I had a sort of epifhany the other day... I wrote about it in this damn writing project I've overtaken this month and here is a post of it...... turn on the B-Side to "Abbey Road" and read away....


The only hope that evening came in music. Among all the frustration, the urge to cry, the desire to just drunk until I could feel nothing anymore, there came some sort of saving grace. Some soft humming among the cracked vinyl soon gave way to the beautiful melodies and haunting lyrics that pushed me slightly forward and made me open my ears. The host had put on the second side of the abbey road album and had left the stage, leaving the record to play out in its entirety. The first soft tinkles of “Here Comes the Sun” pushed me forward, reminded me of other days, other moments where I felt this body of mine wake up refreshed and full of hope, of the desire to push onward and not let the word around me burry me standing up. It was fuzzy and the record was well worn, making me smile a tiny bit, knowing someone out there bought that record years ago and played it, enjoyed it and passed it along to someone else who played the shit out of that LP. It was well used, well scratched and greatly appreciated by many people in it’s past. These things made me shudder slightly with joy while I stood in that bar, isolated at the end of the bar, feeling that perhaps things really aren’t that bad after all. The ice is slowly melting, and it is alright, it’s so alright.

The whole second side of Abbey Road always did something amazing to me. I could feel it infect all of my body, pushing me into some sort of conscious state that allowed me to understand the depth of my inner psyche. I could be feeling completely depressed, I could be lost in a world so full of misery that the only energy I could muster is to put on that record and play it, side B, over and over again.

I had two fish that my friend had given to me for my birthday when I turned 26 - two beautiful goldfish and a tank to keep them in. I knew nothing of goldfish and they died within the first week. When we both returned back to the pet store to try again, the employee suggested I try Lion head goldfish. She convinced me they were hearty animals and that their chances of survival would be greater. I picked out two little gold fish. Both were white in the body with specks of orange-gold near their heads. One fish had a little line of orange-gold above its nose, acting as a sort of mustache. On the way home I decided to name him “Mean Mister Mustard” and aptly gave the moniker “Polythene Pam” to his cohort. I loved those goldfish; spent hours watching them swim around in a happy and elusive bliss in that little tank. After about a month of co-existence together, I noticed Mean Mister Mustard acting a little funny towards Polythene Pam. I observed carefully and noticed that Mister Mustard was attacking the poor fish, chasing her in a savage sort of way around the tank. It was the ultimate display of domestic violence I had ever seen and in the end; Mean Mister Mustard lived up to his name and had killed Polythene Pam.
I gave her a right good burial. She was quickly plucked from the tank, and with ample care, was done away with down the toilet. I was slightly stunned by the situation and wondered, what could have caused this? Mean Mister Mustard seemed a bit off after the attacks, swimming a bit slower and at times, being still. About three days after the attack and murder of Polythene Pam, I came home to find Mean Mister Mustard dead in the tank. I gave him the same treatment as his lovely Polythene Pam, burying him deep within the city sewers.

As I stood in that bar, listening to the Abbey Road Medley, I was brought back to those damn fish and their pitiful existence that I had helped provide. In a tank full of Lion Head goldfish, I pick the two with the most explosive relationship. I couldn’t help but feel completely responsible for both of their demises. Beyond that, those damn fish always made me think of life, of the cycle and the understanding that your angers, no matter how intense or how fractured, are never worth the arguments they grow into. These faults we have, with ourselves and with each other, are natural and the feelings we have are completely justified and logical. It’s how we react to those feelings that produce outcomes of either great joy, or great disappointment, like the outcome of my two fish. These things flashed in my mind like a whirlwind and I closed my eyes as “Carry that Weight” began to come through beyond the popping and hissing of the record. Paul was right; there is a way to get back home again. We so often lose our path that we feel that there is no way to ever go back home. We become wandering lost souls, searching for something that just won’t ever find us because we’ve completely forgotten how to get back home again.

This weight is mine and mine alone. I know this. Everything I have done, ever action I have preformed has added these ounces to my shoulders and they are my burden. I have no choice but to carry this weight a long time. You adjust, you learn, you understand your weight. It may make you shift and falter, it may make your knees buckle, but it’s so easy to forget that while you are struggling under it, that damn weight is also making you stronger. This fact is so often forgotten because the weight is annoying, it’s all encompassing and you just want the fucker lightened. It can be done, it will be done and you can shrug it off your shoulders and feel some sort of relief. If it’s brief or long, you just go with it and feel satisfaction in moving forward. It’s right and just and it’s completely factual that:

And in the end... the love you take is equal to the love you make….

The laws of karma have made that statement true. Play that joyful part of you forward. The only way to kill the burden of the beast is to flower it in love.

The album clicked off and I was suddenly brought back to reality, to the true time and space and I almost felt weakened by my own thought process. I was a tad bit upset but the fact that the music had cut before I wanted it to. Soon the DJ had put on something else and my moment of self-actualization was gone away in a puff. I just couldn’t conform to the situation in there anymore. I had had my epiphany and I needed to go home and process it a tiny bit more. I slid my jacket on, buttoning it carefully. I debated staying, if just for the sake of the two who I can with, but no. I needed to leave that bar and I needed to leave the exclusion. I had just realized how important the power of love is and I now needed to go home and process it before anymore anger filled me and before the weight on my shoulders became unbearable, causing me to snap.