i heard on a movie once that the pacific has no memory. i wonder if that's true. the last time i saw the face of that blue water, i was in another country, and two months out from losing my father. i saw his face in the sunset and the sailboats every night, and drank away his voice at the bar when the sun was gone from the sky. i hope the pacific i see this go around is a little more on the peaceful side.
spring is here. i can smell it in the air...the pregnant smell of freshly turned soil and the faint taste of salt from the sea that seems to be wafting up from the coast. i read a book about horses this week and i harkened back to my childhood...to the way fields would roll past the car window and i would day dream the whole way to where ever we were going...about who i would become...who i would marry...what i would be when i grew up.
if we went north, i knew i would see terraces, shallow and full of hay or wheat or cows at the snodgrass dairy just outside of town, my grandmother would point out shortcuts to the farms where she lived as a child. my grandfather would talk about the doodlebug train that ran from here to there and could be boarded at the depot, which i only ever knew as an art gallery. and the toilet factory and the smell of tape as we crested the hill into the metropolis seemed to promise new school clothes or a roller skating adventure or a movie and later, it meant i was on a date.
if we went west, i knew the land would flatten, flatten flatten and maize would give way to cotton would give way to maize would give way to cotton and in the middle of nowhere every 20 or 30 minutes out of the flat distance would spring the iron and rust of the oil pumper, going like some beast from the past or the future, making money out of light sweet crude or something. i kenw we were going to the doctor or shopping or that i was going to have to run some crazy distance to see if i could actually make it. i knew that road like the back of my hand, and soon the curves didn't mean anything in the road because they just tasted like tears. and they smelled like cigarettes and anger and that adrenaline smell you get in your nose when you fall down and aren't sure if you're ok or not. and the only good thing about that road was the rest stop 26 miles exactly outside of town, because i made out there with a boy i loved once. i still have a fond place in my heart for rest stops, just because of that. it was a catharsis...i hurt so badly that day, and was so angry and so so so sad that kisses seemed to be the only thing that could even come close to being any kind of a balm. that being said, i still hate it when he visits my sleep, which he did last week, and which i am still angry over. that town, those memories, most of them are just another word for hell. someplace i don't ever want to go again.
if we went south, the hills would roll roll roll and surely a thunderhead would loom just out of mason and i would watch the rain come on over the hills and be amazed that i could see so far and live in such a magical land. and sometimes, instead of reading about harriet tubman or anne frank or singing along to the beach boys, my mother would tell stories about jackalopes or indians and i would be right back in the 1840's. and we would drive by cherry springs, where the last comanche captive owned a dance hall and aunt sarah and uncle billy saw elvis and jerry lee lewis on a double bill one night. going that way meant camp, or the alamo, or the riverwalk, or friends or the beach or the lbj ranch or fredricksburg, which always meant that i woud hear stories.
we almost never went north, unless we were going someplace else entirely in a different state. the fields and trees and small towns gave way to rolling prairie and interstates and soon i could drive, but didn't much want to because i wanted to sleep and read my very important books and think my very important thougths and be so sure that no one understood me at all. the road to dallas feels 15 to me. like i want to cry and laugh and take over the world. and it means the mississippi river, too.
elton john is on my mind. i am a very small child, and i am hearing "rocket man". or james taylor or jim croce or jesus christ superstar, and i can hear the lines on the records and now i miss those noises when i listen to them on my cds. the snap and the crackle and the way a pipe smells and because it's spring, i'm a little happy and a little sad, and mostly i miss my daddy and my poppa. i still have so many questions. not the least of which are about the fields and the crackels and how to buy the right air filter and not get hosed buying tires and if this all makes sense one day. that's all. i hope the pacific has a merciful memory...deep, but not painful.
dona nobis pacem.
mil besos--rmg
18 March 2008
06 March 2008
the bar association and other musings
Oh, the bar, scene of so many happy evenings, interesting conversations, and even true love. A good bar is hard to find. My favorite bar in the whole world? That’s easy—Mean Eyed Cat, in Austin, Texas. It’s a Johnny Cash-themed bar, the beer is always cold (you can get Lone Star Light in a bottle, which is my litmus test for any good bar), and the music selection is unparalleled anywhere in the known universe. I truly do love that bar. What I love more about that bar are the people I go there with—it’s one of those places you only go with certain people, special people, because you want to savor the evening, and not worry about who’s staring you down, or how many beers you really ought to have.
Bars are funny places, and the feelings they bring out in me are many. I very rarely end up leaving a bar totally shit-canned. I also can say I’ve never left a bar with anyone I didn’t come in with. I have held friends’ hair while they vomited in bars. I have held friends’ hands’ while they cried in bars. I have hidden in the back of a bar to avoid talking to people who creep me out. I dug thrown up mushrooms out of a bar sink one night, to avoid my co-worker being arrested for an intoxication in public ticket. And one fateful night, at a bar called Blaine’s, I got up and danced on the tables when Sweet Home Alabama came over the speakers.
