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stranger in a strange land
I remember reading the book I mention in the title when I was thirteen. I didn't really understand it. It's a cult classic of science fiction about self-sacrifice and transcending existence. I couldn't get past the idea of polyamorous relationships. I do remembering sitting in my front yard, a huge grassy expanse in the middle of nowhere in the far north of Wisconsin, and trying to figure out what I was supposed to have learned from this famous novel. Surrounded by information, all of it seeming fairly important, and yet mostly unaware of what, if anything, I am supposed to do with it.
I listened to the president elect, Barack Obama's, book "The Audacity of Hope" read in his incredibly sincere, beautiful voice as I drove along the California coastline on the historic Pacific Coast highway. (It's supposed to be a life-changing journey) Hope is what you are left with as he explains his life and his journey towards the highest office in my country. (Citizenship and the fact of belonging mean much more to me now that I am back in the one nation I can claim rights to, though, I am deeply fond of Canada)
Somethings are deeply western and seemingly part of my culture, the mass-produced coffee shop, the sullen, lonely small town that barely boasts a franchise fast-food restaurant, the quirky off-beat small town that is proud not to have anything resembling a Mooby Burger...
I drove through gas stations where I was still called ma'am with quiet respect, even though my hair was a mess and I was wearing the same pair of jeans I'd been wearing for the last three days. It's funny how when you're driving alone and you have no real agenda the only schedule I ended up following was the most basic. Where should I eat? How long will it before I get another chance to go to the bathroom? How bored am I with driving? Is this town worth walking around?
Washington seems wet and gloomy, but bricked and fairly beautiful when you get off of the main road. Oregon is green, the trees are coated with lichens and moss and are pale green through the mist even in the beginning of winter. (Now that I've left Minnesota, the books that insist 'winter' only lasts from December-February actually seem less ridiculous...) Northern California is both dream world of rocks and ocean and desert and lonely strip malls that are half-empty and make me nostalgic for a best buy so I can buy a car charger for my iPod and be liberated from the static-filled christian-country music that is the ONE station I can always get, no matter how high into the mountains I go.
All of this, my journey of back-road hitchhikers ( I never picked up any because my car was full) and tiny towns where finding a gas station at all was a luxury, leads to Los Angeles, smog-choked, hazy city of uncertainty.
Now that I'm down here, Shannon's parents remind me not to get off of the freeway between two points on the map so far apart it seems like a bomb could have been dropped in the center. The local NPR station, it's a gift to be in a city larger enough to boast one again, begins with a story on the trading of fire-arms for gift cards. Depressing enough if you've never heard of such a thing, made doubly so by the fact that this year, instead of the electronics gift certificates people wanted last year, this year they only seem to want grocery store gift certificates.
One handgun = a $100 gift certificate. One automatic rifle = a $200 gift certificate.
Maybe its weird that I think a gun for an iPhone is a more logical trade. People want to buy food. People probably need to buy food.
I get off the freeway in the dead zone, Compton, the part of Los Angeles my apartment guide doesn't even mention and paints grey on the cheerful map of the area. I don't have a good reason to do it, I've missed my exit and I can certainly work things out on a different, safer freeway, later. Part of me just wants to see what is there, in this grey spot on the map. There's a park near the freeway. There's graffiti and a duck pond and a patch of green. Then rows and rows of houses, not too tall because it's Los Angeles and nothing gets that tall here, but there are for-rent signs and empty builds and rows and rows and rows of bars.
It seems the bigger a city gets, the more bars it needs to be safe. Windows are boarded up and people wander the side streets with shopping carts. I wonder where they get the shopping carts. I haven't seen a store that would provide them for quite some time. I suppose they travel.
NPR says the counties near here, the "Inland Empire" they are called, have double digit unemployment. The US economy lost half a million jobs last month. NPR says that doesn't count the people who aren't looking for work, and the people who stopped looking for work, and the people who work three jobs at once to pay all the bills.
What kind of world did I get myself into? What part of my world-opening, university degree prepared me for this strange recession economy? Is it really wrong to go half a million dollars (yes I could totally do it if I go to grad school!) to avoid the uncertainty I'm wrapped in right now? Where did I take the class that told me how to deal with real life? Did I forget to add it?
