To Holiday Sweaters

Today, at the grocery store, making a run for the carrots I forgot and the beans I forgot and the chocolate I suddenly decided I needed, I see one.

Like all the best holiday sweaters this one was knitted. Halloween themed with attached knitted pumpkins and a friendly smiling flying ghost on the back shoulder. On the front, a “spooky” house, which because of all the knitting, is nothing but adorable. A small “boo” in white letters up in the sky, a little word cloud above the house.

These are the kinds of sweaters we poke fun at during the office Christmas party. Prizes awarded for the best-worst one. Some are very long, hanging well past the waist. In the catalogue online, it looks rather smart with red leggings, but that’s when it’s worn by a 16 year old model. The vest is a popular model. Big pockets on the front shaped like stockings. Candy canes.

The best are the ones that come rigged with actual lights. Orange ones for Halloween. Green and red at Christmas. The little battery pack tucked discreetly in the lining. This is full-on, deck-the-halls-with-ALL-the-boughs-of-holly, fa-la-la-la-la-la-f’ing la, do-not-mess-with-my-holiday-cheer, I-wait-for-this-holiday-all-year celebrating.

Look, the message is clear. If you don’t want to celebrate, fine. If you want to wear your trim red sweater with the little black sequin collar that looks like something Jackie Kennedy would have worn, go right ahead. If you want a discreet tie with pumpkins so small they could be flowers, party on.

But not us. We get it. We let loose. We enjoy. Knit all summer long and debut that sweater on the first cool day. We are the beacon and if they want to make fun of it, let ‘em. I have no fucks left to give about that.

To Hide and Seek

Best in the dark. July. After dinner. At Nora’s house.

 

She leans against the mulberry tree and covers her eyes with her arms, counts to 10. We scatter into the darkest parts of the yard: one underneath a bush, the other tucked beside the house, a third behind the car they never drive.

We have rules about how far away we can hide and it still be fair. The front yard of the next door neighbor is allowed. But not across the street. And I’m torn. 

Not because I want to hide far away, but because I want to go far away. I speed out into the night and cross into the next yard and think how close I am to being out of bounds. Three more steps.

I could really hide. I could run away. I would feel terrible, of course. I know they would miss me. I don’t feel unloved.

But in the dark, in the heat, I feel a pull. Something on the border of chaos that exists just one more yard away. And then another and another and another.

I don’t know what I want to be free of or from, but I know when I think about it, I’m not as scared as I could be, as I should be.

The night darkens as I step farther and farther away from the lights coming from the house, away from the front porch light. I hear them behind me, screeching every time someone is found.

She picks them off, one by one. Found you. Found you. Found you.

To Laundromats

The first rule is to save every quarter you come across. Never spend them on anything. 

 

Arrive early on Sunday and take up three washers in a row: lights, darks, other. At $1.50 a load, you can’t get more particular than that.

In summer, you don’t have to think about the soap, but in winter, if you forget and leave the bottle of Surf in your car, you’ll have to defrost it before you can pour it into the machine. Or worse, you’re out of soap and have to buy the little box from the dispenser. It’s 20 degrees out and the water is so cold in the machines, the detergent never dissolves. 

 When you first started doing your laundry in public, you’d watch people out of the corner of your eye, a t-shirt from a 10K four years ago, three pillowcases, a lot of black socks. You felt a little shy about sorting your clothes out: the dish towels, the jeans you’ve worn three weeks, underwear. But now, the intrigue has worn off. Dump it in, put the quarters in, a grab a book.

 

Laundry says you’re nothing special. Laundry says your clothes stink and you’re a mess. It says no matter who you are and how you spend your time, no matter how many soup kitchens you volunteer for and little puppies you rescue, you will still have to do laundry. Gandhi had laundry. Charles Manson has laundry. Newborn babies have tiny laundry.

We are all citizens in the democracy of laundry.

To Lost and Founds

A wayward scarf. A flash drive. One left glove. All in a box under a counter or desk. 

 

How much our lives have we just left as we shuttle from one place to another? We are talking to our friend as we leave the coffee shop or bar, gathering our jackets but not really paying attention so the glove slips out of the pocket. Or we leave the scarf on the back of the chair.

We loved that scarf. We had all our important documents on that flash drive. And yet, when they are gone, it really doesn't matter if we have it. A researcher explains that we are awful at predicting how deeply negative events will impact our lives. We are amazingly resilient, he says.

