My Uncle Mark was our curator of all things cool musically. I remember hearing him play The Doors one summer while I was staying at my Grandmothers house. I was probably 12 or 13 at the time. In the rare instance that the stereo was playing anything other than Fleetwood Mac or Stevie Nicks, one could get quite an education musically.
I never had air conditioning growing up and the summers were long and hot in our second story apartment. My grandmother always had a supply of spaghettios, cokes and air conditioning, the holy trinity of summer as far as I was concerned. I heard Mark play the Soft Parade more than the other Doors records and to this day there are songs on that abum that I consider to be my favorites. When I was a teenager Mark often refered to me as Wild child in referance to the song on the album. His assessment was entirely correct. I was indeed a wild child, probably more so than most people knew. I would like to say that I was always a good kid but facts would sway a jury to the contrary. I stumbled upon a copy of An American Prayer and The Lords and the New Creatures in the basement among my Uncle Alans things and I read them vorociously and carried them around in my backpack for years. I became enchanted by his freedom. I too wanted to move to LA and sleep on roof tops and be an artist. I wanted to write poetry under the moonlight and see the stars from a new perspective.
I felt trapped in life. The only child of a single mother can be lonely. I had other brothers and sisters but none that lived with me. I was alone a lot and left to my own devices. We didnt have a lot more than the essentials and I often felt pressured to pretend that I was something or someone different just to fit in. Music and poetry became my escape. I wrote the words I needed to say because in my house we didnt speak about our feelings. In fact I remember the first time in my adult life that my grandmother said I love you to me. I always knew she did, but my "I love you Grandma" was always met with an" um hmm me too." The energy of Jim Morrison became the guiding light for exploration and self destrcution in equal measure. One may wonder, what does this have to do with rebuilding a farm house. Simply stated, it is in this spirit that I have found so many wonderful things in my life, up to and including my farm. I call him my patron rock star with good reason for it seems his presence is always wrapped up in the turning points. Every important juncture finds a place for me to pay homage to his musings.
Recently I read Matthew McConaughey's book Greenlights. He talked extensively about pushing the boundries of our existence. Its a wonderful read if you have the time, though I suggest if you want the full experiance download the audible version because hearing it told in his voice is nothing short of magical. The book discusses that there is a pressure from others to subscribe to the status quo. I have never been one to fall seamlessly in line with that mentality. Ive never wanted a mortgage. Ive never wanted to be any more a slave to credit than I had to be. I worked my ass off for years to build a career that still left me far from where I wanted to go and staring into the impossibility of home ownership without the massive amount of debt associated with it. Im impulsive and free spirited in all areas of my life. I plan defensively for the things that I need becasue I know that this fact is not really going to change. Some say this is irresponsible but I do not see it that way. When it rains hard in your life you're not going to be thankful for the chances you didnt take. Success and failure are part of the journey, Failure means you were brave enough to try even if it meant a month of eating ramen noodles as penance. Lucky for me I married a man who can dress those ramen noodles up into something amazing. There are a great many things I would do even if I had to eat ramen to do it. Experiances are what write the stories we leave behind.
As a teenager I found myself in the company of a cool cat with whom I traded Doors lyrics and french cigarettes. Lets call him Andy ( names have been changed to protect whomever might need protecting). We would drink coffee in diners and obscure coffee houses and analyze Jim's work. I have notebooks full of bad poetry from the 90's. Recently I gave a book full of it to my daughter who was fussing at her art work and complaining that she wasnt naturally good at drawing. I gave her the notebook and said, now , this is a lesson in how sometimes you just have to work to get better. We laughed together at the dark and broody teenage drama on the pages and then compared my recent writings to those. It seemed to set her mind at ease in regards to what one can do with a little patience and practice. Andy helped me press the edges of my comfort zone outward. I found myself at poetry readings and coffee shop jam sessions and participating in poor choices to boot. I thought about Jim alot when I was blown out of my mind on the drugs my new friend provided. I thought about him stumbling down the sunset strip in a haze as I too trusted the wrong people to be my chaperones. I compartmentalized so much of that experiance and kept it tucked away from my regular crowd. Partly because I knew it was wrong, and partly because I wanted to keep those south city experiances completely my own.
