Things The Ocean Told Me: The Long Journey Home

PROLOGUE

I found the first letter in my mailbox about a year ago. There was a check inside made out to me for $25,000 drawn on an attorney’s account that I had never heard of. The letter said I was to contact the attorney if I needed more.
Inside were the journals of an old acquaintance I once called dearest friend. The journal told the story of Jayson Lane who had all but disappeared at the height of his career. It told the story of his life and times going back to his public school days, his vague attempts at a career in Manhattan and all of the other places that his compulsions and love of art led him.
It told of his long year of incarceration and those visions that seemed to have become so ubiquitous during that hard time. It was as if I was reading about a stranger, someone I had never known.

.CHAPTER ONE

And he writes:
Is this the circus of Alpha and Omega? Name traded in for the number 076559. Is this where David died and Jason began? Maybe I will figure it out with the Things The Ocean Told Me. Perhaps not.
This is difficult to write. There was a time when I could write page upon page and veryfew would take the time to read them. It was a time when it felt I was writing letters to myself. I would imagine a time when people would hang on every word. Well. That time has come. Now they know me. They come to my shows, watch my interviews and pick up on any piece of gossip that the so-called press could roll out.
And here I am. Leafing through scrawled pages that I wrote from a time in my life that I had tried to forget. A time when I was so unsure of myself and my future that I imagined all those words stuffed away someplace only to be seen by some stranger who would casually read and then toss in the bin. I still wonder why I never threw away those journals, words written in a small cell where everything was gray and white, where cells had cameras constantly recording me, where my few and only pleasure was the chance to sweep and mop a floor and go to a church meeting that I had little interest in.
These are the words I wrote about childhood, about my music, about days of strutting the high school stage, playing in church bands, and lazing on the warm beaches of Oak Island. They seem so distant now. I barely know what to make of it all. Then it happened one day that I made my way back to the ocean, a place that was more of a home to me then the wood and steel shelter in a safe and predictable emerging suburb called Bay Shore already suffering with the shadow of progress. I recall lying there in the sand when I first heard him speak.
It was around that time that I wrote those words that would follow me even into the dismal camera bathed caverns of a 6 by 9 county jail cell. It was the same words that would find me on my release and draw me back to him. Probably wondering who ‘him’ is by this time. He was, is, and always will be Father Ocean; that’s what I called him, still call him.
I travelled far only to return to where it all began, I walked through the labyrinthine paths and byways, And here before me was an old and tried friend, Weaving its magic in syllables of water, wind and sand once again.
“Welcome back, I’ve been waiting for you, You’ve travelled so far and still not seen, What is inside and out, below and above? You’ve mistaken love for hate, And hate for love,
Welcome back.”
I have things to tell you, Secrets to share, Visions to amuse you, Wisdoms to confuse you.” You have travelled hard and long, Now it is time to rest, And then you will be on your way again.
“You say that I have changed. I have and have not. Time and space mean nothing to me, I am changelessly changing, You find me nestled, Between the Alpha and Omega, All the lines you have written, All the songs you have sung, All too true your bell won’t be unrung, All the words you have spoken, Have finally brought you back.”