I'm mesmerized by this place, I'm mesmerized by the South. I've been indoctrinated and seduced by each place I've encountered. Whether it's the winding roads that by night look like a dopppelganger of another road I had already driven by day or the animals I've come to know and love, the insects I've been forced to accept, admire or endure, the different personalities or ways of living, the familiarity of loved friends who have welcomed me into their homes and given me a respite or place for me to gather and absorb and partake in their world and livelihoods... I have been mesmerized and truly grateful and yet still wondering.
When strangers ask me, "So, where are you from? What are you doing out here?" I reply in a fashion that is now becoming staid: "I'm from LA. I'm a writer. I've never experienced the South." Sure, my response, at the moment of discussion, may not be that bland and there are moments of more interesting conversations where I'm able to insert other anecdotes or supplementary information about why I am here or what I have experienced thus far, but the longer I am out here, just simply traveling (as much as I LOVE traveling and going from place to place), there are times when I have to ask myself, too: "So, where are you from? What are you doing out here?" Why am I here, where am I from, and what am I doing out here, anyway?"
It dawned on me tonight that I have been a hobo for way too long. I've been basically couch-hopping (or rather beautifully bed- or home-hopping), HOPING that maybe I might find my home or my place if I went... to that next place.
Part of my problem is that I convolute or intertwine my feeling of security or home with a man. Which, actually, I find curious when I'm one of the last women standing! I'm a single woman here now--almost 40--by choice. I did not or never wanted to be "that," I never thought I would turn "that age"... it just happened, and then being single at my age also happened by choice. Mostly because I never found the man who I wanted to be with and I think I held out for that for most of my twenties and thirties, despite my personal beliefs.
It was like this: if I had my druthers, I would be the single, accomplished woman who didn't have to rely on a man for my happiness or well-being, but if the beautiful man came along I would go there and love him completely, which I did for most of my life. I've always been boy-crazy: I was that kindergartner who got benched during recess because I was always playing chase with the boys and who wrote about my "boyfriends" in my first diary in first grade: one, a red-haired mop-headed Jewish boy from the San Fernando Valley and the other, a dark-skinned, gentle immigrant from Tanzania. I just always loved the boys.
I tried. I held out for that ideal of being the single, accomplished woman, but I always buckled because I love the boys just too damn much. I came up in the 90s with collegiate-feminism and inaccessible, pretentious theory and no utilitarian practice. That was my big gripe whenever I had to read these texts in college and then had to translate their ideas into what I had experienced or how I saw the world. Academia is all theory and fuckin bullshit brain power---there's no practice or immediate use for all the great good that the privileged few can do anything with. And if there is anything good, it takes eons and years for it to trickle down to the masses. There was always that struggle between reading, learning and processing and then applying it to my life or experience and what I have known or observed.
Then, I saw too many intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed "men." Ugh. I looked at them, observing these intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed men, which is easy to do from afar and also desire as an observer or lover-of-being-in-love, but the problem for me was that I could never get my own shit together enough to even be that. I was still just grappling with my own demons and then meeting these random guys who wanted me and then who I got involved with in these two-year long relationships that went nowhere because, honestly, I didn't want to be with any of those guys from the get-go, but they were just, maybe, the next best thing to make me feel more whole or sure about who I was and... well, then, they usually disappointed and I did, too. Me and them. I didn't have my own shit together or was unformed and unrealized myself and these two broken parts would always come together--never enough wholeness to make a whole functioning unit.
There are two kinds of men: either they want their cake and it eat it, too, and can never settle down fully to commit and not wrestle with those other "I'm -scared-of-committing-demons" (and they'll always "dabble" even if they say they are done with that part of their lives) or they are the staid, regimented, boring types that freak the fuck out whenever you suggest or insert something new or different into their lives. I don't care if you try to be loving or understanding or work with their insecurities or whatever, whether they are the terrified single dude or the terrified regimented boy they just freak out and either begrudgingly partake in your suggestion or they just won't do it and will stay set in their ways. Either one is mind-boggling and frustrating and makes me claw at the walls. I'm probably not picking the right men to be involved with, yes, but I also just get to a point where I get sick of the bullshit and would rather be alone and single than constantly having to put up with someone who needs so much work and isn't willing to do it on his own. I want someone who has worked on their shit apart from anyone else, someone who has gone through the ups and downs and difficulties of life, but who has taken quiet time out for themselves to learn about why they do the things they do and how these patterns erupt in their lives or who may have figured into that picture and what they can do to change it now. I want to feel their substance and worth--wrap my fingers around their grace and beauty and linger there, dawdle and slip and slide between knowing and unknowing. I want permanent press with the romance of silk, the durability and contention of hemp, the familiarity and sweetness of cotton, the sexiness of satin, and the modernity of bamboo. I want to recognize that hodgepodge of fabrics that creates the one I love, but then feel the substance and delight that we are made of the same material.
I want adventure and fun and anticipation of the unknown in my life, but I also want security and deep-felt love and the comfort of knowing and understanding with a man. Unfortunately, I am not a lesbian and sometimes I wish I was... if only because the alternative to loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by men is loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by women. I think women--especially beautiful women--are HOT and even though I've gone there it's never dawned on me to get involved with a woman or to be in a relationship with one like a man. It's simply not appealing to me. The roles and gender things are just too confusing. I want to be involved with a man--my best friend, my alter ego, my lover, that person who has different parts than me and is just the one who I find gorgeous, wonderful and endearing... and also the one who will travel the ends of the earth to be with me no matter how difficult the circumstances or obstacles. He will climb through the tundra or battle windstorms, hijack a 747 or become a stowaway in cargo on a ship, fight a duel to the death, scale tall buildings with a single bound. But, hell, I know Superman doesn't exist. Maybe the problem is that there are too many women out there trying to be Superwomen and there just aren't enough Supermen.
PJ Harvey's "A Place Called Home" is ringing in my ears. She has always been my bitch, my kick-ass chick who fuckin calls it as it is and still makes beautiful, intelligent music. I always have to have a muse, especially when I write, and Ms. Harvey is my muse right now. The music lingers in my ears from way back when and then I remember a random title here or there: A Place Called Home. It is what I am seeking. I want a place called home. I want to find my home within myself, maybe with a good man, definitely somewhere--whether it be within myself or with another loved one--that is beautiful and functional and secure. A place full of romance and love and continuity and belonging. A place that I, myself, can call Home. I will be there. I will get there. I will find my home soon. I know it. It's just around the corner. I just have to keep having faith, keep loving and keep walking on these broken shells and uneven bricks...
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