I was in a weird place. I was shedding the happy cheerleader mask and trying out some different ones. I had a desire to be dangerous. I wanted to be stripped down to nothing and rebuild my empire. I wanted to read Nietzsche and Aldous Huxley and rub elbows with anarchists. I ignored the fact that said friend lived in a pool house behind his fathers forest park mansion. I never could get a full description of what was actually going on there but given his access to all things powder and smoke, I suspect none of it was good. He was a 22 year old gay man who made me feel safe. He had a bad ass record collection and a stero system that was to die for. We spent hours at a time listening to vintage vinyl. Money and access were never in short supply. He wasnt trying to exploit me sexually which in my mind made him okay. In fact to this day, I really dont have a clue what his motive might have been hangin out with a silly 17 year old girl. He was well read and mysterious. He was wealthy but not flashy and had an uncanny way of showing up at just the right time. Maybe he was a vampire, Ha, I dont recall seeing him much in the daylight! He seemed to be connected to something dangerous but I wasnt sure what. Riding shotgun with him making deliveries of things I didnt ask about felt exciting and cool. I suppose I was convinced that I needed to add a tad more trauma to have something new to write about and I definately got what I was seeking. I'll never forget being left at the top of the rocket slide park to die while my cool cat friend, who had assisted in my near overdose, ran away in terror.
He died eight months later from a heroin overdose at 23. His obituary was one line in the sunday paper. There was no funeral service mentioned. I lived to tell the tale. Just like that Andy drifted out of my life as oddly as he had drifted in. Perhaps I shouldnt relate such an experiance to a positive Jim Morrison moment, but I find it relevent. I discovered just how easily one can be led down a dark path by a common thread. I discovered that there is plenty of pain in the world to write about and I dont have to tap into it myself. Observation can also be a profound teacher for those who seek to understand. I found that everyone soothes themselves differently but we all are silently licking wounds that no one else sees. It taught me tolerance for those who do not know why they hurt or what they are running from. Sometimes the wool you pull over your own eyes keeps you on the edge of sanity just enough to function. Some will never do the work to thin the veil and that is okay. My life isnt tied to thier impediment. I can love them for all the parts that make me happy and hold space for the parts that dont as I choose.
After I recovered from the haze I went back to my night shift job as a waitress at Steak and shake and pretended like those four months never happened. Most people did not have a clue. I scraped myself together enough to graduate highschool after falling off the path rather gloriously. I tucked those experiances into my back pocket and wandered off into the sunset. Maybe it wasnt an LA rooftop, but I had found a way out alive which is more than I can say for Jim. It was a brief dalliance into potential disaster. Its hard to believe that at 27 Jim Morrison had broken his body to a point of no return. I was just lucky at 17 that the price for my wandering wasnt as high. " Death makes angels of us all, gives us wings where we had shoulders smooth as ravens claws. "
I went on to marry young and impulsively.. such is my path. I don't think Jim would have approved. I found myself trying to be a military wife in Little Rock Arkansas which was so not my jam. I tried really hard to fit that role but it was simply not who I am. I don't care about stepford wives or manicured lawns. It was very lonely for me for a lot of reasons. I wasnt unhappy necessarily and I got a beautiful daughter from that union. Ultimately it didnt work out. At the end of it all we where just two people who did not share the same vision of success. However I did get a gift from my patron rock star. He knew I needed some girlfriends and he found me the perfect pair.
First I met Michele. I applied at the club on base to be a bartender. when I walked into the bar at lunchtime to meet with the manager, Love Me Two Times was on the radio . I took pause. I was early to the meeting so I decided to have some lunch. Michele waited on me. What is funny now is that she was actually quite rude to me. In fact it was probably the worst waitress service I had in my life. When I told her I would be working there she was like well we need a waitress, but we dont need a bartender, I dont know where or when you are going to get hours. She was tall and red headed, full of fire and one of the most intimidating women I had ever met. I wont lie, she kind of scared me. But when we started to work together we bonded quickly. As time went on we shared a love for live music and a good bit of debauchery. She quickly became my ride or die. She made those early years on the base tolerable and I could not be more thankful. To this day she has stood by me thru thick and thin, crazy and sane. Thanks Jim for the heads up.
About a year after I met Michele, My husband at the time was tasked to show a new guy around the base and help him settle in. His wife Jenny was a bohemian breeze blowing thru the Arkansas Heat. She seemed to be like me in that neither of us fit the current landscape that we found ourselves in. As we made small talk while our husbands talked shop, I discovered that she to had a slight obsession with all things Jim Morrison. She had a stamp collection with Doors Stamps hanging on her wall that I admired greatly. She too had a love for live music and a few months later myself, Michele and Jenny became the three muskateers. I owe so much to these two women who came into my life at just the right time. We have seen each other thru makeups and breakups, divorces and tragedies too numerous to count. Jim Morrisons spirit became a golden thread thru the tapestry of our existence.
