The Myth of the Breeze

I attended an all day writing workshop yesterday where we were asking to participate in a number of free writing activities. Prompted only be the phrase "I remember a time when...," I was surprised by the things I wrote about when I was asked to stop thinking and keep writing. We were asked to share our writing, no matter how bad we assumed it to be, after completing the exercise. It is embarrassingly uncommon for people to share their most impromptu and formless work. This was one of my exercises.

I remember a time when my body ached as a child. My mother always called it growing pains. Pain that your body feels when it begins to stretch and shift its shape. The pain was dull and begged me to tug on body parts and stretch my legs out and twist my back. The pain was a sign for me to let my growing body become used to it changing form. I am not sure how long the time was between growing pains and grown pains. Perhaps no longer than ten years. Now I sit at 25 and can discuss my ailments as an adult, can discuss my grown pains. But the pain now is different. It begs for stillness and relaxation. The knots in my neck are at times alleviated only by me keeping my head pointed towards the floor, much in the same direction as it is pointed now. And when I lift, my chest pops and my neck acts as though it has forgotten how to hold my head up straight. My mind must actively tell it to do so, lest it fall and examine nothing more than the sidewalk. I am suddenly reminded of myself at the checkout to a store, straining to make eye contact with the salesperson but feeling that sting in my back.

Staying put is simply not in my nature. In 25 (nearly 26) years of life, I have lived in 17 different residences. My packing abilities are sharp, quick, and well organized. I've adopted my mother's obsession of hardly sleeping until each item of furniture is in its place and each decoration is properly hung on the wall. The instinct arises from the need to find my place within each new space I occupy in light of its impermanence. For some, the instinct is the opposite. Carry few possessions and never entirely settle in, lest you find yourself in need of a speedy escape. But in understanding that each place in which I find myself will only last so long, my urge is to furiously settle, to dig deeply into the soil and ensure I am secure and upright.

Despite the urgency in settling, the equal and opposite force to leave quickly arises. Perhaps it stems from a life of moving around. In order to properly mark the end of the season, the passage of time, I must sort through each possession and decide which are expendable. I must clean my rugs and dust off my books, finally getting rid of those I know I will never read and those I never liked but kept around because they looked so nice on the shelf.

I was not expecting the urge to move to take hold again this year. And yet, come March I found myself in search of somewhere else. A month ago today I left the countryside in favor of a manageable commute and a house full of close friends. And contrary to my obsessive tendencies for everything in its place, there is one piece of art that has yet to find a place on the wall. Well, it has a place, but I have yet to hang it. The image is an aerial photograph of central Los Angeles that I pulled from the closet of my old job. On the bottom left is downtown LA, with shallow shadows cast down the northeast side of the buildings. The LA River runs through the center of the image and trickles down to a dry ditch around LA's industrial corridor. Dodger Stadium and its mammoth parking lot sit heavily at the top of the photograph in the midst of the hills of Elysian Park. Following Sunset Boulevard toward the west and to the far left of the photograph leads to the edge of Echo Park. And nestled next to it is Laguna Avenue and my old house.

My friend and former housemate crafted an incredible frame for the photo, and warned me to use the proper anchors before putting it on the wall. I've purchased the anchors, but can't seem to hang the damn photo. As it stands (atop the chest which holds most of my nostalgia inside it), Echo Park is at eye level and I glance it each time I pass between my bedroom and bathroom. I fear hanging the photo and my old neighborhood moving just above my line of vision.

For the most part, I am irked by my yearly urge to move. I think that there must be another way to channel my anxiety and commitment fears. But I think about Los Angeles everyday, and need Echo Park at eye level, to know that thoughts of moving back can still equate moving forward, that fear of missing out can be left as the comforting feeling that I miss and that I am missed.