Learning about ones self

I've shocked myself a few times over the last 6 months, almost gotten an insight into whom I might actually be after all. Under the layers, I've built over the years of the Micheal Farley I've chosen to portray to y'all, little glimpses of the Michael Farley I may be, have started to breakthrough. One of the biggest and most pleasurable surprises so far has been face cream. Dear God, the luxury I've denied myself this long. I can barely be forgiven. The sandalwood scented elixir that comes in a tiny jar from Nezza Naturals has, without hyperbole, changed my life. I had never allowed myself the opportunity to feel my dry skin, there was only skin. Only skin deep. If a physical sensation as obvious and by definition on the surface could go unnoticed for decades, for christ's sake what else have I been missing? Still learning the language of emotions, to put names to the hollow swirling sensations inside I find a simple act such as noticing the dry skin around my eyes, crows footed and smile lined a blessing. A touchstone, as a reminder I'm working on it. I'm allowed to feel a subtle disturbance and I'm allowed to rectify the issue with something so simple, refreshing and luxurious.

I'm also surprised to find I'm still here, alive yes, though I feel as if I'm no longer stalked by the biggest predator in the forest of my sub conscience. But here. Here, here. Victoria, BC. This is the longest I've stayed in one city in my adult life, just over seven years. I stare out the window above my desk and I see the underside of a canoe, an oak tree that scares the shit out of me and a shop I built last summer; jammed with motorcycles and bits, tools large and small for all sorts of hypothetical projects that may never get off the ground. The tree, I hate to say, I could do without. It's leaning at about 65 degrees and is rotten at the bottom, this tree is on it's way out one way or another. The canoe trips me out. It's a sturdy vessel, well taken care of, yellow and I see no reason I won't own it for the rest of my life with a little care. The rest of my life, that's how long I'll own it. I won't implode and search for a geographical solution to a hyper-localized problem, swirling around the exact location my feet happen to be. No burnt bridges, ruined relationships and financial hardships. I won't ditch the canoe and jam my belongings into a bag and split. I'll be here, certainly longer than the tree, dealing with my shit. Learning how to love deeper, more truly and hopefully more broadly. There is a lot of hate and division in our world right now and I want nothing to do with it. You can catch me reading, pretending I know how to fish, getting smoked by my boo playing tennis and minding my own business. Turns out forever after could be a thing.

Self Doubt and Reinvention

Hours

 Bare with me if you will, while I expose to you my mid life crisis. 

   Like most folk this recent piece of the past has been unsettling for me. Outside the Covid sphere of influence my life has changed dramatically. From happily banging nails and carpenting houses to being injured, unemployed and living with my parents for a spell; at 36 there's a whole level of humility and relationship dynamics I wasn't ready for. Still not mind you. My shame around being back at my folks place, unfounded as it may be was immense and kept me from being one hundred with those around me. I belong to one of the few cultures where living with your parents is frowned upon after your early twenties and my fragile ego could barley withstand the blow. 

  Not hitting the breaks, yet cautiously gearing down approaching the off ramp, or on ramp depending on which the side of the coin you're looking at, to 40 I've found myself lost. Lost again. That is assuming I began found or at least in the appropriate lane on my way to where I'm supposed to be. I do have great faith in the universe for providing the correct landing spot for all of us should we choose to heed the signs and not fight what is being presented to us. It just seems my lane to get there is a bit broader with a far more welcoming shoulder to skid through than I envision when I use the term "lane". 

1988 Harley Sportser 1200

   For the past few months I've been spinning my wheels in the quagmire of self doubt. Once again I've found myself asking " Who am I? WHAT AM I!?!" The advice I've so easily dispatched to those who seek my council of "Sit with it, let it come to you", "Look at it from a different Perspective, what are you not seeing?" is a gap on my peg board, the missing tool outlined in sharpie. I must be driving my partner up the wall with ideas of self reinvention, rapidly changing ideas, throwing every thought against the wall haphazardly without taking the time to see what sticks and formulating a plan.

  Within all this manic insecurity I've managed to read some great books, get out camping a couple times, bear spray myself at close range, catch up with pals I haven't seen since the beginning of Covid, ridden some motorcycles, started the rebuild of an old Harley that has some deep roots (more on that later), gotten in lots of swims, watched The Sopranos on the couch with my Boo, the windows open the warm summer evening heat breezing through and eating veggies out of our garden. If I didn't know any better from a different perspective that sounds like a pretty damn good life, and I'm happy to have it. Which ever direction it chooses to take me.

