Psychic Breadcrumbs

Me and my boo Hansel

For the first time in god knows how long, I have time. Time to sit, time to think, time to write, time to take the temperature of my emotions and awareness and consciousness. I've been meditating most mornings, which so far has felt fruitless. I can't quiet my mind when the panic of trying to make sense of what's happening in the world and in my life is incessant. And yet I keep on trying, hoping that if I just persist, eventually I'll find inner space and inner quiet to match my surroundings.

Space and light have always had an inordinate impact on my moods and general sense of self. The first two and a half weeks that I lived here, I was holed up in a very small, rather dark room on the upper level of a guest apartment. It was chosen for me precisely because of its size and, by extension, its ability to retain heat. It was not a space I felt any desire to spend time in, other than to sleep. My two suitcases, which I did not fully unpack because I knew I'd be moving in a few weeks time, took up most of the floor space. 

Last week I moved into an apartment next door. This one felt immediately more like home, even though this too is a semi-temporary lodging for me -- in March or April  (assuming I'm here) I will move to the other side of the farm, to a "barn" in the back of another guest villa. But for now, it is where I hang my floppy little chef's hat. It is intermittently occupied by an elderly German man named Josef, but as he will be traveling for the next several months, I have taken over the space, posting up in the airy, yellow hued master bedroom whose king sized bed is draped in linen mosquito net. I have moved several more table lamps into the room to give it an intuitively calibrated soft glow which makes it an inviting place to spend my time off the clock. There is room to meditate and to stretch. There are mirrors -- even a full length one, the first I've had access to in over two years. And while it doesn't seem like much, being able to see myself, and to move around, has had a big impact on my sense of being. I think if I can see myself better, I might be able to, you know, like, SEE myself better.

I was reticent to unpack my bags for a number of reasons, not least of which was the uncertainty of my tenure here, which I alluded to in the last post. Also, a lazy part of me was loathe to unpack in view of the inevitable re-packing that would face me in a month and a half or so, at the outside. But the most insidious reason was that I didn't want to see all that I had brought with me, or rather how little I had brought. In the tangled swirl of sweaters and socks and underwear it was hard to tell just exactly what I had seen fit to bring with me, what few items I'd retained in my State-side flurry to discard and unburden. To unpack my things and fold them carefully into the bureau drawers, I could take stock, for the first time, of just how little I have. I realize that most of the clothes I brought were purchased at least four years ago from H&M, and most of those are now bleach stained or ripped, which I don't mind so much except when I compare myself to the REAL ACTUAL ladies I know who have nice things and always look put together and polished and I realize I will never ever ever not be a hobo. #icomebyithonestly #parentsarehobos #hoboes?

The collection of items I've selected to bring with me seem exceptionally poorly conceived now that I'm here. Did I really need this pair of cotton bike shorts from American Apparel? These formal dresses for my imagined nights out on the "town"? These flimsy tank tops and hamburger emblazoned boxers that most assuredly don't guard against the frigid drafts inside these old stone houses in January? And what was I thinking taking along only three books? (I know exactly what I was thinking -- that if I only brought these three, I'd be forced to READ THEM. Looking at you, "How To Write a Book Proposal" -- ugh.) 

Some odd memories have been surfacing in the midst of all this, which makes me wonder whether the meditating is actually having some unconscious, unexpected impact on my mind. All this excavating layers and layers of built up brain gunk has unearthed memories of my visits to Lake Michigan as an early adolescent, the smells of the humid summer air, the feeling of pebbles under my feet. More impressions than full blown memories, sketches, fledgling feelings of desire and the calculated, triumphant denial of that desire, senses awakening and immediately checking themselves, feelings of longing -- for material things and for a certain kind of life, my first early exposure to fine things, fine restaurants and food and art, set into the deceptively humble trappings of these moneyed hamlets along the shoreline. 

And then there's New Orleans -- a place I only visited for a few weeks years ago, but which I keep coming back to, in conversation, describing the distinctiveness of the food and drinks the music, as if to prove that America does in fact have culture, deeply rooted and indelible, and somehow more authentic than the totems of New York or Vermont, my homes for much longer. I find myself describing how the bartenders used to make a Ramos Gin Fizz, a line of them passing the silver shakers like a torch, the controlled chaos of movement like a choreographed dance piece. (This is where fact and fiction blur, as I can't find anything to back up this assertion ... ). As the scent of spring gets stronger inside my nostrils, these sense memories get all the stronger, the smell of loquats, the burned-throat feeling of bourbon, the voluptuous warmth of fragrant, moist air. And yet I feel desperately that these synesthetic visions can't, musn't block out the things I have to absorb around me now - the aroma of sage in the tea I'm desperately swilling to knock out this cold, the bone-tingling sensation of the cold dairy in the mornings, the clownish exclamations of the Italian radio DJs. I worry that if I spend too much time looking inward I'll miss all that's right under my nose. #mylotinlife

I have no idea what to make of these random flashes. All I can do is to mark them down here, in hopes I can circle back around to them like some dream diary, psychic breadcrumbs leading me back to someplace familiar, or towards someplace I want to be.

.