I'm thinking he's wrong. I'm thinking of losses that I've not recovered from. He says that most of us will return to our "baseline" happiness in time.

Sure, I can lose my wallet. I can replace anything in it. I could lose even irreplaceable objects: a picture Whit painted when he was 4. Even the videos of my first son, which I've never had the courage to watch. I could lose those. They could end up in a lost and found somewhere and I may never get them back.

And if you'd ask me if I am happy, does my life have meaning, would I call myself an optimist, I'd say yes. Yes to all those things. But "lost and found" isn't just "found." It's "LOST and found."

Recovery isn't about baselines.

We approach the counter with hope and fear. We rummage through the box. Did someone turn it in? What can I salvage? Will I know it when I see it?

To The Young Girl Doing Back Flips in Her Front Yard on A Warm October Afternoon

We all get a little blue, right? A little sad some days?

 

We all have those nights when we can’t sleep, toss and turn. Get up and take a benadryl. A melatonin. Another benadryl. A glass of wine. Finally, at 3 am, some chamomile tea because we have to be up in two hours.

We’ve all been there.

We have all felt those days when, although you know your life has meaning and purpose, you don’t really feel it walking into your office, the red voicemail light already lit up and it’s Monday, which means someone called late Friday or even over the weekend, which means they were desperate and someone thought this was the right number to call. We’ve all watched the patina of the morning fade.

We’ve all taken a mental health day.

Or rather, more accurately, the day has taken us.

But we’re adults now. We get our work done and we try to find something to keep us moving. We all have our things we insist we do: make the bed, clean the kitchen counter, walk the dog, pay the bills. Something that shows we are still in the world, working. Something so that if someone were to call you at just that moment and ask what you were doing, you’d have an answer, “Oh, just getting caught up on the bills.” Like it’s any other day.

I run. I ran when Rainer died. Even our first winter in Madison, Keith and I would run when he got home from work. The dark already deep. February. Around the edge of a lake. The wind, blocked by nothing, full force off the ice. When we got home, we would have icicles on our lashes and eyebrows.

We made it, we thought. We made it through the day. And we’d order take out and watch television. Because that’s what grief is.

So I have always run. And today, though I want to stay on the couch and sleep and forget, I put on my running shoes.

Three miles in, I turn the corner and you are there with a friend, playing in the front yard, two huge piles of leaves between you. You jump and then suddenly turn a back flip, another and another--you do five altogether!--and when you land the last one, you look at your friend. Her arms are waving. “Yes!” she says, “Five!” You did not imagine it.

Who knows where it comes from, the impulse to turn five backflips in October. The grief I can still feel as whole and clear as the first day. The push our bodies insist on. Head over heels over head over heels.

To Things Being Used for Purposes Other Than Originally Intended

By 5:30 most summer nights, Keith has called it a day and has made his way to the front porch. He has his phone and his iPad. He cues up some Bob Dylan or Nekko Case and welcomes the evening.

 

He props the front door open with one of the tennis shoes he’s left out there. An old one.

Upcycling. Re-purposing. Pick your word.

We do this without thinking. The shoe as doorstop. The broom handle that holds the window open. Old crate as side table. An old saw as folk art.

But then there are the times we are forced to re-envision the objects around us. A towel held in a car window on a road trip to keep the sun off your legs. The chimney is crumbling, so you put candles in the fireplace decoratively. All the bowls are dirty, so you eat reheated soup right from the sauce pan.

And when we really have to, we get very creative. The Fruity Pebbles isn’t just a breakfast cereal, it’s a shameless bribe. The text isn’t just FYI, it’s a test to see if he’s still mad.

We get good at this.

You wander over to the neighbor’s as he’s sitting outside.

You worry, but you can’t say you worry. Not to him.

He’s 82 and will drive across country whenever his son calls.

He’s had a couple strokes and though he lost a lot of weight, he’s gained it back.

But you can’t say anything. You can’t suggest maybe he fly to visit his son. You can’t insist he hire the kid down the block to mow his yard. You ask where his wife is. She’s not feeling well, he says. You talk about what’s happening at his church. What his grandkids are doing. Their plans for the holiday.