Harley Sporster Cylinders and Heads

Flow (state) Superior

 

It took me a good long while to acknowledge what is happening in my life and I must admit I'm not always in tune with it but when I manage to gain some quiet and reflect I realize my vision and dreams are slowly coming to fruition. Slowly is the key and hardest part for me to accept. I find myself constantly wrapped up in achievements and goals and an unrelenting drive for some bizarre idea of success. Forcing the universe to work in amongst my timetable hasn't worked yet so I don't know why I continue trying to make it bend to my will.

Slowly my dreams and aspirations are coming to fruition, it takes effort to slow down and be aware of what I'm creating for myself and it's all a bit vague still but slowly, the pieces are falling into place. A few years ago after my fourth or fifth trip to the psych ward sitting in rehab for the second time I had to get serious about my recovery or I wouldn't have been much longer for this world. I started to visualize the person I wanted to become and act as if. Sat at the back of the common area in the stabilization ward of the Royal Jubilee Hospital beside a folded up ping-pong table and a tower of dirty food trays holding what was leftover of our dinners; decadent cheese sandwiches of bread, margarine, a cheese slice, margarine, another slice of bread, possibly the remnants of a fruit cup, I was trying to draw some vision of my ideal future. Pretty far fetched from the shared room and squeaky gurney I slept in I wrote down plans of travel, learning to fly fish, building a better relationship with my family and folks around me, becoming more in touch with myself and my emotions, building schools, growing food and what I thought it might take to get there.

    Again I started to act as if. Going to countless AA and NA meetings that first year, listening instead of talking as if I had the necessary humility. Dragging myself to yoga classes when I didn't feel like it and acting as if I were that zenful yogi I envisioned. Putting my ass on the cushion and meditating or at least sitting with purpose as my mind would race acting as if I had a clue to what I was supposed to achieve. In under two years of acting as if I was on my way to Cambodia to build a school and drinking water systems for an impoverished village, emailing back and forth to my family, healthy, strong and flexible and unbeknownst to me more calm, mindful and easier to be around. 

I sit hear now with a familiar feeling of unknowing. Somewhere between a low vibration of anxiety, a patient calm, excitement, a trust in the future I've never had before. I can feel I'm on the precipice of another plunge into a future curated by a power much greater than myself. I've been given the experience and fortitude to take the next step and have faith in the ability of the universe to provide. My future has not revealed itself to me but a whisper of a shadow is starting to form, it's vary elusive and hand wavy but something is there on the horizon and I can tell it wants to take shape.

Big Dreams and Covid Creepies

    A perpetual game of cat and mouse within myself between any number of selves residing inside me creates a bit of a dilemma. A breeding ground for procrastination which induces any number of internal, generally negative dialogues between those countless selves. With so many ideas and inspirations added to the amount of time on my hands at the moment due to an injury that's keeping me from being my normal active self I feel spun out, unable to focus, wanting to reach out and connect while at the same time isolate and focus on my path. 

    After an incredible weekend away, in town, a Covid staycation filled with an abundance of food, dips in mineral pools, naps, great sex and even a couple NBA games thanks to the cable TV I woke up this morning rejuvenated and inspired. After a visit to the kinesiologist and physio I came home hung up my soaking wet clothes from riding the motorcycle in the rain and couldn't decide which way to turn. To calm my mind I entered what we refer to as The Amazon Room, as it's the boneyard of things delivered to us from our gracious overlord Jeff Bezos and unfortunately not the jungle Shangri-La I so whish it was, and lit a candle to sit in meditation and gain some focus and calm. I did not succeed.

    I'm thoroughly enjoying writing these blog posts and am shocked and honored when people take the time to read them and respond. Yet it oddly feeds the derogatory self inside that reminds me I'm no good, I'm no author, I'm not smart nor academic enough to write anything worthy of other peoples time. And somehow in that jumble of shelves within me the act of writing stops me from actually writing. 

