Good morning from the digital nomad hotel in Kadikoy. I like this neighborhood a lot, on the Asian side. I live about a fifteen walk from the ferry. To me, that’s the point of living in Istanbul. Sometimes, I just take the ferry at the end of the day for the experience of cruising between two continents, the sunlight on the water, the familial yet foreign sights. I usually get a chai, since a man comes around with a tray. I sit outside. The interior has its aesthetic as well, wide with long benches and great big windows so the sea almost looks like a vintage cinema. The seagulls, you know, I watch them glide and soar over the winds. I mean, whatever, birds are a recurring image in the Oldest Storyteller.
“Time flies.”
But I find myself in a city famous for them, flocks. The other day, maybe three dozen if not more seagulls were attacking a cargo ship cruising across the Bosphorus. And I wondered if someone had spilled food or something. Anyway, I don’t really know what to say about the vision I reached for which is partially what that story is about, at least for now. Leading oneself and sure, there’s a higher intelligence in us all if not wisdom, since that’s really what I was seeking to find a new beginning…so I suppose the birds, and now, I wonder at what point in the future (just to laugh) I am now, since we seem to be generating the future from way back here.
I’ve heard plenty of people talk about bringing the future into the present, talking to what you’re wanting to manifest as if it’s already happened. That’s probability. You’re bringing it into existence in a field of probabilities. I say that because I felt time bend at nine years old. I had a couple of experiences I couldn’t explain around time, itself, the material of. It turned out that my father was diagnosed at that time…seriously speaking. I told people about this but my father’s first diagnosis didn’t come out until I was twenty, and by that point, forget it. It didn’t land.
Unfortunately, without parceling out blame, since we will not do that, and we don’t, we won’t. He was sick the whole time. He didn’t have the problem. I did. Plus these four years I spent on Miracle Mile…that was quite twisted. My years with my father were quite repressed. And in The Oldest Storyteller I’ll have to think about how I did that because that was rough, the roughest. Going into the headspace of someone who is denying their dementia and I’m just a kid launching investigations. I decided, at nine ten, that I would befriend this concept called death because I saw it as a real root in whatever was happening in my father, his fear of it.
This was my universe.
So I guess that idea came out of my childhood…
I wasn’t exactly spritely. I was very serious and considered studying their psychologies…I did that with most of my time. I had, um, friends, I suppose, but I wasn’t exactly bringing people over to my house. Not much. I studied life, people, psychology. Up until twelve, thirteen. I put that aside. But look, um, it’s only been fairly recently that I have access to all this. By the time I got to high school, I don’t have the most solid of memories sometimes, I had our conversations memorized. He went through an anorexic stint. He stopped eating, kinda. In any case, my child psychologist wanted to take me out of my house when I was twelve, I got out of that. When I went through that scene, for the first time, it landed on me what I did, and I had to take a day or two…it was a hard memory, actually.
I’ll begin posting my scenes. But basically, “down the boulevard of bottlebrush trees…” Death, the oldest storyteller in the fiction of it, has the ability, obviously, to pinpoint exactly where you are. “Outside already?” I was standing outside. The volvo was running. He gets in first, she they. I can’t really do it, then and while I was starting to go through this scene. I don’t remember it. That’s a conversation about “the dark material” or what’s repressed. In any case, I liked this way of treating that time and what it meant to re-member, heal, move on…change, even. Reflecting on a vertical, higher wisdom that had nothing but the best intentions…in that, the oldest storyteller, death—since I’ve been thinking about this now to separate it from the nonfiction.
He doesn’t want to harm anyone. He is dealing with someone who cannot trust people, a kid, that was a big problem with me. He understands, he does, on all sorts of levels. He isn’t a human character. But he’s inseparable from life, so the way people can manipulate reality, even. I suppose I could only become fascinated as a child. In a sense, you never don’t belong, not in taking the larger existence we’re a part of. So, my friend joked that the universe was really my parent. I tend to go off with that one, because the wisdom of storytelling, the stories you tell, where they begin, where they can go, I appreciated meditating on a figure that has seen it all. What it means to live a life…what is it that people are seeking? Meaning.
