Everyone has their own story of where things really began for them and how they stepped on the path that they have found themselves on today. For me, my search for truth and a different way began with the birth of my only son. But it wasn’t until I nearly died that I truly began to live. In the face of death I saw peace in my minds eye. What I remember most was the over whelming feeling of relief, I kept thinking it was over, whatever it was that kept me from being able to see was over. I remember feeling like I wasn’t alone, I felt surrounded by light and love that almost whispered that i would be alright…this to shall pass.
For sometime after the crash things began to change for me dramatically. Nothing felt the same and I couldn’t relate to allot of what was going on around me. I felt my own thrashing inside myself as thoughts and images flashed before me constantly. It felt like someone had changed the channel on the station and i was picking up on so many frequencies and I couldn’t understand what was going on. People would talk and I found myself answering all the questions that weren’t being said out loud. it was like seeing what was written between the lines. I felt crazy and uncertain and very much alone.
Many people stayed away during the recovery period after the car crash and I had returned home. I was told many times that life had done this to me as punishment or that this was Karma working itself through me somehow. I had a family member tell me that I needed to look at the life i was living and why “God” had done this to me and maybe I should change my life style. Everyone reacts to death differently when it is staring you in face. Some shy away and want nothing to do with it and can’t even look at you when it lingers around you.
I remember crying allot and feeling very humbled. For the first time I realized how much i keep people at a distance though many probably have no idea. Part of me feeling so alone was that I never truly let anyone fully in. I learned what it was to need people and what that meant for me.
My uncle, Woody Woodward aka Woody the King (for those that know their history of skateboarding) had gotten a phone call from my father and was told about my accident. I remember the first conversation we had and him saying to me, “welcome home” that would be the first of many times I would hear the phrase. He shared his own story of being a young adult and being stabbed to death at a party in Oxnard shores. He was dead on arrival and somehow lived to tell the tell. He would continue to call me weekly to chat and share some of what i was experiencing and he understood and shared his own experiences of what he experienced, saw and felt after dying. I didn’t need to feel so alone he told me. Woody was the first person to tell me that I wasn’t cursed by god, karma or the heavens but rather that life had tapped me. He explained for whatever reason you were searching and though you might not have been able to hear it, life reached out to you, almost as if god himself had touched you (as my father would say). He went on to tell me that things wont be the same for me, my life has forever changed and though life had slowed me down it has also sped things up. It had essentially slammed me on my path.
The first year was strange and so uncertain for me, but even years later people would continue to have strange reactions to me. Strangers would walk up to me and grab my hands and tell me what they saw when they would look at me.
The man in the picture above…..He was a homeless man in Tucson , Az and wondered into my store one night while we were doing a photo shoot. He walked into the store and stopped in front of me and paused…..”I saw your lights were on and I was going to walk in here and ask you for some change but i am not going to do that now that i see who you are. You would not give me change even if I asked because you don’t feel sorry for me.” The man told me as i just stared at him. He was right, i didn’t feel sorry for him, not because I am cold or heartless but more so because I have learned a great deal about the homeless from working in shelters most of my early twenties in California. I have sat and listened to many stories of how people end up on the paths they find themselves on and I will gladly take you and buy you a meal but i will not hand over cash so you may buy your vices that keep you on the street.
“may I tell you what I see?” the man asked and I replied by telling him yes. he went on to tell me that I am afraid of my own power and who i am and what that means for myself. He said that he knew I had seen death and that i walk between both realms of the living and the world beyond this realm. And that someday i would be great because of this and that is what draws people towards me in my life………..He went on for over an hour talking so finally the photographer just started incorporating him in the photo as you see above. This wasn’t the first person to say such things to me and i had gotten use to people walking up and either touching my hands and speaking or just speaking their thoughts out loud to me. it had become something I just grew a custom to since the car crash. At first it use to scare me and now i just listen and let them share. i have no idea what any of it means or whether I should be taking it to heart but i listen just the same.
what I have learned is with every ending there is a new beginning and that beginning is whatever we choose it to be…..its never to late to follow your dreams
THEY ARE NOT JUST CLOTHES, THEY ARE AN EXPERIENCE WAITING TO HAPPEN….step into your imagination and manifest your own story…….
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The Red Ant Memoire 