“I cursed myself for being surprised, that this didn’t play like it did in my mind.”
All I know is that I’ve always been a sucker for them, because what better way of understanding something than to relate it to something you already understand? I’m also pretty sure that the beds I’ve possessed over the years have always reflected my life and mindset.
My feet dangle from the bottom of my mattress in New York whenever I go home, chilly as they escape the pure white duvet in the room I grew up in. [White is the color I chose for trim when I took it upon myself to renovate at some point in high school.] Lying in bed on the rare occasion I am home, I can’t move much without colliding with some sort of wall. I out grew it long ago, but that doesn’t stop me from snuggling deep down and drifting into a dream when I’m there. It’s still my room, after all.
I had the same bedding throughout university… golden yellow sheets beneath a navy blue comforter decorated with celestial patters, suns and moons and that. They were among the only things that came with me to all three apartments. I never stopped loving the pattern, but I couldn’t take them with me traveling, and they didn’t fit my room back home. I think they’re in a closet somewhere, but I still like them, and think of them fondly, and intend to maybe use them again one day, though they are rather juvenile, and fit for a twin.
Edinburgh was a bed not my own, sheets and quilts waiting for me upon arrival, with the exception of the extra blanket I picked up in a charity shop for a few pounds. It was surrounded by the walls my flatmate painted bright, intense, yet oddly fitting colors. The blanket stayed when I left, immersed in the rest of the bedding. I knew I’d never see it again, though it had kept me so warm on those cold Scottish nights.
The first queen I ever had was in Thailand, and it was harder than a bathroom floor. I endured it for four months, though most people couldn’t/wouldn’t have. A love/hate relationship developed, a feeling of pride and conquer coupled with a strong desire to sleep elsewhere. It was not meant to last. I’ll have another queen someday, when circumstances warrant it. Chaiyaphum was the wrong place and the wrong time.
And now I’m back in a twin, immensely soft and piled with thick blankets and quilts [again, not my own] that protect me from the bitter chill of my basement bedroom. I pushed it into the perfect fit of an alcove when I rearranged the furniture to make the room my own. I know that I will leave this bed as well one day, and again I’ve added my own touch… a blanket I swiped from a plane that, despite its weight, remained in my backpack, just in case. I will probably leave it here when I go.
Beds are where we dream. Beds are home. I’m starting to realize they represent more than we give them credit for.
I finally found my place in Auckland.
I know I’ve had a literal ‘place’ here since before I arrived. That was never an issue. But it took some time before I understood what I was meant to do in that place.
In Europe I was predominantly on my own, though I was never really alone. I met heaps of people along the way and loved them dearly before we parted ways. That’s what I was after at the time… I needed to experience as much as I could for myself, which included meeting people during my journey who fit into that place and time [usually only that place and that time]. I was by myself in the sense that my companions came with the territory, but there was almost always someone to pick up, to bond with briefly, to experience that moment with me. On the rare occasion I did find myself completely alone… a coffee shop in Stockholm comes to mind, as well as that hilltop in Nafplio, just snippets of memory here and there… I felt incomplete, wondering what my intentions were, temporarily lost. I was meant to incorporate the people of the world into my own. I was meant to love and leave. I call it ‘vagabonding.’
Asia was a time of deep bonding and [though I'm hesitant to admit it] dependence. I was almost always traveling with a friend, and when I finally settled down to teach I had a core group that was always on hand. It got to the point where activities lost their appeal if no one was game to join me in them. It was exactly what I needed. In a place more foreign than any I had yet encountered, in a time following a rather ephemeral existence plowing my way across the globe at warp speed, settling into a comfortable routine with solid rock reliable friends was necessary, even if it was, in the grand scheme of things, fleeting. I readily and happily surrendered my fierce independence to lock hips with the same folks continuously and consistently for five months; without doing so I would have been lost. I wasn’t yet ready for the isolation that would have resulted from being the only foreigner in a little Thai town, especially after being my own entity traveling through Europe with no real ties. I was spoiled and probably missed out on a very different experience, but it wasn’t my time to learn those lessons.
