I left St. John a week ago. At the time, I had no idea how I felt about that. I spent that travel day sad and stressed, trying to sort through the tangles in my head and figure out if leaving was really the right thing to do. For what it's worth, I am still not totally sure and I am prepared to regret the decision at least a little for most of forever. I don't suppose that leaving a beautiful place is ever easy. But as I left Maho, my friend and (sadly) former roommate, Megan, slipped me a little square envelope. She said, "Reading material. For when you have some time." That little envelope is the only thing that kept me inside my own skin the day I left. I know a few people who would probably feel the same way about what was inside...
From, "Through Painted Deserts: Light, God and Beauty on the Open Road," by Donald Miller.
*Author's Note:
I remember the sweet sensation of leaving, years ago, some ten now, leaving Texas for who knows where. I could not have known where, I could not have known about this beautiful place, the Oregon I have come to love, this city of great people, this smell of coffee and these evergreens reaching up into a mist of sky, these sunsets spilling over the West hills to slide a red glow down the streets of my town.
And I could not have known then that if I had been born here, I would have left here, gone someplace South to deal with horses, to get on some open land where you can see tomorrow's storm brewing over a high desert. I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; They have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change... All my life I have been changing. I changed from a baby to a child, from soft toys to play daggers. I changed into a teenager to drive a car, into a worker to spend some money. I will change into a husband to love a woman, into a father to love a child, change houses so we are near water, and again so we are near mountains, and again so we are near friends, keep changing with my wife, getting our love so it dies and gets born again and again, like a garden, fed by four seasons, a cycle of change. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.
I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.
Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning. And the closest thing I can liken life to is a book, the way it stretches out on paper, page after page, as if to trick the mind into thinking it isn't all happening at once.
Everything we were is no more, and what we will become, will become what was.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Caged Birds
Holy crap, it's happening. Nononononono. I have to keep it together and remember why I'm leaving, because the logic and rational thought that bought my plane ticket out of here is beginning to fade in the wake of the last beautiful week and this beautiful day and what the hell am I doing? What sane person leaves this? There is so much more to see, but damnit, there is so much here.
The desktop background on my computer right now is a watercolor quote by John Webster that says, "We think caged birds sing when indeed they cry." It's been set that way for months. The second a place starts to feel like home, some little alarm goes off in my head. It sounds like a screaming kettle most often, like my entire head might fly off if I don't pay attention rightthissecond. It sets a fire beneath my feet that sends me into some sparked panic and it feels as if leaving wherever I am immediately is the only way to cool back down. The kettle has been screaming for about a year now, I think. So, I turn up the volume on my iPod and watch too many movies and try my best to remain happy where I am. To not want to up and run again. To allow myself to feel at home somewhere.
But the panic has gone rogue now, and I am not sure how to rip myself away from this place. This is backwards. Too much time has been spent here and I should be itching to get away. To be uncomfortable again, to move to a place I've never heard of, to be curious and interested and lost. Do other people feel that? The allure of being lost? I'm drawn to the word and the concept, which does not make a whole lot of sense. Don't most people spend their time trying to find a place they would like to stay? All I want is the next place to leave. Or so I thought.
I will never understand why people want to be at total ease in their lives. Comfortable. Where is the fun in that? Where is the challenge? Find a place you do not understand. Stay until you do. Repeat. It's like molting. It is almost impossible to grow when all you do is stand still. There has never been a place that made me stop thinking about what the next one could be like.
But. For reasons I will not explain, I have had this island to myself again for a little while. I am in love again. St. John, you are forgiven for your post office and your tropical storms and your bewitchery. Let's get back to where we were when leaving was the last thing I could have imagined wanting. My feet are back on the ground, and on my own terms. There is peace in it; something I never wanted. Something I would never ask for. The closest comparison I can think of is that guy you don't know that well who comes up and starts massaging your shoulders. You're not that into it. It's awkward and you wish it was not happening. But then he stops and you think, "Wait, that felt good! Where did that guy go?"
I am effed. I want to stay. I want to leave. Both equally, it seems. There is some serious mutual exclusivity there. The wanting to stay part is tilting my universe. The feeling is new and unwelcome, and something I am (so predictably) trying to escape. The feeling also does me no good, if I am to be honest with myself. The Caribbean has me for one more month. St. John has me for two more weeks. The tickets have been purchased, the after-move plans made, the airport pick-up arranged. At this point, my only option is to buckle up and hope it doesn't sting so much that I can't bear it.
There are people who live their entire lives running from place to place. Bouncing, maybe, or floating like soap bubbles, making purples and blues out of sunlight and bursting when they finally land. Not subject to gravity, or at least not willing to succumb without protest. I've always wanted to float like that. To be prismatic and weightless. To live by Kerouac and The Shins and to not ever regret leaving. And if we are talking about the dangers of gravity, then it must be kept in mind that St. John has more weight to it than any other place I have ever lived.
Leaving could be the saddest thing I ever do to myself. Staying, the meanest. This is going to be messy.
The desktop background on my computer right now is a watercolor quote by John Webster that says, "We think caged birds sing when indeed they cry." It's been set that way for months. The second a place starts to feel like home, some little alarm goes off in my head. It sounds like a screaming kettle most often, like my entire head might fly off if I don't pay attention rightthissecond. It sets a fire beneath my feet that sends me into some sparked panic and it feels as if leaving wherever I am immediately is the only way to cool back down. The kettle has been screaming for about a year now, I think. So, I turn up the volume on my iPod and watch too many movies and try my best to remain happy where I am. To not want to up and run again. To allow myself to feel at home somewhere.
