Pubdate: Thu, 14 Jan 2016
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)
Copyright: 2016 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://newsreview.com/sacto/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540
Note: Anonymous author

TRIPPING THROUGH DOWNTOWN

A writer takes psychedelic mushrooms and embarks on an adventure 
through downtown Sacramento

First it hits your gut. A tinge of unease. Pupils fix, lights 
enhance. Sizes, shapes-malleable. Keep your cool. Ride it out. If you 
find yourself in the confusions of an M.C. Escher labyrinth, do your 
best to keep it together.

And when all else fails, find your favorite tree and never leave its side.

It's Friday night. We're high on mushrooms outside the California 
state Capitol building, ogling the massive orbs hanging from the 
state's Christmas tree. Disco balls, we decide. These are disco balls 
and January must be Disco Month.

We laugh, dance, make our way toward the ice skating rink before 
deciding to duck into a nearby arcade/bar to finish the last of our 
mushroom stash.

I don't do these kinds of drugs often. They don't fit my personality. 
Psychedelics relieve users of their egos, and for a writer immersed 
in the throes of nihilism and control issues, that's almost always a 
recipe for terror.

Now at an underground speakeasy, we drink craft beer and bluff our 
way through a game of Scrabble. My heart sinks as my partner plays 
off the end of my word, "DURRVL," to make "ANNELLLY." Damn she's good.

It's hot down here. I take off my scarf, my knit pink hat. My stomach 
churns intensified. The mushrooms are really kicking in.

The game continues, but I can't focus. The ceiling feels lower than 
before, the room constricted. There are more people here than I can 
take-gesticulating, shouting, laughing-and I find that when I turn my 
attention to any one table I am overcome with waves of the sounds and 
colors and movement they create.

We stand to leave. I take one last look at the Scrabble board and 
frown. BACORN. SKRAGGLE. She's clearly won.

It's nice to be out in the elements again. I take in the white lights 
strung above the ice rink, the leaves and seeds frozen into the ice 
below my skates. We glide, laughing as young couples and Russian 
families weave around us.

This may be my favorite part of the evening: Watching each skater 
holding hands, holding the wall, racing, playing tag with their 
crushes, all gliding in perpetuity along this path that has no end or 
beginning.

Before we leave, I stand next to the rink, direct my line of sight 
against the flow of traffic and take in the joy on each skater's 
face. What a thing, to be alive. I've forgotten I'm high.

After a stroll down K Street, we take a break in a small Japanese 
restaurant. She has sushi and tea. Myself, edamame and beer. It feels 
like my body is moving without my mind's blessing, but I'm able to 
keep it together.

We block out the surrounding patrons with our minds, make this table 
our universe, eat, giggle, stare into one another's eyes and dance to 
the venue's elevator jazz.

The evening ends where it began: Capitol Park. We wander through the 
thick of the flora on the east end in quiet content.

The true gift of psychedelic mushrooms is the bond you form with 
plant life. You know, on a level unlike any before, that these are 
living, breathing beings. That they have a range of emotions, and 
that if you treat them kindly, they'll respond in turn.

We stop, struck by the beauty of the Fagus sylvatica purpurea, or 
purple beech. What at first appear to be eyes on its body we realize 
with sadness are the scars of amputated branches. We slide our hands 
across the tree's bark, talk to it like an old friend, ask its age. 
After a few minutes we say goodbye.

Leaving Capitol Park I am struck by the fact that someone out there 
now has security footage of me hugging a tree. I smile. How patently California.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom