Photo Credit: Pineapple Supply
“Sometimes you finally get around to hanging the art on the walls and then it’s time for you to leave,” said a former lover who lived down the street from me in Manhattan.
And that’s precisely what happened. The art went up (well, a giant framed print of The Clash – I’m not fancy enough to own any real art), and a few days later it was decided. It was time to move west.
Here in Oakland I’ve delayed hanging anything on my walls for over a year.
My boyfriend, also my Chief Adventure Enabler, made a similar remark. “If you hang the prints and it’s time to leave, what’s so bad about that?”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. “I’ll hang them this weekend.”
My mind went someplace else.
Why does everyone keep encouraging this? Doesn’t anybody want me to stay?
The socially awkward get a pass making freedom that much more attainable.
Sometimes though, we just need a minute. To catch up with ourselves. That’s how I’ve felt this month, at least.
I don’t read the news. I know it’s bad.
I need just a minute to catch the emotions rolling around in my brain.
I’d be sad to leave my apartment. It’s grounded me well.
But if I keep moving, maybe the clawing sensation in my chest will go away.
Forget it. I want to stand in a bright kitchen, you know – the all-white one with real marble countertops – and do something extravagant like slice tomatoes.
Yes, that’s it. I want to make a nice salad and never look at my laptop again.
Wait.
I need to catch my breath. It’s time to revisit my dreams. To listen more intently as the train pauses just outside my window, to silently watch as the street lamps flicker and wane.
To be here. Just here.
Maybe soon I’ll be there. I can be, after all. I’ll go away.
I think about how smarty-pants people say things like “it’s simply semantics.”
Well, this is just logistics.
Isn’t it?
The naughty, self-righteous part of me wonders if it’s even possible to live a storyful life in comfort without being ridiculously rich.
Define rich.
I’ve hung one picture on the wall. The others await sturdier wire. I have the thin green kind, the whimsical kind for making crafts or wrapping decorative plastic plants into tight, presentable displays – but I need the strong inflexible kind if the heavy frames are meant to stay.