the old-school guestbook archives
my amazon wish list... my favorite astrologer... my favorite artist... yerba mate revolution! erowid: a travel guide for interior journeys... no more war: MoveOn.org United for Peace and Justice True Majority seek the truth: Common Dreams Unamerican Activities The Nation people I adore, diaries I read: rev.raikes ariana cubiclegirl epiphany glitter333 laurakay wammo the music: the asylum street spankers backyard tire fire blue highway bill camplin wendy colonna freedom tribe joules graves guy forsyth band hamsa lila hanuman libby kirkpatrick leftover salmon pamela means medeski martin & wood the motet the nice outfit nickel creek open road rose polenzani railroad earth south austin jug band string cheese incident taarka tha musemeant the devil makes three tim o'brien band trolley wild sage keller williams yonder mountain string band |
and the road that brought me here... ~ June 24, 2003 - 7:08 p.m. I wish I knew what was going on inside of my heart. I know that it is tender, the tenderness that smacks of duende. a word taught me by a former-lover-longtime-friend who once broke my heart harder than I'd thought it capable of being broken. then. and I have flashes of my life, all over my life, bits and pieces and images and flavors and smells. and all of them ache with tenderness and sweetness and something like heartache and something like cherish and something like a word I haven't invented yet. these pieces of me. like when I wrote duende, I thought of him, thought of the piece of him I remember most often when I think of him. the day he broke my heart, his eyes cold, his heart distant, like he'd forgotten who I was, like he was too tired to care. and none of his reasons made any sense, especially when he started to quote beaudrelard. and he took me to a job interview he'd arranged for me that day, and we were late and it was his fault, and I knew sitting in that office that I wasn't going to get it and I was relieved. because I didn't really want the job, but I hadn't known it until that moment. and it was a pencil-lead gray, cold san francisco day. the kind that makes me want to curl into a fetal position at the best of times. and we left that interview and walked back to his place, where I collected my things and walked the blocks to my car. that classic BMW bavaria me and my ex-girlfriend had somehow fallen into owning, which I'd won custody of in the breakup, something I still think she's bitter about to this day. my car was miraculously not ticketed, but looking pathetic and beaten, the broken trunk lid hanging off by the one remaining hinge. I got in and sat for a minute, hands gripping the steering wheel, and could not make myself go. but I did, the tears starting as I swam through union square traffic, and then I was weeping with reckless abandon, and somehow driving anyway, holding tight to the wheel as if it alone could bring me home. and this is the piece I remember, this is the piece that comes so vividly when I think the word duende: stopped at a traffic light just before the freeway, anchoring myself to the wheel, the crowd of pedestrians passing oblivious before the hood of my car-- except for one man. one blond man, maybe in his twenties, who looked into my windshield and saw me there, the tears running down my face, and gave me a look of such tenderness and empathy that my heart nearly swelled and burst within my chest. thank you, I mouthed, whispered silently to this stranger, who in a single moment had shown me more tenderness than the man I'd been loving had in all the long year of our acquaintance. it's like that. all the bits and pieces of my life. random, sweet and tender and aching with memory. the smell of the car I used to live in as I traveled around america. the sunny apartment I lived in after college, my two calico kittens racing around the rooms and across the bed. walking down pacific avenue in santa cruz. jumping into the ocean in shorts and a tank top, and bodysurfing until my shoulders turned purple. dancing the fire at firedance. the high sierra music festival at night. the national poetry slam in providence. the one in austin, in chicago. bits and pieces. flashes. maybe this is homesickness. maybe this is being 30 years old. maybe this is being 11 years dry. maybe this is being in love with a man I know doesn't deserve me, but who makes me happy anyway. maybe this is the two valium I took for no good reason yesterday. maybe it's just orientation. because I'm getting to a place, now, where lao is my world. and it seems to make sense. even though it's completely different from any of the worlds where I've lived my life until now. and I have a house. and a cat. and a boyfriend. (yes, I'm calling him that. what's more, I'm liking calling him that.) and, I just found out today, I have a new job. teaching english at the phongsavan english center. part-time work that pays well, that I can do in the evenings even if I get another, a "real" job teaching at a primary school. a job that makes it possible for me to stay in lao. which at this point, I feel the need to do. for now, anyway. I'm not ready to go back to america, land of money and power and emptiness, where I am homeless, jobless, lost. here I am still lost, but I have a direction, a life. increasingly, I am anchored. I have a place to be and a good cat. a lover, friends, and a motorbike to get me from here to there. and bits and pieces of all the road that brought me here, playing behind my eyes as I move through the patterns of my days. I don't know if my life here is healthy, is good, is real. but somehow, right now, it feels like what I need to be doing. this much I know is true.
(((rings))) |