But the panic has gone rogue now, and I am not sure how to rip myself away from this place. This is backwards. Too much time has been spent here and I should be itching to get away. To be uncomfortable again, to move to a place I've never heard of, to be curious and interested and lost. Do other people feel that? The allure of being lost? I'm drawn to the word and the concept, which does not make a whole lot of sense. Don't most people spend their time trying to find a place they would like to stay? All I want is the next place to leave. Or so I thought.
I will never understand why people want to be at total ease in their lives. Comfortable. Where is the fun in that? Where is the challenge? Find a place you do not understand. Stay until you do. Repeat. It's like molting. It is almost impossible to grow when all you do is stand still. There has never been a place that made me stop thinking about what the next one could be like.
But. For reasons I will not explain, I have had this island to myself again for a little while. I am in love again. St. John, you are forgiven for your post office and your tropical storms and your bewitchery. Let's get back to where we were when leaving was the last thing I could have imagined wanting. My feet are back on the ground, and on my own terms. There is peace in it; something I never wanted. Something I would never ask for. The closest comparison I can think of is that guy you don't know that well who comes up and starts massaging your shoulders. You're not that into it. It's awkward and you wish it was not happening. But then he stops and you think, "Wait, that felt good! Where did that guy go?"
I am effed. I want to stay. I want to leave. Both equally, it seems. There is some serious mutual exclusivity there. The wanting to stay part is tilting my universe. The feeling is new and unwelcome, and something I am (so predictably) trying to escape. The feeling also does me no good, if I am to be honest with myself. The Caribbean has me for one more month. St. John has me for two more weeks. The tickets have been purchased, the after-move plans made, the airport pick-up arranged. At this point, my only option is to buckle up and hope it doesn't sting so much that I can't bear it.
There are people who live their entire lives running from place to place. Bouncing, maybe, or floating like soap bubbles, making purples and blues out of sunlight and bursting when they finally land. Not subject to gravity, or at least not willing to succumb without protest. I've always wanted to float like that. To be prismatic and weightless. To live by Kerouac and The Shins and to not ever regret leaving. And if we are talking about the dangers of gravity, then it must be kept in mind that St. John has more weight to it than any other place I have ever lived.
Leaving could be the saddest thing I ever do to myself. Staying, the meanest. This is going to be messy.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
If A Tape Recorder Existed in My Head
I have nothing to say right now. But I did when I was traveling the other week, so here goes nothing. For lack of anything new sitting inside my head and because it's raining like hell and what else am I going to do right now? The airport ramblings of a girl who spends too much time in airports...This is going to be entirely random and clearly stream of consciousness. I had a cloudy travel head. That much will be clear...
Why do I always feel compelled to write on airplanes? I haven't been writing that much over the last three years and I can tell. I feel sort of captive inside my own head, and I'm not good at it anymore. I have got to get better about this.
Unless they're on business, most people seem to travel with other people. Especially from vacation places. Which means that I am one of not very many on this flight without a co-flier. I generally like it that way, but it would be nice to have a shoulder to fall asleep on for some of these airplane hours I keep logging.
Why do I love drinking tomato juice in the air? I am wearing a white shirt on a bumpy plane and I went with tomato juice. It's not like I'm incident free, either. More times than not, I spill the stuff all over the place. I just can't stay away.
And why does anyone order those snacks that you have to pay for up here? This is a three hour flight. That bag of cashews cost you $5.00. You really couldn't wait? Maybe that's where the tomato juice comes in. It's salty and kind of thick, so my stomach thinks I've eaten. Ha! Duped again, American Airlines! I don't need your stupidly expensive cashews. Gotcha!
So, when you live in the Caribbean, you venture into everyone else's everyday for vacation. Colorado bound now, and I'll even make my way to Lincoln, Nebraska this time. As if you could get any more normal.
Would you see a rainbow if you flew over it?
Off to the land of every day, where I will be thrilled by everything from seeing peaches in the grocery store to the number of country music radio stations. Where I get to drive more than 6 miles, which is as far away anything on St. John is from anything else on St. John. If I want something to eat and it's not already in the fridge, I can just drive to a store at ANY TIME. Even after 8:30pm! The world of suburbia is so convenient that they've lost track of how immediate and easy everything is. I will not be taking that for granted.
From here, I can play the game where you name what a cloud looks like, but I can do it in 3D. The one we're flying past looks like a dolphin swimming through coral heads. But I bet it doesn't look that way from the ground.
Three rock stars on a stage of smoke machines and dry ice mist. The rock stars sort of look like gummy bears. But whatever.
Clouds are awesome.
There are a million tiny ones, all the same shape. An aerial army of marshmallow peeps.
Hello, Miami. Why anyone would want to bludgeon to death a white beach with a city's worth of high-rises is beyond me.
Oops, there I go. Something you have to be careful about in life, and maybe in transient life even more, is arrogance about the way you live and how you see the world. We believe ourselves to be quite the enlightened lot, we leaders of unconventional lives. With full passports and full photo albums, we have seen a lot of places. We have met a lot of people. We have been on uncomfortable adventures and been tested on how well we can roll the with the proverbial punches. And I can't imagine wanting to go to a hotel-ridden beach any more than the people in those hotels can fathom wanting to stay in a sardine-tin hostel in Picadilly, sharing bunk beds with 5 German strangers who snore and smell a little pickled.