That’s sort of where I got to.
I think I reached for an older version of myself and there were many, in a sense. Like, I trust, in some senses, the divine, or higher…that’s not Death, really. Death, I chose him, in this story, because he looks a Man right in the eye. But Man has a gender connotation, so person. Human. He’s not superior. Hierarchy and power were painful subjects to me. But in any case, a higher power or spirit, maybe, I don’t know, I trust that. I don’t necessarily agree with how we project onto God, even, man-like qualities of being power hungry, for example, or that “Death” even has a sinister attitude…he’s coming for you.
He’s just there.
A Native American told me that storytelling is a form of medicine. That’s the power of storytelling to shift one’s course…I’m sure we make all sorts of decisions in advance, on levels we don’t really grasp. And Death is every Man, every living thing, so that’s quite a perspective. It helped me to reflect sometimes on that idea as I was steering through this wild childhood, in a sense. Coming to realize a lot, feeling so much for the first time, lost. Rage, that was a particularly powerful one. Feeling unzipped, thick zipper. Asking myself questions for the first time that rocked my whole understanding, not knowing what to grasp onto. What’s the truth, real, here?
Death exists regardless.
I didn’t even know what to do with some of these reactions I had. The “I am not a liar,” I guess that one ran really really deep because I was remembering my childhood from the perspective of waking up in it. Um, did she lie? Did they all lie? It took my breath away. And again, you see, with that kind of character, it’s just not the same conversation. Funny, even, for Death, in a sense, lol, being there for a human being…on this awakening journey. He would never manipulate anyone but I suppose that was physical, even if that was psychological. That was very real, manipulation.
And we don’t necessarily understand that about psychology, that it’s a body.
Humans scared me more than that though, um, what can he say? He exists. That’s it. By the rules of reality, you have a choice, basically, even if that might take time…there’s a goal, that’s my philosophy when it comes to psychology. If you have goals, which are good to have, in a sense. Like, you see, Death, he’s the oldest storyteller, so in terms of how we shape all this, it’s not to say it isn’t true, but energy, as a starting principle, even according to my experience, is inarguable. That’s sort of what I tend to rely on.
Death is one of those. No one can argue it exists. What it means, that’s another thing. And God, according to your viewpoint, consciousness, is in every single thing. It’s not like it’s “over there” or “up there,” or down below, even, but we tend to argue and the ideas we have around that idea can get rather skewed. That’s why Death, the oldest storyteller, since he, she, they performs a function, even. No matter if it’s nonfiction, fiction, genre, he exists, though the story goes “on and on and on and on.”
But in my case, I had traumatic patterning, a way of life that was coming to an end, anyway. I really felt that. But then, I was beginning to write about my life, so I suppose that was going to come with…questions, even, that I never asked myself before. We, as humans, might have—this comes out of my own experience, my childhood studies, lol—a fixed idea as to what is possible, how it’s supposed to go, how it normally goes…the truth, it turns out is a large subject. From that perspective, Death has even seen miracles, and just like that, since, again, it exists.
So, as the oldest storyteller, there are plenty, just plenty, he can tell me stories even poetically as worlds open and fall apart. Its that voice, also, that carries me across time and space since you know, repression, coming to feel all that, the tensions I had, not being able to talk, how I coped, all that, I was a whole person with an architecture. A heart journey, too, which was “so funny,” Death knew. It was that flash, you know, I got to thinking about that one day.
Supposedly your whole life flashes before your eyes…so I wondered about that role, um, Death, in moving through that flash, a whole life? The layers of meanings, and someone reaching a point of total honesty. Since I don’t know, obviously, what it means to detach, in a sense, but transition back to an energy field, whatever this is…since energy cannot be destroyed so neither can we. From my own experience, the energy of someone still exists. I also am a person who has had mysterious experiences that I cannot explain.
