#3

Sometimes I worry about how little I remember about my life, how rarely I show up in photographs, how all of the people I know are only around for a few years. I’m not remembering or recording, and neither is anyone else.

I like to walk around San Jose on the weekends. I wake up whenever I wake up (usually around 8:00 or 8:30), eat a slice of bread and an apple, shower, brush my teeth, pack a book, my iPod, a notebook, a pen, and another apple into my bag, and I leave. First, I go to the coffee shop and have a cup, read, and write (but not enough). I talk to the people there and a lot of time the music they play is good. The art on the walls is always good. I get tired of the coffee shop, though, so after a couple hours I get up and leave and just walk around. Sometimes I walk for hours and miles. I don’t care or notice; it’s a nice way to spend an afternoon. I sometimes wish is that I could meet someone along the way. I don’t expect anyone to go the whole way with me (maybe that would be nice, maybe not), but it would be nice to have some company.

Today, I’m walking alone, but today I want to walk alone. If the sun is blocked by a cloud, it’s cool. If it’s not blocked, it’s warm. I have nowhere to go but when I get hungry I’m going to sit down and eat my apple and read some more.

Sickly Sunday, Wishing I Were Home

It’s a chilly Sunday afternoon in Santa Clara, and I am sick.  There are drunk people playing football in courtyard of Jimmy’s apartment building.  They are loud and happy, and I am tired and a little blue, so I put on my headphones.  I’m listening to a Pandora radio station I made called “Go Home.”  It’s all folksy/country stuff that reminds me of the midwest.

I took the LSAT yesterday and I am not feeling very good about it.  I don’t know why. I went into it knowing that I wouldn’t do well.  I don’t need to do well.  I don’t want to go to a school that requires a high score.  I just needed to do well enough to get into the University of Montana.  I guess the bad feelings are coming from a deeper place.  I keep saying that I don’t know what to do with my life, but the truth is, there are all kinds of things that I want to do.  I just don’t want to settle.  I don’t want to pick one.  I don’t want to settle in any way.  I don’t want to decide on a career, I don’t want a long term relationship, I don’t even want to buy furniture.

I do, however, want a fulfilling way to earn money, I want companionship, and I want a comfortable place to sleep.

I don’t know what this means.  Maybe I’m not quite grown up.  There’s definitely a lot of fear there and I don’t think it’s entirely unfounded.  I have been halfway out the door since I was 11.  My family was moved around by the military.  And then I moved away for college.  The idea of living someplace indefinitely is so strange to me that I can’t even imagine how it’s done.  What do you do?  You just get a job and do it forever?  You go to the same coffee shop and talk to the same people and eat the same things all the time?  I guess everything I’ve ever done has had two implicit conditions: 1. I am a guest from another place and  2. I won’t be here forever.

It seems like not having those conditions would lead to stagnation and stagnation would lead to depression and depression is misery.  Now, when I am unhappy, when things don’t seem to be working out, I know that in just a little while I will be leaving.  But what if that wasn’t possible?  What if I had a career and a home and someone depending on me to be there day in and day out?  It would be wrong for me to leave.  And I want to be able to leave whenever I feel like it’s time to go.

So that LSAT is one big step in the direction of settling down, and I am afraid.  I am afraid that I did so poorly that I won’t get into law school and I’ll be a poor transient forever.  But way more than that, I’m afraid that I did well enough and that I’ll be running off to law school next year only to find that I built a cage around myself.

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

Spring Morning by A.A. Milne

Where am I going? I don’t quite know.
Down to the stream where the king-cups grow -
Up on the hill where the pine-trees blow -
Anywhere, anywhere, I don’t know

Where am I going? The clouds sail by,
Little ones, baby ones, over the sky.
Where am I going? The shadows pass,
Little ones, baby ones, over the grass

If you were a cloud, and sailed up there,
You’d sail on water as blue as air,
And you’d see me here in the fields and say:
“Doesn’t the sky look green today?”

Where am I going? The high rooks call:
“It’s awful fun to be born at all.”
Where am I going? The ring-doves coo:
“We do have beautiful things to do.”

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You’d lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You’d say to the wind when it took you away:
“That’s where I wanted to go today!”

Where am I going? I don’t quite know.
What does it matter where people go?
Down to the wood where the blue-bells grow -
Anywhere, anywhere. I don’t know.

- A.A. Milne

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