Indigo Boy

I've been hesitant to write about this for awhile, but this blog is an exercise in release for me: in finding "liberty"... and also to exorcise the demons that reared their ugly heads these last few weeks. Censorship simply does not have a place here. Warning: this post should not be read by the faint-hearted, the blind, or sexually prude.

For anyone keeping up with my blog, you might be wondering why I haven't written as much as I did in the beginning. Well, a few repairs were being made: my computer, my camera, and then my heart. About a week after I arrived in Liberty, Indigo Boy told me that he had slept with someone else. I knew something was up because he had been spending quite a bit of time with this girl from work the week that I left... I'll call her Scottish Whore. I call her that because I knew she was sketchy from my own experience, but then later I learned she had slept with more than a handful of people from work. That he fucked her came as a shock because Indigo Boy and I had just spent the last week talking on the phone every night, texting throughout the day and exchanging sweet nothings throughout my trip out here.

We agreed to have an open relationship after I left. There was no other alternative to our age difference or the literal distance we would be apart. I asked two things from him, however, before I left: use protection and don't sleep with anyone from work. I had already broken my cardinal rule of not sleeping with anyone from work by getting involved with him and I knew that if he did things would get very, very messy. There is something sacred about the workplace that needs to be honored. Sex just simply doesn't belong in the equation. Lesson learned for me: NEVER sleep with anyone from work!!!!!

Even though we had an open relationship, we were still very much together. We texted and talked everyday. We had spent the last three months practically inseparable. He had been so involved in my life; I wondered how his 24-year old attention span would deal with my absence once I was gone. I knew he was sad. The last picture I saw of him on Facebook taken by a friend of his after I left made my heart break. He looked so dejected. I knew he was lonely. I didn't think anything, at first, of him spending time with Scottish Whore because she claimed to be a lesbian and Indigo Boy insisted that he wasn't attracted to her "in that way." He said they were just hanging out because I was gone and he just wanted to play Wii. I told him that I thought she was seducing him with Wii. He is twenty-four, after all. He laughed and said, "I don't think so!" and I believed what he said to me. How could I not? He sent me a text pic of him kissing me while he was at her house. I told him to tell her "hello" for me while he was hanging out with her and he said "Scottish Whore says 'hello,' too!" Smiley face included or something insidious like that.

So I believed him... and then one night we talked on the phone before he was running out the door to her house again at 11pm. My antennae went on high alert. He said he would text me in the morning. Nothing. He had never done that to me before. He was always so good about checking in with me, doing what he said he would do, coming through for me in a pinch. I called him, left him a few frantic text messages the next day. Nothing again. I was 2000 miles away and I knew he had fucked her.

And then all hell broke loose. I knew this girl from work. I had hung out with her once before about a year ago and then stayed far, far away from her because I got such sketchy vibes. The night I hung out with her, she told me that she had left Scotland because her best friend's boyfriend had killed someone or something crazy like that and then she and her best friend got caught up in it and needed to get out of Scotland. Then she came onto me. And then I said my goodbyes and never looked back. I had a civil working relationship with her after that, but I kept my distance. I thought she was sketchy, needy and unstable. Whenever I saw her at work she was always complaining about this person and that person or how she had been wronged in some way. She looked like a strung-out junkie, too, with her pasty skin and sack of bones that she called a body. She was wretched. And then Indigo Boy slept with her... and I lost my shit.

I know it takes two to tango and I certainly don't hold Scottish Whore solely accountable for the whole thing, but I have very little sympathy for her. She is a lying bitch. She swore she would never have done anything to hurt me and then said she didn't want anything more to do with him after she found out we were together. I told her I wouldn't put it past her to keep sleeping with him. Had I been her, even if she was misled by him, if I found out that the guy I had just slept with was already involved with someone else (especially with someone I knew!), I wouldn't have slept with him again. After one stupid fling? And all the drama that is sure to come after? She's thirty-two years old. Come on woman!

