Fish Wrapper: 2007.10.02
October 2, 2007You know the days? The things you thought you wanted, you don’t have. The things you think you want, you can’t have. The things you have, well, those are the only things you know you don’t want.
To what do I speak? Well, I’ll preface this with a comment about now and May 30, the date of my last writing in this most humble of journals. Julie and I no longer speak. I was fairly certain this was a good thing, though now I’m not so sure. I keep thinking back to the events unfolded the first week of June and I can’t help but to feel like we were both looking for an easy way out of our respective troubles. But in this I’ll never know. Since I am the bad guy, or often perceived as such, the obligation is with me to make amends. Looking back does not mean walking back, and I am certain that her pride will forever have her by the throat. That’s just how she is.
Bottom line: I’m entering the third month of the job. Enthusiasm wains. I find myself drifting into fantasies of walking down St. George’s Terrace to meet a friend for coffee, or, waiting at Gymnasium Strasse for the 35A as the snow softly collects on the sidewalk. The city is mute. My cheeks stinging. The only disturbance is my feet in the snow as I pace the perimeter of the sidewalk waiting for the tram. My tracks to here are gone by the time I’m there. I’m left alone with the back and forth. I am an island, 16-years-old, waiting to go downtown to drink with the class. To drink myself to a comfortable state of forgetfulness. Now, all I’d like to do is be there again. To exist in a place I pleasure more than here.
I’ve been watching the Ken Burns war documentary, and seeing these film stock footage of bombed out Europe and boom time America. The fact is that I identify more with the former than the later. Home is the former. The later still is foreign in my eyes.
I would return in a half-second if I could. If I had a reason to. But like the America I’m supposed to belong to now, the Europe I grew up with no longer exists. I can lay no claim to it. My childhood, yes, that belongs in Europe. But my right to return and live only existed as long as the diplomatic passport was valid. It is no longer so. And now I can only be a tourist. I am a tourist in my hometown.
And what of my new digs? Who says you can’t reestablish? No one. But “no one” is exactly the point. I am a recluse. That much we’ve established long ago. But even the reclusive sort needs the companionship of a place. For a time I had just that with Julie. But now I am alone with my thoughts and my thoughts return me to Europe.
And so I lay here with pen in hand and pacing that snowy sidewalk in mind. I lay in sheets that are soured with sweat, and yet I smell only the scent of that place long ago. I can only describe it as different than what we know here. It is better because it was first. But I can’t imagine it much unlike that which bangs around the nostrils of any kid in any place.
And so I am here. She is there. A city that I will always love. And yet I doubt that I will ever return. A lifetime is a very long time, but I just don’t see it happening. I’m afraid of the disappointment that surely waits there for me. For she is a place devoid of the familiar faces. And to go there, I’d find myself as alone as I am here.
Though, as I write I’m struck with the desire to be wrong. On all accounts. Here, there, German or in English, as long as I am companion with myself I should strive to pleasure myself. At least, work to find pleasure. Maybe much like a parent works so that he may provide for a child. Maybe I must in a way, work to provide for a childhood I abandoned long ago.
Maybe.