Disclaimer:
I would not trade this life I love for that of anyone else's. I won the lottery of friends and family and experiences in which to grow myself. I thank my lucky stars that I have a wild chance to participate in this go-around with you and with this. [Gestures to everything the sun touches.]
And:
Just now I stood in my little windowed closet where I had set to pull out the large plastic bin I keep for packing journals and sheets. I glanced out to see the setting sun lighting rain clouds on fire and promptly experienced a wave of overwhelming sadness. It felt like a cocktail of nostalgia and the blessed unrest and the full knowing of how impossible it is to know the future in the same catch of breath. Down the hatch.
It is here that I come into presence, here that I feel flattened beneath the weight of my adult aloneness. David Whyte writes about how "[we] belong to this aloneness as [we] belong to [our lives]," and I believe it could all be true. I belong to the characters and places and periods of expansion and contraction, and I belong to no one and nothing. This is where I watch myself think/act/develop in ways I can't anticipate and where I am learning what I need to learn.
There is so much I want and envision for my life. There is yearning that cannot fit in my car for a sixth time in a year and a half. There is magic and whimsy and privilege in travel and all of it can lose its sheen while standing in the confines of a closet or on my knees, putting away the few small treasures I keep to make myself feel at home in many places - a ceramic owl that fits in my hand and holds stones in its belly, a few plants in tiny jars, pens that fucking work, a photo of my hand reaching for sunshine. It's alright, I say aloud to no one. My whole life of ((things)) in the corner of the room, in the trunk of a Prius, in a few suitcases...proving again and again that the fullness of my days and nights do not come from tangible-things-I-own, nice as they may be. The anchoring is in the people I love and the things I discover and the stories I tell about it.
I'm about to drive a few thousand miles in the coming weeks, by myself, in support of my record. I'm telling myself it's a good idea because - well, because of all the things I listed above, especially the "stories I tell about it" part. Also because it's fucking fun and I'm lucky enough to work many jobs that fund my dreaming. The inner monologue kind of resembles how one might explain what Six Flags' Medusa is going to feel like to someone who's never ridden a rollercoaster: "Uh, you're going to love it; all you have to do is sit there and let the ride do the work." Right.
But it's very possible that when I return there will be some big changes.
The house I have called a homebase back in LA is being sold. After graduating college I moved in with three friends, and over four years the rotating family of housemates has been a real treat as we have navigated the early years of adult life. What used to be a thought I would snuff out as soon as it arose - but where and what after this - is now a definite crossroads ahead. I know it will be sad to leave but I also think that the Universe conspires to inspire. I've done it before and I will do it again.
So I think about what it is that I want next and I discover that a deep part of me wants a steady place of my own to keep what I have and the body in which I live; to make space for stillness and room for my friends and quiet enough to keep hearing music. Because at the end of the day, the shuffling of things from place to place requires minimal time and effort, but maximum faith in the ability to connect wherever I go - and I am growing more confident in the latter. "Where to next?" I ask my dog, a little guru who looks at me and everyone with eyes of love.
