20 March 2010 with no comments
I’ve been back a full week now. The bags are unpacked, laundry’s done. I even went to the grocery store. That was a bit of a mistake — in my excitement to eat home-cooked meals again I indulged my every whim at Whole Foods and therefore obscenely overspent on everything from butter to salad to wine to fish to bread to soup. The checkout girl cheerily announced my total; I sourly pulled out my credit card. I do not regret, however, the many six-packs of Abita Strawberry beer I carted home. That’s some tasty stuff.
The problem with homecomings is that they aren’t ever what you expect or want them to be. Should you desire fanfare, there will be none. Should you require quiet reflection, there will be not a moment’s peace. And because South By Southwest is currently ongoing here in Austin, the homecoming will in fact be a horrifying mix of frenetic fanfare and anxious isolation, as you adjust to being “home” in a town overrun by thousands upon thousands of strangers.
All that and the cats are in Dallas. Literal cats. My two cats, Puck and Erwin, who provide this little residence with a friendly calm that I sorely miss. I look forward to their return; I think it will officially signal that I am “home.” For now I wake up each morning vaguely uncertain of my location.
I felt this most acutely my first Sunday back when I bolted awake at 4am, totally disoriented. My bedroom was dark and I couldn’t make out any features that might indicate a particular place. For two minutes I experienced true panic: I groped around for a bedside lamp and my glasses, couldn’t find either, and strained to find an outline of a door, or a window, or something. I was expecting to discover a small, square motel room. Instead I saw the glow from a neighbor’s porch light illuminating the window in my living room. (My bedroom door opens into a small hallway, which in turn opens into the living room.) All at once I grasped the layout of the space, recognized it as my own, and puffed out a literal “whew!”
It’s an odd thing to not recognize your own home. Something of the sort happened to me once before, several years ago. I was at a grocery store, and felt a figure hovering near me. I turned to see who it was and came face-to-face with an older woman with wavy blond hair holding a bag of English muffins. I had two simultaneous thoughts: “Well isn’t she pretty!” and “Oh I like that brand of English muffin.”
The woman gave me a perplexed look and said my name. Only then did it dawn on me that I was looking at my own mother, wanting to know if I wanted her to buy me a bag of English muffins. The recognition was as sharp as a pinprick. And similarly painful. Why?
The music festival will be over this weekend. There have been moments I’ve really enjoyed in spite of the crowds. Meeting new people (Oh hi, Seattle!), sneaking Strawberry Abita into venues, and sitting on my friends’ freshly-built cedar porch are three that come to mind straight away. But I’m ready for everyone else to get the hell out of here. Go home so that I can come home, please.
12 March 2010 with no comments
A fragment of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” has been circling in my head, the same three lines, over and over:
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
I have a headache and can’t sleep. Tomorrow Austin, my own four walls and my own pillow. The daily grind, swaddled in creature comforts.
I cannot quite understand how I am returning to a place that has never felt completely solid beneath my feet. There’s a lot of writing to be done, and a suitcase stand to purchase. Beyond that I am at a loss. When I moved from Brooklyn to Austin for graduate school, I didn’t expect to stay long — two years and then shuffle off someplace else. Yet here I am, coming back after roaming 3000 miles. Typically when I travel that far, coming back isn’t part of the plan. But I do, again and again. Three times, actually. Moving (in the relocation sense) is a tiring sport; I’m a bit sick of playing.
So what now? Clearly rhetorical.
Another poem springs to mind: Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” A favorite of mine in high school. I tried to memorize the entire thing just for kicks but I either gave up or got distracted, because I only know bits and pieces by heart now. I think it’s unfortunate that children are no longer made to memorize classic works. My father knows a whole battery of verses, he can zip them off on command. I think poetry makes for a better man — “man” here used in the inclusive human sense. Perhaps on my to-do list, underneath the suitcase stand, goes “re-learn Love Song.”
Here are the lines that just replaced Tennyson:
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
I know right? Such a downer.
Hopefully breakfast at Waffle House and those last 200 miles will clear out the headache.
9 March 2010 with no comments
…deal with crappy, seedy, potentially toxic motels.