I'm sure he told her he didn't want to be me with me anymore... that he wanted to be with her. Whatever he needed to tell her to keep sleeping with her. And then he just felt guilty for the whole mess and then he was trapped. There were four things at play here: he was lonely and vulnerable, she sank her claws into him, Indigo Boy and I had shit to work out that we never got a chance to and he has a terrible pattern of overlapping his relationships. I think he did the same thing to me after his "best friend" K freaked out on me one night after Indigo Boy and I had been together for a month or so. I thought her reaction was strange because he swore nothing was up between them and that, really, they were just friends. I told him that any girl who reacts that strongly to her "best friend's" new woman clearly has feelings for him and that he better sort that out, but I chalked it up to a 24-something crush. I didn't think he was lying to me. Now that I look back on it, he was probably sleeping with her the whole time, too.

So, I feel duped. Yes, like a "foolish woman" as my mother called me once she found out I was dating a 24-year old guy. I "shouldn't have"... shouldn't have gone there, shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have even bothered. But I couldn't resist. He was so disarmingly sweet. His energy so pure and fresh. How could I resist falling for him: this gorgeous boy with caramel skin, puppy-dog eyes, pillow lips and a body that makes women ravenous; this adoration, this soulful yearning, this love? We spent a full three months doting on each other everyday. We spent my birthday weekend dancing and rolling among the bedsheets, went to Santa Barbara for Valentine's Day, San Francisco for a four-day roadtrip, and did almost everything together. We are both die-hard romantics. Music was one of our connections and, though, we shared many songs, Esthero became our muse. He called me "That Girl." He was my "Indigo Boy." Yes, the sex was hot, but it was our kiss that sealed the deal for me. It was a kiss that I hadn't shared with someone since I was his age. It was the kiss of being twenty-four: a kiss full of belief and hope, rapture, longing, comfort, and desire. We kissed in elevators, among the pillows for hours, whenever we saw each other we kissed and, then, everything was made right in the world. It feels like we spent most of our time kissing. Just kissing. But he's twenty-four. He doesn't want to just kiss! He wants to fuck and experience sex in all forms! I get it... I was twenty-four once.

I guess, these last three weeks have just been a painful wake-up call for me. I knew that things weren't right the last few weeks when I was still in L.A. I was in the midst of transition--quitting the job I had been at for 2-1/2 years, packing up all my things to go, trying to settle my heart as I tried absorbing this separation from Indigo Boy. He, too, was in the midst of transition. He knew I was leaving. He helped me move things around in my parents' basement. We spent as many nights as we could together going out or hanging out at his place. We talked or texted on the phone every day as he went carousing around with his boys or went to practice (he's an amazing dancer, btw... exceptionally talented), but I knew I was cramping his style. I knew he was flirting with girls and we would joke and tease about it. He was so much younger than me. I didn't want to get in the way of his having a good time or doing what 24-year olds do. His flirtations didn't really matter to me, anyway. What mattered was that I knew I was his #1 Girl and that we still communicated everyday or made the time to spend with each other when we could. But the last few weeks before I left were fraught with uncertainty--what would happen to "us" once I was gone? Would we, could we still remain true to each other in our hearts? Would we be able to withstand the pain and difficulty of what would come?

Apparently not. I don't know. I broke up with him last week because he handled things so poorly. I just don't know anymore where the lines of truth and loyalty exist for him anymore. He betrayed me. He strung me along with half-assed attempts at saying sorry, asking me what he could do to possible make it right again between us because he didn't want to throw what we had away and then kept fucking her and telling her only god knows what. Now she's probably hooked on him and embarrassed about the whole thing and acting needy and confused and he's too much of a softy to tell her goodbye. He couldn't say goodbye to me. I asked him after it all happened if he wanted to break up with me--that he should have just done so. He didn't have to kick me in the stomach, too. He insisted, No! No, I don't want to break up with you! I don't want to throw all of this away! But he transferred the feelings he had for me to her because she's there; I'm not. I don't want to be involved in that kind of bullshit. And I got pulled into it for a hot second. And, man, I went there. All my ugly junior high school vitriol came spewing out. My anger, all the hurts that I've already experienced with other men, all the many, many disappointments and betrayals.

I scared him off with the intensity of my anger and pain and probably drove the two of them closer together. But I don't regret doing so. I am learning that my emotions are my emotions and to own them fully and, also, to express them when they need to be released. Anger and pain are especially ugly emotions, but if you don't release them they sit in you and fester and morph into something much uglier and destructive. I've done that for too long--held my emotions in or taken them out on myself. And I don't want to hide my emotions anymore. Or to manipulate my emotions to hold onto something or someone because I am alone. I have learned how to be alone. My challenge is to learn and trust to be with another. I do believe, though that I will recognize my love when a Man can deal with the uncertainty of my pain and discomfort.

