THERE IS FREEDOM WITH OUT

WOKE UP WITH A DREAM IN MY HEART

I have my 'orders' and my last day in Detroit will be 7 October, wake up and go on the 8th. Took some stuff to the post office yesterday and will be packing up and throwing out stuff as I go. It has been difficult for me, not for the emotional attachment of my hometown. There isn't any of that to hold me here, anyway. That has been so for a quarter of a century. The only reason I had any, is that I thought I was supposed to, you know what I am saying?

Most people have a connection to the place where they are from, one that makes it difficult to leave it. That is something that I don't think I ever had with my hometown. Whenever I think about the late 70's - early 80's when the 'Errol Flynn's' and the 'Sconi Oni's' evolved into the nortorious Young Boys Incorporated, and all the Mayor could do was race bait and loot the city, I was losing whatever link that a person has to the place they were born and raised.

Because I didn't suffer from anything more than the occasional beating from my Mom, I was not leaving an abusive environment. The area of town I grew up was and still is a nice working class neighborhood. The little four block corner of northwest Detroit felt removed from the grueling images of Detroit that were depicited by lazy Time Magazine photographers (that would take me off the track, but they did a 'seagull photo shoot' in the most recent article about Detroit). There were other factors that contributed to my desire to leave here.

I kept coming back. Now, if my darling brother had ever came with me I don't think I would have. I wanted to take him when I left for Carolina with me. Though there was some selfishness in coming home when boxing started to go off course (I mean, I did think I had something left and would be able to find something usable in the gym's here ... that wasn't that big of a stretch), I did think that I had a 'family' to come home to be with.

That is something I blame myself for. I wanted to believe in a delusion. We weren't close as we'd liked to imagine ourselves as. Even with that, there wasn't much of anything particularly tragic about my family experience, perhaps it is difficult to understand why I feel the way that I do towards them and Detroit in general. It has little to do with anything other than the way that I am. I don't think I was supposed to live and die here, period. The little crap that has happened to me, were meant to keep me uncomfortable.

ANYWHERE WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER

Or so I would like to believe. Even now the situation I am in, the relationships with people in my life, are rather unexceptional. My motivation to go somewhere else isn't because of any of the external factors that make most people want to leave. It is the internal factor, the one that has had me envision myself being somewhere else that drives me.

That's all. I was meant to be born here but not meant to live here. The thing about the Time pictures, of the PACKARD Auto plant, is that those were dead areas back in the 50's. It would be more of an effort find signs of that kind of decay in Detroit. Honestly, of all the big cities I have been to, Detroit still looks and fares well in comparison. You can navigate the town easily and there are plenty of nice, straight streets to get you from place to place. Outside of the dreaded road construction season, the highways are plenty accessible. I think that Detroit has plenty of room for growth. I have just wanted to find what it is I am meant to find, no doubt.

Going west would have been a exciting challenge. I feel that I could take care of myself, if not thrive and grow. Like Eric B., I am 'never scared on the cut', and saw my bliss on my own. But today as I read Miss A's journal, I saw this video and it brought tears to my eyes.



The song "Don't Dream It's Over" took me back to a cramped office on Camp Henry in Taegu, R.O.K. I was a PFC when I met my girl. Who knew then what we know now, that we'd end up being together?



This is a 'Top Ten' song. I only ever feel certain feelings when I hear this song. In my mind, this is a song I had seen myself dancing ( ?!? ) with looking into the eyes of that someone who IS that someone.



Now I'm walking again to the beat of the drum

And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart

Only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof

Get to know the feeling of liberation and relief



Hey now, hey now, don't dream it's over

Hey now, hey now, when the world comes in

They come they come, build a wall between us

We know they won't win



It has been said that it isn't about getting knocked down but getting back up. It has been the process of 'walking again' that many people get lost in. They don't want to back into making that kind of effort again. It is easy to wallow around in past hurts ... in fact, I know that I have been guilty of that myself. I don't know if there would be much for me to write about if I wasn't doing some of that myself.



Despite those lapses, I think of myself as someone gets up and gets into going after whatever it is that I have set my sights on. This time, I did also want someone to let me know that they knew I was 'counting the steps to the door of their heart'. A part of the whiny side of me had become tired of the artificial walls being built between me and potential women. If what they wanted was the image that has been commercialized for their partner, what can I tell them? I mean, saying "that's not me", is going to lead to the "why" question. And before you know it, I am bored by it all. I didn't want to have to fight through any of that.



That was the appeal of all of this. If I talked up someone who knew of me, then they would 'expect the unexpected'. They would also be receptive to doing thing out of their comfort zone and maybe finally being appreciated in a deeper way.



My SFC and I both look forward to being with each other. We already know that we compliment one another. And that means that we get to hold hands and go forward from day one.