Travelers often assume that everyone envies their lifestyle. Which is because travelers are told by just about everyone how enviable their lifestyle is. But, it's not always, and you can't think that those people actually want your life. They don't. Stop seeing yourself through such a soft lens. My 9-5 friends know which bed they'll be sleeping in a year from now. They are not afraid of buying nice things, because they probably will not have to pack those nice things into boxes and leave them in storage for long and undefined amounts of time. They come home to their warm homes and warm families every night. They have gardens and Christmas and big dogs. All of these things they have, and I do not.
So far, the man with two straw hats is the best airport dude I've seen, followed closely by zebra blouse and super shiny galaxy full of rhinestones belt lady. Ooh! Matching terrible Hawaiian shirts; one pink and one blue. They are going somewhere to drink pink frozen things with paper umbrellas floating, leaking into them.
People who have to run through airports are always so awkward about it. Trying to keep their cool. Panicked faces and a quick-footed hop trot, but those hands stay firmly at their sides. Utter refusal to let the whole body participate in the freak out, for fear that they might look freaked out. Worried? Who's worried? Nah, man, I'm cool. Who's worried?
Why don't they make light up shoes for adults? They should.
Burly, gnarly dude with a tiny pink roller suitcase. No child in sight. What?
If I wore high heels on a travel day, I would die. I mean that.
Why don't men wear brimmed hats anymore? It's a shame. They're really hot.
Leggings really are accepted as pants in the states. Yes! The more my clothes are like pajamas, the happier I am.
I envy that little kids can saunter through an airport with their beloved stuffed animals in their arms and it's not weird and no one stares. I have to keep mine in my backpack.
Everyone is either dressed for their tropical vacation destination or they are wearing largely lettered shirts telling the world where they have just been. Right now, it seems as if a lot of people heart Miami. Oh, that one says, "I was in Miami, bitch." Why?
Men have to be very careful. Khakis, if too light in color, can easily be confused with white pants, which are far less acceptable. Even though it's not even Labor Day yet.
Ooh! An airport yoga-er. Amazing. Either assuming that no one is watching or hoping that everyone is.
The serious looking security people are wearing helmets on Segways. I do not take them seriously.
She does not know that her fashion-forward shorts look very, very much like a diaper. Someone she loved should probably tell her that.
"It's a satchel!"
How are Segways effective? I find it hard to believe that they could move any more quickly than a fairly able human could run. And shouldn't security people be in shape, anyway? What else is going to be invented so that no one anywhere ever has to move ever again?
So many sensible shoes on all of these airport employees.
What would people watchers say about me, I wonder? "Oh, she's a bit mousy. She would be prettier without the glasses." (Yeah, but then I would look like the dumb lost girl because I wouldn't be able to see the gate numbers. Is that better?) "And why is she wearing orange shoes? I don't get that." (Hey, lay off. I like my orange shoes.)
I like people who drape their sweaters around their shoulders and secure them with clean, preppy sweater-sleeve knots. I could never pull something like that off. So prim.
A man wearing a pirate hat!
Ooh, the wheels on that woman's roller suitcase light up. Cool. Maybe that is the grown up version of the shoes.
Annnnd it ends there. Maybe that's where the Dramamine kicked in and I fell asleep. In case no one knew, Dramamine is better than Nyquil. For real.
I have nothing of my own to say now. Time to drink some wine and be glad that at least something got put on this ridiculous blog.
Why do I always feel compelled to write on airplanes? I haven't been writing that much over the last three years and I can tell. I feel sort of captive inside my own head, and I'm not good at it anymore. I have got to get better about this.
Unless they're on business, most people seem to travel with other people. Especially from vacation places. Which means that I am one of not very many on this flight without a co-flier. I generally like it that way, but it would be nice to have a shoulder to fall asleep on for some of these airplane hours I keep logging.
Why do I love drinking tomato juice in the air? I am wearing a white shirt on a bumpy plane and I went with tomato juice. It's not like I'm incident free, either. More times than not, I spill the stuff all over the place. I just can't stay away.
And why does anyone order those snacks that you have to pay for up here? This is a three hour flight. That bag of cashews cost you $5.00. You really couldn't wait? Maybe that's where the tomato juice comes in. It's salty and kind of thick, so my stomach thinks I've eaten. Ha! Duped again, American Airlines! I don't need your stupidly expensive cashews. Gotcha!
So, when you live in the Caribbean, you venture into everyone else's everyday for vacation. Colorado bound now, and I'll even make my way to Lincoln, Nebraska this time. As if you could get any more normal.
Would you see a rainbow if you flew over it?
Off to the land of every day, where I will be thrilled by everything from seeing peaches in the grocery store to the number of country music radio stations. Where I get to drive more than 6 miles, which is as far away anything on St. John is from anything else on St. John. If I want something to eat and it's not already in the fridge, I can just drive to a store at ANY TIME. Even after 8:30pm! The world of suburbia is so convenient that they've lost track of how immediate and easy everything is. I will not be taking that for granted.
From here, I can play the game where you name what a cloud looks like, but I can do it in 3D. The one we're flying past looks like a dolphin swimming through coral heads. But I bet it doesn't look that way from the ground.
Three rock stars on a stage of smoke machines and dry ice mist. The rock stars sort of look like gummy bears. But whatever.
Clouds are awesome.
There are a million tiny ones, all the same shape. An aerial army of marshmallow peeps.
Hello, Miami. Why anyone would want to bludgeon to death a white beach with a city's worth of high-rises is beyond me.