I feel this dilemma constantly, pushed and pulled between catharsis and self judgment. A typical trait of an addict is delusions of grandeur and I think I've drank so much of the Kool-aid I can't lift a finger or think a thought without second guessing myself and my intentions. When am I sincerer in my actions and realizing a genuine connectivity and relatability I may have and when has the ego taken over. A bit of ego looks good on a young man, but having just passed 37 full rotations I'm afraid that ship has sailed and I'm still internally reeling from the chaos I created in my brash younger days any whiff of ego sends scuttling deep inside myself to overanalyze and judge. 

    The photos above were taken at two special places for me. The top, a haunt from my youth I've come to revisit. What I once saw and thought was so pretty it could be southern France or Italy I now see someplace so stunning it could be nowhere else. The second is a place of mixed emotions and lost flies. A great little trout river out passed Sooke it can be both peaceful, serine and a complete fucking piss off and waste of time. A cycle that can rotate at least three times with an hour.

 I sit here as my tea steam steeps, tangy sweet with turmeric and lemongrass, in search of something that eludes me. I'm ok with the search now as opposed to the aimless flailing into the depths of addiction as was my only counter measure against such uncertainty in the past. It's the search itself I believe I live for. An unease with myself, KD Lang would refer to it as the constant craving. Not a craving for a thing, a drug or person but a yearning, unfulfillable, I've come accustomed too. Some days I hate it and I'm uncomfortable by how it makes me feel, other days I'm inspired and in full control of my future only to realize my arrogance later; the audacity to think I have a vote in what the universe has planned for me. Is it reinvention every time my life requires me to pivot or a humble shedding of yet another sheaf exposing myself more and more until I'm forced to walk the path to which I'm destined. 

    I write this blog for I find it cathartic. I have no idea how many people will be interested in the inner workings of my mind or what the judgements, of which I'm terrified, will be. It's a practice in humility and vulnerability of which both are outside my comfort zone. Yet I find myself more secure after I've shared my thoughts and for that reason I should do this more often.  Insecurity is familiar for me, once

dealt with by cocaine and warm vodka I now find myself leaning into it. A comfortable dis-ease. Injured and off work, in need of a new career I lean into the loss of identity once more and take pause in the void. I've found I get so wrapped up in what I assume people see me as I forget to be myself. Skateboarder. Carpenter. Partier. I've held onto those labels to hard, and for too long. I'm much more than that, perhaps I'm less? I don't partake in any of those activities with regularity anymore. I wake up early, I mediate, I drink too much coffee, the proper amount of tea. I ride bikes motorized and otherwise, I dream of fly fishing and growing more food. I play tennis and dance in the kitchen with my partner and stress over things I can't control.

    I have no idea what I'm supposed to be or where I'm supposed to be going but I'm genuinely happy to wake up tomorrow, stare into the abyss of my future and welcome what comes.

