on directions and alternate selves

there is just enough time

looking for what to see in the world. trying to find my inspiration, i guess. things are too static, or maybe i’m a bad looker. for a week i drive up to oregon, all alone. i feel invincible when i wear old men’s leather boots. one night with a friend in arcata, two nights at my grandparents’ house near shady cove, and three nights in ashland. my first time being actually independent away from home. once i am in ashland i am fully prepared to present my new self to a someone new, but for three days i hang around in various locations downtown without managing to meet a single person. i tell myself it is okay even though i had been looking forward to this opportunity to find someone in a world seperated from home, looking forward to this opportunity as if it was finally a lifeline out. as i am driving back home the whole trip feels like it had never happened. legs sore, eyes forward, sunshine coming/cumming on my arms, mind blank; but i’m screaming along to veruca salt lyrics while easing on the gas to cut in front of another truck. the 5 just an endless little road to the edge of the earth, with dry grasses running on the sides. i’ve decided to break up with myself and move forward. starting blank again.

almost home and driving back roads through rohnert park, i see a dead crow in the field next to me, pointing straight up towards the sky. a manifestation? a signal toward something? is it up i should be looking instead of ahead? the next night, at 1:30am, i take mister crow’s advice and step outside to look at the stars. actually i step outside to grab my iphone charger from the car, but charmed by the warm night’s air, i find my head tilted back. the stars are dim and i know they could be seen clearer somewhere else. i laugh at myself for thinking the almost cliche thought of i wonder who else is looking at the same sky as me

~~~~~

waiting to recognize my life. i know i am out there. it’s just a matter of finding me. there are so many different places i could be. suddenly the rest of my summer is booked up— leaving tomorrow, a week in oregon/washington/canada with mom, and in early august, hopefully, 10 days all alone in san francisco. i could be in those places, maybe, but mostly i am looking forward to florence, italy, next spring. i’m determined there will be a self for me to find there. each new place is a new self, a new chance to pretend a life for a while. and i want to live every life. one’s self is inseparable and indistinguishable from the corner of the world it happens to occupy. the world is burning and the only motivation i have in life is to catch a glimpse, feel a piece, of as many places in the world that i can. i can’t even be bothered to take proper classes at the community college— the only thing i can see myself doing right now is traveling. i have to wait only until february to start.

i will find myself partially through finding other people. i am looking for certain types of people, people i will only know when i find. sometimes i catch glimpses of them, in public transit, in the grocery store, sitting on the opposite side of the theater. the other week i sat at a bench at a pond only because i saw someone at a nearby bench, journaling. i convinced myself we would somehow meet and click. after about an hour they walked away still without us exchanging a word. maybe i am crazy. to reunite two pieces in the universe is my desire. to resurrect.

~~~~~

safety margin: possible miscalculation: my life is static but maybe the other lives are only less static than i am imagining. solution?: change lives as often as possible? avoid staticity at all costs?

~~~~~

triangles of light. folding blades, shifting waves. tunnels of trees and fields of longdryyellow grass. the coexistence of elements in life is possibly one of it’s most beautiful and necessary aspects. heat makes me dizzy and i lock myself into an old abandoned shed.

~~~~~

catherine lacey on memory, loosely quoted:

the memories we return to— we end up constructing an identity on purpose, and we say, like, “these things happen to me and i don’t have a say in what’s happened to me”… but we do have a say in what we return to. there’s an identity that you make out of the way you construct memory.

also: [me:]

it is work to remember

random older woman at work:

i’m writing down all my memories from age 0-7.

i have such a lack of memory of my childhood that i feel i need to liberate myself from it, somehow. i often feel distressed over the lack of any knowledge of who i have been, i am so separated from it. in these cases i must remind myself that all that matters is that i am here now, no matter how i got here.

when i was at my grandparents’ house in oregon i realized that that place holds the most memories i can think of. what i mean is, if any place manages to hold my childhood it is that place. i have been going there yearly since age three. in recent years, i notice that each time i return, it becomes smaller.

~~~~~

my whole life will be spent finding myself

possibly only to forget myself