I told Indigo Boy once that though our bodies may age, our emotions do not. Each person's emotional world is full of every heartache, betrayal or loss that one may have suffered since childhood. Each person learns to deal with the pain or express it in different ways, but those seeds of pain still exist. I thought, at my age, that I would be able to handle it better once the inevitable came to pass, but I did not. My pain still exists. I am still a little girl lost, a jr. high school bitch, a woman who loves and distrusts men, a mother that has not found her child. I knew he would sleep with someone else or many, many other women. I knew that one would create heartache for the other. One of us would have found someone else at some point. We have different needs at the ages that we are: I want security; he wants to have fun. I just didn't think it would come so soon. I just believed that what we had created together would endure. I thought that what we has shared was sacred and that he would have honored it in some way.

I went there: into the magic and romance of being twenty-four again and I reveled in it. I swam in our love. We learned to swim together--to open ourselves to the uncertainty of the depth we may find, but then to release ourselves into the joy of finding equal amounts of recognition and nourishment. We introduced each other to different worlds. Our friends celebrated our love. We talked about the future--the near future seemed too uncertain, but the faraway future seemed like a distinct possibility. But I was more ready for it than he was. He hasn't been through enough bad relationships yet to know how to recognize something really good when he has it and then what to do to preserve it.

I don't regret "going there" with him. He gave me so much. I know he's a good guy with a beautiful heart. I can give him a reprieve for being twenty-four, but I just hope he knows that if he keeps going for older women, he better be prepared for the Pandora's Box of emotions that comes with it. I can forgive him for his indiscretions, another woman may not be so kind. For me, it took more than a decade to experience the purity and sanctity of the kind of love we shared. For him, he may find it sooner or more often than me. Maybe Indigo Boy will; maybe he won't. I hope he does. I hope he beds many women. I hope he gets his heart broken. I hope he learns all the ups and downs and ins and outs of love. I hope he learns from his mistakes and learns to be a better man.

For me, I would rather have loved and lost than not loved him at all. That Girl will always remember and hold Indigo Boy close to her heart, even as she says goodbye...

Animal Farm

I am a professed animal lover. I've grown up with dogs and cats all my life, a couple of hamsters, a lizard, and I vaguely recall my sister keeping a green garden snake at one point. Not to mention that my mother is a complete dog nut. We've always had a dog: BonBon--her first love, a present from her sister on her 16th birthday--my mother's white toy poodle that was ten or eleven by the time I came along and spent the remaining years of her life snarling or growling at me; briefly, Sadie--a black puff of a Lhasa Apso--that we had to give away sadly after a mudslide destroyed our home when I was nine; then came Chewie, another Lhasa Apso, this time smelly, but ever so sweet. She could sneeze on command. Chewie gave me one of my first heartbreaks when I took her for a walk one night and a truck of boys racing on our street hit and killed her. For years after that and still when I think of it now, I could not erase the look in her eye as the headlights from the car lit her irises and then forever dimmed her light.

For a long time, we were blessed with Huey and Phoebe, a duo of Jack Russell terriers that brought much joy and love into our lives. Phoebe lived the life of a princess, being my mother's favorite, and we had her from the time she was a wee runt until she became a blind, spindly-legged geriatric. Huey, a dopey sweet boy, taught me the painful ecstasy of sudden death when he died in my arms, literally taking his last breath and in that exhale a sweep of his energy rushed through our house.

Then there was Guinness. We called him a Muttweiler--he was half-Rott, a quarter Lab maybe, an eight German Shepherd, and a sixteenth and sixteenth of God know's what. I found him poking through the garbage at a school I worked at; the kids throwing crackers and trash at him. I scooped him up and brought him home. He must have been all of two months at the time. My stepdad adopted him and we raised him on duck and lamb, non-gluten dog food--my parents spent hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on that dog, trying to cure his perpetual skin ailments and unmistakable pungent odor. He was a great dog as most dogs are--loyal, well-behaved, sweet and calm. He would swim laps in the pool barking and biting at the water. He died a sad, premature death at eight or nine after going blind, his hips failing and his hair falling out in pieces.