Right? I mean, Matera, Italy, wow. There was most definitely a presence in that room, my hotel room. Getting woken up in the middle of the night with electric shocks. ANGRY. Over and over again. “Sorry,” didn’t care. “We’re leaving,” didn’t care. “Go away,” wasn’t working, happening. So I had to enter a different space: gratitude, holding a space for something that could have happened, or someone who seemed to be in a fair amount of pain, upset. What it Matera itself? Not so sure. That felt rather specific but again, I’m somewhat conscientious of not shaping, too much. Then, I had a series of dreams…not like normal dreams. This was almost communication. Bullet holes. Um, alright, mixed with…maybe the energy of the site. I had to go walking at 6 AM uphill, up the cliffs, to expend. Then later, I started feeling queasy, that energy wanted me to write…I couldn’t really do that…at the time.
That was physical.
It’s not really my expertise or interest either. To be a medium. Maybe I’ll tell whatever this story is. Or, maybe I’ll come to learn what happened in that cave.
It’s just to say, stuff like that.
I can’t explain that.
That’s not really the focus of this story. I just share that. Someone who is psychic. It depends, since right now, that idea, which how do I put this? If that’s a good idea, I might not have been there yet, but there were lots of feelings in it, so it implied a lot. So, I put what I went through somewhere. Even if I was writing a fiction. My childhood was called a fiction in real life, and when it comes to insanity and even dementia…wow. What is that? I mean, the spaces that one finds themselves in, the correlations between my parents stories. Mindbending.
For me, it’s all about that character. I’m just another life, and he might cite some stories, like who cares? If you’re writing a fiction? Just me, at four, listening to these stories in church. He has to deal with someone with particular problems…lol. What a mess. But that figure evidently brings up all sorts of stories…um, someone who teaches, maybe, just taking one little person, sure, as an example. Who is psychic, also, sure. And that story really begins during quarantine, and we’ll see, but you know, the question I had, had to do with change.
A lot happened that year. And maybe, on some level, I already went through whatever this was and was looking back, reaching for myself—like, it could go this way. And this character seemed to be the impact. I hope that’s true. I could write that story…I could show another way was possible too, there’s nothing unusual about it. It could go so so well. And in Death’s eyes, I suppose, that was really something to see. Value fulfillment.
In terms of how people shape meaning, what gives them meaning or the lack there of, alright, Death has a few stories up his sleeve. But meaning is one of these fundamentally human yearnings, so strong that whole regimes can rise around it, so it’s stronger than just one man’s bitterness or opinion on the subject. Meaning. What does that mean?
Now I’m totally fine. Mostly. I have my moments. But this story or this character tends to help me think beyond them. To keep reaching. Again, it’s a life. Some of those ideas I had about myself once I felt the reality of them, but what’s reality, you know? They could rather sticky. Except that person doesn’t exist anymore. But still, yes, it’s a real world we’re moving through, I don’t think it would be fair to state it otherwise. I just like the poetry of that figure, love, even, yeah, I know, just crazy, to think it though so many people say it, that’s what we return to? That’s the only thing that is real.
To Death, what does that mean?
It’s not to project myself out or in, or whatever, but love, it just turned out to be the force, the most powerful healer I had ever experienced and it was not personal, exactly. And when I thought about it, what exactly do we think is a higher perspective? Or what this is? People who have had near death experiences, which I haven’t done much research, tend to reflect a bliss, of some kind, since that probably has to do with oneness, or returning to source in some fashion. But then, what can I say, for me, it’s about this life. The experience of. Presence. Also. But we’re in it.
Love. From Death’s perspective. And as the oldest storyteller, there’s nothing that earth-shattering or cheesy or destabilizing about love, what moves you. The subject of. It’s alright. That’s more for me to think about…since I had to question “their love,” as in my parents, what we do in the name of it, the whole thing. Rage, even, that, can be love, too. For certain situations and problems might require rage, because it’s wrong, I mean, do you not care? Since that was a real problem with me.
And care is a sign of mental health. I cared very deeply, I mean, you know, so that’s also a sign.
In terms of my childhood, I suppose I didn’t know what to do with that.
Was this love? Death is, in a sense, guiding someone through their life.
Disguises, people say all sorts of things. Is it love? Is it God? You can ask all sorts of questions.
But Death exists regardless of what you believe in. New ideas. Also. That ended up being a rather potent, powerful idea that extended beyond the literal since Death also exists in the figurative, literary…
I went down this road this morning, I don’t know why.