Oops, there I go. Something you have to be careful about in life, and maybe in transient life even more, is arrogance about the way you live and how you see the world. We believe ourselves to be quite the enlightened lot, we leaders of unconventional lives. With full passports and full photo albums, we have seen a lot of places. We have met a lot of people. We have been on uncomfortable adventures and been tested on how well we can roll the with the proverbial punches. And I can't imagine wanting to go to a hotel-ridden beach any more than the people in those hotels can fathom wanting to stay in a sardine-tin hostel in Picadilly, sharing bunk beds with 5 German strangers who snore and smell a little pickled.
Travelers often assume that everyone envies their lifestyle. Which is because travelers are told by just about everyone how enviable their lifestyle is. But, it's not always, and you can't think that those people actually want your life. They don't. Stop seeing yourself through such a soft lens. My 9-5 friends know which bed they'll be sleeping in a year from now. They are not afraid of buying nice things, because they probably will not have to pack those nice things into boxes and leave them in storage for long and undefined amounts of time. They come home to their warm homes and warm families every night. They have gardens and Christmas and big dogs. All of these things they have, and I do not.
So far, the man with two straw hats is the best airport dude I've seen, followed closely by zebra blouse and super shiny galaxy full of rhinestones belt lady. Ooh! Matching terrible Hawaiian shirts; one pink and one blue. They are going somewhere to drink pink frozen things with paper umbrellas floating, leaking into them.
People who have to run through airports are always so awkward about it. Trying to keep their cool. Panicked faces and a quick-footed hop trot, but those hands stay firmly at their sides. Utter refusal to let the whole body participate in the freak out, for fear that they might look freaked out. Worried? Who's worried? Nah, man, I'm cool. Who's worried?
Why don't they make light up shoes for adults? They should.
Burly, gnarly dude with a tiny pink roller suitcase. No child in sight. What?
If I wore high heels on a travel day, I would die. I mean that.
Why don't men wear brimmed hats anymore? It's a shame. They're really hot.
Leggings really are accepted as pants in the states. Yes! The more my clothes are like pajamas, the happier I am.
I envy that little kids can saunter through an airport with their beloved stuffed animals in their arms and it's not weird and no one stares. I have to keep mine in my backpack.
Everyone is either dressed for their tropical vacation destination or they are wearing largely lettered shirts telling the world where they have just been. Right now, it seems as if a lot of people heart Miami. Oh, that one says, "I was in Miami, bitch." Why?
Men have to be very careful. Khakis, if too light in color, can easily be confused with white pants, which are far less acceptable. Even though it's not even Labor Day yet.
Ooh! An airport yoga-er. Amazing. Either assuming that no one is watching or hoping that everyone is.
The serious looking security people are wearing helmets on Segways. I do not take them seriously.
She does not know that her fashion-forward shorts look very, very much like a diaper. Someone she loved should probably tell her that.
"It's a satchel!"
How are Segways effective? I find it hard to believe that they could move any more quickly than a fairly able human could run. And shouldn't security people be in shape, anyway? What else is going to be invented so that no one anywhere ever has to move ever again?
So many sensible shoes on all of these airport employees.
What would people watchers say about me, I wonder? "Oh, she's a bit mousy. She would be prettier without the glasses." (Yeah, but then I would look like the dumb lost girl because I wouldn't be able to see the gate numbers. Is that better?) "And why is she wearing orange shoes? I don't get that." (Hey, lay off. I like my orange shoes.)
I like people who drape their sweaters around their shoulders and secure them with clean, preppy sweater-sleeve knots. I could never pull something like that off. So prim.
A man wearing a pirate hat!
Ooh, the wheels on that woman's roller suitcase light up. Cool. Maybe that is the grown up version of the shoes.
Annnnd it ends there. Maybe that's where the Dramamine kicked in and I fell asleep. In case no one knew, Dramamine is better than Nyquil. For real.
I have nothing of my own to say now. Time to drink some wine and be glad that at least something got put on this ridiculous blog.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Fitting In
A life without tourists. Without sunscreen bottles or ill-conceived islandy outfits. No seagulls. No acid spiders. My clothes will not mold, and I won't feel with my skin every whim of the sky. Looking out the window will show me a 14,000 foot mountain capped in snow. If the sun is shining just the right way, that mountain will glow pink and I will wonder why I ever left Colorado.
Then I'll remember that the view I left that mountain for was just as beautiful.
You don't see too many rainbows in the Rockies, but there a whole season full of them here. The islands got the sweet side of that gene pool, huh? Hibiscus blooms and mango trees and elkhorn coral and parrotfish and bougainvillea. As if the universe had an excess of its most striking colors and decided to drop all of them in one place.
You know what else likes all of these colors? Mosquitoes. But being ready for something does not necessarily make it any easier, does it?
Days like today are terrifying because they're perfect. This island is so damn crafty. It rained just enough this morning to cool everything down a little and now the sun is here. It's the right time of year for the butterflies, who ride on the scent of plumeria that weaves itself into the breeze. And the breeze is a specific kind, gentle and warm and intimate. I feel like I am being dared to leave. Like St. John is betting me twenty bucks that I won't really be able to do it.
This island woos you to stay even as it is pushing you away. If St. John were a dude, I would dump him for sending so many mixed signals.
As it stands, I think the break up is more mutual than that. When people ask why I'm leaving (And they do. All the time.), all I can do is smile and that that it is just time. Too simple for most, but the truth just the same.
So, a life without sunscreen. I will be able to go downtown and not see anyone that I know. I won't have to stand in line for every meal. My work life and my personal life will actually exist in different places.
