2004-11-20 - 11:11 PM

Went back to Santa Barbara last week. It was the first time all four of us, the whole house, had gone.
It seems odd, objectively speaking, to want to go on vacation with the people you live with. But, after all, we do like to have grand adventures together.
It was a week ago, so the ordering of things is a little lost to me. The memories I have are gold, though. We went to the beach twice. Andrew Harvey hadn't been in 6 years. Even though the water was far, far to frigid for most of us the first day (I went in for about 20 seconds, declared "Pins and Needles!" and promptly sploshed out) he was out there backstroking, looking for all the world like the happiest (and largest) otter of all time.
The second time, my upgrade taught me how to salsa dance on the beach. We collected skipping rocks, it was just a generally perfect sort of day.
We got high on a playground and ate In-N-Out. Then I said clever detailed things in the space of a single lungful of breath, and Oplinger laughed and tried to remember them. We watched Eddie Izzard that night, but we all sort of fell asleep at that point.
I remember falling asleep with Heather on the couch, and feeling content. I remember puddle stomping in the pacific with Nikki again, and feeling content. I remember being surrounded by friends and feeling like I was home.
And I remember seeing the movie Garden State. It was a phenomenally good movie, but there was this part that hurt, it cut deeper than Big Fish did, than American Beauty did. It wasn't a depressing finish, or some great cinematic swell of plot development. It was just the main guy sitting at the pool talking to someone. I remember slouching in my seat, between Jerome and Nikki, and munching contentedly on a red vine.
"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone."
I remember sitting upright and leaning ever so slightly forward. I didn't consciously mean to do it, I just vaguely remember watching my body react.
"it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist."
I remember my eyes stinging and my lip trembling and thinking, this isn't what is supposed to happen to me in a movie theater surrounded by friends. I'm supposed to be paying 5 bucks and enjoying a flick. Not hurting like I suddenly and very emphatically was.
I remember feeling something on my left shoulder. I looked over slightly, and saw Billy's hand. He wasn't even looking at me, still watching the screen, still in movie-absorbtion mode. But he'd reached a hand around Jerome and briefly squeezed my shoulder. A stray tear rolled down a cheek, I hoped nobody noticed. On my right, Nikki's head, already on my shoulder. She nuzzled it slightly and looked up at me.
"I'm sorry, punkin." She'd whispered. I realized then that I love her, the way I do the others. I'm pretty sure I could fall to peices in front of her and it'd be okay, I'd be okay with it. It almost happened without my even seeing it coming.
Billy told me later that as soon as that monologue had started up, he could see gears turning in my head. It was, he said, exactly something I would write. Something I have written about countless times, this search I seem to be on every time I go back, grasping at straws for the familier, for this sense of home that always seems to be waiting for me to turn around so it can slink away into the shadows of memory.
He also told me later, about how he'd been looking at the night sky for something we could hold to, something that would connect the Jungle Gym Boys. Orion's belt, he'd pointed out to me. 3 stars, holding up the pants (and the sword) of the hero of the night sky. Wherever we were geographically, Dave and Billy and I, we could look at those stars, and raise a pound, and we'd be together. So Billy and I did, for eachother and for Dave, off somewhere in the middle of nowhere revelling in marital bliss.
I remember being surrounded by people I care about, people I depend on more than I tend to let them know. And above all else, I remember thinking that I'd done something extraordinarily right with my life, that made it possible for me to share that weekend with these people.
-Alex

|

Slide back | Stumble forward