just burn down the house, burn down the street.
It's overwhelming, scary and satisfying, how everything seems to wind up all at once. I haven't even begun to tear down the mirrors and tear down the walls, roll up posters, pack up cds, pack boxes with books, separate the important clothes from the useless clothes, dismantle my computer. I'll have to do laundry, at some point. I actually need to find time to shop for a cell phone (shudder). Before long I'll pull my sheets from my bed, carry my guitar downstairs, stuff papers into folders. Pull pins from corkboard, pack photos into cigar boxes. Wrap wire around stereo speakers. Fold socks and jeans. This morning, as I sipped my Dunkies, the good people at
Jiffy Lube loaded the old '79 Land Shark with a fresh batch of synthetic oil. I've got to pack a few things up and ship them off. My bedroom should be kept pristine, for future visitors, for my occasional return. For a clean break, and for all the junk my mom is sure to move in here.
Things come down all at the same time, and your life is set ablaze. Tomorrow I'm heading down to my high school to speak to two classes of 11th graders (who have just finished
As I Lay Dying) about Faulkner's brilliant and frustrating use of first-person narrative voice in several of his books. Afterwards, I'm planning to drop by and help my grandmother find a new ribbon for her typewriter. I finished my federal taxes, I think, but not my state. Refund, refund. There are dinners to prepare, sisters to pick up from the bus. Three-paragraph-long posts must be written. Will business and productivity at the
golf course collapse once I'm gone? (Probably not, but if I don't teach Will and Willy how to get things done on computer and in the kitchen now, they're sure to be calling me every two hours, forever.) I've managed to tidy up most of my emailing, put off too much of my phone calling, brainstorm only half of my travelling web plans.
And peppered in throughout come final visits to friends. I do not usually miss people when I am away from them, but something feels a bit different this time. I spent Friday night dancing with Chrissy and Liz; Saturday night walking and laughing with Matt, Katie and Jenn; Monday night enjoying drinks, burgers and cards with Jonas, Dan, Adam, Jonah, and Dave; Wednesday night eating a yummy homemade meal at Erik and Kevin's apartment. After nightly dinners in my kitchen I flee from the messy table, too busy to talk longer with my family. I barely have time to stop by the clubhouse and chat with Mike, or Ted. I know I wont have a chance to say goodbye to several of my friends. I'm not getting enough sleep. In the midst of the bustle, though, I worry about what Dave will do when I'm gone, how my sister will survive life with our parents without me. And I can't decide which scares me more: the thought that I'll be easily let go of and my absence will be quickly smoothed over, or the thought that my departure will leave some kind of unfillable void in the lives of people that I care about for a long time to come.
on love and driving.
i saw flashing lights: the cop waved his arms and detoured all us cars down a side street. i parked in the bank parking lot. there on the corner in the center of town, some guy had flipped over his brand new toyota MR2. it lay on its back like a fallen dehydrated turtle. people gathered around and waited. they pulled him out, and he seemed pretty messed up. tow trucks showed and everyone watched. i went and bought a coffee and a hot chocolate. the guy must have come around the curve too fast. on the brick sidewalk, i saw crushed remains of a sideview mirror and a street sign that the car had clipped. it waited idle, on the ground, the side of the sign reading "court street" pointed at a trash can, and the side reading "main street" pointed at at the base of a building. cars lined up patiently for 500 yards, waiting for the problem to be removed.
i don't think i'm particularly in love with myself, but i do like mirrors. maybe i am, i don't know. i do enjoy seeing what i look like when i'm looking to see what i look like. mostly, i like seeing my reflection in transluscent windows and shiny buildings. in the morning, when i sleep late, the sun burns its daylight right into my flickering eyes. i stand up and slap at my alarm every nine minutes for hours. eventually i flop into the bathroom and watch myself in the medicine cabinet just for a minute, until the shower warms up. i'm almost always the first person that i see each day. at night, too, i stare at me while i brush my teeth, getting ready to head to bed. sometimes i wonder what i would say if i met me. usually i make faces, perform visual gags, and sing to my reflection.
