griggs street ... a conclusion of sorts.
"that's because you are."
"yeah, i know," said the desert person sitting in my parents' backyard tonight.
he still lives in boston, so he drove his car right on down to see me, watch movies, talk music (NO ONE talks music with me like desert person does), and blow smoke at the stars.
this brings us to the conclusion of my story, which isn't so much a story but an explanation of how i've become who i am. this way, maybe you can appreciate with me what i experienced and who these people are and where we can go from here.
you see, life never handed me complete packages, always puzzles that i had to piece together myself. when i landed on my feet in the middle of these giants among college students, i looked around and felt allright. here was this group of superheroes who made their own powers from gravel and experiences that they found. held together by something that was beyond any of us, griggs street became a haven to you. yes, you. a haven, just for you, in a nice, neat little package.
in talking about griggs, i've diligently played out the vivid past in my head and tried to detail it with these pathetic words that merely dance around the true vision. it's not the stories we told, the poetry we wrote, or the music we listened to, but it's the spirit that was behind it. that group of people will never be in the same place again at the same time with the same perspective, and that's a good thing. ever-changing, as humans, we start new chapters in our lives. griggs street is all over the country now, beginning new triumphs, tragedies, and little in-betweens. a perfect reenactment is not necessary because the beauty is in the massive amount of perspective. we each remember differently and individually. the tiny smile on buddha's lips, the curve of glam's eyebrows, and philosopher's knowing eyes will always haunt a certain apartment in my heart, but i know that storyteller thinks of different things. only certain things cross rockstar's crowded mind. all of us remember the revolution, the colors, and the change behind our eyes.
think of it, a group of people so wrapped up in the world that one day, when they look at each other, they're amazed to see what fate has brought them in the simple package of a roommate or a friend or a lover. one day, when the world knows us as individuals, paths will cross and the world will look at us ... amazed that they didn't see us coming to change the way you think about your mind.
my personal spiritual journey through the griggs years is a story for another time, but i will say that many of us saw ghosts, colors, feelings, beings, angels. (and no, it wasn't because of the drugs.) many of us took on the experiences of other people to learn more about ourselves, whether it was the person sitting on the couch next to us or a person who had been dead for years. griggs was always alive with more than just us, and this was accepted as fact ... as sure as we were breathing air, when we were sure of that. it was brought together by a love of writing and art and thinking and expressed through kerouac, picasso, einstein, tom robbins, ee cummings, rauschenberg, and so many other assholes who fit right in.
there was no where i would have rather been.
and you may ask, what was my place? who was i? how was i seen? in the true griggs street tradition, there's not one answer for those simple questions ... but many ... from so many points of view...
there were nights when i was only seven years old and mornings where i relived my elderly years. i was a baby sister and a mother figure, protected and protective, knowing nothing and knowing best.
past and within those boundries and seeping into who i was respected as and who i am remembered as and who i live as today, i am the oracle and say only what i see.
