Taylorisms

You can never get enough of something that almost works.

Grateful never relapses.

The argument you win is the one you don't have.

The truth you tell us equal to the help you'll receive.

You can't save your ass and your face at the same time.

Stay where your feet are.

Right now it's like this.

You are what you answer to. 

Whatever you put ahead of your spiritual program will be the first thing you'll lose when you get high.

Recovery is following through on your commitment when nobody is watching.

What you let consume your mind is your higher power.

Nobody can make me feel anything.

Freedom is forgiveness. What you don't forgive, you become.

Karma does it's job better than I do.

If you have to keep it secret, don't do it.

Love is cunning, baffling, cunning and expensive.

Most people are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

The willow is stronger than the oak.

Breath work

This was possibly the most significant thing I’ve ever done for myself and I had no expectations. Well, that might not be true. I had probably more negative expectations than neutral. I cannot overstate the intensity, and the familiarity of this experience. It is somehow related to both DMT hallucinations, dreams, and a few daydreams or visions I’ve had during periods of meditation and hypnosis, but I felt so much more present and conscious and sober. Through my breath, some subtle guidance, and an intention I met myself. I then fell in love with myself. The self, fell in love with me, and entered me. We talked, and then laughed and cried, and decided to do some work together.

I am here, clearly, to protect and love other people. The way I usually do that is to try and help them in some way. But I have always neglected myself. And everyone sees this, and I know this. But I didn’t really even believe in myself. And that is somehow so much more meaningful and literal than it sounds. I was starting to get into the experience and kind of normal emotions and seeing myself as a youngster, and the usual inner child stuff that always gets to me… Then I started visualizing other times of my life and seeing myself at different ages and times. And in different situations. And then I got to now. And I was lying there staring forward with my eyes closed at a mirror image of myself…. Maybe a little younger…. But perfect. Like I am. Perfectly flawed and rad. And I started crying as he investigated me. He saw all my shit, all my lies, and my fuckups and my trauma and my sins. And my veins, convictions, and perversions.

But all I could see was his power, and his wisdom, and his intelligence… and his gigantic fucking heart. I told him I loved him when he was starting to really look into me to a degree that was almost uncomfortable… and when I did it, it wasn’t really except I thought I was supposed to. And he like opened his eyes again and said, “HOW” with his god voice. And I instantly knew what he meant. I started shaking my head no and squirming about… and I screamed loud and started bawling hard. And then I could feel that heat open me. It spread me open by the soul…. And he came into me. He entered my body with his body fully, and there was this full couple of minutes of like resonance, and adjustment. He told me he loved me with my own lips, and he filled in every gap I have with his love. And when I kept laughing with him about how silly I’ve been to try and help all these people when I wasn’t even complete myself. And I cried with him about when I began to believe we were different and separate.

I could feel him read me and breathe into me and feel me feeling him. And I could feel the darkness go. The density increased in my body and my heart. And then I saw the blue fairy… or maybe thought of her. And the Pinocchio fixation totally made sense with an event from my childhood with such obvious clarity that I laughed again. And I could no longer see anything that wasn’t there, but my minds eye was very clear and my imagination and ability to conjure images in the mind was turned up… I pulled the mask from my eyes, but kept them closed and saw the light of the room.

I said I love you. I heard I love you when it came from my mouth. And I realized I couldn’t stop with the deep breaths. It made me laugh. I giggled my way back all the way into reality. And when I stood up I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I realized all of the last two weeks was about this… and All of my life really had led me to this place. In Hollywood, with these people in my life. I felt like Dorothy waking after the tornado. I was washing gratitude all over the room and over the trip here, and the experiences that preceded it. For a moment I wished Katie could have come here, and thought how much she could benefit from it… but then realized that I really didn’t know when this streak of things coming together so obviously to help me or show me the way began…. I had to consider that maybe things happened the way they did for a very particular reason. I haven’t seen Katie for two months. I am no longer bound to her by commitment. I am no longer putting her first in my life. I am putting myself first. And I do love myself. I do love the qualities I have. I love the me who joined me especially today. The qualities he has, have been with him since birth. And maybe because they caused some pain, or because the rest of me blamed him for that pain, somehow in my later childhood I pulled him from me and disowned him. Or I suffocated him behind lies I tried to become. But he is strong, and I need him so bad. And he is who I really am as well as all these scars and lessons on my skin and my mind. He is who I am. He looks at me from the mirror and sees all the way to the gold inside. He is still here. We are finding our strengths and how to share our work.