I started by doing my laundry. And I was feeling into just beginning to share my story on the channels that exist. I don’t like it, per se, but I’m trying to embrace it not exactly seeking to amass millions, you understand, but the world sort of exists in there now. Anyway, in college, a question I got from some of my friends was—are you okay?
I’m not sad.
I get a little hesitant because sometimes, I wonder…should I be sharing this? I mean, leading myself like that. I suppose you have to start somewhere. And not everyone comes from a background like that, either. I was sort of discouraged, also, along the way which might have hurt me more than the actual story did. Or I felt like that, at times.
Yes, I suppose, I lifted myself from the story I had…
But in beginning to share it, I am more in touch with myself, and also I have to navigate through some of the stuff that was projected onto me. Or, what makes it interesting, how I was feeling. What am I supposed to do? That’s it. I suppose, yes, it hurt my feelings.
I can say “that was harsh, Dr. J,” damn. No offense. On a human level. People do all sorts of…terrible things to one another, there’s worse…it’s just, I was a child analyzing the psychology of all this, that’s what I was doing, at the time. And that’s what I was dealing with….you see, it’s the shame that I didn’t want to go into. Again, I’ve heard all sorts of stories, been there for people, so I’m not getting triggered, from a certain standpoint, quite frankly. There are some pretty fucked up things that have happened, okay, and Death might grain away, like, that’s on you.
Really.
I just like that character.
So I will continue to talk about it, but sure, I’m more in touch with a fuller gamut of what that felt like, yeah. I don’t like the “ohh,” lol, because people talk about all sorts of things. All sorts of banal bullshit also, you want me to put on some sexy dress and tell you about healing? Sure. Sure.
But I can get that return like, oh, I see. You come from a story like that. Which I never really understood, sorry. I mean, I think about the Jewish experience even, just…perspective. Please. It’s not to say that a Jewish family wasn’t the one to take me out of my home, that too, since they at least went: protect the baby. Somehow. That’s just the thing, this family had to deal with me…
My parents aren’t asking questions. They aren’t around. There’s no computation on the side of my father, like she’s at a stranger’s house and I don’t know what is happening there. No, he just, I guess, felt the blade and he obeyed. Like that. We all, in this family of six, believed that he was a child molester and my mother was insane…and getting a divorce, etc etc etc. The only male was somewhat responsible for me during this crazy time.
I bit, threw punches, went for the eyes, I’m telling you. So, that was his job. In terms of expectations. Was I that horrible? You know? I had to un-program this. My cousins are cheering me on, yelling at some lady to “get out of my way” about to go through these years…the love songs, the lambada, that time held quite a scope. What do I do with “yeah!” Good job, and pardon if the sharpness makes you uncomfortable. I disguised it as best as I could.
I became interested in how narratives are perpetuated. How young someone can be taught who they are going to become through the lens of truth. So, yeah, I’m going to tell that story. I was a child studying this, “huh,” right? Call it rage, too, you know. But if you can’t talk about the roots of things, also that, in my opinion, then of course…i think, someone can get lost. Like, my mother had sexual issues, the whispers, and that’s a major problem. Like in my personal life, am I going to chit chat about this? Maybe not.
But if one out of five girls gets molested and onee out of nine boys…well, I’m going to step over the discomfort and keep talking about it…could it be…Dave Chappelle…a lie that saves us all? It’s just me, typing this, so again, I don’t know what to say, since I came to question if it was a lie, and sometimes, that can be physically difficult to simply state. And no, I do not want to talk to anyone, I would prefer doing some research. I was rather manipulated, and that was quite the process to unwind, un twist, okay? Yeah, that was rather fucking real.
I went to GOOP, thanks, for some literature about the subject.
I had to grow up inside of this, that was what started to happen, showing up for myself as a parent, and I was so enraged, sometimes, just so angry. Like I said, that seemed to indicate that this could have gone in a couple of different ways, right, but there’s something to say about the capacity of you, what you can do, in this world. So, let’s go this way.
GAMES. You see.