I found myself searching in vain for that same foundation in New Zealand, which I think accounts for my initial haunting feeling of restlessness, despite establishing a solid life so quickly. I expected to find the bonds I’d made in Ban Phe just as easily here, but my TEFL training group was a fluke… the perfect cocktail of random wanderers who happened to be at the same crossroads in life, who formed an inevitable [though completely unique] clique thereafter. We took it for granted, this absurd luck of finding each other at the very same time we were looking to find something none of us could name. It was extraordinary, and I’ve learned to not seek it here, because a new chapter has begun and my individual needs and wants have shifted.
Here in New Zealand, going over the facts in my mind, all signs are pointing to solitude, stripped of its negative connotations. The country itself is seclusion incarnate; its very geography represents finding everything one needs inside oneself, as far as you can get from the rest of the world. Tropical to arctic, there isn’t much you can’t find here, and yet one glance at a map and its isolation on a global scale is obvious. It’s an ideal location to find oneself.
Not to mention I’m working about 60 hours a week these days. I love my jobs… I need them for more than financial reasons. Caring for Karen is more rewarding than I anticipated, and it’s actually pretty nice to be back in a restaurant, doing what I do well. It’s a good test of character for me, keeping in high spirits despite my sleep-depriving schedule. I’m also learning to take the best possible care of myself out of pure necessity, because I’m going to need all the energy I can get. Overall, though it may run me down and burn me out, I will probably be in my healthiest state when I’m through. Mainly because I will be forced to learn balance, a lesson I’ve been trying to master my entire life… my biggest challenge, constantly, through and through.
Once I finally realized that this is a time to be on my own, once I stopped looking and waiting for an adventure buddy, I was at peace. I compiled a list of must-sees and must-dos in New Zealand and have been slowly chipping away at it, just me and my car. Nissa is all I need these days, and I’ve developed a deep affection for her. [Hopefully a small lesson in car maintenance will come out of this experience as well. Goodness knows I could use one.] Yesterday I spent a few hours at the Auckland Museum, learning about a multitude of subjects, including Maori culture. I took Rushdie on a picnic atop Mt Eden afterward, a dormant volcano with stunning views of the city and beyond. This morning I went to the zoo, which was nice though slightly mediocre, especially for someone with aspirations to see Africa one day. Everyone said I had to go though, so I did, and I harbor no regrets. This weekend was only the tip of my to-see-to-do list iceburg, but it reinforced my contentment of this plan of mine, to revolve my experiences in this country around the things I want to do and see, regardless of company. It’s going to be a beautiful few months.
I fully intend to expend New Zealand. I’ll slowly see the north over weekends, and take bigger [and much anticipated] trips down south over the holidays and at the end of my stay. When I leave, I’m quite looking forward to state-hopping my way back to New York, visiting friends, immersing and reacquainting myself with my country. Summer is up in the air, let alone the time that will follow, but my plate is full enough in the meantime.
All I’ve ever really needed is a rough outline, the most important feature of which being the possibility that everything can change.
I’ve plastered my room with photos and maps. A map of the world and detailed maps of the North and South Islands. Photos my family, of New York, of my travels, of Edinburgh, of Thailand, my students and my friends, and a growing cluster reserved for New Zealand. For this particular phase of my life requires integration of the pieces into the whole, remembering where I’ve been and keeping in sight where I’m going. It’s a balancing act, one that will [appropriately] require both care and foolishness.
Here goes.
xo
For a long while I have believed … that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that, in sum, the phenomenon may be as “natural” a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity.
And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anti-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not really feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a play-house or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our places of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.
No sooner did we have ships than we rushed to sea, sailing across oceans in paper boats. No sooner did we have cars than we hit the road. No sooner did we have airplanes then we zoomed to the furthers corners of the globe. Now we yearn for the moon’s dark side, the rocky plains of Mars, the rings of Saturn, the interstellar deeps. We send mechanical photographers into orbit, or on one-way journeys to the stars, and we weep at the wonders they transmit; we are humbled by the mighty images of far-off galaxies standing like cloud pillars in the sky, and we give names to alien rocks, as if they were our pets. We hunger for warp space, for the outlying rim of time. And this is the species that kids itself it likes to stay at home, to bind itself with — what are they called again? — ties.
That’s my view. You don’t have to buy it. Maybe there aren’t so many of us, after all. Maybe we are disruptive and anti-social and we shouldn’t be allowed. You’re entitled to your opinion. All I will say is: sleep soundly, baby. Sleep tight and sweet dreams.