Fitting back in will be a feat, won't it? Part of what is so great about St. John is that there really are no taboos. The only think people will judge you for is judging other people unfairly. There are three prominent bumper stickers pasted on all of the local cars; One says, "St. John: The world's largest open air asylum." Another, "We're all here 'cause we're not all there." And my favorite says only "Coexist."
Weirdness is sought after and wildly, loudly celebrated. In a world like this, inhibitions and social filters are few. So few, in fact, that we have all pretty much lost track of what our own weirdnesses are. Everything feels normal when nothing is identified as strange. So, plop us back into a world of image-consciousness and we become the "off" people who paint their toenails a million different colors and think it's funny when we accidentally clean our whole houses in wind shield wiper fluid (That WAS funny, by the way. Vineyard people just thought it was..well..weird.) I am quite sure that nothing I own can be considered fashionable beyond just being beachy, and beachy does not work in Colorado in October. I will probably still take cold showers and you will be able to follow flip flop prints in the snow if you want to find me, shivering in a corner somewhere wondering what the hell I was thinking when I decided to come back.
I'll get sinus infections from climate control and I won't have any clue what music/movies/TV shows people are talking about. I will show up at the downtown Friday night clubs in denim cut-offs again, and I will not understand why everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. And then I'll try to walk out of one of those bars with a beer I have not finished yet and it will be my turn to look at them like they're crazy when they tell me no.
I am probably not that apt to fit in anywhere, maybe ever again. I'm ok with that, but I will meet people who are not.
There is no back-up plan, here. It will all work out and I am better for having spent these years on this island. But this is about to be a very different road than the one I have been on...
Then I'll remember that the view I left that mountain for was just as beautiful.
You don't see too many rainbows in the Rockies, but there a whole season full of them here. The islands got the sweet side of that gene pool, huh? Hibiscus blooms and mango trees and elkhorn coral and parrotfish and bougainvillea. As if the universe had an excess of its most striking colors and decided to drop all of them in one place.
You know what else likes all of these colors? Mosquitoes. But being ready for something does not necessarily make it any easier, does it?
Days like today are terrifying because they're perfect. This island is so damn crafty. It rained just enough this morning to cool everything down a little and now the sun is here. It's the right time of year for the butterflies, who ride on the scent of plumeria that weaves itself into the breeze. And the breeze is a specific kind, gentle and warm and intimate. I feel like I am being dared to leave. Like St. John is betting me twenty bucks that I won't really be able to do it.
This island woos you to stay even as it is pushing you away. If St. John were a dude, I would dump him for sending so many mixed signals.
As it stands, I think the break up is more mutual than that. When people ask why I'm leaving (And they do. All the time.), all I can do is smile and that that it is just time. Too simple for most, but the truth just the same.
So, a life without sunscreen. I will be able to go downtown and not see anyone that I know. I won't have to stand in line for every meal. My work life and my personal life will actually exist in different places.
Fitting back in will be a feat, won't it? Part of what is so great about St. John is that there really are no taboos. The only think people will judge you for is judging other people unfairly. There are three prominent bumper stickers pasted on all of the local cars; One says, "St. John: The world's largest open air asylum." Another, "We're all here 'cause we're not all there." And my favorite says only "Coexist."
Weirdness is sought after and wildly, loudly celebrated. In a world like this, inhibitions and social filters are few. So few, in fact, that we have all pretty much lost track of what our own weirdnesses are. Everything feels normal when nothing is identified as strange. So, plop us back into a world of image-consciousness and we become the "off" people who paint their toenails a million different colors and think it's funny when we accidentally clean our whole houses in wind shield wiper fluid (That WAS funny, by the way. Vineyard people just thought it was..well..weird.) I am quite sure that nothing I own can be considered fashionable beyond just being beachy, and beachy does not work in Colorado in October. I will probably still take cold showers and you will be able to follow flip flop prints in the snow if you want to find me, shivering in a corner somewhere wondering what the hell I was thinking when I decided to come back.
I'll get sinus infections from climate control and I won't have any clue what music/movies/TV shows people are talking about. I will show up at the downtown Friday night clubs in denim cut-offs again, and I will not understand why everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. And then I'll try to walk out of one of those bars with a beer I have not finished yet and it will be my turn to look at them like they're crazy when they tell me no.
I am probably not that apt to fit in anywhere, maybe ever again. I'm ok with that, but I will meet people who are not.
There is no back-up plan, here. It will all work out and I am better for having spent these years on this island. But this is about to be a very different road than the one I have been on...
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Dumb Comparisons
Do life crises happen to everyone? Here I am, almost thirty. Ten years ago, I certainly thought I'd be married by now, and I'm not. Nowhere close, am I? For me now, this seems right, not being close. As much as I couldn't imagine not being married by thirty then, thinking of being married by thirty when it's only a few short year away seems extreme, and much too adult for a girl like me. But. There is always a but. As one best friend has his second child and another grills me about when I'm coming home so I can help plan her wedding, I can't help but wonder if I am, brutally, behind this curve. Would we feel the same envies and jealousies and insecurities if we had nothing to compare ourselves and our own lives to? Because I honestly think that if I were stranded without communication, if I had no idea what any of my more commitment-friendly amigos were doing with their lives, I would not question my inability to settle down. I would take it as who I am and assume that things would change if they would change and there would be no worry about it. It would just be.