Child molestation becomes a kind of game. Just please. But then, what do you do? She didn’t want to send me to foster care. You see, that was my real life at that time. That was once upon a time…
It’s just yeah, I can imagine, even for some people who have heard that story before…that it sounds a little different. Especially since a lot of those kids have kids now. My baby at four, in this situation? I cannot come through some woman’s door, an innocent man accused of a heinous crime? An innocent man? Is he going to be treated as one? All sorts of questions. But there’s a basic step…that wasn’t happening here. Meaning, this man didn’t know what was being said. Apparently. He acted like he knew, you understand, from her perspective.
I’m telling you.
My parents were farces.
This was also a farce, it could have been. Dr. J was. She was a real buffoon. I’m telling you.
And it wouldn’t be the last I saw, also, just to put that forward. The last story I heard…since child molestation in particular enraged me beyond discomfort. Since…did Dr. J really go through this or was she lying? Was it true once upon a time? So, yeah, I pursued this as a child for these reasons. It was a pathology, patriarchal, even. And I can extend human sympathy and understanding toward her, but like, that was harsh. Beyond. And why?
People asked me questions. If it was extreme guilt. You see, in this case, I suppose I wasn’t clear for a long time…I said she lied about him being a child molester, now, that woman decided that. I was young, very young. Imagine if you were to find yourself in this situation? But you see, in analyzing her behavior, where did this hate, even, this utter rejection come from? Even her game of “ohhhhhhhhhhh” cue aria, meaning EMOTION, of her ignoring me the one two times, or whatever, she came through this house. It was a performance. That’s just the thing. It was stunning.
But no, with her crazy eyes, her sincere, the most sincere, forced, eyes, there was no one, eyes in the stars, that she loved more than me. And if I’m laying it on thick, it’s because that’s exactly but exactly how she did it. She did it for love, no? Truly. Insane. So, guilt, right, so out of extreme guilt, she throws money at this person which—sorry, that’s where she was, it was hers, just confetti—and then, she tells her that she has an abusive husband, etc etc etc, crying real tears. This Brazilian mother showed them to ME. So did she do this out of extreme guilt?
Interesting question. For what?
She didn’t want to have a child?
That’s quite a game.
I’m talking Eric Berne.
Depending on how this goes, there’s sense, in a sense, and then, you sort of have to remember, that my parents do not show up to this house together…my father is the one who comes more often. To visit me. At the door. Seriously, he was not allowed to step a foot into her house. Like, remembering my father…since I was so confused. They told vicious lies about me. He didn’t know that.
You acted like you hated me.
You understand?
So, you get home, right, it makes me want to interrogate him.
Are you there? Man?
My mother was so blindingly crazy…so call it a bright light, you sort of didn’t know what to do with it. I’m not the one who is taking steps to say it was this, that, I’m just at the point of going…so this is a fuller picture as to what was going on there. Me skipping, YAH! For this guy. Never been HAPPIER! It was like that.
I don’t know how one is reading this, but you sort of have to laugh? Shaking the curtains. It was like that. Now, I can take a step back and go, hm, did I literally shake the curtains? I might have. You see. It was on that level, so there’s a truth to it, even if I cannot confirm that I actually shook the curtains.
It was true, though.
Did José jump out the window?
Practically.
From my perspective, since it was already there, pushing that edge of laughter, it was relieving, also. I might have gotten a bit stuck there, at times, since that wasn’t easy to feel, and I struggled with whether or not I had to. It seemed like it, I had to deal with that, which I did.
At least, on a certain level, that family isn’t afraid of what this was. I get that feeling, and I appreciate that, because wow, that was really something. How else am I supposed to talk about it? One big happy family that wasn’t mine?
And sure, I don’t know who can argue that it wasn’t that, sorry. In terms of breaking down all these “was that factually true?” That’s what an interrogation does. What does that mean? You can’t in a legal scenario just say shit like that. She started living with you just like that. Take me…step by step. You get a phone call, Ma’am? That just comes with that time…since I heard other information that might contradict that as a factual statement. Meaning, was it a week? No, she might say no no no. Maybe we went over for birthday parties? You see? Not sure.
That ended up being rather real for me.
