Travelogue

Cleveland #6

After all these years of wishing to be invisible, you’d think I’d feel okay when it finally came to pass. But no, I view my seeming invisibility with the same sort of distress that I had previously viewed attention: the impetus is negative and I am somehow inadequate. So while the ability to move through does have certain perks attached, I feel the lack of notice like a put-down. Used to be that I’d meet a glance and reflexively swipe across my nose—it must be running—cast my own eyes down. Now I look up and into and search and it’s like I haven’t any face at all.

I thought there’d be some comfort in that.

I’m not sure when I turned from a Miss to a Ma’am. I dine at a favorite restaurant where they used to call me “Princessa” and now cannot remember me from the day before. I think I’d gone three full days without really talking to anyone at all. This is where I am.

Where he is, I remember him. He tends bar at the Marriott. The context is consistent, and he has become some frame of reference here, a face I see in Cleveland. This is where I am: A hotel bar in Cleveland. And given what I told you about where I have been, can you imagine how it feels to be remembered?
Simply recognized. It had been fourteen months. And it doesn’t feel like a parlor trick and it feels like only yesterday and he asks me today about the project from those months ago and yes, it’s still in progress.

And I wonder if he saw me somewhere else, would he place me? No. He is the bartender I recognize and I am the lady in the bar. And they used to call me Princessa and you used to call me Miss and subtle bold invisible, it doesn’t matter how you see it because there’s one single way that I do.

Hawaii #1

He couldn’t quite be mistaken for a beached whale, but surely for something that has crawled out from the sea, or washed up from it. The large, hairy, middle-aged man lies on his back in that spot where the waves have broken and spread upon the shore like down. He curls and wriggles with such innocent joy, a man a dog a child, shoulder and hip heights rising, crashing, arms waving in the air, or flapping in the sand, fleeting angels. His bliss is intoxicating, water, air, and sand. So intoxicating as to heighten my own appreciation of it: of water, of sand, of air.

This man has become my own memory. He has waited his whole life for this moment. I wait for such a moment as well, when I am so oblivious, when I am dog and whale and water.

Colorado #3

My father is not buried in Estes Park, Colorado; he’s buried somewhere in New York. But I had his name carved on the stone beside my mother’s—the body is not relevant. And neither is a marker. I admit it is a memorial to me every bit as much as my father.

I have come to this grave to spread the ashes of a dog, a dog chosen by my mother and hers for a time, hers and his; then just his, then mine. The dog lived with me for six years, but was never really my own. She was and still is my parents’ dog. Even after she had outlived them.

The ashes are likely a conglomerate of various sad Minnesota dogs having died a certain day, but I name them for one particular dog as I name a tombstone for my father. None of this is a physical matter.

Or maybe something is, a physical matter. My stomach churns and my tears, so rare, will not listen, will not stop. “It’s hard to go back,” my friend has warned. “You’re different now. You’ve changed.”

And it is hard, it’s so hard, harder than I ever imagined. But it’s not because I’ve changed —it’s hard because I haven’t.

Greater Las Vegas #2

North Las Vegas is too busy going about its business to feel like Vegas proper. There is no place to gamble except perhaps the cab of some lonely trucker. But should he choose to stay in North Vegas, odds are such a trucker is just seeking a little rest, like I am.

I can’t quite tell you how the Comfort Inn is just that, or how delivered pizza is just that, too. I can’t quite tell if quiet is the experience of nature, or something quite specifically opposed to it. But I can tell you that I craved it, and can speak here of one craving fulfilled.

In fact, I slept like a rock.

Rocks sense this in me the following morning, with them in the desert before sunrise. While I am not quite familiar to these rocks, there is something familiar about me. I sleep as they do. They speak. They say: We sit here as counterbalance. We knew this city was coming. We knew you were coming too, just the same as you did. We see your childhood fire, we see your teenage dam break. We see the secrets you can’t share with any other so you’ve confided in us already.

I tell the rocks they don’t know so much as they think. I accuse the rocks of jealousy, my mobility, my flesh. I can walk from this place today, and I will. I can move far enough away that the view becomes completely different. I taunt them with the reminder that nothing is written in stone. There is the potential for beauty in every single moment. There is value in a moment, enough for a whole entire life.

And the stones say to me: What’s a moment to a rock?

Mexico City #3

Today is the vacation day of my working vacation. I should have taken it on the front end. I should have detected my own warning signal last night, when I carefully laid out clothes for the two days subsequent, then carefully packed absolutely everything else away. My actions are a physical symptom of homesickness. There are other symptoms too: Clockwatching, Disassociation, Mild Anticipatory Dread. I squander my vacation day in the city.

Clockwatching: thirty-six hours to departure. Disassociation: failure to take in present magnificence. Mild Anticipatory Dread: I am unmotivated despite great reward for small effort.

But still I walk around. I walk around and breathe and try to stay involved, though my greatest involvement is not with my setting, but with my own sense of longing. And I wonder, is longing time squandered? I try to engage in the scene, rather than turning it consciously into memory even though I am still there. I mean, still here.

Today I long, tomorrow I travel. Let me take it all with me, this day and this longing. Let me pack it up like a souvenir.

I brought you back appreciation.

Minneapolis #74

It feels good to be susceptible after all this time being immune. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fight it. Something entered me like a virus, and all the drugs in the world won’t cure this. No, relief requires time.

There is green grass in my backyard as the year turns over in Minnesota. Even the snow has surrendered. Snow, beloved ally, I should follow your lead. But surrender does not come naturally to me.

I try sabotage instead.

I wear a sweater I do not need, this in the hope of being reminded. This in the hope of being alright. But my mind’s a blank when it isn’t racing, and though recently I believed I’d up and left this planet, the universe has shrunken to my city and my room. The scent of Mars is overwhelmed by the weight of a telephone in my hand. The way the surface gave beneath my feet made me faithful then, but now I just wait for a call.

Relief requires time.

It’s warm here. My sweater finds a purpose, I walk in the thick dark without a coat. I was hoping for an incident, but the warm, wet air is enough. I pander to my vanity: happy is pretty, unbearable is just that, and I know it.