Back in the states

10 March 2010

How many rooms have I schlepped my suitcase into, unzipped it, rifled through looking for my PJ's? Don't buy black. It's a terrible color. I own so much black: PJ's, turtle necks, sweat pants, socks, underwear, corduroy pants, jeans, sweater,. They morph into one wrinkled, bulky unit and I end up throwing them into different piles every night just trying to find my PJ's or a clean pair of undies or socks. My kingdom for a dresser.

Let me explain. I am a hobo. I carry my suitcase, which has one outfit for most occasions, my black bag for toiletries, the current book I'm reading, my writing notebook, vitamins and hairdryer. I also have a portable file for very important papers, a place to organize the latest bills, store the stamps, unused envelopes, scotch tape, paper clips. Actually I need to buy paper clips. The file usually stays in my car. And I have my backpack that contains my computer, camera and more writing papers, the ones I want in hard copy. With these items I travel between Sacramento, Fairfield, Napa and Oakland depending on where I need or want to be. It seemed simple, this idea--odd maybe--but simple. In July of last year, I quit my job of three years at hospice, gave up my four bedroom house, put my things in storage and went. I flew to Jordan and visited my son who works in Saudi. I flew to Nepal and then to India and then to Nepal again where I went on retreat. From there I flew to Australia, another retreat and finally, after two and a half months gone, I came home. Only I didn't want to come home. I didn't want to sink back down into the routine, the sadness, the quiet life of work, care taking of others, playing with my grandchildren. Odd, isn't it? It seems odd to me too, for I am so tired, at this moment, of being homeless, so exhausted with trying to be the good guest. Yet today, as I looked on Craig's list for a rental, I realized that I wasn't ready to stop and settle down. I won't do it. I can't. I can't go back to that life; that life of quiet desperation. I want something else now. I want joy. I want connection. I want community. I want to feel in the wildest and most basic way that I am growing inside, becoming younger, as it were. I want to continue to shed old structures, old certainties, old beliefs about me, about the world, about what is important.

I was one of those people who never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. When I was 22, my boyfriend asked me what I wanted from life, what my life's ambition was. I answered, "To know a lot." But it wasn't facts I was wanting. It was life itself. And for a long time, working in the mental health world, I learned a lot. I learned by watching and listening and cataloguing the results of other peoples' choices. Then I went to work in hospice. At first, I was delighted to be working with regular folks. Twenty-five years in mental health and it's easy to think every one's crazy, and if not crazy, certainly unhappy. But in hospice I met people who'd been in a loving relationship for sixty years. I met people who'd lived lives of meaning, or simply quietly fulfilling or just lived without drama. And it was joyful for me. But the message of hospice, over and over, is simple. We are all going to die. No exceptions. I might live thirty more years or show up tomorrow with a terminal diagnosis. No certainty about timing, but no doubt about outcome. Every day I sat with someone dying. Every day I looked at my life and wondered if tomorrow I learned I had six months or less to live, what would I regret? And I did regret. I was afraid I hadn't really lived, risked, explored, pushed to see what I could do, who I could be, what I could know. So I packed up my things and I left. And now, now I can't quite stop wandering, not yet, as painful as it is at times. Tonight I will drive the forty miles to Fairfield to yet another house, schlep my bags in quietly so as not to disturb my friend and sleep. Tomorrow I will pack up, drive sixty more miles to Sacramento to another friend's home. And so it goes. I don't know when this will stop. I don't know how much longer I can continue like this. But I do know that I promised myself, when I was young and lonely on the farm, that when I got big, I would live my life the way I wanted to live it, that I would have adventures, that I would touch the truth of this life. I promised myself, that skinny, braided girl, that I would have a life of love and learning that was full of the unexpected, a life that pressed me to grow in ways I couldn't dream of. I promised. I can't wait any longer; I don't know how much time I have.