And people can get manipulated. You think you know what’s going on, oh, sure, that might be a temptation…money, take care of some rich crazy lady’s kid…not knowing you’re signing up for an ordeal. Not knowing if she said, your kid is pretty unruly, wild, etc. But then, I suppose everyone sort of knew this was strange, yeah. But she played off this woman’s feelings, also. I guess, that’s me filling in some gaps. But she called her everyday, sure, keep her close. That’s a manipulation tactic, I’m pretty sure.
My father did too. Afterward. You see, the illness did it, sure. He was helpless. She’s such a problem. And just think about what this goddamn situation was. In my opinion, just please. What the hell was this? I was impossible, sure. Am I going to listen to that person? Seriously. Am I going to trust this person? No. Looking at me all disappointed because I don’t know if I want to call this woman. And that’s after him knowing about “the vicious lies” me being “brainwashed” because it was all my mother’s fault? Something like this? I mean, if some woman manipulated my child, if I was a strange, innocent man, dunno, with a denied illness, and came to understand all this, I’m not sure what to say.
I have to laugh. I was the problem child, always. I didn’t come from a home in which I wasn’t. But the other families…I could hide, in a sense. Not in the household, but then, if I were to take you through it, there’s just something to say about stories repeating themselves. What it even takes to come into the reality of a story like that. Now, there’s a genre, I see it, and me as a four year old within it.
And what did I hear in my head before I left?
Remember me.
Anyway, that’s my morning address.
I’ll keep diffusing content about it. The truth, that as a subject, is one I can tackle. I can see the use in that. Beyond the realm of my feelings. The love songs, I left to the Power of Love. Truly. It came out that year. Love songs, it was a constant soundtrack. The lambada being king, heartbreak. I suppose there’s even something moving in that, dancing, um, celebrating and clapping and José in a kippah with latin hips, lol, speaking Hebrew, Portuguese, and English on his way to hydrate. Gatorade.
I add that in, though it’s true. Him arriving to turn on Nicole’s Sarah Mclaughlan. Cut it off. Five women would yell Jose! His mother stomping Jose! Nicole would go running enraged after him. Building a mystery…the songs were really my salve, no, just because there were so many love songs, so. The lambada was good because transformation was possible. At five, frowning, this is a sad song, about being left……
And everyone was so happy.
There’s a journey.
I liked the family dance parties. It took time for me to leave…in a sense. Or even remember why I was there. Coming to understand that a basic step didn’t happen. Not for four years. And sorry, my father didn’t seem to be able to function, himself. Like, sure, let’s try and make this work…I mean, I suppose that people do find themselves in tough family situations. Where it’s hard to leave, that’s a whole thing. I just don’t know what to say…since the door was slammed in his face.
In my case, I felt what I said wasn’t usually enough because well, this, that. So, no, he’s getting the door slammed in his face. And if it’s hard for you, me, to grasp it, then I can look around and say, I guess it was hard for everyone else. No, he is doing x. She did this. Easy to sort of, it seemed, compartmentalize. So, I think about a real child molester, how one might appear blind, perhaps? Would that be accurate? Dunno.
Reflections. I’m telling you. My mother’s office walls covered in mirrors. A tax law expert. Buffoon.
And then, just to add this, right? In terms of what the hell was this? And thank you, I am very glad I can speak from this place. I don’t know who is reading right now but there are very very smart people out there who I felt support me in moving along these lines.
These memories didn’t come back linearly. I’m home at seven for some weird ass Christmas party. Coming to. My parents are nowhere to be found. Hello? I’m at a party…okay? Being like, what the fuck am I doing here? No sign though I do not live there. She’s upstairs dying. Literally. You see. Hyperreal, unreal. You see. Hyperreal, unreal. The whole thing was a spectacle.
So, vicious lies, yeah. What is this, man? Did she drop me off for this party? Just weird. Especially given we were skating on some line between lie and truth about a child molester? Where did I sleep? I didn’t have a bed, dammit, I mean. Did I sleep there? Seriously. Where was I?
I mean, it’s understandable that someone might go, I mean, what was the lie? Was that true? Was this pure spectacle? Honestly. So anyway.
Thanks for reading.