(1) Dress for minimum nakedness at the end of the day. As in: tights or longjohns under jeans, undershirt under your shirt (so aptly named!), etc.
(2) Don’t unpack. Simply reapply same clothes in the morning. Thus the above. If you’re really concerned about it, you can microwave your underwear. I only just thought of this; I’ve never actually done it. Possibly brilliant?
(3) Two beers at dinner and 1mg Klonipin, Xanax, or similar at bedtime. Generic highly recommended unless you have bitchin’ health insurance. Which I do not. And no, I don’t care to hear your opinion about the condition of my liver.
(4) Don’t shower. Greasers are cool again, remember? Bring a comb. Dip in water. Style accordingly. Chaps and blue jeans complete this fashion-forward look.
(5) GTFO as early as possible. Free coffee and pastries in the lobby, if provided, allow for a 15 minute departure delay. Otherwise hit the Waffle House once you’re at a safe distance.
(6) Pay in cash.
(7) Oh, and tempting though it may be (especially after those beers and the etcetera else), don’t bring anyone back to the motel with you.* You’re trying to avoid sheet-to-skin contact, remember?
This free advice sponsored by the Fuck I Can’t Believe I Slept There Society (FIBSS).
*unless they are truly fantastically hot. In which case you have my blessing.
8 March 2010 with no comments
There are times when your mind goes in wonderful directions; other times, less so.
I awoke in the wee hours of morning gripped by an awful sense of dread and the image of a dead deer flickering through my head like an old film reel. The deer I had actually seen earlier in the day on the way back from Tybee Island — it had been struck by a car, and the sheriff and a fireman had dragged it off the highway, leaving a pink-brown smudge across the road. At first I couldn’t figure out what the smudge was. Then I noticed the deer. I cringed bodily and swerved for just a fraction of a second. It was terrifying.
I tried to shake off the image by thinking about other, more mundane anxieties. For instance, had I developed a fixation on the word “ostensibly”? Did I use it too often? Did people notice? I tried to recall my conversations at dinner earlier — yes, I’d said it to that publisher: “I’m ostensibly writing a book for my master’s thesis.” And to the waitress, too? Yes, the waitress too. Oh god. I said it aloud to the dark a few times: Ostensibly. Ostensibly. What does it even mean? It sounds so arrogant.
I felt wretched. I tried to think of something pleasant. Symmetry. Motel rooms have wonderful symmetry; I’ve always appreciated that. When I first moved back to Austin, before the second move to New York and the second move back, I spent a day driving around with an real estate agent looking for an apartment. He showed me all sorts of glamorous properties featuring balconies overlooking clear blue pools, or apartments with chrome Sub-Zero refrigerators and dishwashers. I dismissed all of them as either too expensive, or too “blah” — which I actually said to him, and which he responded to by rolling his eyes. I tried to explain that I had previously been living in a disintegrating loft in Brooklyn, near the elevated subway line, and therefore had certain expectations about what my next living arrangement should look like. Another eye roll.
But no matter, he had just the place for me. A little complex off West 6th Street that looked almost exactly like a cheap motor inn.* A studio with a three-quarter height wall between the bedroom and the living room/kitchen. No interior doors. An unbearably small bathroom. Two windows only. And exposed brick on one wall in the living room. In the leasing office, I gleefully wrote out a check and put my name on the dotted line.
I didn’t own any furniture — I’d divested myself of most of my possessions in a spontaneous fire sale the day before that initial move to New York — but I decided that the primary factor in the acquisition of any item was that it must be in keeping with the motor inn aesthetic. My girlfriend at the time eagerly agreed to help me in this decorating process. I realize now her enthusiasm probably stemmed from the fact that she wouldn’t actually have to live with me in the apartment. She’d found a cute house on South Congress with two roommates. After living with six strangers (like the Real World, only with less sponsorship and more drama) in Brooklyn, however, I was ready to go solo.