I used to skate dude. The "I" starts deep in my gut, "used to" forms somewhere in my in my throat and comes out nasally. "Skate" and "dude" are both shortened, practically chopped in half as though I grew up in "The Valley", to which I've never been. And herein lies the problem, acting as though I'm something I'm not nor ever could be while thinking of myself in terms of things I once was or the grand delusions of what I will be as  opposed to the things I am. For some reason I was never able to embrace myself for who I am and where I'm from, thankfully that has changed over time.
     I don't entirely blame skateboarding for the my ill-spent youth, I think I was predisposed to obsessive behavior and addiction, but god damn if the cult of the idol "they" created didn't make it seem necessary to fulfill that role if I wanted to be accepted.  Getting sponsored in my first year at high school by a local shop that shared the space with a tattoo artist helped me misrepresent myself the way I wanted to by being the first kid at school with tattoos, building the exterior armour to protect the scared child within. Armour I relied heavily on my entire life instead of addressing the swirling abyss of emotional turmoil in my underdeveloped mind.
   The first and last time I went to Slam City Jam in Vancouver I was taken over by a board company I was riding for based out of the east coast at 17. It was a pretty loose affair and I was still in high school but somehow convinced my folks it would be a wholesome weekend with my pals. The details remain a bit hazy but coming off the ferry from Victoria with my arm in a cast I somehow got dropped off at the house that the Piss Drunks were staying at. Greco, Dollin, Trainwreck and this little dude name Steve that was an industry player that kept rapping Funkdubiest. The haze thickens and Trainwreck an I are in a Triad bar well past a wholesome time to return home, I think he was convinced one of the girls was a prostitute; she was not and it ended up with the window of the house we were staying at being shot out and me without a cast. If this is skateboarding sign me the fuck up!
    The  Trainwrecks, Jamers and Mateos of the world were people I adored. From a previous generation where tattoos were sacred and somewhat taboo, cocaine was only cut with baby laxative and rat poison as opposed to fentanyl and beer was a breakfast drink. I certainly wasn't the last of that cool generation to get tattooed, more the first of the posers pretending to be as tough as we thought those before us were, which I now see as more of an inability to address emotions and communicate in a healthy way. I hope I'm not doing a disservice to those I've named or anyone else as I don't put their short comings on them, rather the male psyche as a whole. I can only speak for myself of my experience, but I never had another male teach me how to recognize my emotions. After bumping a knee as a child it's ok to cry, how to express anger in a non physical way, talking through trauma, all things I wasn't aware of growing up and into my 30's. I can't imagine my great grandfather sitting my grandpa down somewhere on the Alberta prairies as they were making their way west to talk to him like a snowflake as I so greatly needed, and I'm sure that conversation was never had anywhere along my family tree.
    During my youth I was embarrassed of who I was, a sensitive upper middle class kid whos parents were worried sick about him and wore my armour to protect myself from being found out or hurt, by a word or a look or lack there of. Today I'm embarrassed that I still wear pieces of that armour and the old "Fuck you, why don't you get out of your car and come get a taste" reaction pops up in the middle of a lovely day, and I'd like to apologize to the guy in the parkade this afternoon and his girlfriend who was really embarrassed for us both.
   I'm generally happy these days which is a long way away from the phsyc ward, and I'm happy to be a work in progress.

Spot lights sway across the night sky while strobe lights pulse to an unheard rhythm, emanating a glowing green dome above downtown Siem Reap. This country and this city in  particular seems to be at odds with itself. The non stop party on Pub Street, the unrelenting squaller in the slums and the complete peace found just outside the city in the swaying green rice feilds, golden frosted tips signifying the nearing of harvest. Walking among the labrynth of streets and alleys, a reminder of the French colonial area, I'm continuously grabbed and asked if I'd like weed, cocaine, LSD or perhaps a special massage. In that order. With none of what's on offer filling my fancy I'm left to walk aimlessly with the tourists, monks and locals; the smell of baking concrete, fish in varying stages of decay and an underlaying smell of hot garbage, the umami of the third world, adding to the sensory overload.

  On our 2nd day in Siem Reap we visit an area of town that's new to me, know locally as beggar village.  The rainy season having just come to an end the streets still hold ankle deep water bringing malaria, dysentery  and a host of other invisible killers.  The sprawling hutment is a mass of ramshackle huts put together (not built) with an assortment of materials, whatever is found and can be carried. The majority of the homes sit on the ground as opposed to the stilts like most houses in Cambodia where the residents live in the stagnate disease filled water

for the majority of the year.  Huddled in the shade a family picks through scavenged garbage searching for anything of value that could be possibly sold or traded at a later date. Curious eyes peer from doorways at the white giants. There's a small number of brave children who rush to us eager to show off their English skills, repeatedly asking our names and "How are you?".  Having no education themselves the parents can't weigh the proper value against the meager sum of money their children gain begging in town, creating the vicious cycle driving the problems in the slum. Perhaps there's an unwritten rule, but nobody asks for a thing within the confines of Beggar Village.

Like everywhere else I've been in this country, predominately Buddhist and Hindu  at the same time, the kids laugh and play regardless of circumstance. The adults carry on with the days needs of filtering water and acquiring what food they can to feed the youth, whether their own or god knows whos it doesn't seem to matter.  Aside from marking how many people live in each shack with spray paint the government has nothing to do with this illegal settlement focusing instead on their fleet of tinted out Range Rovers and continuing the blatant nepotism that simultaneous is progressing the country into the future as well as crushing the majority of the population with growing poverty.

  Cambodia is many things, the easiest of which to point out is extreme. Rain and floods of biblical proportions through half the year followed by stifling heat and the slow moving fires fed by the parched husks of barren rice feilds.  Staggering poverty and the gilded unabashed corruption producing incredible wealth for a select few. The rural communities laugh futilely and long for the days of communism while those that live in the city applaud the ability to avoid corruption but find "agreements"  and "understanding".

