Craziness
A familiar form of stress takes unfamiliar forms
If you know my life, you know I move. Not just in that defiant visibly disabled way but geographically, as in, the last time I’ve stayed in the same state for six years was as an undergraduate. I left Iowa City for Austin when I was 22, and when my ex and I broke up I left Austin for Chicago, back in another life when I was on speaking terms with my family there. When Ian and I got together lo those eleven years ago we decided to move from Chicago to Seattle, and when he was offered full tuition coverage to get a Masters in History we moved to Boston. From Boston, we moved to California, and now I know the Northern region of this gorgeous fucked up state about as deeply as I know New Mexico, which, in the decades since I’ve spent my childhood there, has changed enough that I probably know NorCal better. That’s so weird. If this state could talk and gave a fuck about me, it would say, “Neither of us asked for this intimacy we’ve got.” A lot of enduring, if trouble-strewn, partnerships form this way.
We’ve got an enduring trouble-strewn partnership, California and I. In a lot of ways, life was closed to me before I got here, and I’m not saying it opened up when we stepped over a threshold through the wildflowers, I mean: this is where I nearly gave in to the demons that snarled hopeless and this is where I started to address how to fight those demons, and later, how to befriend them. This is where I fell in love in an all-consuming sort of way, never mind that life was supposed to be closed in that sense. (It isn’t, because it turns out the only thing that closes life is death, go figure.)
People who think of “home” in terms of stasis — and, for that matter, in terms of an unquestioned thing that unshakably exists — like to say to me, “isn’t it STRESSFUL to move so much?” I can’t think of anything more immediately detrimental to my peace of mind, however, then feeling bound to anywhere long after the place and I are done. California and I were done about six months ago, and that’s being generous. Ultimately, I’ve never belonged here, even though I do hug trees and talk to young ferns on trails, as par my hippie upbringing. I’m too New Orleans for California and that’s one of countless reasons why I’m so excited to get back down South. Let me argue with Conservatives. At least I can do it at the top of my voice without anyone assuming I’m yelling at them. Passion freaks the shit out of these people. And I’m not allowed to suggest that perhaps they’re oppressing me, because ‘round here, the scared ones win. Empathy is actually in scarce supply, despite the many, many rules they like to enforce about communication, so being petrified of others is considered the same thing as care. I don’t get it, and a week from now, I’ll no longer have to force myself to try.
I have never been more excited about the future or about my current projects. And yes, I read the news! I know we’ll be drowning from melted glaciers and in the next decade, but I was half-alive when the world was doing better. (Not because the world was doing better. For unrelated internal reasons.) I tell you all this, though, less to bask in gratitude and more to ask why, given that this is the case, have I never been as fundamentally exhausted as I’ve been in the past two weeks?
I’ve gone to the gym every day this week, which I’ve never done before by Friday, and yet I don’t feel battle-ready, I actually feel heavy and more-or-less ready to sleep at all times. Ian’s right that my state has something to do with the number of flat boxes in our living room, the little packing we’ve had occassion to do, the logistics we’ve had to arrange: UPack, TaskRabbit. The money it’s all costing. But there’s something else, too. There’s an alternate life I’m grieving, an impossible irrational grief for a life that actually couldn’t have ever become real but that sounded good sounded good sounded good and even sounded urgent and destined for a few unforgettable minutes there, minutes that never would’ve unfolded but for being right where I was when I was. Minutes that, outside of California, couldn’t exist.
Out of those minutes, I get on epic fucking book. Once informed by my mentor that the current draft, promising as it may be, amounts to 300+ pages of notes, I started to make it all into scenes and realized holy shit this thing is massive. You want a story? Have a brick. I’ll make it worth your while. Or at least I’ll proudly put my dignity on the chopping block to try.
I’m pretty sure that what I’ve understood as dignity heretofore, though, is ultimately just avoidance, so this should really work out. Whatever that means.
