Tag: cannabis

The Haunted Hotel

Feb 2nd, 2023

As I write the title and press space, the power flashes very briefly in the room, as if the energy in the room itself gasps. I feel my stomach drop and then feel funny all over. I’m pretty sure the keyboard flashed too, even though it’s not plugged in. I may not write more before morning comes. I am a bit afraid to sleep here, more so now. Will my dreams be more vivid than usual, or not at all? Is just processing this reality too much to create dreams now, while I’m still in it. But I do know that I am not able to fall asleep in this period, for some reason, probably sadness, is making me not want to sit still.

I wake up the next morning not remembering any dreams. I don’t think I was able to dream as I was too high. This pattern is dangerous and I know it. Black out high is the same as black out drunk with just a different hangover. Not remembering is the goal. Total escape. How do I tame the internal struggle between my old self, the one with the addictive tendencies, the one that goes wild for food and nicotine. The one that tamps down feelings with sugar and fullness. When I smoke, I smoke. I absolutely don’t stop. My new self wants to be present, and this is possible, but one must be a certain level of stoned, like the one I managed yesterday afternoon and evening. A little high, and things seem clearer, calmer. The THC having a calming effect, it helps with anxiety. It also destroys my concept of time and planning, sitting deep in my emotions. I learned something interesting about myself yesterday, my mind in its grieving and high state actually refused to comprehend the necessary time that it would take to complete a task before my Aunt and Uncle were leaving town. An object permanence issue again, perhaps, but inversely – they were here, so I was thinking of them as indefinitely here, existing in a world where the were here to help, with no beginning and no end. In fact, they only stayed for 36 hours, and not having met them for dinner the night before yesterday meant that I would only see them for about six hours. Six hours to talk, grieve, tell stories, make arrangements, and tackle logistics. Six hours, and they would be gone the next morning. Six hours and no time to stay, after taking five days to get here, geo-caching along the way, driving through Texas, which is not on the way from Missouri, at all, but now they are in a hurry. At least, I’ve said out loud several times, they had the gift of the experience of passing through the Saguaro cactus desert the morning after mom died. It seemed like an appropriately dramatic journey to make after receiving such news.

Last night, well evening, at an appropriately early time, we had dinner at a German Restaurant that they’d picked out. It was delightful, very modern, and the food was excellent. We were talking about the logistics of moving mom’s things, and I disassociated from the conversation, thanks in part to the cannabis. The plan was that they would take a few things with them in their Prius up north to the house, and they could only fit a few things, of course. So what should they take? I’d have to prep a few things to go with them, ready for 8 am, so I must do it tonight, I finally deduced, after planning to go directly to the hotel and pass out. My mind had refused to connect the two events to the now, that tonight I would need to do it as tomorrow they were leaving. Nope, too tired, my body said, and my mind played along. Can’t do it tonight. Once reminded that today and tomorrow are in fact quite dependent on each other, quite inevitable it seems, I finally was able to be talked back into taking action, or losing the plot completely Ok, I will, if I have to.

This morning I still feel the cushion of cannabis enveloping my brain and my body. Smoking home grown weed is best for me, as my sister, as well, seems to like a long, strong body high. My body feels when high, really feels. I can feel sadness moving though my body, it is overwhelming. I must focus on that, as it helps the sorrow move through and away from my heart, as I’m afraid it might kill me if it stays there.

I feel the proximity of my departure draw closer, the days divided into only two parts, morning and afternoon, as the pain is too heavy to make plans in the evening. Yesterday 5:30 felt so late, I could have slept then but instead got high, listened to music, feeling the songs on the radio and suffering with them. Song after song came on Pirate Radio that seemed just for me. I felt tremendous guilt for just sitting, smoking cigarettes, and listening to music. Where else do I have to be? What else do I have to do? This is all. This is grieving. My body slowed by the grief and the weed to a near halt, floating on my back in a Salton Sea, languishing in emotion, not wanting to move, just drift in the idle, heavy waves, lulled into a state in between sleep and awake where I can just be sad.

So now I must go, again, to my mother’s apartment, to pack her things, to sort her papers, to take care of her belongings one last time. It’s hard not to be sentimental about every last thing, as she feels still attached to everything. I am very aware of the tendencies to keep everything, to find meaning where there is none. But as I pack up her clothes for the last time, I find pieces that I will wear when I go home to visit, things that Cele might like, or my sister might reach out for when she needs something cosy. I save the ‘house clothes’ as I’ve always called them, the items that are so cool, so good, they must never be lent out, as they belong to the house. They can only be work with the expressed intent of returning them to be washed, put back, and reworn by the next visitor. The old Illini sweatshirt that is probably as old, or older than me, and its newer counterpart, the Marine Diving Humboldt State hoodie, a classic gem of a shirt, now a relic of the recent past too, as HSU is now Humboldt Cal Poly Technic, a great school, a great upgrade, a place I not at all secretly hope the kids will fall in love with and want to attend, a school thousands of miles away from home but in Grandma’s backyard, a place I hope to fill with years of memories.

