Homecoming

Adages that will get any "gypsy" "pixie" "lunatic" through times of strife:

No plans ever go as planned.
A job application a day keeps the weeping at bay.
It's better to have loved and lost than to be one of those people who don't drink coffee.

 while I am closer to mining out some kind of passable existence, it is not the one I expected. I guess that's what I bargained for when I went off half-cocked and decided to vagabond around until I found something like happiness.

"You're hard on yourself and hard on the world"--mom
Dear world,
thanks for all of the high-fives on quitting my job and being homeless. Y'all are strange.
Also, you all seem to have such beautiful plans for my future. That's nice. They're all really nice to hear, and I'd really like to know how they work out.

This is the first time in my life where I'm not entirely sure where I am going or what I am doing in the next 24 hours.  This is the first time in years that I haven not had a job for more than a couple of weeks. This is the first time in my life where I have had moments of sincere "every way looks like a bad way"  thoughts.

Everyone gets lost sometimes, and spins his or her wheels in the mud until the tires catch some traction and we are on our merry way again.
...right?

It is fabled that there are people who don't take risks. And I think that day-to-day, they enjoy a higher level of security, comfort and run-of-the-mill happiness, especially if their risk-free life involves some kind of rewarding-ish work.

  But I believe (have to believe) that sometimes you have to spill all of the paint on the floor and break all of the windows and severely wound your hand because you're trying to convince a beercap that your index finger is a bottle opener. If only to have something to talk about, or to feel grateful for people who will bandage your hand. And-- take note of those who are quick to file you as a failure when you've only just driven your car up over the curb.
So I'm not the best at driving. I still get there, even if I go through Boonsboro to get to Krumpees. Sorry Clayton.

I thought I might stay in Ann Arbor, with all of its safety and warmth. I'd play my vagabond music, and meet people I might have overlooked before.  I'd learn to be a person, and I'd write and be safe and be held at night. maybe i'd go camping on the weekends. I'd let normality wash over me for as long as I possibly could.

Ann Arbor seems to have other plans, though, and as of yesterday I am drawn to New York, where I will work myself sick and pay too much for a closet bedroom.  Where everything is both overrated and better than can accurately be described.  Where I will be surrounded by people who are too convinced that they are in the pinnacle profession, in the best city in the world, with the best life imaginable. In other words, theatre people who I love and hate and wholly belong to.

 more often than not, I am finding that selfsame self-asbsorbed attitude in receptionists, in scientists, in baristas.  We all want you to think we are the best and doing the best and chose the best.  So why not involve myself in the study of self-love. In New York, you can either love yourself and what you do, or go home. That's a straightforward deal, and I do enjoy how New York is as upfront with me as I am with any given person.

This week, I've seen a tall blonde girl with a gratuitous hip-swaying gait prance through some crowd just out of the corner of my eye.  I've caught sight of a puff of half-dreadlocked hair, frayed from years of black dye and bleach, pop into a black Nissan and driving away.
I know these shadows, who come out to say hello when my ends are at their most loose.

Like every time before, I've followed these figures, knowing full well that they are not what I think they are,  that I will be disappointed.  Knowing that if the day comes when I do actually see who I am looking for, I have bigger fish to fry than feeling lost in the world.

 But it is not so bad, having these guardian memories flashing through streets they never walked, reminding me that, if only for the opportunity of continuing to remember, there is a reason to keep improvising until I find a life where remembering isn't hard, and the living is easy.