Today a box arrived: sweaters. It was a big box. It took twenty-six dollars to mail, and I set it on the center of my white bed and ripped open the brown paper and realized, as I pulled them out, I don’t even like these sweaters.
Some of things I brought with me, through Kansas and Missouri and Utah and heat, I don’t know why I brought them.
Why didn’t I bring my paintings, more books? Where is my corkscrew? Where are my black shoes? Where is my good luck feng shui coin purse, hm?
I think this is a temporarily life…and then I see the pink dress, the red stool, the Venetian mask--crumbling, cracked plaster, black and gold, black straps. I carried it from Venice, then from England, from Ohio, from Maryland, from Virginia, from Michigan, from Pennsylvania. And I know why I brought it, because this is my life, this delicate thing in bubble wrap and clear tape. I carried it here.
I feel like my life is still in Ohio, though my life has not been in Ohio for years. What’s keeping me back?
I want to be present. I want to be HERE. Every day I try to do small things, to venture out: the park, the post office, the breakfast place. But I need to think bigger. Learn Greek. Ballet. Sing.
I am thinking of leaving the women I was meant to be, all of them: actress, playwright, poet, professor, wife. No. Try again. Shake till it sticks. I left one in Utah, one in Nevada, one back in Ohio in a gas station sink.
The red washed through my hair like it was a fast disguise to get me west, some rinse poured over in a hotel bathroom. That’s all right. I’m not a redhead. Knowing am not is almost as important as knowing am.
I want more than anything to surprise myself, like I have recently learned how to read maps (I hesitate even to write that). I want to discover I am good at Greek, or writing back, or cooking, or keeping a promise.
Let there be mystery. Let there be discovery. Let there be a slow unfold, a pull reveal, a girl behind the curtain.
I may be the last to know, but let me know.
I am ready to see it, the way, my friend on his message, said to check out the band Giant Drag : you look like the singer, and they’re powerful, like you. The way, my friend, when I told him a story, was not aghast, was not confused, was not floored, said: I knew that about you. I knew that was in you.
I want you, friends, to be right. I want to be good, and strong, and true.
