Waxing emo in 2013

2012, I think, was probably the most diversely fucked up/lovely year of my life.

During the course of those 365 days, I experienced one of the most beautiful moments of my existence. I also passed through one of the most heart wrenching.  I developed friendships that are incredibly meaningful, and experienced the loss of a friendship that nearly stole all the happiness from my existence, and seemed to render all things bland.

Check out this emo dickwad.

Sometime around June, I found myself with a couple weeks off, and a shitload of mushrooms.  The logical thing to do, was visit Yellowstone, and trip balls around like, a fucking geyser or something.  Unable to find anyone that just had a bunch of random time off, and who wanted to eat psychedelic mushrooms surrounded by dozens of hundreds of Asians, I ventured alone, to the great, goddamned gorgeous North.

I have many memories of Yellowstone from my childhood era.  Throwing boomerangs in a field.  Losing boomerangs in a field.  Seeing the myriad animals, utterly oblivious to the anomaly situation in which they lived, completely disinterested in the technology abusing animals but a rifle shot away.  Chewing.  Watching.  Worry free.  Feeling utterly amazed by the natural phenomena boiling water in pits all the shades of an abalone shell.  Watching gouts of water erupt, rejected by the earth.

Because the psilocybin experience creates such a unique oneness with nature, I felt like this would probably be the ultimate thing to do, in such a place.  I wanted to strip away reality, and watch the earth breathe.

As I arrived in West Yellowstone, in spite of the fact that it was June, it was fucking cold.  The roiling clouds blanketing the sky promised to shit snow all over everything.  I surmised that I had about 2 hours before dark, and likely less than that until the tiny white hexagonal prisms began their soft descent to the chilled earth.

I hauled ass to my camp site, drastically weaving around the fucking idiots who, at any moment, would slam on their brakes, come to a screeching halt in the middle of the goddamned road, to check out like, a fucking beaver or something in a field.

Jesus, tourists.  This is the major downfall of Yellowstone.

I arrived at my camp, set up my tent, drank a Mirror Pond IPA, had my mind summarily blown to hell by said IPA, and climbed into my tent, as the flakes began to fall.

I woke up, with 4 inches of snow on the ground, and thought, "Jesus.  Look at that snow."  And then promptly fell back asleep.

2 hours later, I awoke to damp, snowless earth, and thought, "Jesus.  This weather is fucked."

I spent the next several hours, scouting the various wonders of Mother Nature, looking for the best spot to see the world as God clearly intended.  I drank 2 Old Faithful ales, and watched as said geyser, for probably the several millionth time (maybe a few billion, who could say) erupted to amazement, indifference, wonder, and entitlement.  This geyser fucking owes us.

Or so we think.

As I arrived at Grand Prismatic spring, and marveled at the indescribable color strains of bacteria, panting long streaks across the earth, in multiple shades of red, orange, yellow, green, and brown, I knew this was the place.  I decided on the morrow, I'd make my journey.

This was a terrifying prospect.  Being surrounded by strangers, on mushrooms, can be an utterly horrifying experience.  I've experienced the most absolute, irrational fear of other humans while on this drug.  But I'd never been around more than a dozen or 2 people.  So sitting on a boardwalk, with thousands of people passing by seemed frightening.

But this was fucking Grand Prismatic spring.  WORTH IT.

I ate a ton of mushrooms in a sandwich, grabbed my headphones, and up the boardwalk I went.  After about 50 minutes, I was convinced that I had consumed impotent mushrooms.  I kept staring at strains of bacteria, waiting for them to come alive.  Nothing.

And then it was happening.  I was completely lost to the transition; one minute I was certain nothing was happening.  And then suddenly I was enveloped in a world of dancing, breathing color.  I watched, as the patterns in the bacteria came alive; and it wasn't that they were doing anything abnormal; I was merely seeing them with eyes unfettered by bland limitations.

This is the world.  This world is fucking alive.

I sat on the boardwalk, staring out at the spring, about 25 yards away.  A thick cloud of steam constantly coalesces above the water's surface.  There was a periodic breeze, that would wash the steam over me, and I'd be lost in a gray abyss, with fleeting glimpses of the brightest colors imaginable, periodically stealing through the obscurity.

After a while, I started to worry that people would wonder just why the hell this fucking nut job was sitting and literally staring at one spot, for hours.  But then it occurred to me; nobody is here for more than 5 minutes.  Literally, one of the most beautiful fucking places on the entire planet, and people spend less than 5 minutes there.  I remember, at one moment, being absolutely convinced, that I was sitting in the literal coolest place in the world.  I was completely unable to reasonably comprehend that there could possible be any place even slightly cooler, in the whole entire world.

I'm not sure that I wasn't right.

As the months have stretched on, and I leave that moment further and further in the past, I've come to the conclusion that it was probably the most beautiful moment of my existence.  It was so profound, so meaningful on so many levels.  There is scarcely a day that goes by, that I do not think fondly on that moment, that sliver of time, insignificant when placed into the context of my time on this earth, and even more meaningless in the grand scope of this world's existence.  But there is so much beauty in that moment.  For a few hours, I felt like I was removed from every single thing that doesn't fucking matter in this world (which is almost everything).  For those brief moments, I was stripped down to nothing, and left in complete awe at the sublime existing in one, tiny spot on this earth.

I've been saying that 2012 was kind of a piece of shit.

Fuck that.

My heart may have broken in 2012, but I found my fucking soul.