The Place you Love is Gone

[earthrise]

This weekend I sat by myself on a rock outcropping overlooking the rolling patchwork of the Catskills. I'd finally shed my noisy companions, and was thrilled at the half hour of solitude which afforded a rare chance to breathe like a naturalist. And I did, in full, lungs-to-bursting gulps. When one is in such a mindframe, one catches stimuli that

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Re: Thank you.

[earthrise]

I just had to go close my office door so nobody would see the tears that came up after reading this. Thank you, Maria. You filled in the little bits I left out.

This journal started out as my Arizona journal, and just yesterday I found this entry. See the sixth paragraph down. We remember the same thing.

Sometimes when I read back, feeling slightly embarrassed by some of the writing, I realize that there's an innocence and growth there, and I'm glad I wrote it down while it was happening. It's proven immeasurably comforting when the sunset over the Hudson reminds me of photographing the same star over saguaros and ocotillos, and the city slush can't hold up to desert snow.

A few months ago I brought up desert snow to a songwriter friend. He pulled out his notebook to remember that phrase, that concept, specifically because it wasn't something he'd ever even thought of before. It's a romantic, rare thing that we saw and lived in that desert, and we are so unbearably lucky to have the memory of three months.

The homesickness hasn't abated yet this week. I, too, love this city and the life I have here. But I always tell people, when they ask what the Next Step will be: leading astronomy walks somewhere out west. Feel free to join me when that happens.

Let me lend you High Tide in Tucson at some point.

Re: Thank you.

[earthrise]

I read the entry. I cried. Correction, I'm crying.

Lisa, I'm homesick. Homesick in a way I haven't been since freshman year, when my bright new world crashed around my ears. I started crying when I read the third to last paragraph about really being happy despite what wasn't perfect. I realized we were happy not despite, but because. Perhaps it was the drinking and the drugs and the negligance and the fights and the sleepless nights. It was everything that ought to have been wrong, but just fit. Like the desert snow. In all our imperfections, we were just alive--perfectly whole. Maybe we really did live on air and beauty.

In Arizona I stopped worrying about the shape of my body and gave up ballet. I started to care deeply about what happened to my world. I started being active in a kinky community, and it's only now that I've made the connection that almost everything I love about what is happening to me now started there.

When you go, let me know, even if it's only to visit, and even though I know it can't possibly be the same again.

Re: Thank you.

[howdoyousolve]

That was me. :)

Re: Thank you.

[earthrise]

The interesting thing to me is that, while I know it will never be the same, there's the parts that remain, or that I hope will remain, that can foster the same kind of consciousness. Part of the joy was in the people, and an overwhelming part was in the place. Like you said, it's unavoidably intense and constant confrontations with nature that can make a person feel alive in an entirely unexpected way.

And you know what? Maybe it's three years in NYC and a need for a vacation talking, but sometimes I miss the kind of mindset in which a trip to the grocery store is a social event and grand adventure. Perhaps that's the main thing that can't be recaptured, but perhaps not. Perhaps that's part of what pushed you to explore things that were unmentionable before, by virtue of removing the rest of the clutter that exists or existed in our city lives. Which isn't to say that I do not love the clutter in a different, messy way. You incorporated your new findings into the clutter. I think we all did.

I say that, for starters, we go visit Aaron when he moves out to U of A. Ever since he told me he was going I've been daydreaming of a quick jaunt back home.