Prickly Pears

My friend Steve is visiting from Santa Cruz and I am always in awe of his ability to wander, though not aimlessly, through life. He and I come from very similar circumstances (which has always endeared him to me) and it is really interesting to see how someone else manages to pull themselves together, by any means necessary. While my technique is to over-achieve and plow through life with a vengeance, absorbing my demons with writing and reading and, well, blogging, Steve chooses to face his demons head on, in a shanty in the Santa Cruz mountains. He lives 4 1/2 miles from any discernable sense of "civilization" and hauls everything he consumes and expels up and down the mountain. Steve is brilliant and talented and brave and I admire his resiliency. Though it could be argued that he escapes just as much as I do, by living at the margins as he does, there is something cleaner and more honest about how he has chosen to exist. I bury myself in my work and work through the shit in my head through my chosen topics. Steve choses minor isolation and silence to work through his shit. I don't know if either is more effective than the other (and does it really matter?!), and neither of us hold any delusions that our method of existence does not come with its own element of fantasy, diversionary tactics, escapism, etc (the topic of our breakfast conversation today). Bottom line is this: Steve is starting to resonate in me the way Dane does: they get under my skin in these really prickly but soul-sustaining ways that cause me to wholly invest in my friendships with them in such a way that is generally hard for me to do. These boys take down my walls rather than build them up by recognizing that I don't need to be saved, that I am staunchly independent while at the same time want (not need) their protection and want (not need) them in my life---crucial crucial crucial distinctions. It also helps that I would never in a million years date or sleep with either of them! Ha ha! Just food for thought....