now, weddings are held.  Children play in front, the world’s friendliest Burmese Mountain dog frolics in the yard, and the stars about shine like crystal.  Maybe I am a bit like this chateau.  Got a little full of myself, fell off the path, went away, and just need to find me again. Who knows?  It seems a bit outrageous I could be living such an existence and have the audacity to feel morose.  Just need to find my champion. Rebuild my ruin.  Stopping waiting for that savior who will say all the right things and realize he’s right in that gilded mirror.
Granted, you don’t need a Chateau in the Loire Valley to realize this- however- it does make for some great photos.

_

Before I begin this post, I have to say that music really is the greatest form of intuition. Right now, as I begin a post on the desire to leave and be in the calm of the country, Queens’s “I want to break free” is playing on the radio. The synchronicity of sound never fails to astound me.

As I type these words, I am currantly hauled up in a guesthouse in the town of Montabaun, near the medieval village of Bruniquel- featuring a picturesque village, an impressionable 12th century castle, complete with dungeon and a hearth larger then my last apartment and turrants that make any American mind flash right to fairy tales. The ambiance of this place bespeaks “Call me by your name”. Breezy days, slow sips of wine, collages, piles of literature, windows and doors ajar, photographs of the great singer Sere Gainsbourg and Francious Hardy scattered about, marauding lazy old dogs traipse in and out with a passive though enduring haughtiness that says, “we’re the owners here.”

Now, please don’t misconstrue what I’m speaking of as an admission of some sort of idleness. No. Far from it. I’m here as a worker and assistant, and I’m grateful to do so. In this afternoon alone, I have parqued floors that brides will soon dance on, swept liters of leafy debris from pathways, set up a leisurely country breakfast for almost all but unseen guests from the city, scrubbed floors, pressed towels and sheets, scraped dishes and pruned roses. Other than small siesta earlier, this is my downtime. Perhaps its the idealness of the outsider, or simply my latino heritage- but I feel more like myself when I do some measure of manual labor. My most lackluster creative periods were times when I lay idle. Examining not great stanzas of poetry or reading what great minds had to say, but wandering the tainted labyrinth of my netflix menu or musing on what takeout was next. I was glutted by the world. No poetry comes from this- at least not to me.

So now as I sit here listening to some sort of dissonant piano tune and nursing a mid day rose as the hounds nap below me, watching the hours pass- I’m grateful for my small scrapes on my angles, my muddled hair, and my face in need of a shave- my mind has been on work, and its mechanism have activated the gears that make me want to produce words, write poetry and more or less do whatever I was called on to do.

Suffice it to say-it’s a lovely day.