My creator made me out of love. And by the virtue of his love, and the grace of hope and gratitude, my strings were unnecessary. Some magic visited me as a child and presented me with work to do. I was granted certain gifts and certain challenges. I had to learn to have hope, and perseverance. I had to learn to experience the world, and all the intense pain and feelings that being human provides. I had to learn how to discern the true from the false. I had to become brave. I had to be truthful. I had to be unselfish. And if I could learn to love first by learning my truth and loving myself…. I finally became a real boy. 

Growing Older

My grandmother is in town. Ramona. She is 85. The first thing we did when we found out she was coming to town was run down to Albertson's and buy a case of Coca-Cola. Ramona is a diabetic who has had two bypass surgeries. She is as full of defiance, opinion, and love as I ever remember her. Today she had two demands of me. The first was to stop getting tattoos on my arms, and the second was to get married and start having kids.

It is really hard for me to imagine that I am at an age where anyone would think it a good idea for me to have children. I feel entirely too immature. I am still too young to want to put any boundaries on my life. I am 34 years old. When I spend time around other people who are even my age, they feel old to me. They seem like they are too old to identify with me. And to look at someone who is 85 and imagine that someday I will be dealing with a body that is full of pain and the scars of age is too much to comprehend. I know it is happening already. Life has a funny way of giving you all the clues, but keeping you too busy to know what the storyline is. I suppose it is better that way.

One of the only clues in my life that leads me to the conclusion that I have learned anything during these past 20 years is that I feel gratitude for the people who have graciously consented to share their lives with me. When I was a teenager I had no time or patience to listen to my grandparents and I missed out on a lot of chances to enjoy their company and learn from them. It is frustrating to think of all the pain and disappointment in my life that I could have avoided by following the guidance of more experienced people who loved me enough to tell me what I should be doing. I could have had a lot more fun if I would have stopped pretending I knew everything, shut up, and done the next indicated thing. I guess youth is wasted on the young.

Spending time with two other generations of my family also gives me a great insight into the patterns that form in relationships. I watch my mom and her brother argue over things in a loving way that mean next to nothing. I watch my mom show a level of service to my grandmother that is truly remarkable. That gratitude that I am just now starting to feel aware of is demonstrated in every action that my mother performs in the presense of her mother. When the conversation turns towards my recently passed grandfather I see the deep reverence and respect that we all feel towards a man who sacrificed so much of himself to guide us all into the best things in life. I feel lucky to be a part of this family.

Every year of my life seems to go by a little faster. It seems that in the blink of an eye I will one day be remembering the lessons I learned from these amazing people without the benefit of having them so accessible. I suppose I am fortunate to be aware of this fact while I can still do something about it but the powerlessness and weight of it is difficult sometimes. It is days like today that I would love to freeze time and keep the loved ones I have now forever in my life. I would love nothing more than to spend as much time with these people as they could stand just so that I can learn everthing I can from them and show them how very important they are to me. I can only hope that in the limited time I really do have that I can convey that love and respect to them. Sometimes I really doubt I do a very good job at that. I suppose I can start trying harder now.

It doesn't have to be true that we never realize what we have before it is gone. It doesn't have to be that we never are able to show the people who comprise our family how much we love them. But it can't be done while worrying about the things that so commonly trap us into doubt, self pity, and fear. We can live our lives in the present moment and serve those around us in such a way that makes the wold a better place. I believe this. I just have to figure out how to do it.

Maybe it is growing older that teaches us how to do things right. Maybe it is the humility that comes with the the loss of youth that causes us to be better human beings. That would seem to be the case with my family anyway.

-Taylor

Isn’t it interesting that human beings feel so self important as a species that we feel the need to create some kind of justification for our natural instincts? Teachers and politicians would have you believe that some wise man came up with the idea of cooperation between individuals to form a society. But does that mean that ants have some philosophy of implied consent to form the structure of their civilization? Are all these books and professionals in the field of law merely acting out a pantomime of evolutionary necessity?