I remember when I thought bars were like Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders—full of delights and drama the likes of which I never could imagine. There’s a part of me that’s disappointed every time I rediscover that a bar is just a public living room, filled with people you don’t know.
Just like bars, most things in life are not the way I thought they would be. I thought by now that I would be married, or at least close to it, have a kid, maybe have a law degree, or be doing something fabulous in policy creation or in the non-profit sector. Instead, I quit a job I was good at, moved in with my mother (to whom I am terribly grateful), I had a very non-traditional, job taking care of my cousin with CP and his twin brother who is totally fine, except that he’s a 12 year old male, took a job for yet another church, bought a house, and set about to start my real-live adult life. There have been random crushes in the middle, one that showed some promise, but turned out to be nothing to get excited about. Reality is not what you imagine. Reality is what really IS, regardless of where my peers have ended up. This is my life—confusing, complex, never boring. It’s not where I imagined I would be, staring down the barrel of 30. But it all belongs to me.
See, most people have a pretty good idea of what they are supposed to do and be. I am supremely jealous of those people. For example: I changed majors five times in college. God bless my mother for never yelling at me like the rest of too many other mothers faced with vacillating and vexing offspring. Mom told me, “Babe, you know exactly how much money you have for college. You know exactly how many hours that will buy. Study what you want, and worry about making money later.” Good advice, to be sure, but now that I’m sitting on history degree, with a minor in political science, I’m wondering why I couldn’t have picked a major that was interesting AND lucrative.
I can tell you all about political theory and the rise of empires in Europe. I know the military history of Rome and the rise of the Republic. I think those things are important. I think those things are worth knowing. But I’d also like to know how in the world those things are supposed to get me to retirement, with something besides my big fat brain chock full of trivia to support me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disappointed with my life at all. I’m very grateful to be alive, to be reasonably healthy, reasonably sane, and reasonably intelligent. I’m grateful for the opportunities of which I have been able to take advantage. I have lived a big life, up to this point. The question looming on my mind, and I’m sure it’s on the mind of my friends and family, is, “What in the hell comes next for Rachel?”
There have been many nights in my life when I have lain awake in bed, tempted by forces unseen to pack a bag, gas up my car, and just start driving. (My friend Dustin, who is a hero in my pantheon, suggested that I do just that as a remedy for my quarter life crisis. Instead, I went to the beach and worried about work the whole time I was gone. So much for advice…) But every time I sit up in bed and wonder which bag would hold the most stuff, or who I would call when I got to where ever I was going, all I can think about is the shit that would hit the fan once I was really gone. Where would my car payment come from? How would I pay Capital One the fee they are due this month? How would I explain to my family that I just had to bug out and find myself?
Find myself—God, but that sounds so freaking cliché. It’s a poor phrase, but so dead on the money. Where IS me? Is me what I own, or is me what owns me? Am I more than the sum of my credit card statements? Am I more than the degree that I still haven’t had framed, and have only actually looked at twice? Am I more than just my parents’ child? Am I more than all the jobs I’ve had, all the jobs I’ve not taken, all the jobs I’ve been turned down for? Am I more than the friend I have been, the sister I have tried to be? What in the fuck am I doing? Is there any end to the questions? More than that, is there even one sensible answer to even one of the questions? When do I stop asking the dumb questions, and start asking the smart ones? Is there a drug for this? Is there a premium on questions? Is there a surcharge if I ask the wrong ones? The answer, I think is always “Yes”. And the answer is always, “No”. This means that I’m right where I’m supposed to be: the most damnable place of all, if you ask me.
Do I imagine that I am going to find some state of inner peace by finding artful and artless pieces of graffiti scrawled on the bathrooms across this country? Do I think that one day, I will walk into some diner with my digital camera and find my soul mate? Do I think that anyone besides my family and friends will want to read any of what I have to say? Yes. Probably. Maybe not, but it’s worth the shot, right? I mean, going off to do “book research” sounds a hell of a lot more noble than “finding myself”.
I am as mystified by life and my place in the universe in my late 20’s as I was at 17. The upside, if that’s what I can call it, is that I am not alone. Oh no, not alone, not by a long shot. Three quarters of the people I call “friend” right now are suffering right along with me. We are clueless. Some of us know what we want to be. Some of us know who we want to be with. Some of us have an idea of where we want to go, and a few have an idea of how to get there. But for the most part, we are stumbling along together, leaning one on the other, trying to make our way into the wide world. In some ways, the advantages our parents gave us have crippled us. In some ways, the progress they made has hindered our development. How else do you explain the fact that half of all marriages fail? How else do you explain upper and middle class child neglect? How else do you explain our inability to function without cell phones, SUV’s, and the internet?
