It was August 2005. Apparently Mariah Carey’s “We Belong Together” was playing nonstop on the radio, but I wouldn’t have noticed. I had picked up a giant, sleepover-camp-sized duffel-bag worth of my belongings and headed west.
I had not thought out my plans clearly — in my mad dash to have some sort of clear next step after college, and to maintain my relationship with my then-boyfriend, I accepted a year-long marketing internship at a theatre company in Berkeley. It paid very little, but provided housing and enough to survive. That was all I needed.
Soon after my flight to SFO I arrived at the quaint house in south Berkeley where I would be staying for the year with fellow interns. I don’t remember their names or faces. I think one might have been a tall man with blonde hair. I remember occasionally someone put cookies out for us to eat. Perhaps that was just the first day I moved in.
Although it was an honor to have been accepted to the internship program at this world-renowned regional theatre, I was so lost in this romantic notion of things making sense that being thrust into the real world of paper filing and mailing postcards, without a direct connection to the actual art being made, and without any sort of clear path in place to what would happen next left me shackled by my own anxiety.
But, in the struggle to pull myself from my bed, I found solace in a black and purple $300 hybrid bike I purchased for my commute, and the bike path between my very temporary living space and the theatre company’s quite permanent and official office, where I never for one second fit in.
I discovered that I forgot how to use a bike and later determined I was going up hills on the hard setting and down hills on the easy setting, the opposite of what one is supposed to do. It didn’t matter. Outside of the few minutes of enjoying the fall breeze as I dashed across south Berkeley to and from work, my life was, as it appeared, falling apart. My relationship was slowly coming to an end. I was drowning in an equally slow transition to inevitable failure, yet my bike commute kept me going.
Until there was no where to go.
I don’t remember how it happened, but eventually they gave up on me. I couldn’t think straight or move. One day I don’t remember I was told that my internship was over — as in, over nine months before it was supposed to be. They kindly gave me a month to GTFO of the housing and wished me well. I spent that month sending out 100s of resumes while eating nothing but yogurt and once or twice forcing myself to purchase some sustenance at the Berkeley Bowl.
To think that was 14 years ago, and to see the life I’ve built for myself here over those years, the memorable moments, and many forgettable, and the drive underneath it all to keep moving forward or at least never remain at rest. This insatiable hunger for the world to come alive in effulgent chaos which would only temporarily satisfy the need for constant movement towards something unknown and new.
Shortly after I had moved to Burlingame, a city selected by Caltrain timetable (30 minutes to San Francisco, 30 minutes to my new internship in Palo Alto), and days after purchasing my first car (a beautiful 1999 v6 Toyota Solara), I started driving south on El Camino and ended up somewhere in San Jose up a very narrow road in the hills where I had a mild panic attack making a K turn and nearly tumbling off a cliff, and I thought how funny it would be, my family being notified of my death, and that I had lost my internship, and moved, and purchased a car, and drove to San Jose, and up a random narrow street into the hills, and seemingly decided to plunge to my bitter end — I could never tell them I actually just felt the need to drive and never felt the need to stop, and so I got stuck, and then I realized I didn’t have nearly the appropriate amount of driving practice to figure out how to turn around in such a precarious situation.
But I survived. Time and time again, I survived. Life got more dramatic. Then less. I got bored. I moved on. I settled down. I had a child. So much has changed, yet so little has changed. Fourteen years is a long time for me to stay in one place. I spent 17 years in NJ, not completely by choice, then a summer in LA, and four years in Chicago, and a summer in DC, and now 14 years here.
Driving to work today I took the slightly longer way through the winding golden hills and wondered if I’m finally ready — if I’ll ever be ready — to leave this splendor and move on (with my family in tow, of course.) The stress of living in such an expensive place is taking its toll, and feels unsustainable. Yet there is something about this 7000 square miles that who, despite being bad for you, will never fail to make you feel home in a single embrace. I’m addicted to her beauty and feel that there is still so much more to learn of her curves, and every time I look away I remember that look and wonder what else there is to uncover. I can’t let her go. She is my home.
And, as my mother sets out to sell my childhood home, the house I grew up in since I was born, that sense of home is everything. It’s no longer enclosed in walls and a roof, it’s the warm, welcoming sun, the familiar freeways and traffic, the magical clouds of winter pierced by the sun, the hundreds of rainbows I never saw before I moved here, the many downtowns and knowing that no matter how bad it gets, I can always take solo refuge at the Pacifica Taco Bell and stare out at the waves crashing to shore through the thick fog for hours… something I’ve done many times while making life-altering decisions these last few years.
But as the years go on, I get restless. There is so much world out there and I often wonder, is this it? Maybe it is. It’s not the worst place to end up (though my bank account would debate that.) I worry I’ll never have a real home again — I’ll never feel safe here. I’ll always feel like the world around me can cave in at any moment and I’d be back on my borrowed bed in Berkeley in a house where I had overextended my stay and have no where to go. As a mom I can no longer pick a random spot on the map (or Caltrain timetable) and pick up and move there. I’m shackled by the best parts of life. And want to find home, but also don’t want to feel so chained down, handcuffed to reality, running as far as I can get and then clink, I get pulled back to earth, face planted in the dirt, scratched, bruised, the gravity of reality is gutting.
I’m no longer myself.
But I’m Ethan’s mom. I’m Dan’s wife. I’m someone else’s something. Someone else’s everything. And, that’s what life is all about, isn’t it?
Yet I’m wandering, chained, forgetting about the shackles, trying to run, behind reminded there is no where to go. I need that home. I need something. I’m not sure exactly what — perhaps it’s time to take a trip to Taco Bell —deep thoughts, violent waves, and bean burritos. Maybe that’s my home. Maybe all of this… from the northernmost point of Point Reyes where the Pacific meets the Bay, to the Santa Cruz boardwalk, where childhood memories meet memories remade… is where I belong, bank account be damned.
life with interest 