I’ve been living in a sort of communications black-hole recently. I live in a rural area where cell phones don’t work, I have no internet, and if I want to talk to someone I have to go knock on their door. The nearest town (only a McDonald’s, a gas station, and an elementary school dedicated to Sen. Harry Reid.) An aside: I’m now living in the hometown of Senator Harry Reid, and the street named after him contains nothing but a foreclosed housing development and barren desert. Does this say something about his chances of being re-elected? Maybe.
So, the point is, I find myself wondering where the hell I’ve been when I do get a chance to see friends or catch a whiff of wifi wafting through the air through which I can post this blog. This email from my friend, titled “where the hell have i been?” does a good job of describing what its like to return to America after a sejour abroad.
” I had to leave Poland. I needed to leave Poland. Enough said. I will say though that there was a song, about California by Dr. Dog that solidified my decision to leave. One day in March I flew to Frankfurt Germany armed with a plane ticket for the states. I left Frankfurt after half of a day feeling both ready and apprehensive. The brief visit was filled with serendipity and as i left early the next morning the situation spoke to me. All situations will speak to you if you listen. This one spoke to me with a funny German accent and told me two things, “you could have stayed and traveled and continued to meet situations just like me! Wouldn’t that have been great?” But it also said, still with the accent, “hey you’re going to be OK. OK? There are situations just like me wherever you go if you’re paying attention.” I was California bound.
I was the most apprehensive about the flight. Not because of any fear of a crash or a terrorist highjack. No. Being hurdled through space and time in a metal cylinder completely out of my control in everyway just makes me antsy. Six hours across the ocean to Charlotte NC then another 6 hours across the US to San Francisco. The first flight was not so bad. It was a big plane and i found two seats in the back to curl up on. 4 hours later i awoke from a light sleep to see a barren landscape. Black and white speckled hills and large white puddles, which I imagined were frozen lakes. I knew we must be either over Canada or New England or something. Soon enough the unmistakable NY City gray, block circuit board was sliding by beneath me as if on a factory conveyer belt. Then, in about 5 minutes, I could see Philadelphia. At that moment i knew we must’ve been almost directly above my hometown.
“What is this?” I thought. “The closest that i’ve been to home in 4 months and i’m 30,000 ft above it. If i jumped right now I could touch down in my parent’s backyard in 20-30 minutes.”
Then there was Philly, where i lived for the last 3 years. I never thought that i would see all these places today or like this. It was bizarre, like my ghost was flying over the story of my life in the moment of my death. Though as fast as i could marvel at it all and scratch it down in my journal it was already gone behind me. DC was coming up the assembly line and then places i had no connection to at all. In a minute we were landing in Charlotte.
…
As if jetlag wasn’t enough, this “culture shock” thing was just shocking. When I was a kid I thought jetlag was ‘jet-leg’ and it meant something like a Charlie-horse. I arrived in San Francisco cold, clammy, backpack and guitar in hand and with my body 10 hours behind. It was shocking to be in my element again. For example I went into a Grocery Store and somehow knew about where everything was and about how much it all would cost. And that I guess is America for me, the whole place.
I spent 3 weeks in San Fran with perfect weather unusual for the bay area. Everyday it was 75˚ and sunny. I spent my time wandering around with nothing to do but listen to my ipod, take in the sites and think. I walked everywhere and I loved it. I was walking off my jetlag, 3 months of Polish drinking, toast/potato eating and self inflicted agoraphobia. Every corner I turned and hill I climbed there was another beautiful vigil. I sat in a park after having walked from the Tenderloin, to Fisherman’s Warf, where I busked for while, and then up towards the Golden Gate. I sat on a bench staring at the Exploratorium, its’ faux old-Europe architecture helping me to feel all the more disoriented and prompting me to ask myself yet again, “where am I?”
Looking at the map I found I had walked a whole 2 inches across the city from the place I was staying.
“I’m a long way from home,” I thought. Quickly I realizing how ironic and completely redundant a thought it was. Arial view aside being in San Fran was the closest I’d been to home in months.
I stayed with a guy I had met through a friend back in Krakow he had a place in the Tenderloin district. I also stayed with a girl, a good friend who I know from my hometown she was living and working for a family in Noe Valley. I realized, walking the streets and being constantly asked for handouts from bums and gutter-punks not much older or younger than myself that the only thing separating me from them was having beautiful and generous friends who could put me up and take care of me. Their hospitality was above and beyond and I am thankful.
Though I debated it at length leaving San Fran was also just something I had to do. That place is expensive and away my ride arrived and right on time. The Goldenboots were here.
The Goldenboots is my brother’s band. They were on a west coast tour and came to San Fran so I left with them for browner pastures. The desert. The Boots left me there in LA at my request. Again I was blessed with the generosity of old friends. Though I tried I couldn’t really warm up to that town. I stayed for about a week or so. My other brother showed up and after a couple of days I left with him on a flight Tucson bound.
Now I’ve been here in Tucson for about 2 months and I love it. It’s hot already, in the 100˚s, but there are beautiful mountains and beautiful people all around me. I’ve been staying with ——- and house sitting for people here and there. I have a job as a line-cook and of course I’ve been playing/writing lots of music and taking lots of photos.
I’m set to go back to San Fran in July where I will obtain a car, a dog and a lump of cash. I will drive north and pick up a good friend in Portland Oregon. Then we will drive east. Then I will fly back to Tucson again and resume my hodgepodge life.
I’ve been working on this email for about a month. I’m glad to be done with it.
I hope you all find yourselves well. Hopefully I can see you all some time soon and clear up any details we’ve missed not having seen each other in weeks, months or years.
Ta ta. “
