NothingPoignantHere

I imagine this is something akin to watching yourself have a stroke,
your helpless, clumsy body trying to stagger back and forth
between two polar influences of reason and madness,
of logic and emotion
until your brain finally waves that final, white flag
and succumbs to the evils it created
just to cover that 1%.

I can't tell if every time I'm home I feel nostalgic, or that winter is really the time for reflection and I always come home for the holidays.

Either way.

As soon as I got to the ranch, it seems I left it. Less than three months and yet that place was my home, a place my soul felt at peace.

-Donkeys
-Goats
-Dog
-Rio Grande
-Daily Hiking
-Privacy

All gone to me now. Of course, I'm all right. But I'm still kinda pissed off and disappointed. Now I'm at my cousin's wife's house, getting fat and ugly while my soul is champing at the bit for some solitude and some fucking REAL OUTDOORS.

Pavement. Hightop. Freeway. Grocery store. Population.

Ugh.

There was an urban garden out here that I wanted to work with and I gave them my SIX fucking references. What happened? Nothing. Not a damn thing. What a goddamn bust. What a bummer, a travesty!

Now I am torn. There are farms elsewhere in Arizona that I could go for. But yanno, I'm kind of enjoying the life of normalcy. But, if I get a job, will I become lulled into some sort of mindless, senseless daze, just because I want internet and some AC?

Ugh.

This farm lady is whack. I'm leaving as soon as I can, which still looks like it'll be about late June. I'll be here for my birthday. Great.

I'm leaving for other reasons, but have found a farm in NM that is dangerously close to El Paso, TX...where a certain Army boy is stationed. I don't know why I'm making this decision to go down there. I might have actually convinced myself that this is worth trying and no matter how I look at it and see the craziness of it, I feel like if I don't take this chance then I'll miss out on something great. I don't have unrealistic expectations of him. He already does something that annoys the fuck out of me. But I don't care.

I think we're gonna be together. I'm going to try. I've never made a decision like this...

Every time I stay somewhere for any length of time, I begin to grow little roots that attach me to a place. I was saddened to leave my grandmother's house in upstate NY after spending all of October with her, though as soon as my creeping roots touched Kansas soil I daresay I rooted a little quicker than anticipated. But it is to be expected - this place is my home, the cord that's strung everything else off of, this is where I begin. It shan't be where I end, or at least I hope not, for who can truly say, but my merry wanderings and my stumbled pathways inevitably narrow into one little dirt lane that leads back to DeSoto, KS.

I am sitting on the eve of travel, though to be technical it is the early morning thereof, and am struck with memories. Nostalgia has always been a powerful gift of mine, and it strikes me hard when I know that I won't see my mom or dad until at least June. What of my cousin Jade, whom I had a wonderful time being near while I was home for these two months? I shall miss her terribly. And then there's Virginia, dear sweet Virginia who has welcomed me into her family with open arms. When will our paths cross again? These faces plague me. These and countless others. They say things like, "please don't leave!" or "when am I going to see you again?" For all my gruffness and claws, it can be thusly noted that I am, at the core, a very emotionally complex, sensitive individual who simply wears a tougher hide than most. Leaving places, uprooting my tree again, is like a little death. Staying one place too long is like the slow dying.

Tomorrow I leave for Chicago, where, upon arrival, I shall be rejuvenated with the plethora of choices and the freedom with which I can carry out my existence. The thrill of different old faces and different familiar places fills my heart up with joy and I forget those whom I've just left behind and go to those whom wait ahead! I -did- say that I was emotionally complex, and this ability to mourn and then become excited has always exhausted me. Right now, as I type this, I am sad, even a little melancholy. In my home, the home that has been mine for 16 years, my roots grow the deepest, and leaving them hurts the most.

Emotional transplanting? Spiritual testing? Broadening horizons? Who knows. But I'll tell you this, come around 9:30pm tomorrow (today) I shall be quite excited to see the bright lights of the Windy City.