Laying awake in my little motel room in Savannah, I mulled over the concept of “motel life.” This particular room had all the proper amenities: permanently affixed hangers, built-in ironing board, bolted down lamps, suitcase stand. Whatever happened to my suitcase stand? I’d had one, I felt certain about that. It was old, made of wood with fabric straps. And I’d actually put my suitcase on it, the one filled with old journals. But I didn’t have it anymore. The stand was such a rare find, why would I have left it behind when we moved back to New York? Unless…
I abruptly rolled over and fumed into my pillow. She’d MADE me leave it behind. Along with so many other things. “Kat, we’re going to be living together in a tiny hovel somewhere. Probably on the upper west side. We don’t have room for all your crap.” Goodbye wine fridge. Goodbye beautiful vintage redwood writing desk. Goodbye suitcase stand.
Then, during a week-long NY apartment hunting expedition, we signed a lease on a 1000 square-foot loft in Bushwick. It’d formerly been a doll factory; you could see the outlines of sewing machine tables on the wood floors. The loft was modern and clean. Huge 10′ by 10′ windows. And plenty of room for a wine fridge, a suitcase stand, and at least four or five vintage writing desks. All of which I’d already sold.
Dead deer. Ostensibly. Suitcase stand. I stretched out on the bed and put a pillow over my face to block the sunlight creeping into the room. A few more hours of sleep and then back on the road, toward Austin. I chanted a little mantra in my head: No deer will jump in front of my bike. I will buy another suitcase stand. I will never again use the word “ostensibly.”
*Sadly this apartment complex no longer preserves the historic “motor inn” look. They realized their proximity to downtown, put in stainless steel sinks, and raised the rent.
28 February 2010 with no comments
In the New Moon Cafe, which was voted “Best of the Best” way back in 1995. A map of the United States hangs on the wall behind the sweet tea dispenser. It’s faded and stained, but decorated with hundreds of pins. New York City, Atlanta, Dallas, San Fransisco, Charleston, Miami and every small town in between. The eastern seaboard is so crowded with push-pins that the city names have been obliterated by the perforations. Austin doesn’t have a pin, but there don’t seem to be any extra, and I don’t know if the map is still in use, or merely decorative now. Maybe if I asked for a pin they’d say “Oh we don’t do that thing anymore.” Or maybe they’d smile and hand me a pin and ask me where it is I’m from.
The cafe is on the main street, which everyone calls Main Street but is actually Richmond Avenue, aka Highway 1. Storefronts and signage like Plum Pickins, “Prompt Loans,” “Customized Bra Fittings” at A Soft Touch Lingerie & Gifts, which my sister says is a scam because it doesn’t matter if you’ve been in there before, you’re not even allowed to buy a bra if you don’t get the fitting. “Imagine! Cash in hand and they won’t even let you GIVE THEM MONEY unless you get a fitting. What a scam.” I can’t think of why any store would operate in that way, that’s what I tell her.
Then Elliot’s Office Supply & Gifts N’ Things, Birds & Butterflies “nature store,” the Stoplight Deli, Pitter Patter Children’s Boutique, What’s Cookin’… That’s all I can see from my vantage point, but I know the street extends several blocks in either direction, and there are many more store fronts, some empty like the old dry-cleaners and some hanging on, like the wig store, with all the mannequin heads in the window modeling various hair fashions. The fact that the mannequins aren’t white seems like an act of defiance to me, because this downtown is very much a white downtown. I haven’t seen but one person of color walking around, and it’s the town’s 175th anniversary celebration weekend so anyone who would be out walking around this downtown would be doing it today. Maybe I missed the crowds. Maybe the crowds missed downtown.
The other night my nephew’s friends came by the house. One of the girls was very small but had a rowdy personality, very funny and spicy. My nephew towers above her and had to lean down to give her a hug, but he joked that she was too intimidating and so sat back down. Then she showed us her knives. “Knives plural?” I said. “Yeah, one for each pocket” and she pulled out a flip-open razor blade from her left rear jeans pocket and a flip-open Gerber pocket knife from the right rear pocket. “Got to have these in my neighborhood. Where I live is rough.” She didn’t say it with anger or anxiety. Simply stated it as a fact, rough. I tried to imagine what her neighborhood looks like and envisioned rows of walk-up apartments and puny trees and busted street lamps and then realized I was thinking of someplace I’d been before. Her world I can’t picture at all.