Now my parents have Ruby and Juno--an unlikely pair. Ruby is a rehomed Jack--all full of sprite and good cheer. She is the sweetest dog we've had: she'll paw at you like a cat to rub her chest and, literally, one day after I hadn't visited my parents in awhile, jumped into my arms and covered my face in licks and kisses. Juno is another rehomed dog--a Bernese Mountain Dog or something thereabouts, who is still a puppy but twice the size of Ruby and can't help but pee everytime you come home. They play for hours in the yard together, tumbling and chasing each other about.

My parents, especially my mother, instilled a strong love of animals in me and my sister that I carry now with me to Liberty. Though I have befriended many dogs since I've been here, there is a veritable zoo of other creatures that I've come to discover, learn about and love.

There is a llama that looks like an ostrich from afar, but it's not. Although, come to think of it, I've seen an ostrich around here, too. The llama hangs out with the goats and they chew grass all day and then lie together under a tin shed. The goats have udders that swing from their abdomens and kids that romp and butt heads all day. The goats baa like sheep. Horses abound--munching grass under trees, trotting down the lane as their owners wave at me, galloping across pastures with their manes and tails flowing in the wind. Cows abound, too, but they are on other farms and, strangely, I don't see as many of them as I thought I would. There are chickens that forage in the woods and drink from the pond. Since being here, I've learned that chickens don't just cluck, they whine, too, and they will eat anything, including their own eggshells! There are also sheep on Ragmar's farm, but they won't let you get near them and hide in the tall grass.

That is, except for one sheep--one lil lamb named Daphne. She came to the house a few days ago, rejected by her mother after being born (a normal occurrence I've learned if the mama sheep has too many lambs to care for or is sick, etc.). This black, wooly-haired lil girl came to us all spindly-legged, her eyes still cloudy from birth. Needless to say, I adopted her. She needed someone to take care of her and I needed to take care of someone or something. I pulled myself out of bed at 3am to bottle feed her, spent the morning scrubbing the porch that's adjacent to my bedroom of the shit and pee she left everywhere, and just held her close. Now she cries when I'm gone too long or if she's hungry. Today, I found her waiting for me at the gate after I left for an hour to go to the market. Her tail wags and dances when she smells me or hears my voice. She's a dear little lamb.

There are also dogs and cats here, too. Deuce is a skittish black and white tomcat who won't let anyone get near. He's been traumatized by his mother, Stack, a gray and black striped kitty who hisses at him, but adores people. She was a lovebug when I first arrived, but I've noticed that she's kept her distance from me since I adopted Daphne. Myrna, a great, big lug of a white dog, lives down the lane and leaps out at cars from the side of the road when you approach. I worry about her getting hit, but she's almost as big as my car, so I hope that should that ever happen, she'll be okay. Sade, was just a floppy, paunch-bellied pup when I first got here, but she's grown twice her size in only two or three weeks.

There is a cycle of life here that I am coming to grasp and understand. Random shots sometime ring out , exploding through the hills, and I then know that a feral dog may have been killed or a horse who couldn't stand. The butterflies eat the chicken poop and the chickens eat their own eggshells and the frogs eat the dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes that eat us. And then we eat everything else. Although, I keep telling Daphne that no one will eat her.

Rock Island (Part II)

I followed my blue-haired faery as he swam across the river. The current from the waterfall was strong, but I tried to relax and find my rhythm in the water. I kept my eyes on my blue-haired faery--this boy who kept looking out for me--and swam the breaststroke through the current. The rocks on the other side didn't seem so far away. I kept swimming. I caught up to my friend as he reached for a log bobbing in the water.


"I'm going to wait here," he said a little breathless.
"Okay," I answered, also a little breathless, and kept swimming to the other side.

The edge of the river didn't seem so far away. I found a ledge and pulled myself up. My friend left the log, swam up and climbed up to the rocky shelf above us. I sat for a moment on the ledge to catch my breath and marveling in the swim and how good and open and alive I suddenly felt. I heard him oohing and aahing about something, but I couldn't hear him over the din of the rush of water.

