Everything is Everything

A Zeny Memory

I am 16 years old, the youngest person in an adult theatre troupe in Hollywood on Santa Monica Blvd on theatre row where I witnessed a stabbing at the liquor store next to the theatre. Where I was once sold a bag of shelled sunflower seeds with maggots in them, I wish I could erase that disgusting memory. Maggots are the same color as shelled sunflower seeds. I couldn’t tell at first until I found some crawling up my arm. It was a horror movie. I think I might throw up. Wait, in my memory, am I more traumatized by the maggots than the stabbing? Whoa.

I am 16 years old, the youngest person in an adult theatre troupe, and I ask questions. A lot of questions. One question in particular. I asked anyone who would talk to me…

“What’s your philosophy of life?”

One guy, a kind of hippie-looking guy with sun-kissed blonde highlights. He was probably only in his 30s, but maybe not, I could never really tell how old someone was back then. Everyone was always older than me.
Not anymore. Definitely not anymore.
He smoked his cigarette to the very end until it was barely there and then answered,

“Everything is everything.”

I loved that answer. I didn’t understand it that answer. At least not how I thought people understood things. But I felt like I sort of got it. Maybe I absorbed the idea of it.

I’ve held onto that answer throughout my life. Maybe my subconscious felt it was important. I don’t know.

But maybe knowing you don’t know is the truest knowing of all.

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