The group of men sitting in this cafe are talking about death and tattoos and the 21st century. “Gotta have one, that’s the thing these days.” “Yeah, MOTHER, hahaha.” “Mel Gibson or Sean Connery has a little dagger right here.” “You don’t know anything about that.”
They have raspy, gasping laughs. Earlier one said “When I go, I want to go in my sleep.” And then they talked about overweight kids and diabetes and McDonald’s and everyone they know who’s died in the past year. One old woman rode a bicycle every day, the same one she’d had since she was young. They can’t fathom riding a bicycle because they can’t remember how.
I’ve been stationary for too long. I can feel stress building up despite the warm bed and hot breakfasts. My body is soft. I try to remember being “on the road” and how good that feels. The short bike trip to the cafe helped, but then I think about how all my stuff is strewn about the guest room and I’ve got to pack it all down again and that task looms impossible. How did I get all that crap here in the first place? Socks shirts jeans vest books pens paper cords cables laptop jacket sleeping bag boots shoes underwear helmet gloves visor hat scarf belt raingear toothpaste toothbrush comb camera film envelopes checks wallet knife flashlight pills loose change… and more. (There must be more.)
It’s just me and the men left in the cafe now. The staff is cleaning up, scooting chairs into place, scooping up coffee grounds, wiping down tables. The awning outside flaps in the wind and when it does the sun strikes me square in the eyes. Down the street is the brewery. I promised my brother I’d go there and drink a beer before I left. He said, “Call me after two beers so you’ll have something to say.” I’m not too good on the phone but he loves to gossip so I said alright, I will. We’re half-Irish and we get rambunctious when we drink. But there are others in the family who you can’t talk to after two drinks, and everyone knows not to call those particular characters after 7pm. If you happen to live with them, well, I guess you’re screwed.
Tomorrow Charleston. An oyster bake at 4pm for four people I don’t know who are sailing across the Atlantic. That’s always been a dream of mine, actually. That tattoo on my arm, the one of a sailboat, means folks constantly ask me if I know how to sail. I don’t. I don’t know how to much of anything really. It’s just that I keep trying.
*”What life adds up to is still a problem” is quoted from Kathleen Stewart’s book Ordinary Affects.
26 February 2010 with no comments
Austin. Winnie. New Orleans. Mobile. Dauphin Island. Pensacola. Santa Rosa Island. Panama City. Tallahassee. Waycross. Aiken.
It’s a small, arbitrary list. Some of the places I stayed a night or two (or five) in, others I simply passed through, or stopped long enough to get off the bike to take a picture and fill up the tank. The journey thus far has taken me through suburban sprawl, marshland and swampland, abandoned homes, overturned boats, national parks, glittering beach fronts, gated communities, roads lined with tall pines and great oaks suffocating in Spanish moss.
In Georgia I saw my first cotton field and first rebel flag of the trip. I ate catfish in Tallahassee. Met a woman obsessed with her family tombs in Mobile. Eavesdropped on diner gossip about a girl whose boyfriend had just sped off in a rage after a fight at breakfast, and who was now making the long trip home on foot. I’ve seen too many dead dogs to count. Slept in four different motels. Drank my weight in cheap beer. Stood on a beach with sand so white I kept thinking I was surrounded by snow. And now am sitting in comfort in my sister’s home here in Aiken, South Carolina, waiting for the hour to roll around when we stop thinking about lunch and start thinking about dinner.
Folks keep asking me, “What are you looking for? What are you writing about?” Everything I thought I had an answer to previous to embarking seems wrong now. The truth is that I no longer know what I am doing, exactly, except collecting. Stories, pictures, calories, receipts. I’ve picked up a few more tangible items — a pair of shoes, a sweater, two books — and left a few other things behind. I’ve also knocked over my motorcycle (twice) and broken my cell phone.
So now what? Well, this Sunday I head to Charleston. Then to Savannah. Then I make some hard decisions about my path back to Texas. I keep staring at my map but I’m not finding any answers there — two flimsy dimensions when I need three. In spite of the uncertainty, or perhaps because of it, this trip has turned into deeply satisfying personal and geographical adventure. I just hope when I sit down at the end of it, I have something more to share than a clumsily sketched map.
That’s the (very short) story so far.