Two days of thoughts: 7/18 and 7/19
Reflections as I spend time in my hometown
Thoughts, 7/18/24
Lately, I’ve been feeling like I have been lying to myself, though I have struggled to identify the point of deceit. I just frequently feel out of touch with my heart, pressured, by some external voice that has burrowed its way within me, to pour my tremendous motivation and energy into pursuits that do not really matter. Like a bug to a light, I chase curiosity, though the light is behind me and it’s darkness I’m drawn to; if I turn, the light switches position. In short, it doesn’t matter which direction I choose. The darkness is always ahead of me.
I have been visiting my parents in California for the last week. As per our bi-annual routine, my mother and I spent half a day cleaning out the overstuffed closets. We discovered my childhood yearbooks in the process, wherein I soon located myself in 1994, very awkwardly dressed in an oversized t-shirt, leather belt, and khaki skirt, standing shyly at the end of a row of kids whose families had all seemed more normal than my own. You are such a great writer, my fourth grade teacher had written on the page, all those years ago, back when I didn’t know anything about writing. My eyes welled with tears upon finding that note. What else had she seen in my nine year-old self? Sometimes I wish someone older and wiser would point me towards my own inner light.
I haven’t written much lately, though I have felt a suppressed longing to do so. There’s little to say when you’re stuck in the cycle of your own insanity, when you know the next thought that will surface. The heart gives up and hides in the corner, like a neglected dog. But I watched The Unbearable Lightness of Being tonight, and it wrenched my soul open like a crowbar to a casket. The storyline of the film didn’t really matter. Rather, that movie rekindled my light because it showed me passion for two and a half hours, and I’d nearly forgotten what passion looks like. Cheeks wet with tears, I turned off the credits and remembered who I am, beneath all the thoughts that something is missing. I am loyal and independent. I am dreamy and realistic. I am a free, creative spirit who thrives on stability because I grew up in an unstable home. I don’t like to be controlled or told what to do. I don’t care to participate in inflexible systems. And I miss the days before I cared about the way I make a living, when my art mattered most. Why have I been trying to fit in a box? Why have I been letting my mind run the show? I may struggle profoundly to hear my inner voice, but I can feel it when my heart is being silenced. I can feel it in my jaw. I can feel it in my gut. I could feel it while watching that movie. I’ve internalized the lie that there’s a normal way to be, that my fundamental “unnormalness” is the source of my suffering. The source of my suffering is the denial of my heart, and being “normal” will not heal what I went through in childhood. Healing, for me, is to walk my own path, to go towards the glimmer of light in the distance and trust it will one day glow brighter.
Thoughts, 7/19/24
Today, given the perfect summer weather, I took my dad on a drive up the Marin County coast. I had mentioned the excursion last night after dinner, and when I came down this morning, he asked me when we were leaving, coolly, but with detectable eagerness. My father has always loved an afternoon road trip. To explore the backroads is his version of backpacking, and he knows damn near all of them, at least around here. He just needs a driver, a daughter or a friend, since my mother doesn’t care to accompany him.
So we went down to Stinson, and then over to Bolinas, and had a big, juicy burger at the old Coast Cafe. My dad got a beer and an affogato for dessert, since my mother wasn’t there to object. Then we drove to Point Reyes, stopping briefly at Vedanta to see the giant trees on the way.
“Just look at these trees,” my father said in awe as we idled in a tunnel of Eucalyptus. “This coast is so beautiful… I’ll never get enough of it.”
I smiled with affection and understanding. We’re so much alike, my father and I. We’re all about the feel of a place. When a place has no feel, we want nothing to do with it, but if it turns on our hearts, we will drive -(or hike)- for miles upon miles just to get there.
In passing by an art shop in downtown Olema, my father insisted on stopping to look. I stayed in the car while he hobbled up the steps and responded to some texts I had missed. When I finished, I realized he’d been in there awhile, so I went in to find him leaning into the counter, trying to figure out, with the help of the saleswoman, where his twenty dollar bill had disappeared to. They were laughing about it, they were both so confused, but I could tell that my father was flustered and embarrassed.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said through a sigh.
“Well, you can trust me,” the lady gently replied.
“Let me see your eyes,” he said with a smile, whereby the lady dramatically took off her glasses and stared at him, wide-eyed and giggling. They laughed for a moment, such a natural connection, the kind that folks don’t seem to make anymore. My father might feel lost in this modern, techie world, but we’d all be better off to go back to his time, a time when you could drive the old backroads of California without the internet to tell you what magic you’d discover, a time when there weren’t texts to check.
We ended our excursion with a hunt for CBD; my father’s been wanting some gummies all week. I finally procured some at a dispensary in Fairfax, a real OG spot, my high school self’s dream. I laughed while returning to my father in the car. Once upon a time, I bought weed in these towns, from other shady high schoolers and opportunistic college students. Now, I was showing my ID to buy gummies for my 85 year-old father, who was waiting in the car.
39 or 85, we’re all trying to survive. We’re all going through our chapter in life. If you’re wise, you learn something from the chapters you’ve finished, and you only reread all your favorites. That’s what my father and I did this afternoon. We reread 60 years of exploring the coast and talked about nothing but the hills and the trees. What else is there really, in the end?