Now I must go and pack again, for the last time.
Impossibility

Jan 29th, 2023

Again, it has been a week that we have been in here. Another week that this fierce woman, such a fighter, has beat the odds. She has been given hours every day for a week. My hope is that she is able to do her work to leave this earth, in her mind, spirit, and soul. I had seen this going very differently. Not sure what I’d expected but I’m pretty sure that it didn’t involve my mother dying like this. We’ve worked so hard to give her the dignity to die in her own place, on her own terms. Yet here we are, all rooming in at the hospital, free of the imbedded comforts of home, where it’s easy to grab the book, music, or snack that you need to calm things down. For we are on a constant state of alert, and it is exhausting our nervous systems, all of them. I am not at all prepared for the shock that awaits me. My mother, my living breathing mother, who has been an enigma to me for so long, will no longer be, shortly. I am facing the The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Eyes of Someone Living. *

I think of this idea a lot. Is there enough flexibility in the sober mind to be at peace with the cognitive dissonance brought about by the idea of death? Can we be at peace with science and spirituality? This is a space in which art can help us to be. It is not this artwork, named above, of the shark suspended in the tank of formaldehyde that haunts me now, though the name itself has stayed with me for years. It is another work by Damien Hirst that comes to me when I think about life, death, and the afterlife. This work is For the Love of God *, a diamond encrusted 18th century skull which was presented in the core of Tate Modern in 2011, in the Turbine Hall, an impressive industrial structure with an open interior, 6 storeys tall. The architecture feels like that of a modern pyramid made of steel and concrete, an industrial giant, a marvel, a deity worshiping the gods of power and electricity. It’s size and cavernous shape offer the perfect placement for a black box gallery that contains the skull. The rapidly decreasing size here focuses one to confront this death mask as though looking through a zoom lens. One must confront, confront, confront. The skull seems to say, in Hirst’s sense of humour, that as much as you try to dress it up, you still can’t save yourself from the inevitability of death. No matter what power, money, richesses you possess, this is your fate. So here I am, doing the same dance, hoping that the next cigarette or tv show or song might delay the inevitable. Praying for a miracle just helps me avoid dealing with thinking about what happens next. There is a universe in which she gets up, and does a happy skeleton dance, and goes on with her life. Maybe this universe is all in my mind, it’s impossible to know.

Here we are now, in a universe where my mother has spent her last few days on morphine, a drug which I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t like. My mom wasn’t exactly a tea-totaller, but I’m sure she wouldn’t like narcotics. I realise that the tense I use when speaking, thinking about her is a mix of present and past. I’m ok with that. I know she likes psychedelics, as she made some great pot butter, which them became pot cheese, by no effort on her part, that was our go to on toast for a while last year. She was into trying MDMA, but as I didn’t follow up and she was unable to do so for herself, it seems that we have missed that boat as well. But we are in California, and there are good dispensaries everywhere, including just next door in Temescela at Root’d 510 where the medical cannabis menu is quite impressive. I will go back there today when they open to see how I might better serve my mother, and her right to die on her own terms.

A disclaimer here, I feel I must be honest and transparent. I will address this separately but for now time is limited and I must make choices and be brief. I am no longer sober, I am alcohol-free. I have been using cannabis again, sometimes smoking, vaping, and eating edibles. I have cracked under the psychic pressure of this situation to depend on it again to help me through. I am grappling with my addictive nature, addictive tendencies, and also trying to be gentle with myself. I am trying to enjoy the calming nature of the plant, the perspective and reassurance it gives to me in this situation. I am trying to balance using it to help me with the need to be present in this difficult moment, a task that alone feels like more than my body can handle. I am in the place, like my mother was last weekend before we brought her back in, via ambulance, where emotional and physical pain meet and become indistinguishable from the other. They work together to destroy all perspective, understanding, and ability to move forward. They are crippling. So for now I am again using cannabis to deal with all of this, I am trying to use it to better understand and be at peace with this, and to tap into my intuition as well. I am not sober, but I am alcohol free, and for now that is ok. I am doing the best that I can.

Tag: cannabis

The Haunted Hotel

Impossibility