The cable got shut off this morning. I guess Jeff hasn't been paying the cable bill. Apparently, I am now responsible for any debts he has incurred in this household, whether or not his name is on the account. Whatever. I'm not going to pay them. So I'll not have cable for the rest of my time in this apartment. I'm not very concerned.
But without a TV to watch (I only get Fox, and Fox was showing something stupid), I was sort of bored and decided to take a walk this evening. I didn't have anything in particular I wanted to think about, or anyplace in particular that I wanted to go. I just started walking, having the eerie feeling that it was the right time for a walk. Maybe I'd run into somebody, maybe something would happen to change my life... you know those times, when you just have to get up and go someplace because it's the right time?
I spent the evening sitting on Elvis's grave (yes, the King is buried in Binghamton... Everybody just THINKS he's in Memphis... he's not... just go with me, okay; it's not worth explaining right now...) in downtown Binghamton and scrawling things in my notebook that don't make sense. Strangely, I felt more at peace than I have in months and months and months.
I've come to a decision. Not quite a decision, like where you sit down and weigh pros and cons and get all stressed and ponder and think and get that constipated look on your face... It was more like a revelation, an epiphany -- the message I was supposed to encounter on my walk. Maybe Elvis whispered it to me. It was this:
I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in this town.
Peter said to me the other night, "If I had the chance to leave, I would..." But it isn't about leaving, it isn't about escaping. I have nothing to escape. I have no sadness or feelings of regret here. It's about expanding and growing, like those stupid onions on the top of the refrigerator that stayed there so long they started growing green shoots out of the tops.
I love my town. I love it. I was born in this town and I suppose a part of me will always linger here. But there's a certain passion I used to have; a feeling that no matter what happened, music would be beautiful and lighting a candle could change the entire world into a soft, sweet place that smells like July flowers. And somewhere along the way, I lost that passion, that intensity I used to have. I used to be on fire; I used to be a cloud; I used to feel colors inside me and be able to make them come out of me in words and pictures and stories and the sound of my voice humming as I walked past the Metrocenter. Sometimes I was so alive that I could see my own blood everywhere I went; not like, gross-ew-nasty blood, but life-force blood, crimson energy... Things smelled sweet and music was always good, even shitty music was always good. I'd forgotten about that. I'd forgotten a lot about myself in the past few years.
I want myself back.
I don't know where I am right now. Maybe I'm right here waiting to burst forth, like those stupid fucken onions.
(Lately, I've developed a sort of fixation with onions... I'm not sure why, because I've never really liked them... Oh well... whatever...)
I'm not going to die in this town.
I'm going to stop waiting, and timing things, and counting cracks in the sidewalk and passing time just to get it passed. I'm going to fucking live again; not just live, but be ALIVE. It's been far too long.
["...I would die for you. But I want to live because of you..."]
I ran into Anthony on the way home. I KNEW I'd run into somebody.
"You met somebody, didn't you?" he asked, looking at my face. For the first time in memorable history, Anthony didn't smell drunk.
"Nah," I replied, smiling for absolutely no reason at all, and thinking absurdly of Elvis. I dunno. Seriously, don't ask.
We talked for a few minutes. Not about much of anything at all. He told me he was going to Canada for a week and maybe getting a job at Lost Dog Café. I told him about my trip to NC two weeks ago. He told me what he was doing for the night and what weird sounds his car was making. I told him I was living alone and without cable. And then we hugged and parted ways.
I wanted to hug the world. I wanted to run back downtown and throw my arms around the clock in the Parlor City Commons and embrace it. I wanted to go find the freaky-looking kids who'd walked by me grinning like they knew me (yeah, I sell them CD's, right?), and hug them.
Instead, I came home, thinking about invisible crimson blood running through everything in the world... It was a weird thought, I guess, and it sounds weirder when you say it out loud, but I didn't say you had to understand...
I'm not going to die here. I'm not going to wait here.
Love,
~Helena*
"Tonight, when I looked up, I saw the stars moving... Not just twinkling, but actually moving; I could feel the earth under my feet whooshing around in a circle; FELT it, and was dizzy. And I wished on them all. I couldn't choose just one. I couldn't really think of a wish, either, so I thought something like, 'let me be happy,' only your face was in the wish too... I wished you could have seen the stars tonight; I wish you could have been right there with me, felt the whole earth tipping and seen the zillion stars holding stock still. I wish I could have given you that moment, wrapped it up in purple tissue paper and handed it to you. I can't do that. And so my consolation is that you were under those stars -- those exact same ones -- when the earth moved this evening. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, no matter who might be in your arms or in your mind, you are under these stars with me; you are always with me. And right now, that is the only thing in the world that matters, and I am happy; my wish came true. We are alive. Everything is alive. And moving and tipping..." --me, in a letter.