| 298 | The last thing I expected was the manager to call and say she found someone to buy the mobile home. I already knew I wouldn't be making a payment that month, and figured the bank would probably repossess it, so it was a welcome relief. Of course my terms were pretty reasonable, I just wasn't prepared for it to happen. |
| 299 | The paperwork was finally approved about the time I would have missed a payment and I was ready to go to California. Without much ado I loaded all my personal effects into the back of the truck and prepared to leave (within the next couple of days). This all happened during the middle of May, 1986. |
| 300 | One thing that happened while loading the truck, was the lady from the outpatient program called and insisted I come and pick up the $5 or $10 I made from cracking walnuts, like it was a big deal. Here we are with the nuts again! So like a good little robot I got in the truck and rushed off. But I neglected to tie everything down, and my favorite wooden chair (walnut chair?) which sat up high, fell out and smashed alongside the road. Which I wasn't aware of until somebody came up from behind and flagged me down. So much for being suggestible. I believe I left the next day. (I lived here for seven months altogether.) |
| 301 | It was pretty rough moving in with my mom, but I had nowhere else to go. I hadn't lived with her for twelve years, since getting out of high school, and all the unfinished karma came boiling to the surface. It was still a relief to get away from my former environment, and indeed it was a phenomenal change of events that brought me to her door. I began moving in as soon as I got there, but her apartment was pretty cramped and I had to take the rest of my stuff to my aunt and uncle's house in Sebastopol, and store it in their barn. |
| 302 | One thing I noticed about her apartment, particularly when in the bathroom and bedroom, with all the knickknacks, etc., is it appeared like some unholy shrine—to herself. And I wondered about it, for it seemed to be what I was up against. And being my ninth residence, the ninth commandment says, "Don't bear false witness ..." And indeed, there have been many falsities associated with who she was over the years, not a wide variety, but more in terms of being narcissistic (centered around her own self pity and its glorification). |
| 303 | All of which correlates with the myth of Persephone, a parallel to the myth of Semele (Persephone was Zagreus' mother), for Persephone was abducted by Hades in her youth—just as my mother was snatched away—when out playing in a field of flowers, specifically the narcissus. Coincidentally, my mother has a picture that my grandmother painted, of a field of golden poppies (California poppies), similar to a narcissus? and it's one of her favorites. And so symbolizes Demeter's exhaustive search for her daughter, only to have her gaze transfixed on a field of flowers. While I'm sure my grandmother had similar feelings about the loss of my mother's innocence. |
| 304 | As it was life was not easy, with everything becoming an emotional issue and us getting upset over the smallest things (just like old times). Whereas I'd lose my equilibrium and feel like I was cast back into the pit. It was an experience I felt I needed to surmount (the hell I was in) and ride above for some time, before overcoming it, which she didn't understand. Nor could I solicit this. She just continued in her old way. The one experience that illustrates our karma occurred the day I was taking a nap: I saw a vision of her laying down in her room, with the usual vacant, but absorbing look on her face. And except for the fact that it was a vision, it was all too real! While according to Roy, when something like this happens, it's essentially a reflection of who you are, which I found to be very disturbing. Have I become my mother? |
| 305 | Nonetheless I was determined to get back on my feet, and within a month I started working, a temporary assignment assembling floppy diskettes (for personal computers). And although it seemed like something I needed to do, I still had to deal with my mother when I got home and wasn't making much headway with my problems. I had very little privacy. Perhaps it was too soon. I also rode my bicycle to work and spent most of the night (swing shift) on my feet, which I wasn't accustomed to. So in conjunction with having little motivation, I felt tired much of the time and it wasn't getting any better (as I thought it would). This is why I quit two months later ... While a couple of months later I went back, but only lasted one or two weeks after I looked at someone the "wrong way" one night, when I thought they were being too bossy. |
| 306 | Two or three weeks after I began work, I decided to buy a VCR and begin taping some quality programs. Which I felt was important for I needed to instill some quality back into my life, hence a sense of purpose and identity (why I had little motivation). Of these the best were, a Dutcher Films release, Water, Birth, The Planet Earth, which detailed the beauty and glory of life as it evolved on this planet; a Nova program, The Miracle of Life, which revealed the mystery and beauty of life within the womb; and a National Geographic Special, The Realm of the Alligator, which gave an intimate portrayal of the alligator in the Okefenokee Swamp of Georgia. While there were the two movies, 2001 A Space Odyssey and 2010; all of which played an integral role in the development of my rebirth experience (the imagery of my mind), and I watched them over and over again. I speak more about this in my eleventh residence. |
| TO BE CONTINUED ... |
| 312 | My mother and I knew I would probably be better off not living so close to her, and in November I believe she found an ad in the paper listing a room for rent. The price was right and, although I wasn't working at the time, I had saved up enough money for the first couple months rent and thought it was at least worth a try. The person who owned the house didn't seem to mind, saying he only expected to be paid month to month, and only asked that I give a couple of weeks notice before moving out. So without much ado I loaded up my pickup truck with the light weight sofa bed my mother had just bought, and some of my personal effects and moved in. While it was actually the first time I had a roommate (not counting my mother) since living in San Jose at my fourth residence. |