We are a generation of infants with adult bodies. We have the ability to reason, but not the wherewithal to get any real life business taken care of. We are horribly lazy. We have no voice in the public square, because we can’t find our cohesion, other than to be angst-ridden and wear the throw back clothing of our parents’ generation. We want to be cool, but we forget that when you are cool, you also have substance. And we don’t want substance, because that just takes too much fucking work.
Some of us are motivated, yes. But to what end? So we can drive the two-story, eight mile to the gallon behemoth that Hummer just put out? So we can buy a monstrosity of a domicile in some cookie-cutter neighborhood and fill it with stuff from Ikea and play house with the last person we had sex with because we think we might make pretty babies with them? What are we doing? What do we want to do? I ask myself that question, and I have trouble getting an answer. I ask my friends that question, and I have trouble getting an answer.
I want more than a house. I want more than a husband. I want more than two point five children. I want more than a volunteer position at the hospital auxiliary. I want more than a career. I want more than credit card bills and unrivaled cell phone reception. But I have no idea what that means. I don’t think it means going back to school and getting that Masters’ Degree in Renaissance Art that I’ve been toying with. I don’t think it means joining an on-line dating service because I’m too afraid to see what’s out there on my own. I don’t think it means freaking out and freezing my eggs before I turn 30, because I might not get married and I want to have a kid. I don’t think it means getting a job at the local coffee house to pay down my credit card debt faster. And I don’t think it means laying awake at night worrying about urban renewal policy and universal healthcare insurance.
In the final analysis, I think answering those questions is going to mean a lot of things. And it’s going to mean only one thing. The lot of things will lead to the one thing. Very Zen, I know. But at 1:20 on a Tuesday morning, it makes good sense to me.
Of all the things that I do know, I know this: I will not find bliss at the bottom of a coffee cup, unless I am sharing a cup of coffee with a good friend. I will not find my purpose in life sitting on my ass, letting life pass me by. I have, as have we all, an infinite amount of potential within me. And unless I am willing to waste that potential, (which I am not, because I firmly believe that all sin boils down to waste) I won’t find the many or the one.
Bars are funny places, and the feelings they bring out in me are many. I very rarely end up leaving a bar totally shit-canned. I also can say I’ve never left a bar with anyone I didn’t come in with. I have held friends’ hair while they vomited in bars. I have held friends’ hands’ while they cried in bars. I have hidden in the back of a bar to avoid talking to people who creep me out. I dug thrown up mushrooms out of a bar sink one night, to avoid my co-worker being arrested for an intoxication in public ticket. And one fateful night, at a bar called Blaine’s, I got up and danced on the tables when Sweet Home Alabama came over the speakers.
I remember when I thought bars were like Aladdin’s Cave of Wonders—full of delights and drama the likes of which I never could imagine. There’s a part of me that’s disappointed every time I rediscover that a bar is just a public living room, filled with people you don’t know.
Just like bars, most things in life are not the way I thought they would be. I thought by now that I would be married, or at least close to it, have a kid, maybe have a law degree, or be doing something fabulous in policy creation or in the non-profit sector. Instead, I quit a job I was good at, moved in with my mother (to whom I am terribly grateful), I had a very non-traditional, job taking care of my cousin with CP and his twin brother who is totally fine, except that he’s a 12 year old male, took a job for yet another church, bought a house, and set about to start my real-live adult life. There have been random crushes in the middle, one that showed some promise, but turned out to be nothing to get excited about. Reality is not what you imagine. Reality is what really IS, regardless of where my peers have ended up. This is my life—confusing, complex, never boring. It’s not where I imagined I would be, staring down the barrel of 30. But it all belongs to me.
See, most people have a pretty good idea of what they are supposed to do and be. I am supremely jealous of those people. For example: I changed majors five times in college. God bless my mother for never yelling at me like the rest of too many other mothers faced with vacillating and vexing offspring. Mom told me, “Babe, you know exactly how much money you have for college. You know exactly how many hours that will buy. Study what you want, and worry about making money later.” Good advice, to be sure, but now that I’m sitting on history degree, with a minor in political science, I’m wondering why I couldn’t have picked a major that was interesting AND lucrative.
I can tell you all about political theory and the rise of empires in Europe. I know the military history of Rome and the rise of the Republic. I think those things are important. I think those things are worth knowing. But I’d also like to know how in the world those things are supposed to get me to retirement, with something besides my big fat brain chock full of trivia to support me.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not disappointed with my life at all. I’m very grateful to be alive, to be reasonably healthy, reasonably sane, and reasonably intelligent. I’m grateful for the opportunities of which I have been able to take advantage. I have lived a big life, up to this point. The question looming on my mind, and I’m sure it’s on the mind of my friends and family, is, “What in the hell comes next for Rachel?”