You’re listening to how sure his voice is. You’re watching his right arm and how much he shifts in his chair. You make a joke to see if he’s got a sense of humor today.

To Sports

Right now, I’m very angry with sports. Perhaps a better way to say it is that I’m angry with our culture’s value of sports. 

 

I’m talking with a grandmother from the Philippines about football. She wonders aloud if there will be a change now that we know what football is doing to the players’ brains, now that we have some confirmation of the long-term, irreparable damage that is happening when they ram into each other and shake their brains like jars of jelly.

I offer that as long as we pay them well, it won’t matter.

I tell her what my university spends on athletics and that a new study shows colleges and universities spend 7 times more on their athletics programs than they do on their students. No evidence exists to show that for most programs, that this is money well spent.

But sports, I love. I love the team, the goal, the competition. I love the coaches. I love the senior players who mentor the newbies and teach them, above all, humility matters. I love uniforms and mascots. I love the rousing speeches about expectations and striving for greatness. Especially when the team is the underdog. I love the underdog.  I love close calls. I love the player dropping to her knees after a shot, waiting to see if it’s good. It’s good.

I wish I followed sports. I wish we had a ritual around even just one sport. Sunday afternoon NBA. We order pizza or make chili. Maybe we have some friends over. We would wear jerseys with our favorite players’ names. We quote stats from heart.

Even on the days when we have nothing to say to each other, on the days when we feel like strangers, we would do this.

Doris Kerns Goodwin says about her father, “We could always talk about baseball.”

LeBron up for the free throw. We all hold our breath together as the ball arcs up, up and then drops. The silence between us is mere anticipation.

To Yankee Candles

We had no idea that we needed the smell of washed linen in our living rooms. We never knew sunflowers smelled like a hot sweet July day, some mad mix of cotton and lavender and cucumber. In winter, we light up pine scented ocean breeze and imagine we are all in Northern California and we have not given up the dream of living off the grid.

 

But the standard by which all other candles are judged is Vanilla. Madagascar vanilla. Vanilla cake. Vanilla chai. Vanilla lime. Vanilla bourbon.

Source: http://www.yankeecandle.com

What inspired vanilla bourbon? Did the candle maker go to a dinner at Tavern on the Green the night they ran out of desserts and so drenched some vanilla ice cream with bourbon and called it a house special? Maybe it was lunch at the B-Spot in Cleveland, a boozy adult milkshake with some artisan burger on a freshly made sourdough bun?

No. Nothing that hip. Her mother poured the drinks at 5:30, 5 on Saturday. Her dad put on jazz and she knew from the record choice if they would all be eating dinner together or if the children would be eating alone. Count Basie, Louis Armstrong were good nights. But Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Chet Baker--she could feel the sad drift up the stairs. Her mother would call her and the boys for dinner early, serve them canned tomato and grilled cheese. She always wished for the edges to cut off, not because she minded them, but it seemed a small grand gesture a parent might make as a way of saying, "I'll make this special for you."

But her mother would sit with them. She'd bring just her bourbon to the table. When she would bend down to pick up the plates, her arms would smell like vanilla, but her breath would smell like bourbon.

It's a best seller the first week it hits the shelf. Stores can't keep it in stock. It's on back order in every state.

The company thinks it reminds people of fireplaces and warmth and good books.

But across America, people remember the Chet Baker nights in their homes. The way their parents sighed.

To The Fact That in August 2016 it Will Be Legal to Carry Guns on a UT Campus but not Dildos (After “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus)

Photo: Campus (DILDO) Carry
Facebook Group

Not like the brazen sawed-off shotguns of Charles Whitman fame,

shooting first an 18-year old anthropology student 8 months pregnant,

and then another student. And then another from street to street.

Here on our blood-stained, haunted sidewalks shall stand

A mighty woman with a dildo, its batteries

charged for all consenting adults, and her name

Bringer of Orgasms. From her beacon-hand

women, often for the first time, experience the after-glow of climax; her mild eyes command

grassy quads that buildings of higher education frame.

“Keep, open-carry extremists, your twisted violent calls for vigilance,” cries she,

“Give me your grieving, your tortured, your children

huddled in classroom closets yearning to finish their worksheets without being shot,

the locked-down college kids away from home for the first time.

Send these, the suddenly childless, bullet-riddled to me.

I lift my Pearl Rabbit in defiance on the grounds of this university!”

