The smell of cold reminds me of Alaska. The way the air shoves down– but sharply– the smell of gasoline. Everything sinks low to the ground, those few stale smells that still pervade the air.
I have a dog.
It was an accident. I didn’t mean to get one. Coby James, however, seems to be slightly more perfect than I could have imagined. Right now he is ten weeks old, and laying on my arm as I type.
I have an apartment. A puppy. One job and hopefully another. The memories of the ranch are vague, although sometimes I dream about it. About going back and working there again. Because as much as I am now convinced that leaving was necessary– if not for what was happening there, then for what happened away from there– I still look back and wonder. And miss it. And think of where I would be if I was there now. Only a few days ago, really, would have been the end. I know the time would probably have crawled. Here it flew. Events tumbling one over the other, colliding into something completely different than I hoped for or expected. Creating a new network of relationships. No, network is a slimy, business-like word. These connections are tendrils of a spiderweb. I am a link in a new chain, a new combination, a new tangle. Something else. A new knot.
I dream about the boat, too. I dream often of it stranded at dock, whether it be by gas prices or an unexpected change in landscape. I have never spoken to any of those people since that time. I might as well have made it all up. But I can see there faces and sometimes when I wake up, I wake up the roll of the sea. If I ever see water, I check for the tide. When I hear seagulls I look west, and know I miss this too.
I have been told it’s time to stop running away. The little guy on my lap tethers me here, just a little. Keeps me inside instead of screaming down streets on a beautiful red bike. Keeps me company too. And keeps me far away from the first footsteps out. I’ve made my den in this little apartment, and it’s supposed to last a year. And maybe it will. Maybe I’ll manage to stay put for twelve whole months. For winter, maybe (although the sounds and smells of mushing, snow, sleds, dogs, taunts me from the North). I can see myself, and my dog, walking down Christmas-light-lit streets and looking in window shops. This place feels like Christmas and maybe I can wait that long. But my bohemian blood pounds outward, like it’s seeping forward and asking me to chase it. There is so much of this world to see. Why in god’s name would I sit here? In my comfortable bear’s den with my comfortable new companion.
Critical mass. This is what a friend said she was reaching. A few years ago, I would have meant what I think she means, if I said this phrase. Now it’s something different. Now I am reaching critical mass of pointlessness. Of going to work in order to pay for food and rent and heat so that I can go to work well fed and rested. If this is the cycle, one of survival, I don’t care. I am alive and I can stay alive on less than this. Thank god I enjoy my work and the people there. And it’s nice to take this rest, from the burn-out that is school. A hyperbolic explosion of purpose, all fake. But maybe purpose itself is fake. I’ve been chillin with too many cynics.
There are small purposes, purposes of love and kindness and caring for each other. These are important. But as for me, this self in this shell, I am not moving. I am sitting very still, watching.
There is something else.
Something other than spending most of this Sunday sleeping and reading and walking the dog.
Lovely, to be sure.
But I must lift with my arms and see with my eyes. There is a world and I am naive enough to desire to see it all. Something.
Maybe I am missing some small and vital purpose sitting right in front of me. I know my friends become disgruntled when I start to feel that I must go.
It wakes up inside of me and says, move, move.
I’ve always wanted to fly. I never thought of it as freedom. Just as seeing more.
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