Thursday, November 08, 2012

Home again, home again, Jiggety-Jog

Divorce, separation, even when wanted, is funny that way, I suppose. Unhoused, home-less, de-homed? To have yet be without.

It's the little things. Well, first it is the big things.  All of routine, the town you return to at the end of the day, animals to care for and the suddenly not. Whether or not you own a stand-mixer, how to find the bathroom light switch in the dark.  But you buy night-lights, the LED kind to save on your new electric bill or to keep the suddenly-rent from going up.  You plug the GPS in again to go grocery-shopping, or just to get home from work on Wednesday, and take long walks to clear your head, and to find out where all these new roads go.

I have a picture in a rattly wood frame, Kelly-Green paint flaked along the hair-line cracks, a picture made in the 60's and probably found garage-saling with my mom before I was in nursery school.  A little girl kneels before her quilted bed, tiny paper hands clasped in nighttime prayer.  She has settled me in for sleep for longer than I can even remember and is the first decoration I hang whenever I move. I would rather not sleep until she is over my pillow.  



It's the little things. Beginning to recognize local faces, knowing where to get a friendly cup of coffee and an iced cutout cookie on my walk,finding the bathroom light switch in a blackout without a compass or torch, reaching into the right cabinet on the first try, returning from a particularly long day at work, all by my own navigation, and sighing into relaxation at arriving home.



Saturday, April 28, 2012

Into the away


I often feel shameful and wish-washy for spending so much of my time sitting on the proverbial fence eagerly searching for the intense predilection telling me into which side I should step; but then I have always felt like a walking dichotomy so it really isn't any wonder that most of the time I am straddling indecision with one leg evenly in both sides of possible outcome.

My wanderlust is nearly feral yet I wallow contentedly in the me-shaped divot I've hollowed out and polished perfectly in my home. I thrill at the sight of full-sized U-Hauls barreling someone else off on a new adventure and keen toward pick-up trucks passing me by on the highway laden heavily with kitchen chairs precariously tied to peeling dressers, always the odd towel or ratted shirt tucked between wood surfaces, incongruously hanging on by one corner in the backlash of traveling at 70mph into the unknown.

Committed relationships are hard for me; or rather the staying is hard. Growing up and well into adulthood I craved a sense of roots and consistency but was overcome by a steadily increasing itch to move every two years, and a craving to overhaul my life every three. Almost like clockwork I cut off most of my hair at the three year mark, and picked and packed up on year four from 18 years of age to 32. Same felt good but the prospect of one same for the rest of my life felt like being backed against a wall with the sky closing down.

My culinary satiation point is null and perhaps inability to find satisfaction runs universal. All of the world is never quite enough. I can eat half my weight in foods tantalized by texture and taste, or, when I had a sex life, indulge for hours every day and still crave more. If we snuggle and it is good I want to curl up inside of you.

A former boyfriend, a best friend I left when the call of the road was increasingly overwhelming despite the leaving deeply breaking my own heart, once labeled me a sensory junkie. It is true. All of the world around comes through in vibrations of scent and emotion. My memory runs through my heart. The past is always but a night-dream or a labile barrier away. I can not say if we are all like that a little bit or only some of us, or some of us a little bit and others, like me, all the way. The memories I keep of lives past come strong and full of pleasures, love, and pain as freshly as if they happen now. Separating what exists now and what was then is a conscious effort or not at all.

I have learned to hinder most of my impulsive behaviors, to recognize it at the lead and step back long enough to realistically consider my next move. I am still learning to have more control by just letting go... still learning but slowly gaining ground.