To the Artist Who Designed Our Son’s Gravestone

We should not have to pay money to bury our children.

 

We were offered the standard free coffin. It looked like a shoe box, only a little bigger. A coat box maybe. Nothing like what I would expect to put my baby into. Nothing warm like the blankets we had wrapped him in.

I took one look and burst into tears. He removed it very quickly from the room and brought in another. This was one wasn’t the free model, but it had some character to it: beveled edges, a satin lining. A little pillow.

As if to say, not yet. We had not yet completely agreed to this death. We had not yet let it enter our hearts. Our arms were still warm from him. I could still smell him when I close my eyes.

And then we had to go look at the plots. First, he took us to the free plots, close to the road. There was a sewer nearby. I couldn’t fathom leaving the baby near a sewer. No. We found another plot. Shade trees. Surrounded by other babies. Some with only one date on the headstone. I realized, slowly, those babies were born and died on the same day. One date. How many hours? 2? 7? None?

But the headstone was free. We went to a tiny office near the cemetery. We said we wanted sunflowers. We called him “sonflower.” Rainer, after Rilke. His name etched in stone. His dates:June 4-July 14. So much longer than many of the others. We held him for weeks.

Months after he has died, we run after work just to keep moving. We go to the grocery store and try to remember what we like to eat. I pick up the potatoes. Do I like them? Chicken? Salad? What makes a dinner?

The drawing of the headstone is ready for our approval. We go down to the office.

The artist has drawn the sunflower, so simple. Sonflower. Our son. Our flower. This is given to us. The one gift. The stone that says forever, he was here. He was real. He was ours.

To Queen Elizabeth’s Corgis

How is the rabbit tonight, my loves? It’s fresh and the chef roasted it bone-in. The rice is from India and it smells faintly of flowers. The carrots come from the garden.

 

Via elizabethii.tumblr.com

Let’s walk. Let’s gather in the west yard because, although you are spry, your legs are too short for the wall. I will brush your coats in the early evening light. You’re golden. You’re patient. You’re spoiled.

But you are the end of the line. I am the end of the line. Of course, there’s Charles, for all he is worth, but that won’t last.  And then there’s Will.

They don’t love you the way I love you. Indeed, it seems that they love nothing in the same way I do. They do not love the rose garden. They don’t love lamb. And they surely do not love England. Not the way I do.

Not the way you do. We are England, loves, you and I. The children love their dogs, I’m sure. But they do not need them. And so, though I would love a puppy, the fresh grin of a new Corgi face, I cannot.

I will not live forever, but I must outlive you. My sons and grandchildren are fine people. But that is all they are.

To The Gardener at Stan Hywet Who Cared For This Lantana

You must be angry to grow these flowers.

 

Maybe there is someone who doesn't love you anymore. You are waiting for that person to love you again. Every morning you wake up and hope. Maybe a text today. Maybe an invitation to dinner. And then, at night, you go to bed with your book. Your phone nearby.

You don't need an apology. You don't even need to talk about it. How's your day? Did you see the last episode of Dancing With the Stars? Would you like to drive to the farm stand? The last corn on the cob of the season is the sweetest.

You're not sad. Not anymore. Sadness doesn't grow flowers well. Sadness keeps you in the shed, cleaning the tools. Maybe you can mow. You can grow the easy plants like hostas and azaleas when you're sad.

Plants like lantana take time, at least in Ohio. They can thrive here, but it's not by chance. You mulch with pine needles and you cut back all the deadheads. You have to be vigilant, active, willing to dig and worry and tend.

You may say you just love them, that it's not so hard. But that's what anger does when we construct with it. When we let it burn in our arms until we have to plunge them into the stems and blossoms around us, we can coax out a furious beauty. We study it. We hope.

An angry hope, but hope still.

To Halloween Costumes

When I was 8, I combed my hair back into a pseudo-pompadour, put on a jean jacket and went as Fonzie for Halloween. Not for a second did I think I couldn’t or shouldn’t because I was a girl. Or because I was a nerd and the furthest thing from cool. I loved The Fonz and Halloween means you can be anything.

 

Our neighborhood gets a flood of trick-or-treaters every year and the homemade costumes are the best. Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a home-bedazzled leather jacket.  A gangster. A pirate with a cowboy neckerchief. A favorite Green Bay Packer. A rainbow unicorn. One kid is That Girl and she’s walking with a ghoul bride. They are crushing on each other. They trade M&M’s for Milky Way's.