  With the visual overload the six hour drive from Phonm Phen to Siem Reap dilivers I find the things that resonate the deepest or the sounds and smells. We stopped at this bridge at about the 4.5 hour mark, built over a thousand years ago it no longer serves as part of the main route between the capital and second city but is still a big part of daily life for those that live near by. It doesn't seem as much has changed since the bridge was built to allow elephants and easier path to tow volcanic rocks from the south to build the temples around Ankor.  A lady squats to wash her clothes in the greeny, grey-brown water that's running slowly now the rains have stopped. A family burns hard wood on the opposing bank, I suppose more to keep the mosquitos away than for cooking, the acrid smoke mixing with the incense lit in prayer underneath the seven headed Nagga. Just across the bridge there is a Hindu ceremony celebrating 100 days since the death of an 80 year old woman from the village. The cymbals, bells and chanting of ancient blessings are turned up passed 11, as her friends and family sit in colorful opulence against the lush green backdrop of the trees and the eternally grey sky.
  Somewhere along the way, before the bridge and after eating a tarantula for the amusement of the local children as well as my companions, we came across a solitary rice farmer tending her fields. Gap toothed and leathery from years in the sun, she beam with pride over the vast green field, slightly turning gold as the rice nears harvest. She's recently sold a large part of the field, which she still gets paid to work, to buy a house for her and her son, as well as I'm sure numerous unmentioned family members.

  

The Sun rises over a distant mountain range spreading it's pastel precursor over the foothills, the soaring ridge to the right (I have no sense of direction in this airport to say which way is north) and the runway of the Taipei airport in front of me. Having passed over the international date line some hours ago I'm more than discombobulated and thankful the coffee cart just down from my gate is the first thing to come to life among the designer outlets and duty free.
It could be the lack of sleep, caffeine and the bizarre dreams had on the plane, but I'm continuously amazed by the direction my life is taking, if it weren't for my travel companion sitting beside me I almost wouldn't believe I was sitting in a foreign country on my way to Cambodia for a second time this year.
  After getting to our hotel with relatively little struggle I wake up at 4 am to the smell of frying chillies and a touch of garlic. The residents and shop keepers on the road bellow or rolling up their shutters, sweeping the verandas and washing down the sidewalks. Life starts early in the Khmer capital, a group of monks congregate outside a guest house waiting to be taken to alms, feral cats and stray dogs slink around in the shadows in search of a breakfast morsel. The sour smell of a garbage truck proceeds it's arrival prompting the shop keeps into a flurry to gather what they can to throw in the back of the open truck as it trundles by.  In the heightened activity the monks have made their exodus, making way for the inn keeper in his pink dress shirt creased khaki slacks and sandals to dispatch the days work of bi-hourly sweeping, smoke breaks and conversations with his neighbor.
  Having been here in this city just eight months ago I'm more taken back by my familiarity with it than the frantic pace of traffic slamming against the languid way of life. It seems that no one is in a rush yet if you were to close your eyes the rest of your senses you tell you otherwise.  Adding to the regular confusion of the city is Water Festival, the Khmer equivalent of New Year, bringing in millions more people along with their desire to thank the rain for blessing them with a harvest again, or to get drunk and buy fake Gucci, whatever. With smoke from cooking fires lining the streets, loudspeakers competing against vendors selling god knows what, pickpockets, monks, heavily armed military police, screaming children running in every direction, I stick out like a sore 230 lbs, tattooed thumb. The only moment children stop running a muck is when I emerge from the throngs of people and into their field of view. Jaws drop, eyes widen... Smack! Their gobstruck parents bring them back as they barely manage to stop staring themselves.
  Dragon boat races down the Mekong, expat Brits soliciting the next few months of prostitution, nightly firework displays that produce enough smoke to actually hide the fireworks themselves. All things I never knew I needed to witness but feel as if I almost couldn't live without having seen it now.

sunday service

Slow Sunday morning, typically reflective, slightly sentimental. Burnt coffee creeps into my living room contrasting what Juicy J is rapping about. If all I blow is loud will bands truly make her dance? Questions I may never find an answer to anymore.  And I wonder what inspired an ill spent youth? Skateboarding and rap music have been the ruin of many young men. Growing up in the age of the Pissdrunx , DJ Screw, sippin lean, cocaine and, pardon the expression, bitches, delinquency was mass marketed and glossy. I bought it, hook line and sinker without reading the fine print. Side effects may include but  may not be restricted to; depression, anxiety, social isolation, low self esteem, financial ruin, delusions of grandeur, loss of morals and socializing with misdeviants. 

