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December 31, 2009Why did I ever leave California?Will 2010 find me asking myself that?AWOKE TO MORE SNOW,in Philadelphia. Now 32°, exactly freezing. At 7:00 p.m. EST, five hours of the 00’s to go. This is my last Ax File, and yours, of the decade. I have other things in store for the 10’s, but at the moment I don’t know exactly what all they are. There are two ways I figure things out, writing and riding trains. Come Monday I’ll have three nights, four days to do both, while I cross 2600 miles back to San Francisco. DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER,but the question is: Do I stay or do I go now? After I left for Philly, my friend Jon looked at an apartment in Brooklyn for me, at the location, location, location of St. John’s Place at 7th Ave. Classic brownstone, tree-lined street, pretty church. It was a good deal and if Jon had said to me, “You can’t let this one slip away,” I would have gone back to NY, put money down on it, gone home to SF and packed up. But it was just another apartment, and the train trip becomes a 2600-mile meditation on where to put myself. I HAVE NO JOB,I have no property, I have no partner. I’m an unemployed writer, and I can go anywhere in the world right now and still be one. I have a few close, treasured friends, a score of acquaintances, and a love for San Francisco, the city I made my home. I love the sort of people who are drawn here. Apart from the cost of living, it’s an easy place to be. The weather is a powerful plus factor. The Noir Festival at the Castro is coming up in January. I have tickets for the Black Eyed Peas in San Jose this April. But… BUT WHAT?The usual. I’ve been in San Francisco since 2003, California since 1996. I’m bored. My readers say: “Sounds like you have made up your mind and are outta SF!” “I could tell how good that was for you to be somewhere different…I think a move to NY or some place else entirely new and exciting might be a great new adventure and provide lots of new people, places and things to discover. Which of course you know, makes for great writing…They say happiness is having something to look forward to…Go be crazy. 55 is the new 35. Load up those cats and go for it.” “New York is the place for you.” LOAD UP THOSE CATSIt will cost me about $500 to ship all three cats via Pet Air. I’d rather drive across with them but that might prove more traumatic and chaotic (for me, much less them) than a one-day air journey. The cats will provide the cross-country continuity. As long as I can cuddle up with a familiar feline, it will feel like home. Well, it does sound like I’ve made up my mind. Will, will, will, I said above, not would, would, would. But I haven’t decided anything. I am of two minds, like Janus, the namesake of January, one facing backwards, one forward, “frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another. He was also known as the figure representing time because he could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. Hence, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as marriages, births and other beginnings. He was representative of the middle ground between barbarity and civilization, rural country and urban cities, and youth and adulthood.” I HAD AN ODD DREAMthat I was at a guy’s house–a very talented and imaginative guy who has a fascinating life but is personally hard to approach. I was at his house, and started kissing his neck, and drawing his arms around me, and he exclaims, “What are you doing? I don’t want to touch your *****, I want to touch your vision!” Perhaps that is the crux. I need a vision adjustment. I can’t see what I’m doing. Perhaps I won’t see it until Janus draws the curtain on the new year and decade. It’s something to look forward to. Ready or not, here it comes!
San Francisco is this-a-way, New York that-a-way. The light is falling on New York… ------------------------------------------------------------ Janus oversees the gate
Don't worry. Be happy. copyright Alexandra Jones 2009 |
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