I didn't want to come home for the holidays. Not owing to anything against Home per se, mostly the hesitancy against leaving my other home so soon before really leaving for my next home. There were a handful of Goodbyes already accomplished and departure does involve a certain momentum. Being gone for one week felt like an off-set lunch break in between grueling takes in the film's most dramatic scene. Who am I again? What's my motivation?
It hasn't quite been that way. Coming back to one of those places that is Not New York affords some simple vanities, like time to think. Entire hours pass when my only movement is to play some smart phone chess or choose a new tabletop magazine to mindlessly flip through. That's not all I do, of course. Ionized by a millenial's attention span and a New Yorker's need for action, I walk the dog more than its accustomed to and use any excuse to drive and surf satellite radio for some new tunes. I fly past old haunts and drum along the top of the steering wheel and think about this that and the other. Life seems far less haunted than it did on the other side of that most recent plane ride.
Part of the reason is the new park I read about. It's long and leans on the Mississippi with one of its two points of access just a few blocks from my next home in the Bywater. It doesn't appear to be open just yet; then again, I've seen no signs that it's closed. This was just something I looked up online and served as fodder for a very lucid vision. Or, to be more specific, a very lucid and five-sensed projection of my very soon-to-be life. Then I looked up Storytelling, because I might want to get into that. Farmer's market locations. Dive bars and coffee shops. Nearby restaurants. I probably spent a good half-hour looking at various maps and satellite projections to better appreciate the next labyrinth I'll be biking through.
Which is to say I'm excited. Which is to say I will be, once again, some moment in less than two weeks when the wheels are pointing south and The Great New York Experiment is fading in the rearview. Before that time is anyone's guess. I'm not much of a crier, but I'm damn certain the causeways will spill open for some saline as great friends and good times come to their adieu. I'll likely drink too much some nights in revelry, others in convenient escape from the emotions still a bit too raw for scabbing. It might not make for great television and may not be desired, but every now and then you've got to put your soul through the wringer if it doesn't come along frequently in its own right.
And these are all just guesses. That park might be filled with pederasts and dirty winos and I may find in the storyteller crew just another group that does not reply to my emails. The bus could break down and I could leave Brooklyn one week before I would have met the enabler to make me the Next Big Thing. I might end up in penury and heartbreak and the perfect manifestation of all those who never bothered to consider me. These are all possibilities and not to be lightly considered.
But it's Sunday. We've got a big holiday coming up and I'm little more than one week away from actualizing another one of my Crazy Whims. I said "I'm moving to New Orleans" last March and after nine months, three addresses, one savings account, and a whole mess of Life Matters that are worth getting into but not for purposes of concluding These Thoughts, I'm here. I made my decision, I stand by it, and I'm going to do it. After all the legwork and emotions, the acquaintances great and small, the goodbyes tender and brief, the myriad experiences of a peculiarly average nine months in my peculiarly average life, I feel calm. And I feel good.
It hasn't quite been that way. Coming back to one of those places that is Not New York affords some simple vanities, like time to think. Entire hours pass when my only movement is to play some smart phone chess or choose a new tabletop magazine to mindlessly flip through. That's not all I do, of course. Ionized by a millenial's attention span and a New Yorker's need for action, I walk the dog more than its accustomed to and use any excuse to drive and surf satellite radio for some new tunes. I fly past old haunts and drum along the top of the steering wheel and think about this that and the other. Life seems far less haunted than it did on the other side of that most recent plane ride.
Part of the reason is the new park I read about. It's long and leans on the Mississippi with one of its two points of access just a few blocks from my next home in the Bywater. It doesn't appear to be open just yet; then again, I've seen no signs that it's closed. This was just something I looked up online and served as fodder for a very lucid vision. Or, to be more specific, a very lucid and five-sensed projection of my very soon-to-be life. Then I looked up Storytelling, because I might want to get into that. Farmer's market locations. Dive bars and coffee shops. Nearby restaurants. I probably spent a good half-hour looking at various maps and satellite projections to better appreciate the next labyrinth I'll be biking through.
Which is to say I'm excited. Which is to say I will be, once again, some moment in less than two weeks when the wheels are pointing south and The Great New York Experiment is fading in the rearview. Before that time is anyone's guess. I'm not much of a crier, but I'm damn certain the causeways will spill open for some saline as great friends and good times come to their adieu. I'll likely drink too much some nights in revelry, others in convenient escape from the emotions still a bit too raw for scabbing. It might not make for great television and may not be desired, but every now and then you've got to put your soul through the wringer if it doesn't come along frequently in its own right.
And these are all just guesses. That park might be filled with pederasts and dirty winos and I may find in the storyteller crew just another group that does not reply to my emails. The bus could break down and I could leave Brooklyn one week before I would have met the enabler to make me the Next Big Thing. I might end up in penury and heartbreak and the perfect manifestation of all those who never bothered to consider me. These are all possibilities and not to be lightly considered.
But it's Sunday. We've got a big holiday coming up and I'm little more than one week away from actualizing another one of my Crazy Whims. I said "I'm moving to New Orleans" last March and after nine months, three addresses, one savings account, and a whole mess of Life Matters that are worth getting into but not for purposes of concluding These Thoughts, I'm here. I made my decision, I stand by it, and I'm going to do it. After all the legwork and emotions, the acquaintances great and small, the goodbyes tender and brief, the myriad experiences of a peculiarly average nine months in my peculiarly average life, I feel calm. And I feel good.
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