"What is it?" I called.
He said something again, but it was muffled, so I pulled myself up over the ledge and went to him.
"What is it" I asked again, dripping wet.
"It's a rainbow!" And he pulled me over to see a small arc of color in the waterfall flowing before us. I smiled. I had seen more rainbows this year than I have since I was a child--two with Indigo Boy and now with my blue-haired faery.

It's been a good year so far, I thought.

The swim across the channel was just the first indication, though, that I could overcome obstacles and meet my fears face-to-face. My friend and I joined some of the other boys sitting in the sun on a slab of rock 20-feet above the water. One by one the boys jumped in. My blue-haired faery chimed in that he was also going to jump. I looked at the water below, churning around the ledges and tried looking for a spot that didn't have a pile of rocks waiting for me to crack my head open.

"It's not that far," I kept telling myself. "I'll be fine. I won't hurt myself." My blue-haired faery jumped in and suddenly I was alone on the rock. All the other boys gathered on the opposite side of the river waved to me. So I leapt. Feet first, preparing my stomach for a freefall, and then I was in--the cool water embraced my body and I swam up easily from its depths. I emerged into the air and then realized I still had to swim across the river again. The current was stronger, but as I swam I could see and hear Ragmar and the other boys erupt into cheers and clapping. I laughed and smiled broadly, swimming against the current and finding my rhythm again. I swam the breaststroke across the middle of the river and then relaxed as I got closer to shore. I flipped over, looking at the skyline above me--the silhouette of the rocky, wooded mountainside, the sky and sun shining through the trees. Then I felt the water change and move faster around me as I got closer to shore. I broke into a freestyle and pulled myself through the current toward the edge of the river. I found my footing among the rocks and joined the others feeling strong, sun-drenched and relaxed.

Rock Island (Part I)

I am trying to stay focused. Trying to endure the uncertainty of my life right now by continuing to write as I said I would everyday. It's difficult, but, really, it's all I can do right now to get my mind off of things...

I'm still trying to catch up with the last week or so. Not having my computer proved to be a real doozy, but I have it back and I'm ever so happy and I want to remain true to myself and write about my experiences here.

About a week or so ago I pulled myself out of my heartsickness and went with the boys for an outing. "We're going to a river tomorrow. You should come. There are waterfalls that you can jump off of." Ragmar, my kind friend, gently invited me. I did not leap to the occasion, though I would have if I was in a better frame of mind, but I pulled myself out of bed the next day and gathered my things for a daytrip to a river.

We drove for about an hour through the winding roads of Tennessee. The boys hated my music. My computer had crashed at that point and all I had were soulful R&B lamentations, a mix that Indigo Boy made me and a playlist I made him--all dreadful heartsick longings and protestations, nothing upbeat, nothing for a roadtrip among friends. "No wonder you're depressed!" they said. "We're gay boys. You need to change your playlist."

They put another mix into the stereo and it was good to hear other music as we wound through the green pastures and blue skies. My blue-haired faery guide sat next to me in the backseat and asked whether I had boots. I thought he would say, "You know... boots. These boots are made for walking"... thinking of the Nancy Sinatra song, but he was being practical. "You should find some boots. To walk through the woods." We talked about this for awhile, my feet being so small and not having a real sturdy pair of shoes to go traipsing through the woods, but I knew I could manage otherwise and told him that I had jeans and comfortable shoes. My metallic gold Clarks have proven to go a long way here.

I am not going to prolong my every recollection of what happened that day. My heart is heavy still and I just need to write about what I experienced that day and how great and liberating it was. So I am going to write from my journal that day:

7 May 2010

I came with Ragmar to Rock Island and spent the afternoon with the boys, hiking down to the falls and trekking through and across this great plateau of trees and rock and water. As we got closer to the water, Ragmar commented, "I've never seen the water this high." The water rushed through chiseled slabs of stone and filled the ravine with the sound of gushing force.

For awhile, we were the only ones here, then I noticed a beautiful young couple across the river. They were both in their twenties--the girl wore a black swimsuit, demure because it looked like a one-piece from the front, sexy because it looked like a bikini from the back. They were both long-legged and White. Stylish, beautiful even from 200 feet away.