Out in the big world, away from the familiar, I'm reminded again and again of what I am supposed to do. Get a job. (maybe even a job i like) Get an apartment. Put things in the aforementioned apartment. Have a life. Find friends and do things with them. Go to movies (I usually do that alone) go to dinner. Cook dinner. Go out at night and see what the city looks like after dark. Move past the pleasant distraction of weekends in coffee shops and burying myself in the film industry. (ironically, nearly a perfect life for me)
I can't help feeling like I am supposed to know what I want from my life. I'm 25. I'm done with school, I'm uneasy about grad school I should just get a job and settle down dammit.
Why are settle down and settle so similar in my head? I'm not really sure what I'm not settling for, or why I'm convinced it's so important that I don't settle. Getting a degree will get me a good job, is the lie my generation was sold according to my good friend from forever ago. I don't think I paid attention to getting a degree with good grades and without spending a lot of money and time in school because I honestly have no real idea what I like doing was in there.
I think I've developed a cold so I don't have to cry. Ironically, I haven't. I haven't cried since I left Vancouver. I haven't cried since I broke my heart on Tara. (something that I truly think I needed to do, just to have the experience). I haven't cried since I left Minnesota, which really was my home. Or was it?
Maybe home is where I am and what I have. Maybe it's a state of mind. Maybe I just need to stop thinking and start doing something, anything, to live up to the enormous potential I apparently have. Is there a type of low-esteem just based on the sheer terror of being unable to do all the good everyone seems to think you can do?
I listened to the president elect, Barack Obama's, book "The Audacity of Hope" read in his incredibly sincere, beautiful voice as I drove along the California coastline on the historic Pacific Coast highway. (It's supposed to be a life-changing journey) Hope is what you are left with as he explains his life and his journey towards the highest office in my country. (Citizenship and the fact of belonging mean much more to me now that I am back in the one nation I can claim rights to, though, I am deeply fond of Canada)
Somethings are deeply western and seemingly part of my culture, the mass-produced coffee shop, the sullen, lonely small town that barely boasts a franchise fast-food restaurant, the quirky off-beat small town that is proud not to have anything resembling a Mooby Burger...
I drove through gas stations where I was still called ma'am with quiet respect, even though my hair was a mess and I was wearing the same pair of jeans I'd been wearing for the last three days. It's funny how when you're driving alone and you have no real agenda the only schedule I ended up following was the most basic. Where should I eat? How long will it before I get another chance to go to the bathroom? How bored am I with driving? Is this town worth walking around?
Washington seems wet and gloomy, but bricked and fairly beautiful when you get off of the main road. Oregon is green, the trees are coated with lichens and moss and are pale green through the mist even in the beginning of winter. (Now that I've left Minnesota, the books that insist 'winter' only lasts from December-February actually seem less ridiculous...) Northern California is both dream world of rocks and ocean and desert and lonely strip malls that are half-empty and make me nostalgic for a best buy so I can buy a car charger for my iPod and be liberated from the static-filled christian-country music that is the ONE station I can always get, no matter how high into the mountains I go.
All of this, my journey of back-road hitchhikers ( I never picked up any because my car was full) and tiny towns where finding a gas station at all was a luxury, leads to Los Angeles, smog-choked, hazy city of uncertainty.
Now that I'm down here, Shannon's parents remind me not to get off of the freeway between two points on the map so far apart it seems like a bomb could have been dropped in the center. The local NPR station, it's a gift to be in a city larger enough to boast one again, begins with a story on the trading of fire-arms for gift cards. Depressing enough if you've never heard of such a thing, made doubly so by the fact that this year, instead of the electronics gift certificates people wanted last year, this year they only seem to want grocery store gift certificates.
One handgun = a $100 gift certificate. One automatic rifle = a $200 gift certificate.
Maybe its weird that I think a gun for an iPhone is a more logical trade. People want to buy food. People probably need to buy food.
I get off the freeway in the dead zone, Compton, the part of Los Angeles my apartment guide doesn't even mention and paints grey on the cheerful map of the area. I don't have a good reason to do it, I've missed my exit and I can certainly work things out on a different, safer freeway, later. Part of me just wants to see what is there, in this grey spot on the map. There's a park near the freeway. There's graffiti and a duck pond and a patch of green. Then rows and rows of houses, not too tall because it's Los Angeles and nothing gets that tall here, but there are for-rent signs and empty builds and rows and rows and rows of bars.
