Teatime

We are in abundance only with the flies that flock to our bus like the speeding pile of steel enwrapped shit that we are. Even snipes are begged for and towns where people can't finish their cigarettes are gold mines to us. We are sixteen including the 4 month old infant and two dogs that seem to hate each other. The bus wakes up trashed every morning and join it each day with bottles to empty, ash piles to sweep and carpets to kick clean of our dirty kid grime.

My worst quality? I'm not really a wizard at all and I can't fix anything. I feel like Oz from the new Disney prequel when confronted by a paraplegic begging for a miracle from a man who fooled her into thinking him magical. But after Oz hit the road, he slowly discovered his inner strengths and used them to help. What are my inner strengths? How can I utilize them? I've never tested myself well enough to find out. Everyone else on the bus has strengths I can't match. I'm potentially the best writer aside from song lyrics, but how does writing help a bus? If anything, it'd help simply to catalog what I see. In Babylon I desired only the freedom to pursue my writing. On the road, I finally see work's necessity. But only work dedicated to completing my destiny. In a way, our gifts are life's only burden upon us, for we forsake every moment in which we do not shine in the dance of life. I create meaning through the interaction between my mind and my heart. The heart remains the most essential perception for no matter what data the mind receives, it is the heart that provides depth and significance, that draws the attention. It is the please of the quivering heart that design the path and swirl our clouds of destiny to gales strong enough to shred the obstacles in our path. The heart does it all and whatever work I venture, it's purposed from my heart.

From traincore wannabes pissing in our water to dog diarrhea plastering putrid stench upon our clothes so far Arizona has provided little of the relief we begged for when escaping the cold front in Shasta. Nights are frigid, days swelter and usher in more storms of flies. One of our crew seems tempted to explode. He holds a warrant in this state but should be fine if he stays on the bus. Instead he appears on the verge of breakdown and takes frequent walks to quell his building spite.

Kicking off the "train core" kids gave us breathing room but other problems continue to stockpile. I attempt to meditate to calm myself but require more solitude to substantially center myself. I begin to miss the wingnut side of the rainbow family for their positive energy though pirates remain starkly alleviating to the cognitive dissonance at the core of the drum circle. I miss the Space Bus's girl to guy ratio but they were burners, half-yuppie at best. While I enjoyed their company I could tell they were not truly my crew. I remember my envy of Shadow and his crew of dirty kids in Portland when that child passed us by and decried, "Look Mom! Hitchikers!" I've grown to enjoy the expressions on people's faces when they see us free men roll through their town. Space Bus had a saxophone and a guitar but Teatime has four broken guitars and a harmonica that causes one of the dogs to howl. We get drunk each night and sing pirate ditties, fly signs and eat trash. Space Bus split a bottle of wine between ten people and handed out some research chemicals that mostly didn't work (mostly), Teatime split twenty-six steel reserve tall boys between thirteen. For better or worse, this is home. I may be an Indigo Child and all that but if my choice is singing Peter, Paul and Mary or Old Crow Medicine Show... the choice is simple.