Why do we get so wrapped up in comparisons? There is no introspection in it, really. In looking at other people. It helps nothing. We are the product of our lives and our lives are the product of us. Sort of a mobius strip of fate and free will. To look at my married friend, happy with his wife and children and 9-5, and wonder why I don't already have the same thing would be like wondering why an Amazonian doesn't live in an igloo when it seems to work just fine for the Eskimos. Useless.
So you can't wonder. It will drive you crazy and it doesn't even change anything.
I keep looking at my past and thinking about the different outcomes I could have had. Such dangerous territory, isn't it? I can think of two boys that I probably would have been married to by now had I wanted that. Maybe three. Boys that were ready when I wasn't. But that was before most of my friends and my friends' younger siblings were getting married. And now...
I meant it when I said that all of this is useless.
I'm not writing well. I'm not thinking well. This one is over for now.
Why do we get so wrapped up in comparisons? There is no introspection in it, really. In looking at other people. It helps nothing. We are the product of our lives and our lives are the product of us. Sort of a mobius strip of fate and free will. To look at my married friend, happy with his wife and children and 9-5, and wonder why I don't already have the same thing would be like wondering why an Amazonian doesn't live in an igloo when it seems to work just fine for the Eskimos. Useless.
So you can't wonder. It will drive you crazy and it doesn't even change anything.
I keep looking at my past and thinking about the different outcomes I could have had. Such dangerous territory, isn't it? I can think of two boys that I probably would have been married to by now had I wanted that. Maybe three. Boys that were ready when I wasn't. But that was before most of my friends and my friends' younger siblings were getting married. And now...
I meant it when I said that all of this is useless.
I'm not writing well. I'm not thinking well. This one is over for now.
Friday, March 18, 2011
True Love= Boredom,,,?
Something a little new on my mind. I don't write about love all that often. Really, I am alternately totally uncomfortable with and then totally thrilled with love. As a chronic commitment-phobe (places to live, people to be with, favorite ice cream flavors..I have a hard time committing to anything), the idea of true love makes me squirm more than a bit. Because that's it, right? Once you have found the one, there is no need to keep searching. This is what most people hope for. It's what I fear. Among all of my ridiculous idiosyncrasies and irrational nightmares, my fear of boredom reigns king. And somewhere in there, I began to equate true love with boredom. To me, they are the same thing.
And this is what's bugging me right now.
I essentially live inside a Billabong catalogue. The sunsets nestle nicely into postcards and beautiful, tan people are everywhere, barely dressed, surfing and sunning and falling deeply in lust. It's exciting. There are new couples whose butterflies you can almost feel yourself. They sparkle, the couples in lust. Lust makes you high.
And then I look at the people who vacation here. We are a family resort, so we get a good glance at marriage at most levels. No kids to young kids to adolescent kids to the horror that is having teenagers and then the empty nesters and, finally, the retirees. We see all of them. Now, I am well aware that comfort and boredom can be easily confused. From the outside, these couples look bored. They are out of firsts, maybe. Or she has washed too many pairs of his stinky socks and he has picked up too many boxes of tampons at the grocery store for the butterflies to live. Butterflies breathe thrill, I've heard, and flirtation. And I could be wrong, here. But I see a lot of couples sitting at dinner without much to say to each other. And I hear them have lengthy, invested conversations about what size of Gatorade they should take to the beach. Without holding hands. Without smiling. Without any hint of an emotional relationship or connection. I suppose it's a lot like being tired of living here. Like I've said before, a beautiful place to live eventually just becomes home, where you do your laundry and make coffee in the mornings. But is that really what you're supposed to be looking for? Comfort, fine. But who, as they are smile-tipsy and falling madly in love with the one person they are absolutely supposed to be with for the rest of forever, thinks that they will end up having full conversations about whether they should go to Bed Bath & Beyond on Saturday or Sunday? Honestly? What happened to the madly in love part?
Do you think that is the fate of lifelong relationships? It must be. It can't not be, really. It seems like it's just the natural progression of things, and an obvious result of eating breakfast with someone every morning for anything beyond five years. I could buy twelve women's magazines right this second and probably find an article in each one that is dedicated to keeping your marriage exciting. Getting the spark back, that sort of thing. If you have to get the spark back, it can only be assumed that it was lost at some point. Why is that so normal?
I'm beginning to think that womanizers and women labeled as heartbreakers are just addicted to this spark everybody talks about. Once you get a few tastes of it, you're hooked. Nothing else will do after that. And as soon as it's gone, so are you.
Maybe your opinion of this whole thing changes after you've found that one person. I might be blurring the lines between boredom and contentment. My hope is that the spark is dynamic; it changes colors and shapes as the relationship evolves. Sometimes it wears a mask and is hard to recognize, and that's when you think it's lost. But maybe you know how many sugars to put in his cup of coffee and he always wakes up in the morning to let the dogs out so you don't have to, and that's where it is.
Ugh, I don't know. It's a hard line to draw, isn't it? If it stays small like that for a long time, I suppose it could just burn out entirely. And though they're completely terrible, I can see how affairs happen when it's tiny and wearing a mask. Because what's so great about love if you have to look to make sure it's still there?
Clearly, I have no real idea of what I'm talking about, here. I'm attempting to predict what the end of a curvy road looks like, and I've never even been on it. Pointless. A textbook case of fear of the unknown. People say all the time that relationships are work and marriage is a full-time job. I get that. Melting two people together does not always go smoothly and compromise is constant and difficult. But the heat involved is enough to make everything worth it. And that part should be automatic, shouldn't it? Why should that require work, too?
