Remember when you used to compose lists and themes in grade school? You'd make a cluster based on a theme, idea, or event and then branch out from there? My ideas on what to write lately are an endless stream of bubble clusters and so I feel like I'm stuck and don't know where to start, so I have written nothing.
What's new? I've come to the conclusion that I'm not progressing in my current field. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do and I love being busy but I feel like I'm not growing as a person, instead I feel like I'm running on a treadmill, when I should be out in the woods or a beach (pick your terrain), leaving footprints and not looking back. So I started looking for jobs and coincidentally was offered an opportunity. So all weekend, I've been looking for apartments I've been falling in love with and planning my move... getting ready for school. It's kind of scary though because I always wonder if the path I'm taking is the best one. What if I miss something great in Europe? At this rate though, I don't think so. I'll miss Europe. I love Germany and I love living here... but it's not easy for expats. The living expenses are unrealistic for the amount of pay I'm getting. The constraints of not having health insurance are unsettling. Attending a University here would be like starting over from scratch. How many times should I start over? It's a lot more ideal to go back to something I'm familiar with and instead, finish something instead of starting over. Never settle. Continue to make mistakes... and learn. What am I learning here? I guess new perspectives and the fact that I am growing as a person, if not from a career standing point.
This weekend was pretty busy. Friday, I can barely recall. I just remember looking up jobs and apartments and talking to Marilyn before bed. I remember going to bed with a stomach ache because my eating habits have been so terrible lately. I did the same Saturday morning but I looked at cars and apartments and fell in love with a handful of them. Oh my gosh, they're so cheap and spacious! I met up with Anthony in Stadtmitte. I went and got the rest of my dad's presents and afterwards we went to bid farewell to Kara. Strangely enough, I started to get a panic attack... the first one in FOOOOREVER.
I've been reflecting on the places that I have lived lately. It's strange to me. My epic moving adventures started when I was 22. Maryland, at 23 Hawaii, then Idaho... at 24 Omaha then LA, New York at 25... I almost forgot where or what I was doing at 26 but then I remembered I was working full time and going to school full time. I was preparing to move to Stuttgart and lived in Kansas City amidst the waiting. I don't know why but I'm thinking a lot about Los Angeles. I miss it.
Los Angeles gets a bad rep. The last time I stayed in Los Angeles for the summer it had a completely different feel. Maybe I got old. Maybe the city shifted somehow but everything from the weather to the buildings are all the same. I guess it's just perspective. The last time I lived in LA was 2008, I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall at the dollar theater, I was dodging my ex, house sitting in a mini mansion in Hollywood Hills and auditioning for Scream Queens, I got the part but turned it down. I was a teaching at a private preschool, I sported a shaggy bob and wore dresses that fell apart in public. I broke a girl's heart, played hide and seek at night in a Catholic Church on Sunset Blvd. I read Women by Bukowski and cried in coffee shops. I got 5 parking tickets and mastered manual transmission on the steepest slopes in Beverly Hills. I ran over a pedestrian. I didn't have a smart phone. I kept maps of LA in my car. Gas was almost five bucks. I was heart broken. I drove to the beach on Malibu on weekends and slept in my car. I lived on oatmeal and apples... I was 24.
I guess it's just city life. My life was similar in Manhattan a year later but more solitary and I didn't have my car. (My beloved Death Star). I guess you can say it was totally different. It must be the pace. It has to be. Here I am in Stuttgart, Germany at 29, teaching Kindergarten and reflecting on my youthful misadventures. It's mostly useless but looking back? It's interesting to revisit your early twenties and laugh at all the things you once thought you knew not knowing how naive you were and in two years from now, you'll do it all over again, at least that's what I hope. Otherwise, what's the purpose of living without making incredible mistakes?
Big cities are the most welcoming voids for arbituary thought. In LA, far too often, I'd find myself sitting at the window, shaking sand out of my hair, from a day at the frigid beach, getting lifted and wondering what went on the minds of old men. Or people walking down the street. I'd get focused on such mundane insignificants. I couldn't tell you why.