| 313 | The owner was a single man in his forties, and it was a small three bedroom house in Sebastopol, California, less than two miles from where my aunt and uncle lived. He also had two other roommates living with him (one moved in after I did, a deaf person) and needless to say it was a bit crowded. While he mentioned the other house he owned in Santa Rosa, which he was renting to his girlfriend and trying to maintain as well. Which he had difficulty doing for he had recently suffered a major breakdown to his immune system (similar symtoms to, but not AIDS) and was constantly worried about getting sick and had very little energy. So when I told him I had been doing odd jobs and yard work in Grants Pass, and suggested I could do this in exchange for part of the rent, he thought it was a good idea. |
| TO BE CONTINUED ... |
| TO BE CONTINUED ... |
| 343 | I drove my truck up to Grants Pass that day, and in my own mind I was handing myself over to the mental health people, thinking the only viable option I had was to be committed. It was right after I got there, I believe, that I decided to take a nap in the front of my truck down below the mental health center. I fell asleep with the window rolled down and awoke to the most hideous sound. There were two teenagers outside, bickering and snarling at each other, and it was the nastiest thing I had ever heard. It had more to do with my state of mind though, because I didn't hear any "swear words," as most teenagers do, but I could swear I was visited by the devil himself. I never heard anything like that before or since. |
| 344 | This didn't help any either, and it only increased my anxiousness. But the lady that I talked to tried to calm me down, and said it wouldn't be necessary for me to go to the hospital. She said I could probably make arrangements for housing and such, and reapply for general assistance, and begin going to the outpatient program again. She then asked if I would be interested in doing this and I said I was but, that I had to go back to California and get some belongings, for I hadn't brought any up. She said it wouldn't be a problem and gave me a week or so to do it. She also stipulated that I needed to start taking the medication again, i.e., lithium, and I agreed. They set me up in a motel room for the few days I was there. |
| 345 | So I drove back to California, and spoke to my mother about what I intended to do. I wanted to go back to Grants Pass anyway and this seemed like the most expedient way to do it. I came back up a week later and was prepared to stay awhile. One of the first things they did was put me up in a hotel, using their funds, and said I'd have to apply for general assistance, as well as SSI (Supplementary Security Income), in order to maintain my status as a client or outpatient. |
| TO BE CONTINUED ... |
| 363 | So my 13th residence involved moving back to my mother's. I conveyed to her that I didn't intend to stay long, and said I would like to try and relocate to Grants Pass. (Here I am repeating the same "odd number" pattern again.) I was just getting together the makings of a book (more so the notes and drawings) and wanted to head back to Grants Pass and talk to Roy Masters, and possibly get a job working at the FHU. At some point I spoke to Dorothy over the phone and talked to her about my intentions, and she had no qualms about loaning me the $300 I said I needed. It was something I wouldn't have ordinarily done, but it seemed like she really wanted to do it. I didn't even bring it up. |
| 364 | So my fourteenth residence involved moving back to Grants Pass, and in early November I headed back up. I didn't stop there initially though, but opted to camp out along the Umpqua River northeast of Grants Pass, and then along the Upper Rogue River north of Shady Cove. So I didn't arrive in Grants Pass until mid November. While it was at this time that I began portraying these spiritual battles in mind, out in the wilderness, and something I continued to do for the next two to three years. |
| 365 | I opted to stay at the same hotel as before and paid a months rent up front. It was also at this time that I spoke with David at the FHU and wrote the letter in chapter 8. I was hoping Roy Masters would be there but he wasn't, so I had to talk to David instead. He was rather abrupt with me though, and I wrote him the letter the next day. I stayed another two or three weeks, until the hotel rent was due, and nothing else had panned, so I decided to go back to California once more. |
| 366 | My fifteenth residence involved living with my mother once more, for about a month and a half, until I could make arrangements with the Sonoma County Mental Health Agency, to live at a shelter or kind of halfway house. This was my sixteenth residence I speak of in chapter 13. And for one or two months (they had time limit) the county agreed to pay the nominal rent and give me food vouchers, if I applied for general assistance and worked for the county two or three days a week. |
| 367 | The time was soon up though, and I found myself living with my mother once again, the seventeenth residence. This was only for a month or so though, for I had made arrangements with the county to get in on this housing program that would be available in May I believe. I really tried to keep from infringing upon her, but it wasn't easy, for there weren't many places I could go. I still didn't have much in terms of a direction. |
| 368 | After moving in it was only good for a couple of months though, for I was having problems with one of the counselors pestering about looking for work ... I was also getting food stamps, which was contingent upon me doing a job search and making twenty-five contacts per month, which I didn't accomplish. I was trying to do all of this, together with working for the county, plus having tried to do a couple of jobs that didn't work out. I had just got back from work one day, digging ditches or something, and I was tired, and I really didn't feel like being nagged about it ... I hadn't really disclosed the nature of my problems to anyone, except that I'd spent some time in the mental hospital and some time with Mental Health Services in Oregon. Needless to say I was having problems motivating myself, and by the way he approached me, he didn't deserve to know anything more than I was leaving and I picked up all my stuff, put it back into my truck and headed back to my mother's. |
| TO BE CONTINUED ... |