The SoupyGato Show

A Soup Ramble … Insomnia and Tide

It’s almost 7 a.m. and the sun is now blocked by plastic blinds. It’s too bright… but still so needed.

I just meditated sitting on a hunk of concrete next to the Saginaw river. The leads to the Bay and the Bay becomes Lake Huron. If you look at the mitten that is Michigan I live in the crotch. Michigan has all the seasons very solid in each of their own nature. Summer’s can be over 100 degrees and winters can be capable of shutting the city down. My problem is I have lived with seasonal depression all my life and Michigan’s weather can bring out something that can effect me like playing Rugby on a bed of flowers. Or at times living in a mist like a bad drug. The buzz of indifference.

As I sat and allowed the river to drift my thoughts I recalled a time about ten years ago when I also lived a across from the river but in a different apartment. At this time I was in a much better environment. The place I live now has ghosts of gossip and cameras that people here watch all day. Strange to me, but thats what it is. Sometimes I want to dance in the camera yet never yet have had the nerve. I really need to Feng Shui the shite of of my place, but this fog has been bad this past few months. Now that the weather is changing I’m hoping that Samson’s hair grows back fast.

The story that came to mind as I sat was of the place on the river I cleaned up to do T’ai Chi years ago. At the time I was taken about 4 to 5 classes a week on different aspects of Eastern Wisdom, mostly on Taoism.

I was very strong at that time and most of my demons had dwindled. But I must say they are back now and I’m dealing with that day by day. But at this time I really was with the flow of life and was able to sit for hours on a cushion .

There was a train bridge right across the street from where I lived and I’d walk out on it many a full moon. As a kid it was a Rite of Passage to jump off the top, and to be honest it was scary. I jumped and to scare my friends I swam out into the open water. When I popped up they we’re screaming at me to duck and just then a ski-boat was right onto of me. I still remember the propeller blades skinning my hand as I pushed to get below further.

I never jumped off the bridge again.

When I lived there later I cleared a small beach area to do T’ai Chi. On the other side of the bridge was a very rocky area that I would meditate on. The rocks wear uncomfortable but useful to allowing the mind to overcome discomfort.

In a class I had been studying about how the ‘chi’ if used in a certain way would influence small animals. I really had no real thought on it besides the idea of being truly open with my spirit. And this has only happened once to me were I had allowed myself that real freeness of mind-body-soul. But I was sitting on a rock for what could have been 5 minutes of 5 hours and when I came back there were 4 river rats circling and and standing at attention. It took me a few minutes to really come to and as I did each seemed to come out of a I guess could be a trance and as they did each dropped down and slowly wondered off.

But the real story I’ve been working up to is about a lady that passed away. She was killed by a husband I think. It was during the winter she went missing and even though the murder rate in Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw is some of the highest in the nation it’s still pretty uncommon here in Madonna’s home-town.

On this certain day I had planned to go down to my little T’ai Chi when my friend Scott Tucker called me up and asked me over for lunch. I choose food that day and was over a few hours. As I walked back home there were a ton of cop cars, fire-trucks, ambulances, all in this field right near the train bridge.

The woman had washed up on the little beach I had cleared tires, rocks, logs, and trash from.

I mean no disrespect to the dear woman’s life that was taken but it has always had a question to me. If I would have gone down there that day and had been in mid T’ai Chi form and saw her…. would I have freaked out or would I have continued? And if I would have continued would I have come closer to mastering or would I have come closer to something else?

I’m just so thankful for the season change.. The winter was a bear this year, fast and strong. Feet-meters of snow piled higher than the last 5 years combined. I saw no global warming this winter. By no means do I say there is not a strong strong need to change, just saying that I personal and a struggle of a long a dark cold night that I’m slowly waking up from…….