 We all have a freak flag. And it changes every year. I’m Bob the Builder. I’m a sheep. I’m a robot. I’m a princess of a 1,000 fairies. I’m Joan Jett.  I’m a bottle of milk and my baby sister is an Oreo. I’m a spy. I’m a creeper. 
 

Dress up and go grab what is yours. Get out early and bang on every door. Let them hear you coming from the next house over and bring your biggest, deepest pillowcase. For one night, you are free from gender, from species, from space and time, from logic and reason. And finally, for this, you will be rewarded.

To School Plays

Tiny thespians line the stage dressed as sunflowers and birds. Each one steps forward to recite the line. They shuffle back and fuss with their costumes. One kid picks his nose.

 

Always, they sing while the accompanist mouths the words for them. She exaggerates her smile to remind them to be happy while they sing. During rehearsal, she would actually pull the edges of her mouth up, as if she knew she needed to smile, but just couldn't form one right now, at the end of the day. The children are tired and she cannot carry them through rehearsal again. The cannot remember their lines. They always mess up the tempo of the bridge.

 But they have made it to this night, the one performance they will conduct. The children play at plays, are not made to suffer of course, the way their grownup, professional counterparts do. They will play to a captive audience who will love them regardless--no because of--the flubbed lines and the ill-timed giggles. 

 

In auditoriums across every state, children squirm backstage, in the wings. Children of farmers and nurses, children of HR specialists and children of flight attendants, of weight lifters and veterinarians, they all ready themselves for their brief moment on stage, when they appear to their parents as someone else or something else. They listen for their parents' voices among all the voices, scan for their faces among all the faces. Are you out there? Will you know me? This is all the brave I have.

To the Guy Drinking Miller Light on a 6:15 am Flight to Atlanta

You have two problems. One is whatever is telling you it's ok to drink $7 beer on an early morning flight all alone. You don't appear to be on a business trip, no briefcase, no pre-departure text to confirm the Henderson meeting at 3:30. Your dress is decidedly casual. Shorts and a worn t-shirt.

I don't know why you're on the plane, but we haven't even taken off yet and you have your beer in hand, along with the plastic cup. For appearances sake. Maybe you want to just pop that bad boy open and guzzle it down, but you pour it, slowly, the cup tipped a bit to avoid too much foam. You hold the can on one arm rest and the cup in the other. Meditating it seems for three minutes before you take a sip. One sip.

You close your eyes. Everything will be ok.

 
Another sip.

No, it won't.

You're about my age, I'm guessing. You could be my brother. Maybe you're headed to see your family and so you're prepping yourself now for the moment at the baggage claim when your sister goes to hug you and you take one very small, almost imperceptible step back. She sees it. She touches your arm instead.

Or maybe you've just come from a visit. Maybe your college roommate. His wife was coming on to you, which was not flattering at all. You felt like you were in a Tennessee Williams play all week long and so, on the flight home, you might as well just live out the last scene as if Williams himself was writing your life.

But your other problem is that you're drinking Miller Lite. Williams would have chosen gin. You're more a T.C. Boyle character. No one should drink Miller Lite and it should be illegal to sell it before 8 P.M. But still, you had options. Maybe you're not a fan of Sutter Home, those dainty bottles seem like something from a dollhouse, but they have a bit of dignity to them. Order two Jim Beams and one Coke. You had options.

You have options.

You can get off this plane and chose a whole other life.

You see me, lift the cup a little. Cheers, as we hurl into the sky.

To Gut Feelings

"He had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis," she says. "We were watching TV and he kept saying that something was wrong, something's wrong. He couldn't say what exactly. He just felt bad. I told him to go to the doctor."

"He put it off," she says. "He thought it was the flu."

Why he finally went, it was too late. A month later he died.

The woman next to her is sympathetic. The quick descent, the sudden loss. So sorry.

She means it.

"I had a feeling," the widow says, "I had a feeling he was sick. I should have made him go."

I know what she means; I have feelings every day. My gut warns me all day long: don't eat that yogurt, don't send that email. Call your mom. Don't take that road home. Go the long way today.

