A Flowered Experience

In appreciation of my presence at a party, a small unimposing gift was given to me on Labor Day. For days & weeks the gift laid obscurely amid my collection of pens and coins. Finally, on a dark and solitary Friday night, I embraced the wrapped, dried plant, attached it to a clip, put it to my lips and lit a fire to it.
I inhaled greedily. I inhaled with the hope of never exhaling. I inhaled with the yearning that my circulation, my consciousness and maybe my soul would embrace its essence. Would it elevate me or would its diminutive size yield emptiness? Over and over I inhaled with insatiable need.
HOSANNA, as it revealed it’s euphoria!! The corners of my mouth were lovingly, gently pulled back into a shit-eating grin. My blissful joy recalled a distant memory of getting stoned during Finals Week. My roommate casually looked at me and declared, "God Vince, that’s the first time you smiled all semester!"
Due to my fatigue, my eyes did not close but became slanted. The music from the second side of Abbey Road and the burning fragrance of the roach lifted me to a place I longed for. The music drifted into my altered ears and played far more meaningful, fervent, compelling and sweetly to me than it ever sounded when I was sober. The sublime beauty made me sway back and forth like a metronome. As I played Lennon’s "#9 Dream" and listened to the end lyrics sang in a foreign language, I, myself, faintly felt the power to speak in tongues. The dialect was not Persian, Macedonian nor Hebrew as it was in that scene described in Acts of the Apostles. Instead, I felt the fleeting power to speak Mandarin, Cantonese or Japanese. As the first syllables formed on my lips, I walked away and through a door that allowed me to continue to undulate and immerse myself to the music. I recalled and missed slightly not finding the song "Strawberry Fields Forever". Played in this altered state, the halting opening melody weeps, Lennon’s voice commands a hushed reverence as it sounds so compelling! One other night nearly a generation ago, I sat stoned watching a Grateful Dead concert. The thought, the stream of consciousness is so elevatingly amazing!!. "Wow," I thought, "Jerry Garcia looks like a puppy up there singing. For several minutes (or was it hours?) I imagined in an entranced state a Husky-bred dog being up on it hind legs and strumming guitar artfully and singing, "Truckin’" and other Dead songs.
My mind drifted to another college memory one year before the first. Embracing the charm and essence of hash, I sauntered into the dance club as the music bent and refracted in unique, shimmering, surreal, magical notes. So, I walked up to various people and asked, "Excuse me, but is the music being played at 78?" (78 rpm being the speed of records in the 1940s and 50s, just as 33 rpm was the speed we played our albums and 45 rpm the speed we played our singles). With grace and empathy, no one yelled, "No!" indignantly. All simply considered the possibility, weren’t sure or were simply humoring me and my stoned, clueless presence. Comments were made like, "Maybe" "I’m not sure?" "Well................I don’t....know". As the intoxication wore off, the music slowed down and played as it normally does.
And eventually, I had to leave this lovely ride that Friday night. The music sounded as it usually does, John Lennon sounded articulate but normal. The synthesizers and guitars, all the instrumentation no longer bent and refracted in a hundred beautiful ways. Then I wondered when the next time I would feel this wondrous way again. If history were any indication, I would not for another 6-12 months. This plant, this flowered experience is something I go many, many months and sometimes even years without feeling its wondrous embrace.

This concludes my series about my drug consumption. The series can be found in the blogs of May but more likely June of 2005. Many drugs I did not consume, but obviously, I'm not going to break my arm patting myself on the back. I do feel that I want control in my life. Since drugs don't do that, I rarely take them (unless they 're the ones prescribed). I know that it wasn't much of a series seeing as how there was over a year gap between the last one and 2nd to last one, but apparently to most, this isn't much of a blog!! At least I like it! :)