There have been many nights in my life when I have lain awake in bed, tempted by forces unseen to pack a bag, gas up my car, and just start driving. (My friend Dustin, who is a hero in my pantheon, suggested that I do just that as a remedy for my quarter life crisis. Instead, I went to the beach and worried about work the whole time I was gone. So much for advice…) But every time I sit up in bed and wonder which bag would hold the most stuff, or who I would call when I got to where ever I was going, all I can think about is the shit that would hit the fan once I was really gone. Where would my car payment come from? How would I pay Capital One the fee they are due this month? How would I explain to my family that I just had to bug out and find myself?
Find myself—God, but that sounds so freaking cliché. It’s a poor phrase, but so dead on the money. Where IS me? Is me what I own, or is me what owns me? Am I more than the sum of my credit card statements? Am I more than the degree that I still haven’t had framed, and have only actually looked at twice? Am I more than just my parents’ child? Am I more than all the jobs I’ve had, all the jobs I’ve not taken, all the jobs I’ve been turned down for? Am I more than the friend I have been, the sister I have tried to be? What in the fuck am I doing? Is there any end to the questions? More than that, is there even one sensible answer to even one of the questions? When do I stop asking the dumb questions, and start asking the smart ones? Is there a drug for this? Is there a premium on questions? Is there a surcharge if I ask the wrong ones? The answer, I think is always “Yes”. And the answer is always, “No”. This means that I’m right where I’m supposed to be: the most damnable place of all, if you ask me.
Do I imagine that I am going to find some state of inner peace by finding artful and artless pieces of graffiti scrawled on the bathrooms across this country? Do I think that one day, I will walk into some diner with my digital camera and find my soul mate? Do I think that anyone besides my family and friends will want to read any of what I have to say? Yes. Probably. Maybe not, but it’s worth the shot, right? I mean, going off to do “book research” sounds a hell of a lot more noble than “finding myself”.
I am as mystified by life and my place in the universe in my late 20’s as I was at 17. The upside, if that’s what I can call it, is that I am not alone. Oh no, not alone, not by a long shot. Three quarters of the people I call “friend” right now are suffering right along with me. We are clueless. Some of us know what we want to be. Some of us know who we want to be with. Some of us have an idea of where we want to go, and a few have an idea of how to get there. But for the most part, we are stumbling along together, leaning one on the other, trying to make our way into the wide world. In some ways, the advantages our parents gave us have crippled us. In some ways, the progress they made has hindered our development. How else do you explain the fact that half of all marriages fail? How else do you explain upper and middle class child neglect? How else do you explain our inability to function without cell phones, SUV’s, and the internet?
We are a generation of infants with adult bodies. We have the ability to reason, but not the wherewithal to get any real life business taken care of. We are horribly lazy. We have no voice in the public square, because we can’t find our cohesion, other than to be angst-ridden and wear the throw back clothing of our parents’ generation. We want to be cool, but we forget that when you are cool, you also have substance. And we don’t want substance, because that just takes too much fucking work.
Some of us are motivated, yes. But to what end? So we can drive the two-story, eight mile to the gallon behemoth that Hummer just put out? So we can buy a monstrosity of a domicile in some cookie-cutter neighborhood and fill it with stuff from Ikea and play house with the last person we had sex with because we think we might make pretty babies with them? What are we doing? What do we want to do? I ask myself that question, and I have trouble getting an answer. I ask my friends that question, and I have trouble getting an answer.
I want more than a house. I want more than a husband. I want more than two point five children. I want more than a volunteer position at the hospital auxiliary. I want more than a career. I want more than credit card bills and unrivaled cell phone reception. But I have no idea what that means. I don’t think it means going back to school and getting that Masters’ Degree in Renaissance Art that I’ve been toying with. I don’t think it means joining an on-line dating service because I’m too afraid to see what’s out there on my own. I don’t think it means freaking out and freezing my eggs before I turn 30, because I might not get married and I want to have a kid. I don’t think it means getting a job at the local coffee house to pay down my credit card debt faster. And I don’t think it means laying awake at night worrying about urban renewal policy and universal healthcare insurance.
In the final analysis, I think answering those questions is going to mean a lot of things. And it’s going to mean only one thing. The lot of things will lead to the one thing. Very Zen, I know. But at 1:20 on a Tuesday morning, it makes good sense to me.
Of all the things that I do know, I know this: I will not find bliss at the bottom of a coffee cup, unless I am sharing a cup of coffee with a good friend. I will not find my purpose in life sitting on my ass, letting life pass me by. I have, as have we all, an infinite amount of potential within me. And unless I am willing to waste that potential, (which I am not, because I firmly believe that all sin boils down to waste) I won’t find the many or the one.
mil besos--rmg
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