The water is so strong--it's the only thing you can hear in the ravine. I became afraid when I saw another group of young people--teenagers maybe--studying the water to see where they should jump in. One girl, a little heavyset but strong, finally jumped in and laughed and smiled as she was gently carried off by the current. She was having a great time, but I had to divert my eyes because I was afraid she'd be swept away. She was fine.

[Later...]

I had the most amazing adventure today! After I wrote that little entry (as I wrote in the shade of a little ledge--just big enough and flat enough for me to lie down, did yoga and stretched in the sun and took a shower in a drizzle of water cascading from a rock above), the boys decided to pack up and head upstream. We climbed up and around great big boulders for at least 150-200 yards, then rockclimbed single file across a slippery ledge half-submerged in the water. I had to take off my shoes and reach for grooves in the mossy rock to help pull me along. Finally, we made it to a little clearing where the water pooled and the current seemed weaker. Waterfalls gushed across a ridge of rock and boulders, making it difficult to hear anyone speak. Most of the boys had already climbed up and around the waterfalls to the other side of the river. Ragmar waved at me. He had led the pack to the clearing and left me straggling behind. I wondered whether he was quietly challenging me to test myself or to stay open to the possibilities--he does that sometimes. Now I had to figure out how I was going to get to the other side.

I could either swim or try to navigate the slippery rocks again and go above the waterfalls. One of the boys jumped in and swam across. I watched as the boys dropped like flies into the water and navigated the current. I started feeling a little panicky. My blue-haired faery swam across and then stood in the water in front of me shivering as I slowly took off my sarong and undershirt and carefully draped them on a rock. I lowered myself slowly into the cool water, trying to find solid flat rock to stand on and keep my balance.

"It's too cold over here," my blue-haired faery said.

It was around 3:00--the sun was beginning to descend from the sky and the side we were on was cast in the shade of the great stone mountain we hiked down. Ragmar and the rest of the boys on the other side of the river stood in the sunshine. My blue-haried faery jumped in. I faltered a moment, backtracked a bit and then dove.

Asheville, North Carolina

Ahhhhhh.... I feel like life is beginning to return back to some sense of normalcy. My beloved MacBook has returned to my hands (completely refurbished... thank you Apple! I will forever be a life-long customer...) and other more delicate matters are returning to completion as well.

As I've said before, I have so much to write about... I don't really know where to start, but I'm going to do it piecemeal. Now that I have my computer back I am hellbent on writing everyday.

I'll start tonight with my most recent experience--traveling to Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville has always held a distant fascination for me. I read Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel when I was but a young, culturally famished, ADD-suffering teenager. My eleventh-grade high school teacher shared this book with us (thank you, L.D.) and I probably wouldn't have paid attention had it not been for his passionate orchestrations, climbing onto his desk and acting out O Lost! A Stone, a leaf, an unturned door... or maybe it was W.O.'s rantings and ravings. Whether it was my beloved high school teacher's dramatic attempts at reaching our nullified teenaged brains or Thomas Wolfe's elegiac prose, the book stuck with me.

I've always wanted to visit Asheville, North Carolina.

So, I went. I drove the four hours from Liberty, my heart heavy with the recent drama spent with Indigo Boy. I went despite him, too. Or in spite of him. Before the drama, I came across an event calendar that said one of our favorite bands was going to play there on the 12th. I didn't want to be reminded of him, but then I wondered: who in Asheville, North Carolina would go see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings? Maybe I might meet someone cool there...

So I went. Despite him; in spite of him. I went mostly for myself. It almost didn't work out. I didn't buy tickets ahead of time and I had to wait outside the entrance for an hour trying to find someone selling tickets. An older, tall White man dressed expensively, but slovenly tried making smalltalk with me, encouraging our "connection" because we were both waiting for scalpers. I didn't give him the time of day. He paid me back by elbowing his way into the first person who came our way selling tickets, pulling out two crisp twenty-dollar bills and, smiling at me the whole time, said, "Here. Take this. Don't listen to her." I hated him instantly. What an ass. What a fuckin bastard. I paid him back, or karma paid him back, by randomly finding a kind man at the eleventh hour, ten minutes before the show was about to start, who came to sell his tickets because his wife was sick and they couldn't go. He sold me a ticket at face value: $21. Thank you kind man; take that, rich prick.