A good way to punctuate a cold then dark then cool then gray then sunny then rainy weekend of driving and dancing and talking and walking and dosing and drinking with friends in your hometown and in other towns that have, over the years, come to feel like your hometown because you've spent so many days there watching the way people move and noting the evolution of architecture, open spaces, stoplights and roadways, the new name of the local supermarkets and the bars where people tend to coagulate is to find three girls and six bucks and see the new Britney Spears movie,
Crossroads, a delightful C+ of a film that taught me a lot about formulaic script writing and the giggling ooh-oohing viewing habits of 12-year-old girls, and that in a not-quite-ironic-enough way piqued my excitement for the coming drive (T minus 6.5 days) across this beast of a country, to hop friend to friend, zooming across invisible borders in an old car, going straight and choosing life past the trees and trailers, the decorated voids, grasslands, sands, ranges and forest ridges as I leave these two years of experiences behind, geographically bounding them to an east coast memory full of both beginnings and endings and eight flowing seasons of memorial backstory,to rocket past Barstow and forge a whole new set of habits, build new on old relationships, let go of the things that are ready to let go of you.
It's overwhelming, scary and satisfying, how everything seems to wind up all at once. I haven't even begun to tear down the mirrors and tear down the walls, roll up posters, pack up cds, pack boxes with books, separate the important clothes from the useless clothes, dismantle my computer. I'll have to do laundry, at some point. I actually need to find time to shop for a cell phone (shudder). Before long I'll pull my sheets from my bed, carry my guitar downstairs, stuff papers into folders. Pull pins from corkboard, pack photos into cigar boxes. Wrap wire around stereo speakers. Fold socks and jeans. This morning, as I sipped my Dunkies, the good people at Jiffy Lube loaded the old '79 Land Shark with a fresh batch of synthetic oil. I've got to pack a few things up and ship them off. My bedroom should be kept pristine, for future visitors, for my occasional return. For a clean break, and for all the junk my mom is sure to move in here.
Things come down all at the same time, and your life is set ablaze. Tomorrow I'm heading down to my high school to speak to two classes of 11th graders (who have just finished As I Lay Dying) about Faulkner's brilliant and frustrating use of first-person narrative voice in several of his books. Afterwards, I'm planning to drop by and help my grandmother find a new ribbon for her typewriter. I finished my federal taxes, I think, but not my state. Refund, refund. There are dinners to prepare, sisters to pick up from the bus. Three-paragraph-long posts must be written. Will business and productivity at the golf course collapse once I'm gone? (Probably not, but if I don't teach Will and Willy how to get things done on computer and in the kitchen now, they're sure to be calling me every two hours, forever.) I've managed to tidy up most of my emailing, put off too much of my phone calling, brainstorm only half of my travelling web plans.
And peppered in throughout come final visits to friends. I do not usually miss people when I am away from them, but something feels a bit different this time. I spent Friday night dancing with Chrissy and Liz; Saturday night walking and laughing with Matt, Katie and Jenn; Monday night enjoying drinks, burgers and cards with Jonas, Dan, Adam, Jonah, and Dave; Wednesday night eating a yummy homemade meal at Erik and Kevin's apartment. After nightly dinners in my kitchen I flee from the messy table, too busy to talk longer with my family. I barely have time to stop by the clubhouse and chat with Mike, or Ted. I know I wont have a chance to say goodbye to several of my friends. I'm not getting enough sleep. In the midst of the bustle, though, I worry about what Dave will do when I'm gone, how my sister will survive life with our parents without me. And I can't decide which scares me more: the thought that I'll be easily let go of and my absence will be quickly smoothed over, or the thought that my departure will leave some kind of unfillable void in the lives of people that I care about for a long time to come.
