Learning to haunt
Posted Saturday, September 23, 2006 @ 02:54 PM
I have found the rhythm of leaving one place for another, recharging, going back, expelling energy and patience, and returning again. In this way, I am always leaving and escaping one place for the next, while constantly returning home. Until this week I had not considered this possibility—no home as many homes, displacement as a means of belonging everywhere and nowhere. What's that quote from Waking Life? The man that drives the boat car says, "The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving." Sort of like that.
Last Thursday I drove into Birmingham to see Kaki King perform. She was brilliant and tiny and cute. We returned the same evening to Tuscaloosa, fueled by my love of driving and a bit of roadtrip conversation, which seems only to happen in cars, frequently when it's dark. I'd initially planned to spend the weekend in Tuscaloosa, lacking any excuse to return home—my family gone, my friends at school. Just before leaving the city, Steva, formerly my manager and now my good friend, called to see if I could work a few nights at a new restaurant.
On our way out, I drove through the city, pointing to buildings which feel like my own personal landmarks. "This is my favorite bookstore. I'll take you there some time." "That's the library. I had my UVA interview there in the map room. I pretended to be politically active." "That's my school." "Sometimes we walked here to skip class and drink smoothies." Explaining the significance of a setting quickly becomes an activity more for yourself than for the other person.
With my excuse to return home for the weekend, I left T-Town with a bag of dirty laundry in my trunk, my small green suitcase next to me in the passenger seat. I worked Friday and Saturday night and made no more money than I spent on gas to get there and food for the weekend (the refrigerator empty of nearly everything—my family hadn't been there in a week). I'd brought a slew of textbooks with me to study and try to get ahead of a busy week, but I didn't crack one of them. Saturday, before returning to work, I drove to The Daily Cup for breakfast, home of the most delicious muffin I have ever tasted. Carolyn and I sometimes met there for breakfast before school on mornings when we were both crazy enough to get up early. On mornings I didn't join her, she'd bring me a muffin (and sometimes a latte), and we'd devour them together during AP English, our first class of the day. Since last weekend, there's not a day that passes that I don't crave the moist flesh of a peach muffin for breakfast.
I spent the rest of Saturday before work driving around the city being nostalgic, buying groceries, picking roads not because they were the shortest or most efficient, but because I miss driving them. I managed to cover most of my favorites without going too far out of my way. I sat out on the deck reading and writing for most of the afternoon, enjoying the pleasant weather (it almost felt like fall) and listening to the creek.
I had just completed writing this entry when I accidentally navigated away from the page and lost all my work. I'm too lazy to rewrite it. Basically: I went to Atlanta Tuesday afternoon with Steva, saw The Raconteurs at the Tabernacle, spent the night with Liz, then saw Sufjan Stevens at the Fox on Wednesday night, all before driving back early Thursday morning on almost no sleep, acing an astronomy exam, and crashing that night from total exhaustion. Pictures and video of the concerts forthcoming.
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taken? really? Glynnis and...? really? How exciting!! I got mentioned twice I feel special and "famous on the internet".
25 Sep 2006, 5:44 PM.