These couples fighting about Gatorade, do they still get giddy and stupid when they kiss each other? Do they still kiss? Do they sing love songs to the radios in their cars and think about one another? Do they still have big crushes on each other? Because I think that they should. And if they don't, then I have no interest in that life.
This is not something than can be answered by anything but experience. We won't know until we know. And I'm always game for a road I have never been down, but boredom is a dead end sign and I really hope that that's not what happens every time.
And this is what's bugging me right now.
I essentially live inside a Billabong catalogue. The sunsets nestle nicely into postcards and beautiful, tan people are everywhere, barely dressed, surfing and sunning and falling deeply in lust. It's exciting. There are new couples whose butterflies you can almost feel yourself. They sparkle, the couples in lust. Lust makes you high.
And then I look at the people who vacation here. We are a family resort, so we get a good glance at marriage at most levels. No kids to young kids to adolescent kids to the horror that is having teenagers and then the empty nesters and, finally, the retirees. We see all of them. Now, I am well aware that comfort and boredom can be easily confused. From the outside, these couples look bored. They are out of firsts, maybe. Or she has washed too many pairs of his stinky socks and he has picked up too many boxes of tampons at the grocery store for the butterflies to live. Butterflies breathe thrill, I've heard, and flirtation. And I could be wrong, here. But I see a lot of couples sitting at dinner without much to say to each other. And I hear them have lengthy, invested conversations about what size of Gatorade they should take to the beach. Without holding hands. Without smiling. Without any hint of an emotional relationship or connection. I suppose it's a lot like being tired of living here. Like I've said before, a beautiful place to live eventually just becomes home, where you do your laundry and make coffee in the mornings. But is that really what you're supposed to be looking for? Comfort, fine. But who, as they are smile-tipsy and falling madly in love with the one person they are absolutely supposed to be with for the rest of forever, thinks that they will end up having full conversations about whether they should go to Bed Bath & Beyond on Saturday or Sunday? Honestly? What happened to the madly in love part?
Do you think that is the fate of lifelong relationships? It must be. It can't not be, really. It seems like it's just the natural progression of things, and an obvious result of eating breakfast with someone every morning for anything beyond five years. I could buy twelve women's magazines right this second and probably find an article in each one that is dedicated to keeping your marriage exciting. Getting the spark back, that sort of thing. If you have to get the spark back, it can only be assumed that it was lost at some point. Why is that so normal?
I'm beginning to think that womanizers and women labeled as heartbreakers are just addicted to this spark everybody talks about. Once you get a few tastes of it, you're hooked. Nothing else will do after that. And as soon as it's gone, so are you.
Maybe your opinion of this whole thing changes after you've found that one person. I might be blurring the lines between boredom and contentment. My hope is that the spark is dynamic; it changes colors and shapes as the relationship evolves. Sometimes it wears a mask and is hard to recognize, and that's when you think it's lost. But maybe you know how many sugars to put in his cup of coffee and he always wakes up in the morning to let the dogs out so you don't have to, and that's where it is.
Ugh, I don't know. It's a hard line to draw, isn't it? If it stays small like that for a long time, I suppose it could just burn out entirely. And though they're completely terrible, I can see how affairs happen when it's tiny and wearing a mask. Because what's so great about love if you have to look to make sure it's still there?
Clearly, I have no real idea of what I'm talking about, here. I'm attempting to predict what the end of a curvy road looks like, and I've never even been on it. Pointless. A textbook case of fear of the unknown. People say all the time that relationships are work and marriage is a full-time job. I get that. Melting two people together does not always go smoothly and compromise is constant and difficult. But the heat involved is enough to make everything worth it. And that part should be automatic, shouldn't it? Why should that require work, too?
These couples fighting about Gatorade, do they still get giddy and stupid when they kiss each other? Do they still kiss? Do they sing love songs to the radios in their cars and think about one another? Do they still have big crushes on each other? Because I think that they should. And if they don't, then I have no interest in that life.
This is not something than can be answered by anything but experience. We won't know until we know. And I'm always game for a road I have never been down, but boredom is a dead end sign and I really hope that that's not what happens every time.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Resort Life
My blog needs a change. The layout is totally boring. I don't even want to read the thing and I re-read everything I write about a million times (mostly marveling at how badly I create sentences and kicking my computerself in the face for the fact that I continue to write insufferable drivel). Regardless of the drivel, I wish the thing looked better. Alas, I have no idea how to do much of anything except make hummus and live in any tense other than the present one, which is not conducive to being able to find or create some kind of stellar blog layout. If anyone has a suggestion, out with it. Help. Me.
Life is exhausting right now. It's hard to explain what seasonal life really feels like to someone who has no hope of an idea. One morning, you drink your coffee and eat breakfast and go to work. This is normal. The next morning, you have to wait in line behind twenty other people for coffee. Those twenty people know that you work there, so before you have even had that essential taste of caffeine, you're answering questions about the weather and which beach is best and where can they get snorkel gear? It's entirely unfair. Once season starts, your customer service face becomes a permanent fixture. You always have to be smiling because anywhere from 100-300 people are always watching. You start to feel like a zoo creature, somehow totally fascinating to vacationers who chose the curtain with the cubicle behind it. Examined and discussed. It's really weird.