I remember turning to Rilke when I was in New York a year later, and thinking I must have felt the way he felt in Paris when he wrote The Notebooks of Malte Laurrids Brigge. It was always when I felt stifled and restless. Comparing the two different facades of Los Angeles and New York was almost uncanny to me. Geographically, LA seemed more fake. Don't get me wrong, LA... is great, although immensely populated, lively and fun... the city was like an exo-skeleton, it was dead. For me, it was like the buildings didn't have any life to them. New York had an entirely different feel. It's like everything there moves and breathes. Like cranky old timers that are just standing... taunting. I can't really make sense of it, it's like an odd dimension that either sucks you in or spits you out right away. I was fortunate enough to be embraced by both. But in LA everybody likes you... and New York everybody fends for themselves. (Not that I wasn't liked, that's not the case at all. Or the point really.) I guess the only time for me, to be most bold, most honest with myself is to move somewhere when you are completely broken. Those are the best times for growth. Was I broken when I moved here? I thought I was... but I wasn't. Am I broken now? No... but these are what I have learned from my mistakes, and they made me who I am today... which funnily enough is something I'm still discovering. I'm still the same person... but I'm aging and so are my mistakes... they're much further from me now, they're like scars... they never go away but they fade.
Dreams
My dreams are especially intriguing lately, not just mine but other people's dreams. My step mom and my sister had three dreams that my dad was coming to pick them up a week before he got the letter of approval. They're moving in next week! :)
My dreams have always been like bizarre poems, abstract images, or vivid nets of hopes and confusion. They're surreal mini movies. Or sometimes they're non-sense and captivate my uncanny obsession with video games, comic books and other geeky vices. Sometimes they come true but most the time, thankfully, they don't.
On Sunday morning I dreamed about the end of the world. Everybody was spending time with the people they cared about the most. It was emotionally painful but at the same time I was at peace. In the end, they asked us how I would die by water or fire. Everybody picked water... I chose fire. Why not? You only die once and one way... why not go with the most brutal? Dying is going to feel helpless either way. Why not go out with a bang. Plus, I think I secretly wanted to turn myself into a phoenix. I think in the end of the dream, I just wanted to get it over with... although, I never burned. I didn't even see the fire, just the crashing water below.
I remember one of the most unsettling dreams I had was this one: (or the ones about Eric and Zee)
"What are you doing back in New York?" I tell him I'm not in New York, I'm in California. He points to the diner and says, "That's New York. This is California..." and he points to the beach behind him. I throw my arms up and I throw out the first line. "I'm happy. How are you?" I say. He smiles. "I've been doing really well." I cross my arms and look to the ground then back at the diner." There's a weird silence. He pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. "After you look at this, I want you to burn it." He gives me a lighter. I open the envelope and inside was a folded piece of paper. In really rushed handwriting it said I miss Bree. After I looked at the paper I went to look up at him but I was alone in a silver room. I was in HIS head. And then I looked down and he was sitting in an office talking to a man. Then all I could see on the walls were these lines... brainwave lines going up and down, then I would see the words pop up every now and then I miss Bree. ZAP! and these lazers would obliterate the words only leaving a little trail of smoke. I miss Bree. ZAP! They were frequent and not so frequent. Then I was staring at him again. He hands me the lighter and I prepare to burn the envelope. I'm staring at my feet and he turns around to give me a moment. When he does this I shove the paper in my pocket and burn the envelope. We look at each other... he flexes and says he's been working out. "You look good." I say and start to turn away. "I'll see you later." I look back and he's just standing there. He doesn't say anything. I think (See you never.) Exhale and walk toward the diner. I turn back one more time... I put up my hand to wave but then it drops.
the spider monkeys.
I'm driving a car on a broken highway. I get stuck in traffic and my car breaks down. I'm running on these stones and pulling out weeds. There's a camp. In the camp there are 7ft tall spider monkeys that are dressed like punk rockers. They have guitars in their hands and a metal head guy comes up to me and says... "I'm the Chief of this Village... state your business." I'm scared. I pull an orb out of my pocket and say... "I have to pee." He points me to this underbrush, I crouch under there and it's an office... some sort of medical office. They ask me for my insurance and there are a bunch of people waiting on bleachers. I walk out... look at the spider monkeys and start to cry. They put down their guitars and wrap their long arms around me. They don't speak, they just look at me... and hug me. I pull back... look at them sadly and walk away. I turn around, hold up my hand to wave... and it drops.
Or the dreams about meeting up with an old friend, having a great time and then something happens, something that shouldn't happen and the sad parting... there's always that wave, or the attempted wave and... the hand drop. How cinematic. Then waking up and being bothered in your waking life... those dreams get to me, I'll think about them for days, weeks or months even. Because sometimes dreams for me, are unspeakable truths.
What's the point of dreaming if your dream is already taken from you? Or at least one part of it anyway.
