21 September 2000 ~ Gypsy...

...Was thinking last night, at the bar, that maybe I'll become a gypsy.

I have come to the personal understanding that there is no such thing as family or belonging. There are possessions, there are roofs over one's head, there are meals eaten, relationships formed, beds slept in night after night... But there is no such thing as permanence, and ritual means nothing more than a method of keeping oneself sane in the belief that SOMETHING can be meaningful and organized enough to do over and over regularly.

I have come to the conclusion that even the strongest of bonds are easy to break.

(There's a line in "The Straight Story" that I'd quote here, except I can't remember exactly how it goes. Alvin Straight is talking to a 15-year-old runaway, and he says he used to tell his kids to take a stick and break it in half. "And acourse, they could..." Then he'd take a bundle of sticks and tell them to break THAT in half, but they couldn't. "And I'd say to 'em, 'that's family...'")

I don't believe that. I don't believe in anything so strong that Helena Thomas can't somehow destroy it.

...And I was thinking last night at the bar that I'd make a fantastic gypsy. Just travelling the country, maybe the world, meeting people and then letting them fade into the background... Just wandering... Just letting everything drift past me. Living at rest stops, camping out, driving through the desert with a to-go cup of coffee, and never, ever, stopping to love anything or anyone.

It hurts too much to belong somewhere, with someone, when you find out that nobody really belongs anywhere, that it's all a façade.

Norman said something along similar lines to me last night. I hadn't told him I'd been thinking the same thing all night; the subject just kind of arose. He said he'd seriously considered doing the transient thing, the gypsy thing... Strange, that he should have said something like that; sometimes I think he picks my thoughts. Am finding myself falling more and more in love with him. Am finding that I am more and more frightened of fucking up, that the stakes seem to be growing higher; that I've got more -- much more -- to lose.

Nothing ever lasts. I don't know why I wait around for something good to last; why I wait for friendships to last; why I wait for love to stay. It doesn't.

I am so sad. I want to sell all my things and buy a big blue backpack and wander away with my 165 dollars in my pocket and a notebook across my arm. When I fill up the notebooks, I'll just leave them right there. They won't matter; it's not like I need some historical account of a life full of things coming and going -- they always come and they always go, and that's the whole damned way of the world.

I am so sad.

I lost one of my best friends today -- or maybe a week ago, or maybe a long time ago and I wasn't paying attention -- and with him, everything he'd ever done for me, which is a fairly extensive list. And with that, damn near everything that meant anything to me.

I am so sad.

Forgot to mail my bills again. Doesn't really matter -- I have a lousy credit rating anyway. Forgot to mail my letters again. There's one to David in North Carolina. It doesn't say much, just "hi, things are great, miss you, here are some photos I took for you..." There's one to Mike in Texas. It doesn't say much of anything either, just, "hi."

I loved North Carolina. I loved Texas. I love Binghamton, NY. I don't think I belong in any of those places. I find myself lately longing for the desert, as brutal and lonely as it can be, and the mountains of Santa Fe, as cold and oxygen-free as they are... I find myself longing for a cup of coffee -- some cheap diner-variety cup of coffee with lots of cream. I find myself longing for my own copy of Thelma and Louise, for the smell of hotel air-conditioners, for the way San Diego and El Paso and Los Angeles and Denver and Albuquerque disoriented me, removed me from all sense of order and direction. I find myself longing for a library in a town I've never been to; an author I've never heard of; a window to stare out of as I read about someone's life that is nothing like my own. I find myself longing for oceans and anonymity and Greyhound busses, and silence -- long, long silences. I long for Maryland, for trips there that were my own because I had no one to talk to about my thoughts. I long for a new start, a temp job at a place I've never heard of, lovers I'll never have to see again, never have to wonder about, never really have to be good enough for..... I'll never have to be up to anyone's standards ever again.

I don't believe in anything so strong that Helena Thomas cannot destroy it.

And at this moment, I believe the only thing strong enough to destroy Helena Thomas at this moment is the bag of Starbucks coffee in my freezer, which was accidentally ground like espresso. (Coffee grounds should feel like beach-sand; espresso grounds should feel like desert-sand.) I firmly intend to go to my kitchen right now, and make myself a cup of that coffee. And put it in a paper cup and go somewhere -- I don't know where yet. I don't really see as it matters where I go.

~Helena*

"It's just a place, Helena, nothing more." -David.

* * * * * * * * * * *

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.

Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.

Camus clearly got up on th wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.

There is only one serious question. And that is: who knows how to make love stay?

Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.

Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and the end of time.

Answer me that and I will reveal to you the purpose of the moon."

--Tom Robbins, "Still Life With Woodpecker."