Inside a Girl

I just finished watching Mona Lisa Smile for the second time. It makes me think about roles. How hard it is to merge everything that we are into one being. I wonder if there's ever a point where you feel like everything in your life is perfectly balanced--that you're devoting enough time to all the people, things, instances you love. Balance. Inside each of us there are hundreds of possibilities, versions of who we are or who we could be. How do you pick one of those versions & decide to be just that? Is it possible to balance all of those versions & live one comfortable, satisfied life? Or do we end up putting some of those versions of us quietly to death, neglecting & forgetting until that person we were at some point seems foreign, removed, dead, never born.

I think about the lives I would be comfortable living. An apartment in the city, obsessing over paintings & poetry, drinking at 3 in the morning, stumbling to a sidewalk, a bench, a crack in the pavement, taking in the lights, sounds, smells, traffic, reading the strangers that passed by. In my head that life is so real & familiar that sometimes I think I've lived it before. At the same time I see myself in a little house in the woods, gardening & writing & baking good things, babies scattered & running. Sipping coffee on a porch step in the morning. Guitar in the evenings. Living settled & happy & fulfilled.

I admire people who pick up, who take off. I admire people who follow their gut. Who chase a dream or a whim. Who brave lonliness & isolation for that one chance to do something bigger.

I can't say exactly where all this is coming from. But I've had an urge lately to grab a map, pick a spot out & just go. Or to set out driving with no destination & see where I end up.

I want sunshine & demolition derbies. I want sticky sweat & dust on my skin. I want warm rain, bare feet & mud. I want an afternoon of exploring & playing & not knowing where I'll end up that night. I want. I want. I want.

Yesterday I visited with my aunt Joan, Tammy, Bradley, Stevie & Den. There was talk of the cabin. The time we used to spend up there. The people who used to spend their evenings up there. Not long ago, while my brother & some friends were shacked up there, the state police came to visit. They made it half way up the hill, then walked the rest of the way to this little cabin, lit only by candles. My brother & his friends had, drunkenly, rammed a gate down with a truck & stolen a tube of grease & some filters from a little shack owned by a local oil company. They weren't aware of the surveillance cameras or their images on film or the tire tracks that lead to the cabin, until they were confronted with the state police & the polite patting of the head as their asses were put into the back of the cruiser. At the time, none of this was funny to me, considering the 10,000 dollar property bond that had to be put up & the possibility of my brother spending a year in prison for criminal trespassing, criminal mischief & burglary. But yesterday, as me & Tammy talked about it, she said "God, I'm just glad we didn't ever see blue lights coming up that hill." I laughed my ass off, thinking of the people who used to frequent the cabin. How the term 'communist bastards' came out of their mouths every other sentence. How most of them ran when they saw even a hint of blue lights. How even a flashback of blue lights put most of them on their feet. Had we ever seen a touch of blue, lighting up that valley, much less coming up the hill, the woods around the cabin would've looked like the scene of some Rainbow gathering, tie-dye & bibs scattered & running through the woods like deer.

There were so many good times had at the cabin, and so many stories to tell, stories that seem almost impossible to tell because you're not quite sure you can do them justice: Rondal sitting on the branch of tree, Ricky climbing up after him repeating "Tell me, Rondal, tell me!", Lenny at the base not quite sure to go up after Ricky or not. Bobby, who always referred to himself in third person, announcing "Bob needs another beer. Bob was worried Kelly Dog wouldn't be able to find this place. Bob took care of that. Bob peed his name in the road. Bob needs another beer. Bob could only finish B-O." The night that Lenny did his Triple Lenny, similar to a triple lutz except he was drunk, not on ice, it didn't look nearly as graceful & he spent much of the night sleeping on the ground. And because he was the one with the worst hangover he got to wake up to a rendition of Knocking of Heaven's door, complete with me & Tammy singing in our worst Axl Rose/Bob Dylan voices, & the jangling of a loud badly played tambourine.

Ahh. Good Times. Sweet Memories.

Part of me misses that.

The hanging out all night, sleeping in the back of truck when everyone is still going strong & you've decided to call it a night, the bonfires, the flannel shirts, waking up covered in hooch.

It seems crazy to miss that. But I do at times.

I miss that. The girl I was. My homemade dresses. Being perfectly comfortable walking into the Corner Marathon with mud caked on the hem & a new story in each pocket. Those people. The camaraderie. Talking until the sun came up about everything & nothing.

Going home, feeling so full & satisfied & perfectly in tune, perfectly in balance.