It seems the bigger a city gets, the more bars it needs to be safe. Windows are boarded up and people wander the side streets with shopping carts. I wonder where they get the shopping carts. I haven't seen a store that would provide them for quite some time. I suppose they travel.
NPR says the counties near here, the "Inland Empire" they are called, have double digit unemployment. The US economy lost half a million jobs last month. NPR says that doesn't count the people who aren't looking for work, and the people who stopped looking for work, and the people who work three jobs at once to pay all the bills.
What kind of world did I get myself into? What part of my world-opening, university degree prepared me for this strange recession economy? Is it really wrong to go half a million dollars (yes I could totally do it if I go to grad school!) to avoid the uncertainty I'm wrapped in right now? Where did I take the class that told me how to deal with real life? Did I forget to add it?
Out in the big world, away from the familiar, I'm reminded again and again of what I am supposed to do. Get a job. (maybe even a job i like) Get an apartment. Put things in the aforementioned apartment. Have a life. Find friends and do things with them. Go to movies (I usually do that alone) go to dinner. Cook dinner. Go out at night and see what the city looks like after dark. Move past the pleasant distraction of weekends in coffee shops and burying myself in the film industry. (ironically, nearly a perfect life for me)
I can't help feeling like I am supposed to know what I want from my life. I'm 25. I'm done with school, I'm uneasy about grad school I should just get a job and settle down dammit.
Why are settle down and settle so similar in my head? I'm not really sure what I'm not settling for, or why I'm convinced it's so important that I don't settle. Getting a degree will get me a good job, is the lie my generation was sold according to my good friend from forever ago. I don't think I paid attention to getting a degree with good grades and without spending a lot of money and time in school because I honestly have no real idea what I like doing was in there.
I think I've developed a cold so I don't have to cry. Ironically, I haven't. I haven't cried since I left Vancouver. I haven't cried since I broke my heart on Tara. (something that I truly think I needed to do, just to have the experience). I haven't cried since I left Minnesota, which really was my home. Or was it?
Maybe home is where I am and what I have. Maybe it's a state of mind. Maybe I just need to stop thinking and start doing something, anything, to live up to the enormous potential I apparently have. Is there a type of low-esteem just based on the sheer terror of being unable to do all the good everyone seems to think you can do?
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If it helps any, I know people in their 30s and 40s who still don't know what they want from life. Me, I just want to get by as best I can.
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Dude, I am so impressed with everything you decide to do. Just packing up and moving — it's amazing. And travelogues rock, so thanks for the brief descriptions of Washington, Oregon and California.
As for the self-esteem thing, it could be that once you've fulfilled your potential, that's it. You can't really go anywhere else. But there's also the option of yes, not feeling like you can fulfill expectations (even though you totally can, for you are Opal and you rock; I know I'm going to think you're awesome with pretty much whatever you decide to do).
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The Inland Empire is a place that was built up with cookie cutter housing for some people who couldn't afford the houses in the first place. All this zero percent financing with no money down for people who really couldn't afford it wasn't a good idea. They overbuilt and now people are suffering because they've been downsized and lost their jobs. Then there are the people that did all the right things and still lost their jobs. It's sad, but true. So much downsizing in the LA area. Good luck on the job front. It's hard, but not so hard if you're willing to work hard and long hours.
*hugs*
You're so friggin cool
(Anonymous) 2008-12-08 04:13 am (UTC)(link)keep worrying, humanness owns
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I think your biggest problem is allowing what you think society expects of you to have so much control over your life (if not controlling what you actually do, it certainly is controlling what you are doing). There is no reason to settle down just because your 25, there is no reason to be overly concerned with fulfilling other people's expectations (this is a dragon I have been fighting for a long time, and feel close to overcoming), there is no reason to not keep doing exactly what your doing, as long as you are happy. People envy you and tell you that you are amazing because up to this point you have been doing what most people cannot - being yourself, following your whims, and living freely. Why give that up for some misplaced sence of expectation?
Life is not about much, but it certainly is about happiness. Its a true measure (or sign if you will) that you are on the right path.
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