After I divorced my husband, I was working at a small hospital in Jacksonville Arkansas. I worked there with a respiratory therapist who had a son the same age as my daughter. They went to school together in Beebe so they knew of each other. I was sitting at the nurses station charting , a cardiologist and I were chatting about music. In fact we were talking because a few weeks prior Michele and I had been at a Dave Matthews concert and he happened to be sitting a few rows behind us. He asked me about my favorite music and we got to talking about The Doors. A few days later he gave Lisa, the respiratory therapist a copy of a CD of doors music that included some cuts released only in Paris to pass on to me. It was spoken poetry, likely the pre-curser to An American Prayer. When she asked me what was on it, I told her doors music to which she replied, oh you should meet my ex husband. He loves the Doors. I resisted. I would never set my ex up with anyone. I felt like it had to be some kind of cosmic joke. But she pressed and pressed until she got me to come over to her house to play trivia when she had just happened to invite her ex. We hit it off immediately, and the minute he told me he had written a paper on Jim Morrisons poetry I was sold, and here we are 15 years later. Our first weekend away together was spent in St. Louis watching Ian Ashbury sing with The Doors.
Sometimes though, my connection to Jim is laced with sadness. Jenny met me in Dallas to go to a dance competition with my daughter Daisy. She had been taking some art classes at the college she worked at and had painted a picture of Jim Morrison the semester before. She decided to give me the painting as an early birthday gift. That weekend was on of the last times I hugged or or saw her in person. She had moved home to Snyder Texas a few years prior. We talked and texted all the time and facetimed for knit nights and to watch True blood or Game of Thrones, but our in person contact was limited due to time and distance. I saw her for a quick drink one time after that while she was on her way thru arkansas to a rolling stones concert in Chicago, always the concert enthusiest. She passed away quite unexpectedly due to an accident. Her passing left a hole in the fabric of my universe. The first time I set foot in Snyder Texas was to come for her funeral. As soon as I crossed the county line I felt something here. Maybe it was her spirit or maybe it was a deeper calling. I knew immediately that this place would be my chance to live in the way I always wanted to. It's been a little rough and tumble at times, but I hang that painting in my home with pride. I talked about our Jim Morrison connection at her funeral and I hold on tightly to the memories we shared. If I had never met her there are so many parts to this story that would be different.
July marks fifty years since Jim left the earthly plane. Perhaps it is weird to celebrate a rock star in such a way. For me, his life and his music are a beautiful gift to my world. We all have a soundtrack for our lives. Music represents moments in time where maybe you felt a certain way or you were on a pathway to discovery. The Doors are not the only band that I hold dear of course but over the years the music has tied me to some pretty interesting experiances. I've learned a lot of lessons thanks to Jim.
This room is my healing room. I found the door in the barn and decided to make it into a bed. Purple is my favorite color and the representation of the crown Chakra which represents divine connection. The big indian was found among Chad's father's things which I found to be an interesting addition to the Jim legacy of describing himself as having a shamans spirit living within. It is a tounge in cheek reference to his MojoRising. I love color and what started out as a simple pallet wall morphed into a giant jigsaw puzzle. Nothing in the house is square so when our original plan started to get wonky we decided to just wing it. The walls are decorated with art from the people I have loved and some that just spoke to me so deeply . The records were gifts from Chad and represent our connection to our patron rock star. The cabinet holds my sacred items. It contains crystals, our parents ashes, our family alter and items related to my reiki and energy healing work. It came from a shop Chad's cousin owns. It is such a beautiful piece. My coffe/tea bar is a must in this room, I believe that the making of tea is a healing ritual in and of itself. I found the cabinet for 25 dollars at a local thrift store and knew it had to be mine. Everything in this room has been carefully curated to fit the vibe.
Sometimes it takes me a long time to decide how I am going to move forward with a space. Since we only have a little over 900 square feet to work with I want everything here to be intentional and meaningful to us and our story. Healing this part of my life has been difficult. Im learning to put the ghosts to bed one at a time. Sometimes the roads we find ourselves on force us to look at how we got here and all the skills we picked up or learned in the moment. I can't possibly list everything that Chad and I have learned thru this project. I hope that when we are looking out over the cotton fields in our old age together that our children will gather at our feet to hear these tales. I hope they will remember the process, the bitter parts and the sweet and carry them kindly into the future.
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