on returning
there's much more to write but this is all for now
i wanted to write about it all until i took my fingers to the keyboard and then suddenly i didn’t want to write and i just felt numb and fatigued and empty. but i know that i hate when my life just drifts past me. when i don’t record it at all i fear that after not too long it will feel as if none of it ever belonged to me. i suppose that is one reason why i find it important to write. a way to have some ownership of my own life as it is happening. to prove that it is mine. to be gripping it.
the feeling i’ve been experiencing due to returning to my little hometown after everything, after those six months of everything… i could have never expected it. in fact, as i was nearing the end of my time away, i actually thought i missed it here. i thought i missed all of the places to go, like the coast, which has been my strongest place of solace for years, but when i visited it on my second or third day back, the view did not strike me in any way. i felt absolutely nothing. i drove through those windy country roads and thought about how odd it is to be returning in the dead of summer— literally the dead; i thought, everything is dried up and lifeless and ugly; and i couldn’t fathom why i was there, why i am here; nothing is right, nothing is alive; i will die too. i thought i would enjoy returning to my own room, to all my beloved collections of posters and books and cds and antique store trinkets and memorabilia from dozens of concerts and west coast travels. as soon as i stepped into my room on my first night back, i was struck with how small it was, with everything crammed inside. when i gazed at all of my stuff i felt sick with alienation, as if each of these items, collected through twenty years of life, belonged to someone who was not me, and yet i was now being forced to step into this person’s life and pretend to be them, to inhabit all of their deepest vulnerabilities and traits. except this person simply wasn’t me— and to “be” them was one of the most intensely uncomfortable feelings, as if i was secretly betraying them, this person who is long gone but deserves better than this imposter that is me— i’m intruding. and it’s as if i’m betraying those family and friends who were intimately close with this person but who i don’t know at all— i look into all their faces as if i am connected with them but i can do no better than act. and it’s as if i’m betraying myself, my “true” “self”, wherever it is now that i’ve been forced to push it aside. i fear to think about where it would end up if it remains pushed aside like this; if, one day, i search for it again and it is lost, gone.
it’s all wrong, it’s all surreal. as if the past six months were a dream and i just woke up and now the dream has completely faded away.
i had been crying for the entire plane ride to san francisco. all i could think about was this strong irrational fear i’d suddenly noticed in myself, a fear that someThing would happen to me before i ever got to experience again what i’d experienced in my time in europe— specifically my three months in italy. finally i had found my truest sense of freedom and self yet, because finally i was surrounded by so many people who shared that rare type of understanding with me that i’d spent years craving and looking for and only occasionally tasting within impermanent and broken circumstances. i want to write about that special time and place where everything was right but i’m afraid it will come off very pathetic because i know that the people and world there probably feel nowhere close to the same as me about it all. anyways, maybe that sort of thing can only exist impermanently. selfishly i feel i deserve slightly more than that. if it’s ultimately impermanent, okay. but, at least, a little bit more…
during the plane ride the only song i could listen to was centro di gravità permanente by franco battiato. one of his songs was on the soundtrack of the film la chimera, which, after six months of trying to see, i finally saw on my last day in dublin before my flight to the U.S. (and it affected me deeply and maybe some other time i’ll write about that) but anyway, a friend recommended i listen to the entire album, and i did, multiple times, and quickly became addicted to this song. it’s rare that a song will become so addictive to me that i can do nothing but listen to solely that song, over and over again, but i couldn’t stop replaying it on that flight and trying on the italian words in my mouth. the rythym and shapes of the words in my mouth soothed me, even though i knew that my italian isn’t good enough that i would be saying them correctly. una vecchia, bretone, con un cappello e un ombrello di carta di riso e canna di bambù… or the chorus: cerco un centro di gravità permanente, che non mi faccia mai cambiare idea sulle cose, sulla gente, avrei bisogno di… “i’m searching for a permanent center of gravity, that never makes me change my mind about things, about people…”
when the plane flew over california and the bay area before landing i didn’t recognize the land. it looked dry and false. now a different string of lyrics was floating in my mind: “this plane is taking off… this plane is taking off… both eyes on the moon… wait for you…”. boy in the moon by julia holter. i’ll never forget how when my plane to florence was landing and those lyrics were playing, how the plane was landing and julia holter was whispering in my ear that the plane was taking off, and it was so true, so clear and true, that the plane was landing and that my wonderful beginning was beginning.
(i promise i’m okay, i’m just adjusting. i have a lot of bits and pieces of things i need to edit and organize and post but i just wanted to get this out there for now. what i mean to say is that this isn’t the end of things. and i know that. so don’t worry.)
🩷 you express yourself beautifully