I spent the evening wandering at first, not really enjoying the opening band (save for the kick-ass Black back-up singer who stole the show with her rich voice and stealthy moves). I befriended a trio of cousins from Connecticut who were there, reunioned after many years apart, and then another trio of guys, who admittedly I befriended because I thought one of them was hot. I hung out with them for most of the night, talking, dancing, and working some Indigo Boy/That Girl shit out to Sharon Jones' wealthy voice. Moving to her songs of recognition, renunciation, grief and reclamation. I werked it out.

I ended up going to a local bar with one of the guys from the group. I was ambivalent at first to go traipsing around with him, but he proved to be a first-class gentleman and a wonderful guide for my one evening in Asheville. We walked through the streets of downtown Asheville--brick buildings from the turn-of-the-century, everything closely knit. He ran into people he knew along our walk and then carefully steered me toward a bar a few doors down from the hostel I decided to stay at. I have to make a note here because I haven't stayed at a hostel since I was a teenager, but this particular hostel was lovely--clean (ever so clean!), comfortable, quiet, and modern. They just opened this past January. I highly recommend staying at Sweet Peas Hostel for anyone traveling budget luxe in Asheville....

Anyway, The Vault, the bar we ended up at was great! Sophisticated but neighborhood-ey. R, the guy who took me there, knew most everyone and we proceeded to have a quiet, intellectual evening talking with folks in their 30s, drinking slowly on the patio lining the street and just enjoying the conversation and company. I met a very interesting man--a dapper, bespectacled writer working on a non-fiction book about an integrated summer camp during the Civil Rights Movement. We talked for most of the evening...

I stumbled home at some point, feeling thoroughly comforted and fulfilled from my evening with R and his friends. I woke up with a terrible hangover, but managed to still make the most of my day in Asheville. I had a great, gourmet greasy Southern breakfast (two eggs over medium with grits and fresh white cheddar cheese, homemade cheddar and green onion biscuits, soft, fluffy bacon gravy) at a place called Over Easy. Then I made my way a few blocks down to Thomas Wolfe's boyhood home--filled with the giddiness of my youth of meeting someone famous for the first time and also of reverence for meeting someone who I admired so.

The Thomas Wolfe Memorial is, as I imagine most other historical places in Asheville are, a well-kempt, modernized building suited for tourists and a pleasant educational experience. The exhibition about Thomas Wolfe's life and work was scrupulously clean and thought-out; scientific and artistic in its display--a professional museum-piece. There was a twenty-minute documentary that played every hour or half-hour or so and charming wooden phones that played different recorded voices of people in Wolfe's family recounting their memories of him and the Old Kentucky Home.

I paid the $1.00 entry fee to take a tour of the boarding house he grew up in and save for the dour tour guide who led me and a pair of two older women--one White, fat and full of questions, the other Black, thin and thoughtful--we, I think, had a wonderful experience. I was half-expecting a ghost to pop in at any point or to show himself or herself to me in the reflection of a 19th-century mirror or in the corner of my eye through one of the half-skewed doorframes that Eliza Gant or Julia Wolfe made to cut costs. Things were uneven in that house and I was sure I would run into a ghost because it was so old and creaky. But the historical committee in Asheville has made sure that their famous, prodigal son would have a home to be proud of--to celebrate the sanctity of his house and what he recorded in such depth and detail so many years ago.

I bought the unedited, original manuscript of Look Homeward, Angel at the clean, well-lit gift shop and spent the evening pouring over the pages, reading nearly one hundred that same night. Hardly anyone remembers Thomas Wolfe nowadays. They confuse him with the 80s writer, Tom Wolfe--of the "Bonfire of the Vanities" fame, et al. They both are guilty of long-winded, erudite sentences, but Thomas Wolfe was in a league of his own: Joycean in his prose, Keats-like in his elegy, Wolfe-ian in his gusto and grasp of humanity. This man hungered and wrote... and wrote and wrote and wrote. I thirst and hunger for that kind of writerly drive. Fill me, Oh Wolfe! Lost, sundered, hungry for words... fill me with words, please. Oh Lost!

I walked the streets of downtown Asheville that day, still full of images of what it might have looked like when Wolfe was alive, but seduced, instead, by the drawls of modern life: cute signage, interesting clothes, a stationary shop!, a shoe store!, vintage clothing like you wouldn't believe, a hippie, kind of spiritual store that sold gorgeous windchimes, incense, deities, and t-shirts just for the hell of it!

