I’ve been back in San Francisco for a little over
twenty-four hours and already the strangeness of it is wearing off. When I
first got home last night I walked into a dark apartment. My roommates were either
gone or working and everything felt familiar yet not. I felt a little like I
was trespassing. The white tiles in the kitchen popped out and it seemed
suddenly that the brown grout was even more seventies than it was when I left. My
bed looked lower to the ground, my desk emptier. It was as if I was in my room
in a dream, not in my room in reality. Everything was as it should be but not.
But, this morning I woke up and that bizarre quality began to wear off. Iwalked around the foggy sunset and went to the bank, the coffee shop, the Chinese produce store down the street. It’s all the same. I unpacked and ran errands and made phone calls and appointments and was handed a new work project. Just like that. And it’s like I never left. But I did. And now I’m struggling to hang on to everything that happened in the last two and a half months both internal and external. Suddenly Europe feels like a beautiful fugue and I’m just now stumbling out of my padded room.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m not happy to be back. But then again I wouldn’t say I’m happy to be back either. I would say my emotional state concerning my recent return is akin to that of an Alzheimer’s ridden grandma. I’m not terribly concerned that I can’t remember anything (after all I can’t remember that I can’t remember anything) but at the same time somewhere unreachable there lurks a certain amount of dull alarm quietly lapping the shore of my subconscious telling me something is a little off.
That sounds very dramatic but the truth is I feel a little uneasy and I can only marginally put my finger on it. Most likely a pretty normal transitional mood swing. But still, dubious.
The other thing is my clothes. I hate them. I just unpacked half my closet that I had stored to make way for a subletter and all I want to do is make proper use of a zippo and some lighter fluid. It was physically painful for me to put them all in my closet. I’m sure it’s not because they’re all terrible clothes. They’re probably very lovely clothes but the fact remains that I hate them. I am seriously considering ripping them all out of the closet and going shopping tomorrow. I have lived for the last three months very happily with minimal clothing and I don’t see why I can’t do the same here. Except with all new frocks of course. The idea of that makes me very happy so I might just do it. It’s interesting what a visceral response I’m having to doing things the same today. I went to Trader Joe’s and got all the normal shit and spent a bunch of money and felt so completely empty after I put it all away. It’s like with every old routine and act that I engage in I’m effectively erasing the time I was away. Which is ridiculous. But that’s how it feels. The weird thing is that I don’t feel like I went through some Eat, Pray, Love-esque like adventure having multiple life-changing epiphanies etc. etc. But I went through something. Lots of somethings. And along the way had little realizations and insights and moments of joy and contentment that I didn’t share with anyone here. There is of course the problem of reality. If there is no one around to confirm you did what you did and felt what you felt how do you know it wasn’t just one extended waking dream? Maybe this awkwardness is my mind grappling with the dissonance of time. Time as it seems to have passed here and time as it passed in my mind. Interesting to think about the little emotional storms the psyche kicks up when you rattle its cage a little.
What I do know is that I want to make changes now that I’m
back. I realize that you have to live somewhere. You can’t travel forever. At
some point you have to get a job and a place to live. Would I be happier in
Berlin? Barcelona? Paris? I don’t know, but I suspect not. Wherever you go
there you are and all that nonsense. This is as nice a place as any and I have
a good work situation and lots of wonderful friends. Nothing to complain about
here. But that doesn’t mean you
can’t start a new life in the same place and I intend on doing so. Yet another
iteration of my San Francisco self. But it’s easier said than done. Making
changes that is. It’s much easier to just keep doing more of the same. The
inertia is intoxicating and I can already feel myself swayed by it. Perhaps
that’s the reason for today’s distaste with everything familiar. I don’t want a
life that’s familiar. I want a life that is always strange and growing. It’s
easy to make long, shadow-casting strides when you are traveling. The strange
and wonderful growth you experience is exponential because of the very nature
of being in a foreign land. Maybe keeping my life strange and uncomfortable in
a place that is familiar and comfortable is the real test of a wanderlusty
spirit. At present, with bank accounts depleted and a physical revulsion toward
airplanes reaching an all time high, that challenge is what’s on deck.