  Waking up in unfamiliar places with stab wounds or random women, having survived a minor drug overdose or narrowly avoiding incarceration was fun for a while and sure as shit made for some good stories but Dios mio, if that didnt shave a few years off my life. Sitting on my deck overlooking my garden with Mt. Doug in the distance, the caffeine slowly subsiding I sigh in relief to be here, to be present. Thankful for those misdeviants and the ability to look back and laugh.

Its been a good long while since I've had the patience to sit in front of my computer.

  To be truthful my computer gives me the bitter, thick taste of having drunk too much bourbon and the knee jerk reaction of saying "I'm no good at computers" because I don't get the instant gratification of the uppers and downers of the past. But here I am, refusing to be beaten by the past and posting another photo of my kitchen window.
  It may be that this corner is generally where the coffee is kept, but there's something else that keeps me coming back to stare at the roofs covered in pine needles between myself and the big red house.
 It could be the books of recipes I've never followed or the
the touring bike that hasn't had fulfilled its potential yet,
I don't really understand.

This cricket pitch is another place I frequently visit without really understanding.  I've spent hours watching the games here and I feel as lost as I once did in my own head trying to follow the play. However, at least I know that its the sense of culture in the incomprehensible chatter from the players and the colonial ghost I like to think inhabit this corner of Beacon Hill that keep me coming back.

 
Sooke is one of my favorite places on the South Island.  Even with urban sprawl doing it`s thing and creeping in, it still is holding onto most of it`s vastness and backwoods feeling.  It`s home to surf breaks and big hearted people (not the surfers, who are notorious assholes) like my friends Kurtis and Megan, who are two of the most gracious host. Be it a couple car loads of drunk skaters showing up to crash unannounced, or making sure to send you home with cake if you`ve just popped in for coffee.
  I recently discovered the Sheringham lighthouse for the first time on a Famjam. It`s a stunning and beautiful place with shear, jagged cliffs and plenty of wild life. On my first trip out there I ran into my friend Drew who works for Vans in Toronto.  It blew me away to run into him at such a remote spot on a tiny island so far away from the context in which we know each other.

Out this window I can see two roofs, the hospital in the distance and into the third

story kitchen of a big red house.  In that kitchen I watch a young couple make

coffee, do the dishes and hug. We`re on pretty similar schedules, us three, Im generally the first 

up and the first home from work but they`re never long after me.  I seldom where my glasses in 

my house so I have no idea what they actually look like and wouldn`t recognize them  if they 

walked passed me on the street. I have three windows that face them and am curious to know how 

much of my life they`ve seen. Be it a bald tattooed maniac stomping around yelling at himself

or someone sitting peacefully drinking tea and reading on a couch, I`m sure they think theres a couple

different people living here as well.

Doug. Doug Hardy is skateboard royalty. Can not be fucked with, triple OG status.
  As a young punk ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ41hqlV0Kk) I looked up to him and the crew that eventually became my people. For better and worse.

    Doug and I have spend hours in each others arms crying over the years. Be it his sorrows or mine, theres been a lot of tears shed, which equates to more than a thousand laughs with anyone else. If you cant cry with your friends, thy`re  not friends.

Its not that I dont surf, its just that I dont surf. I mean I own I wet suit and have gone in the ocean multiple times with a surfboard attached to my leg, but its more of a survival situation than an Im gonna harness the power of the ocean and use the gravitational pull of the moon or sun as my friggin play ground. 

Growing up skateboarding in Victoria I became very familiar with Downtown and its

surrounding municipalities and their various curb cuts, gaps and ledges. I didn't allow 

much time for myself to explore the regional parks.  This past New Year I discovered 

Glencoe Point in Gordon Head, its beautiful  expansive and looks Icelandic.

 Ryan Farley

Ryan and his lovely girl friend Sam