Finally, I tried making my way out of Asheville, but on a lark and at the suggestion of a woman I befriended there, decided to take the scenic route and stopped in Hot Springs--because they had natural hot springs there and I am a sucker for anything bath-worthy or sulphuric that might cure my skin.

I drove my little Toyota Corolla through the mountains of North Carolina and found myself in the middle of nowhere. Literally, deep in the mountains of North Carolina, close to the Appalachian Trail, I found myself with no Internet reception or ability to contact anyone through my iPhone. It was discomforting at first and then a relief. I don't have to contact anyone or hear from anyone or know that what's who's or silly-what-it-is if I don't want to to. Goodbye. I'm here now and I soaked naked in a tub filled with natural hot springs, a creek making its trickle water sound and the woods and birds and insects just flying by and doing their natural thing. So lovely. Just soaking. Just feeling and breathing and letting it all soak in.

I fell in love with Asheville for its charm and historical grace. Then, I fell in love with Hot Springs for its absolute quiet and generous spirit. I thought for a moment that I might settle in Hot Springs. I could write there. I would be undisturbed... and if I needed my city fix, I could go to Asheville--it's only a half-hour away. These thoughts still roam in my mind...

In regards to the South, or at least where I have been thus far, this is one little observation I have made: the fireflies in Hot Springs make the trees sparkle; the fireflies in Liberty are ghostlike in the brush....

थिस लैंड

I am writing from the library in Woodbury, Tennessee. It's easy to miss because the library almost blends in with the tidy clapboard homes on this residential street. Rocking chairs wait patiently on porches. The stoplights dangling from wires at the intersections sway when it's too windy. When I asked a woman if there was any place good to eat in town, she directed me to a Chinese restaurant. I think she must have thought I was homesick.

I've experienced a lot this last week or so. I've tried thinking about how I would break down my postings and I've decided that I'm just going to do it bit by bit. I won't have my computer for another week or so and I'm only allowed an hour a day on the computer here in Woodbury.

Today, I'm going to write about the land I've found myself in. I wish that I could post photos, but that, too, will have to wait until I get my computer back. For now, imagine if you can:

Two-lane highways that wind past green pastures, wooded hillsides and creeks that run parallel to the road or through farmlands where a herd of cows roam free or a few horses munch grass. A tribe of goats scamper across fields, a red robin darts across the road. Lone, ancient barns sit like great buddhas watching over the land.

The two-lane highways become one-lane roads. The roads snake through the woods and past remote homes where people live in quiet and solitude. Two dogs play in the street and chase after my car as it drives around a bend. Butterflies--some flecked with yellow and orange, others with blue--flutter through the air. One got caught in my windshield wiper as I was driving and I had to stop to help free it.

One-lane roads become gravel and dirt paths. The paths meander through densely packed woods. All you can see for miles and miles are trees--small trees, big trees, skinny trees, little trees. What you don't see are ancient trees. Ragmar tells me that the trees are logged every forty years or so. I feel grateful to have experienced the woods. To walk through the woods as the wind rustles through the canopy of leaves, as dappled sunlight dances off branches, as the blue of sky pokes through the treetops. Last week, I had to walk home through the woods in the pitch, pitch blackness of night. Thankfully, I had an intrepid guide--a blue-haired boy from San Francisco who led me down the road. We couldn't see within a foot around us. It was both terrifying and soothing, but we made it home, completely exhilarated!

Technical Difficulties

Please excuse the prolonged delay in updating my blog! I have sooooooo much to write about, but my computer crashed and I have to wait for it to be repaired. In the meantime, I'm writing from the Apple store (on a new iPad, no less... Can't decide whether I like it or not) and will probably have to find a library or somewhere like that to continue writing about my adventures.

Let's just say, in the last week, I experienced a little bit of heartbreak, walked home in the pitch dark in the woods with a blue-haired faery as my guide, swam against the current of a river flush with water from the recent rains, jumped off a 20-foot cliff into the river, milked a goat, lost my mind and then found it again, lost some weight, did some drawing, and continue to absorb this wondrous place I've found myself in.

Liberty is not a place; it's a state of mind. And I am still on the right path to find it.