Friday, May 3, 2013

Late Wanderlust

Just a lonely tail of an evening off the boulevard.  My door is open onto the balcony and cars are whizzing through my brainwaves as I sit, words taught as a tightrope over my tongue.  I hear them passing at all distances - some near, some far - but mostly a pleasant burst of crescendo-ed air and the occasional engine roar, more like a kitten than a lion. I think about having a cigarette, but it would only be an excuse (in poor taste) to be closer to the boulevard.  It seems worth it.  A smirk. I never thought about wanting to be not just literally closer to a street, but somehow spiritually, like it is a heavenly place of traffic and those machines are just clouds gliding through with sound. 

A smoke and a concrete beckoning seem like a romantic notion. I give in, not without lugging my ancient PC laptop along, the one with the poorly researched and accidentally purchased-from-ebay double battery that mirrors a sort of orthopedic shoe. Hey, it's a lunker, but it's my lunker. 

It's nearly 4 am and I slip some headphones on so that the world is a song and the cool night air is within it. Music is the ultimate expression of art, tiered and molded any way you desire because sound cannot be limited in its shape. Even a lack of conventional notes, like John Cage was wont to do, composed an audience moving, breathing, coughing, anticipating, rustling programs and squeaking their chair parts, perhaps uttering confusion or pretentiousness - all for nearly five minutes. All music is an experiment and reflects exactly that in your life. To what memory or part of the imagination does a song attach itself to? Maybe it's this late theme of transportation and open road, or the fact that this song is called Universal Traveler, or that I heard a novel critique on the radio about a woman and her motorcycle this afternoon, but a fantasy of wanderlust and freedom is caught on the line and I'm dreaming of the possibilities I have yet to encounter (which are also born in the moment of my going). 

Go. For years, my internal response has been "I can't. Not yet."  It feels like a permanent and binding chain until I one day catch some current of success and suddenly I am whisked around, though aside will be eagerly scheduling my own personal, entirely overdue whisking to lands I've only read about or experienced second hand. I'm all for second hand things (I still love a good thrift store) but to travel is to physically go. Nothing can stop you from having a first time over and over again - with land, people, architecture, food, history (a first time with history? Sounds impossible!).  Nothing can rob your eyes of the sights meant for you to behold in that moment then and there, whenever and wherever that is..

How DO other people live in the rest of the world? What is totally alien to us as Americans that is perfectly normal for just as many folks? Why do we live and die our entire lives in one location without understanding something about how humans cultivate these indigenous societies and behaviors?  I have a yin and yang of understanding.  I can't fathom being manufactured into this world without an explore button, but I get the reasoning of choosing not to switch it on. It's always fear.  Everything - literally EVERYTHING - can be boiled down to fear of the unknown.  But oh, when you are in that sweet, confident state of mind where nothing scares you at all - you can go and be and talk and snark and breathe and break a rule and just have FUN and you will find yourself in the most liberating place of all, nevermind location.

Until I can afford to control the hands of the clock (and maybe slip a large bill into one), this will be my mental wanderlust. How far into my character am I willing to discover?  How much will I reveal to the world and really, to myself? Lately, a heavyset and parallel thought I've been recycling questions how deeply I will immerse myself into this acting thing until a mentally tangible and relentless muscle develops. There are so many levels to explore and I've been wasting time.  But, I sigh it away for the night.

However, tonight I had an adventure at work. The spirit was moving among all of us because the energy was brazen and experimental and filled with humor. The joy of people shined through - and yes, it was bright but also enlightening - because the beauty was visible, but well, so is that pile of crap over there.  All, not some, is highlighted and clear.  And that pile of crap doesn't matter because it is a part of it all and that....seems fine. In fact, I don't really give it much thought. I just accept that this world wouldn't be what it is without darkness AND light. Now watch the impossible walls disintegrate and blow easily back into the great expanse of sand. No obstacle and, well, no excuse.



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