Honestly, my gut instinct is as close to divine intervention as I get. Something reasonable, sensible, concerned with my well-being, and that of the ones I love, speaks to me through channels I dont fully understand. Like the woman who knew her husband was sick, I hear, not a voice really, but a revelation, a knowing that rises on the horizon of my consciousness. The light is subtle, but undeniable. I trust it.

I shouldn't. Not for the times it was wrong: I don't send the email and then he emails me, wondering why I haven't replied; I take the long way and get lost.  

I shouldn't trust it because of the times it didn't speak to me at all. The times I needed a heads up or a clear direction of which way to go. Some method of deciding that was more than chance.

Do I let my angry son walk out the door?

Do I grab his arm?

Do I stand at the door and wait? He has always come home.

Or do I go after him?

To McDonald’s Hot Chocolate

Eight miles in 21 degrees. Saturday morning in February. I wouldn’t say I find running on days like this fun or enjoyable in any way, really. But if we waited for the weather to warm up, for the snow to melt, for the conditions to be bearable, we would not run until April. Maybe May. So we go.

 

Jill is better at this than I. She has goals and purpose. She always smiles when we start the run. While running, we talk a lot about running: what we eat, good places to run, what races we want to do, what races we don’t want to do.

About mile 3, we’ve warmed up and the cold is only on our faces. Now, it is dangerous to stop; the cold will sink into our muscles and once it gets close to the bone, you can’t outrun it anymore.

We pass other runners and aside from the hats and mittens, judging just by their pace and conversation, they seem to be running in July. I hope they think the same of us.

Several things keep me running through the winter. I want to keep up my endurance so I’m not starting from scratch in May. I sleep better when I run. I think better. I’m a nicer person, and if I do nothing else, I can say I got my run in.

And at the end, there’s McDonald’s hot chocolate. I eat nothing from McDonald’s. I never go there on my own and get a burger and fries. I would never drink a Shamrock Shake and though I admit their

fries are tasty, I just...no…

But one day, driving home from the trail run, I spot the golden arches. I am shivering so badly I can hardly turn the radio dial. My eyebrows are frosted. I pull into the drive through, thinking that back home, I would make a hot chocolate anyway, so why not grab one here? Already made. Warm. Ready to go.

I swear I didn’t know about the whipped cream. I swear I didn’t know about the swirls of chocolate syrup and caramel syrup. I order a large and drink half in the parking lot with the heat on. This is worth the run, worth the cold. This is reward.

To Do-Overs

Monopoly on a rainy Sunday. I’m losing badly and it matters. The loss feels a lot like luck--a roll of the dice that puts me back in jail, I land on Park Place and it has  3 houses. I’ve mortgaged my railroads and made some side deals, but I can’t seem to get ahead. I know there’s a skill to this game and it’s clear I don’t have it.

 

I roll the dice and one falls off the table.

“Do over!”

This could mean the difference between dropping out of the game and making it another trip around the board. The do-over can save me.

I would like to have three other do-overs.

The wedding photographer: We were fresh out of grad school with no incomes. Some might wait until they get more established, but it didn’t even really occur to us. So we did the whole thing on a budget, and to save money, we gave everyone disposable cameras and trusted them.

Guests take horrible pictures. They are far away and  inch-for-inch we have more pictures of the trees and bushes than people. No one rounded us up at any point and said, “Stand here for  minutes and smile.” And guests drink. They aren’t interested in pictures. I would have paid for the photographer.

The Honda CVCC: the first car I ever bought with all my own money. Senior year of college. $500. I call an number from an ad in a paper and meet a guy in Chenango Bridge. The  car looks as though it has been literally put out to pasture, but he lets me take it for a drive. It goes. It stops. Sold.

I get it home and decide to take it to a mechanic for a check up. I have to take it to three before I can find one who is willing to put it on lift; the rust is so bad they fear the car will crack in half. Finally one guy agrees and calls me later with the repair list: brakes, tires. $500.

I call my parents in tears. This was my first adult purchase. I signed a title for christ sake. And now I have to invest as much in the car to repair as I paid for it. I work 12 hours a week showing films for classes. The bus was working just fine. I didn’t need a car. I didn’t know what I needed.

England: I spent a summer traveling Europe and never made it to England. I should have returned home completely penniless and seen every city I could have. I thought I would get back. 

You just go, right? You just make space in your life and go. So easy. Whenever I want. Just go.