Our restaurant serves dinner at 5:30. The staff generally comes down around that time, sits at the same group of tables we have sat at for years now, and eats together. We talk about the day. We tell stories about crazy guests, of which there is never a shortage. We talk about which beach we might head to on our weekends and giggle at inside jokes and try each other's dinners. It's a family thing, really. We get there at 5:30 not because we are hungry then, or even because that's a logical time to eat. We get there at 5:30 because that is when everyone else will be there. We love dinner. We love dinner, that is, until the time of year rolls around. You know in prison movies when they show eating scenes and the guy carrying the tray is always shielding it from the other guys? That's what dinner feels like right now. I have literally had someone breathe over my plate and ask me which entree I got. Touch the arm that is blocking my plate as if to say, "Excuse me, arm. You are in the way of my viewing the food that this young lady whom I do not know has chosen for her dinner." I'm not kidding. This happens.
The beach does not belong to us anymore, either. We are afraid to go to our favorite little sunny corners because we might be followed and then those corners will be covered in beach towels (which don't even make sense here. The sand is calcite. It's little jagged grains that cling to a beach towel like we cling to summer) and we would hang our heads down and walk on, submitting ourselves to something ridiculous like porch-tanning because we can't stand the lack of personal space anywhere else.
Not that it's all bad. There is so much energy this time of year. You can't help but to feel the buzz of the whole thing, even if you don't want it. It gets all over you. Of course, we miss the slow days when no one else is on the beach and we can have Woody's happy hour all to ourselves. But you can't possibly spend a day around people who have worked 51 weeks of the year looking forward to this ONE week and not catch some of their excitement. I find that listening to their conversations makes me think, "Oh my goodness, they're right. This place IS amazing. It IS beautiful. Why do I forget that part sometimes?" Because eventually, wherever you live will just become home. No matter how exotic it may have seemed at the beginning. It becomes the place you do your laundry. Where you fumble through making coffee in the morning. Where you complain about the drivers/grocery prices/post office/bank line. So, it does us a bit of good to be tsunami-ed by the giddiness of hundreds of people who pay exorbitant airline prices and struggle through trying to find a swimsuit to buy in February just to spend a single week here. They've been dreaming of it all year long and by the time they arrive, their skin is the only thing holding them together. They're about to explode into rainbow confetti bits, so tired and so happy to finally have gotten here. How awesome.
Perspective changed. This is why I write a ridiculous, insufferable blog. You can start out a post as grumpy as anything and end feeling a little more sparkly. I'm gonna end this one here, I think, and dream of a place to go on vacation where I'll explode into rainbow confetti bits.
Life is exhausting right now. It's hard to explain what seasonal life really feels like to someone who has no hope of an idea. One morning, you drink your coffee and eat breakfast and go to work. This is normal. The next morning, you have to wait in line behind twenty other people for coffee. Those twenty people know that you work there, so before you have even had that essential taste of caffeine, you're answering questions about the weather and which beach is best and where can they get snorkel gear? It's entirely unfair. Once season starts, your customer service face becomes a permanent fixture. You always have to be smiling because anywhere from 100-300 people are always watching. You start to feel like a zoo creature, somehow totally fascinating to vacationers who chose the curtain with the cubicle behind it. Examined and discussed. It's really weird.
Our restaurant serves dinner at 5:30. The staff generally comes down around that time, sits at the same group of tables we have sat at for years now, and eats together. We talk about the day. We tell stories about crazy guests, of which there is never a shortage. We talk about which beach we might head to on our weekends and giggle at inside jokes and try each other's dinners. It's a family thing, really. We get there at 5:30 not because we are hungry then, or even because that's a logical time to eat. We get there at 5:30 because that is when everyone else will be there. We love dinner. We love dinner, that is, until the time of year rolls around. You know in prison movies when they show eating scenes and the guy carrying the tray is always shielding it from the other guys? That's what dinner feels like right now. I have literally had someone breathe over my plate and ask me which entree I got. Touch the arm that is blocking my plate as if to say, "Excuse me, arm. You are in the way of my viewing the food that this young lady whom I do not know has chosen for her dinner." I'm not kidding. This happens.
The beach does not belong to us anymore, either. We are afraid to go to our favorite little sunny corners because we might be followed and then those corners will be covered in beach towels (which don't even make sense here. The sand is calcite. It's little jagged grains that cling to a beach towel like we cling to summer) and we would hang our heads down and walk on, submitting ourselves to something ridiculous like porch-tanning because we can't stand the lack of personal space anywhere else.
Not that it's all bad. There is so much energy this time of year. You can't help but to feel the buzz of the whole thing, even if you don't want it. It gets all over you. Of course, we miss the slow days when no one else is on the beach and we can have Woody's happy hour all to ourselves. But you can't possibly spend a day around people who have worked 51 weeks of the year looking forward to this ONE week and not catch some of their excitement. I find that listening to their conversations makes me think, "Oh my goodness, they're right. This place IS amazing. It IS beautiful. Why do I forget that part sometimes?" Because eventually, wherever you live will just become home. No matter how exotic it may have seemed at the beginning. It becomes the place you do your laundry. Where you fumble through making coffee in the morning. Where you complain about the drivers/grocery prices/post office/bank line. So, it does us a bit of good to be tsunami-ed by the giddiness of hundreds of people who pay exorbitant airline prices and struggle through trying to find a swimsuit to buy in February just to spend a single week here. They've been dreaming of it all year long and by the time they arrive, their skin is the only thing holding them together. They're about to explode into rainbow confetti bits, so tired and so happy to finally have gotten here. How awesome.
Perspective changed. This is why I write a ridiculous, insufferable blog. You can start out a post as grumpy as anything and end feeling a little more sparkly. I'm gonna end this one here, I think, and dream of a place to go on vacation where I'll explode into rainbow confetti bits.
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