THE GREAT GADFLY:

Sense Of Doubt



I've been a little distracted over the past few days, since my return home last Thursday. Part of me wants to panic in response to my cloved-out state of mind, and part of me just wants to roll with my current headcake. Not sure which path to take. The path of least resistance has always served me well in the past, but the thing about panicking is, I get to indulge in histrionics and drama, and it's always so much fun to put on a beautifully anguished performance.

I can't shake the last two weeks from my head. All the traveling I did, I dunno, it's like I had an enormous feast and now that I'm back to consuming the usual crap in my fridge, I don't want to eat anything for fear of losing the sense memory of having tasted something delicious.

I think about the two places I visited - Danville, Indiana and Guerneville, California - and how I'd typically never consider living in such places, yet despite all their complaints to the contrary - "nothing ever happens here", "you're so lucky to live in a big city", etc., the people I know who live in those towns are so intimately locked into those spots on the grid, at least in terms of my sense of place. They've learned how to exist in their surroundings. They've cleared their paths. These places work for them, whether they appreciate it or not.

What is my sense of place all about, anyway? I always get such a charge out of experiencing places that are alien to me, sometimes I don't think I truly know where it is I'm meant to be in order to really thrive. I tell myself - and everyone else - that I'm meant to live in a metropolitan area - New York, Chicago, etc. - and that I need grime and subways and big cavernous streets in order to exist 100%....but do I? Am I being disingenuous to myself? Am I fabricating something that's more ideal and less honest?

Questions. Feh. I'd agonize over these questions, but today I'm just happy to live in my cute little striped apartment with the green and purple bathroom. Still...

I fantasize about one day holing up in a little shack in the middle of Nowhere, USA, just me and my little writing machine, making up stories and sending them out to wherever will publish them, and meanwhile just being seen by the locals as that weird guy who shows up at the local community bookstore every now and then but mainly keeps to himself. A quiet life. A small life. But big on the inside. I think that such a life wouldn't suck.

That thought alternately warms me and terrifies me.

Meanwhile, to have the past two weeks of small-towny, rural memories of place glued together by the chaos of enduring airports and the stampedes of fellow travellers and the stress and pressure of getting on and off planes, I dunno, it's discombobulating.

The first time I talked to my friend Neener on the phone after I came home from visiting him, he told me that since I left, he couldn't quit using the word "discombobulated". As if I had somehow infected him with that word from using it so much during my visit. Huh. I hadn't noticed using the word so much. It's kind of a silly word, isn't it? Maybe I just like the way it makes my tongue bend when I say it.

I'm listening to David Bowie's "Low" right now. Listening to this album, especially when the instrumentals kick in on the second half, makes the thoughts just pour right out of my head. Sorry if I'm being overly indulgent today.

The two people I visited over the holiday connected me with a sense of family, in ways that criss-cross and contradict. Both are people who know me instinctively, but in wildly different ways. Both are people who live in very similar environments, yet are located across the country from each other, in completely different climates. They've never met. I think they might have talked to each other on the phone one Christmas, for like 15 seconds. One of these people gave birth to me. The other, well, we were just introduced to each other years ago and glommed on to each other's psyches deeply and immediately. Both of these people just kind of exist in my mind's eye. They always were and always will be. Their roles in my life change and mutate based on who we become and where we go, but the meat of who they are remains protected in hard, shiny nutshells. Family.

Hard to say what my point is in all this ranting. I'm out here in my Chicago gaytto neighborhood, unsure if "out here" is where I need to be. I have ideas of where I'd rather be, but as of this writing, I'm not sure if even my "plan B" thoughts are the answer. I'm happy to stay put until these thoughts are sorted out. Hell, I have to stay put. For the first time in almost a year, I've been hired on to a new job in Chicago, and it's a job about which I have a really good feeling. To top it all off, I came into a surprise windfall from an old job in the form of a check in the amount of a modestly hefty chunk o' change, which has allowed me to afford all this oaty navel gazing and internal tail-chasing.

I wish I could claim stakes in my own 51st state, and invite everyone who means something to me to come live there. I'd build a huge, huge table and we'd eat dinner together every night, and we'd all go to bed laughing, always. We'd roll our eyes at the follies of the rest of the world, because other than our own petty squabbles and personal grudges, we'd have life all figured out. Our sense of place would be what we wanted it to be, always.

And the rabbits and squirrels would talk and sing and dance, the streets would be named after candy, and friendly rock 'n' roll aliens would land in our backyard and bring us chocolate. Blah de blah.

I think my visits over the holiday did me good. I think getting the news that I finally have a new job, and getting that news during my holiday travels, did me good. I think, for a limited time, I'm satisfied. I spent a couple of weeks in the company of people who make me feel safe, accepted and understood. And for now, I'm satiated. I'm content. And what a strange feeling that is.

Recently, I keep thinking that I want something. Someone's company, some album, or a book, or something to eat that isn't in my cupboard. Then I realize, naw, there's nothing at all that I want or need. I'm just used to the feeling of wanting and needing, and for this one little moment in my life, there's nothing for me to pine over. Oh, I'm sure I'll be broke and desperate soon enough, and I'll be feeling creatively stifled sooner than later, and I'll be lovelorn and socially starved and professionally flummoxed and whining up a storm faster than you can say "ne'er do well". But that shit just ain't flying right now. My only challenge is in letting myself slow down and enjoy the aftertaste.

I haven't been feeling very creative lately. No big ideas or projects have been charging through my head, and my usual need to WRITE, WRITE, WRITE has been somewhat less inflamed than usual. Typically, this is cause for much hand-wringing for fear of some irreversible tumor of the dreaded Writer's Block. Perhaps I was lobotomized in my sleep? Oh, woe!

Right now, though, I'm letting myself accept the reality that I can't be bothered. I'm letting myself breathe. I'm letting my palate cleanse. All the things I typically think I'd better do RIGHT NOW, as soon as possible and as much as possible, I'm giving a nice, cozy vacation. I'm not fighting my inner slacker. Not today, anyway. Not until the urgency to get back to the ol' grindstone of life returns to me. And dammit, it always does - sooner than I expect.

Today I feel muddled, confused, paralyzed, amorphous and, yes, DISCOMBOBULATED...but, um, well...to be honest, I'm kinda digging on it.

The only constant in life is that everything is permanantly temporary. Though I might change my mind on that thought tomorrow. Or not.

Moral of today's rant...umm...okay, here we go:

It's a new year and the air is still crisp and bracing. So. Don't forget to breathe today, okay?




2003-10-14 - Last Haiku
2003-10-09 - Don't Cry Out Loud
2003-10-09 - Sit Down, You're Making Me Nervous
2003-10-08 - I'm Sure Miss Thing, I'm Sure
2003-10-07 - Carbonated Water, Caramel Color, Aspartame

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