I am currently a member of a Grand Jury and looking back at the history of the institution and the other covenants of the Magna Carta, I have a definite gut feeling that without these necessary parts of our system of law, we would fall apart as a civilization. But I also get the feeling that we don't have a choice. We either work together as a society, or we perish. The question is whether we follow the instinct of survival or we selfishly smother ourselves in greed, avarice, and pride. 

Birthday

Thirty-three years old. This adulthood thing still doesn’t make all that much sense to me, but it isn’t so bad. It seems as though the past couple of years I have just been sort of floating downstream and watching the sun peek through the cottonwoods overhead. It’s easy so long as I remember to relax and keep breathing.

This past year has been unlike any that has come before. I have made a partner, and I am slowly learning how to live my life in conjunction with someone else. At first it was a little strange, and vestiges of my isolated mindset kept trying to get me back to solitude, but this new lifestyle is slowly becoming comfortable and the love I have for my girl has eclipsed my selfish motivations for the most part. It is strange to learn how to open my life to someone after a decade of pushing everyone away. She really does make me want to be a better person; not to change who I am, but to improve who I am.

Life is funny. My adolescence was so full of pride and contempt that I thought it would never leave me. I thought I was destined to walk through life fighting everyone and everything that pushed me in any direction but the one I was headed in. I pounded my fists against the wall only to turn around one day to find that nobody was watching anymore. At some point, I opened my eyes and found that I had surrendered, and in doing so I had been lifted by a current that continues to carry me into experiences more amazing and comforting than my best childhood daydreams. I like where my life is carrying me.

I am not the best at anything, and my ignorance leaves a lot of room for me to grow. I am grateful for that. My expectations and entitlements were dropped with my pain. I feel as though I am past my expiration date, but nobody has noticed yet, and I continue to thrive. Each day is a day I am not owed. Each experience is a measure of grace. I did nothing to deserve this life, or all of the splendid people in it, but that won’t stop me from soaking up every last drop of love in this world that I can find.

I want to thank you. I want to thank this world for everything that you have taught and given me. Someday this body will shrivel and fall, but this life will always be, and it will always be amazing. 

tattoos

This collection of days, and this scratched up mind of mine, often seem incompatible with the present moment.

In this flat light it is hard to tell where I stand.

I walk past a building, or a space that holds some ghost of an emotion, and it seems like I am still there, hanging in the past.

A face conjures up some draft of an idea that I am unable to reconcile with the current circumstances.

I was so broken… so utterly irredeemable, and yet here I am; all shiny and new. I wear matching clothes and I pretend not to know how transparent my mask has become.

Everything is on the surface, so that it blends in with the passing of the seasons. I wear the loss of alternatives just like a bad tattoo.

But everyone seems to have tattoos these days. 

Gallatin

I got out of the rental car at about ten in the morning on the bank of the Gallatin. I had to put the smart phone down as I couldn’t stop looking at my work emails. When I got my waders on, and the rod put together, I was hoping that I could find a place to cross the river and just get off the beaten path. I definitely got what I was looking for.

About half a mile upstream from where I parked, the river was broken into at least ten different channels by a large beaver dam that created a spider web of small meandering streams that spread across a marshy, isolated wonderland of blue sky, green reeds, crystal clear water, and vibrant, lively spotted trout.

After about two hours of winding my way through the reeds and staring into the water, I realized I was lost. I had no idea which direction my car was, or how long it would take me to get there. I just knew I had to follow the current back downstream. Right about the time I started walking, I noticed that the bottom of the stream I was standing next to seemed to be moving. My breathing actually stopped for at least thirty seconds when I realized I was staring down at about forty trout lining the bottom of the creek that each measured at least twenty inches in length.

It was at that moment, that every single remnant of stress I had ever had in my life was completely removed from me. I was a child in God’s universe. I was precisely where I was supposed to be at that moment, and I knew nothing but absolute joy.

I only caught one of those fish, and I let him go, but I never plan to let go of that amazing moment, in this perfect day. I even made my flight.