I went to the Boston Public Library today. It is one place in this city I like to go, and tried some research on a real essay. I spent this last year standing on a fence, wavering between fear and bravery and foolery. Applying for an MFA in New York was a nice move, though it was rushed and somewhat a last fell throw away from having spent another year in indecision. My mother calls me fickle and I like to tell her she just doesn’t understand, to lecture her on how dull and meaningless living for security is, even if bills are constant. If she had her way I'd be settled and “taken care of,” meaning married and sheltered from life's storms. More than once I’ve fallen into the promise of thinking a guy’s affections could make me forget my troubles, and I have watched enough couples I love tear one another’s hearts to shreds to know that marriage can have its own. Still I never imagined how difficult it could be to really be on my own, in what often feels like a man's world, even with friends and freedom to roam. I've spent a fair share of time standing back from that dance floor, where hearts can get flipped around, watching out for the kick turns. Once in a while I have wonderfully spun, but I must admit I don't always know what rhythm my feet should take or how to keep the dust from getting in my eyes, or how anybody really does. Most hearts seem to be pretty messy, and yet even with my cynicism and a few tail bruises I want to believe it possible for love to remain. .
The truth is I’ve been wandering since I was barely eighteen, and while the saying goes that not all wanderers are lost I am kind of sure I have been, much of the way. I've laid eyes on the thrusting desert, mountains and canyons, Spanish blooming Lelia's, the African stars, and I have felt the sweeping breezes of turquoise beaches, and have lied under more than one oak tree. Through it all I have seen redemption enough to keep me going, when there has been terror and horrors too. I wish I could say those things haven't made a poor mark on my desire to attach to this world or the people in it, knowing how quickly it can all wither away.
Many of my hard earned friends in Boston are leaving this fall, and I cannot help wondering why I am still here. Boston has been often a place of bitterness, and I would like to put it behind me, to try and stay somewhere awhile, but I just can't seem to find a place I feel at home. I wonder if that is the point sometimes, if the grand biblical story tells true, how it will all pass away, and maybe we really are not meant to get too attached here. I have one real piece of furniture to my name, and I bought it with the moral support of my friend Sarah, who has such a beautiful way of creating a home. It is a small antique chest, and it reminds me of the one my Grandpa made for my mom when I was young. When I was coming of age he made me a bread cabinet, yes, and still whenever I am home I look at it puzzlingly trying to imagine where in the world I would put such a piece of furniture, or why in the world I would be making or buying enough bread to fill a bread cabinet. I might have known if I were the molly Mormon girl I had been reared to become, by now with a healthy sum of children, sewing dresses and making casseroles, blasting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir over the speakers in my home. Last time I was home my eardrums nearly broke so loudly my dad felt the need to play “Come Come Ye Saints” on Sunday morning. Whenever I am tempted to think about staying there for a bit, I merely recall the loud chorus and I am cured.
So I am working out these things, and for some reason I’m working them out in Boston, in the city, trying to find contentment outside of circumstance, outside of being able to nail things down, outside my horrible and untimely and sometimes seemingly random aim. My grandpa taught me to drive a nail when I was a girl, and I seem to spend more time pulling out the bent ones than striking them home.
I will be stacking books on that antique chest this year, getting ready to apply more broadly for schools, and hopefully more discerningly than throwing out shots in the wind. I may seem fickle, perhaps so, but I would like not to be spending so much of my spirit contending with the climate. City living is not for everyone, and I do not know why I would have imagined it being for me, who thrives so much on growth and aesthetics. Claire from Winston-Salem tells me the Carolina's have short winters and nice long summers, and a recent trip to Florida reminded me that there is kindness outside of the city, that life doesn’t have to be lived under the dread of the cold. Sometimes the unexpected can be just what we need. If Boston and I must get along to last another year, I need a good strong dose of summer for reconciliation, not to mention some good company. At least Claire will still be around, for some mysterious reason she loves it here.
