Typically I arrive at the blank page with something to say. Naturally I have nothing to say to the computer or the blank screen before me, and so I pick up a notebook and instead of writing I'll sketch, but I do have something to say, it's just that it is not something I know how to articulate and it's probably best said to someone who could say something back, but here we are once again; the keyboard and myself, with all this space between us.
My cousin came over today. I helped by picking her up at work and driving her over, but that is what cousins are for right? Anyways, she blurts out how achy she feels and how she forgot to eat lunch at lunchtime and found herself sliding out of her chair towards the floor when the clock neared the three o'clock hour. Lunch!! She remembered, solving the mysterious melting of oneself much like ice-cream which has tumbled onto a chin, rolled down the chest to flop in a soft finality on the top of a shoe. Once she ate she felt much better. I love hearing these stories; it really helps to ease my own judgements on what I feel I should be or how my body should behave when I'm hungry.
While I was waiting for her to get off work, I chatted on the phone with my old roommate and we discussed her upcoming wedding plans, bridal shower, and housebreaking of her new puppy. She has to be one of the easiest people to get along with and for this I admire her.. however.... I hadn't really had anything to eat in a while aaand she kept interrupting our conversation to chat with her fiance about the misbehaving puppy, so I got a little annoyed. Me?? Annoyed at her??!!! What was happening here? For the first time in the six years we've been friends, I just wanted to get off the phone. The thing is that I do miss her and she lives 8-9 hours away with no traffic so it's not like we ever hang out anymore. But something has changed since living with her. That something is me and my newfound annoyance at the phone. I hate being on the phone sometimes. Especially when I'm hungry. It was so much easier when we lived together! We'll always have the Sunset district I suppose. Green tea and a bowl at midnight.
But my cousin's stories remind me I'm human, and my friends reaction at buying real estate which goes a lot like "oh no, does this mean I'll be tied down to live in one place forever"? reminds me of the ways in which other people come into our lives and shape the way we think and feel. They open a window of perspective that blows in like a breeze in springtime, fragrant and new, comforting and familiar while altogether different from the air I breathed with the window closed.
I quit my job a couple years ago, deciding that money would never claim my soul. So now I'm broke but free to move again. My dad and I had a dinner date a few weeks back, just the two of us, like old times, and I asked him if he believed there were people who could never settle down? That while some people wanted roots, others, like myself, wanted perpetual freedom, to move, to leave, to re-invent, again and again? "It's possible." was his only reply. His family has all settled down in a small town, close together. My mom's side of the family, it's a different story. Their numbers reach the thousands, and they all scatter and multiply. My generation moves across known borders. Traveling here and there, searching, seeking, exploring, resting...yes, when we stop moving it is more like rest, because like the watery trails which call our names, something inside, written in the very blood that courses through our veins always wants to leave. Something inside me always wants to leave, especially once I'm comfortable and familiar once more with my life and surroundings. It's not that I don't enjoy my life or take pleasure in the company of my friends and family, but something in me just KNOWS that movement is the only way to retain the part of myself I would never want to lose.
