When I left St John on August 6, I knew I had chosen to be gone for too long. Two months and change off the rock…My return seemed a like a lifetime away. After months of looking forward to reconnecting with friends and family, eating great food for a reasonable price, LIVE MUSIC and revisiting my beloved Colorado, on that day in August, I regretted (Something I do not frequently do) my decision to leave a life of one foot in front of the other for a “vacation” where fast cars and tall buildings zoom past and tower over my existence. I just wanted to stay on the beach and ride out the off season with the rest of my island misfit cohorts.
Now, on October 15, I sit in the Miami airport, having already been on two other flights in the past 12 hours, ready to board my final plane to St.Thomas, and, for the first time in two months, pick up the hint of a West Indian dialect in one of the neighboring rows of passengers. My heart leaps. Home…I’ll be home soon.
The journey I have been on has been a transformative and reflective one. For on this path, I have learned that there are places I have loved and to which I cannot return, there are places I wish to know better and there are places in my past to which I will always return to with the mentality of “I love you, but I can never date you/live here.” In these past weeks, I have released my home of nearly ten years. One of my reasons for returning to Colorado for a full month was to purge my earthly things…Sell my car, donate my things to thrift stores and distribute them to my friends and, all in all, close the door on my life there. In the midst of boxes of clothing, photos, kitchen wares, ticket stubs and costumes, I sat weeping in the cold dark basement of a best friend that had housed my things when I had decided to take off for 6 months last fall. Two months into my stint on STJ, I called to make sure it was okay if my things stayed for another 6 months…I was staying. This time, as I sorted the important things, it was much harder. I felt as if I was on a figurative island…not just the amazing literal one I actually reside on. Everything I owned was being shipped or given away. It’s liberating when it’s over. But scary as shit when you’re actually doing it.
In my time in Colorado, I had some great fun, spent quality time with some of the people I hold dearest in this world and, in doing so, discovered that while we may grow separately, we will never grow apart. The laughter and love will bridge any gap between these people and myself for at one point or another, with each of them, I realized that our lives intertwined were a large part of our connection. The rock has changed me, it has slowed me down, it has allowed me to see life for the miracle of each moment, and to not be caught up in the time that swirls around the present. These are difficult things to do amidst fast cars and tall buildings.
“On the Road,” from Colorado, I discovered more of a vacation. I was headed to Seattle and then Portland to spend a week in the North West with some of the most amazing beings I have been blessed to cross paths with. Another circle of beautiful people whose lives will remain forever entangled with my own reside on the left coast and it was enchanting to be in their world, if only for a short time. I was startled by the way it DID feel like home in Portland, even though I have never lived there…The sight of Mount Hood on a clear day, the amazing food, the subtle swing from Summer to Fall on the tip of every tree and temperature change and the comfort of my best friends’ newly purchased home, in addition to the outpouring of love and affection from each and every one of the friends I have been blessed with over the years of traveling for music, all sang to my heart. I may find myself there one day, just maybe.
I rode the breeze to Oakland next, leaving behind a new love interest and departing with a heavy heart. My sister picked me up at the airport and we went to her new apartment where her new fiancé awaited us and congratulations were passed around over a bottle of wine. As she completes her graduate work in forensic psychology, she also plans a wedding for the fall. Her energy amazes me. As she went to class the next morning, I headed into the city…San Francisco, with flowers in her hair and the remnants of my favorite eras filled with music and madness and beatnik poetry and writing and art and intellect. It was a picture perfect day and as I rode the BART to Union Station, I posted on facebook that I would be cocktail hopping in my favorite areas of the city, beginning at Magnolia on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. This was a bar we had visited after the Earth Day festival in Golden Gate Park while on tour with Yonder Mountain String Band in 2007, specializing in craft beers and gastropub-type fare.
My phone lit up with a text from a friend who had seen my facebook post and was also in the city for a few days from, of all places, Colorado. This is ALSO the friend who connected me, again via facebook, with the amazing couple who put me up for my first weeks on island, strictly based on his “She’s cool,” recommendation. This friend was also traveling with us in 2007 when we visited this same restaurant. I think that Noah and I will always cross paths…another example of music bringing great people together for a lifetime of random adventures (Facebook helped too).
From the Haight, we cabbed it to North Beach, an area of the city known well for its “Little Italy” costume it adorns each evening as open air cafes and restaurants light up with candle light and the air fills with the smells of 100 pasta sauces simmering with sausage and meatballs. However, this was not my reason for visiting this, my favorite, area of San Francisco. For me, North Beach echoes a time that I only wish I could have known. I have read every piece of literature written by Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassady is one of my favorite characters of all time. While in Bowling Green, Ohio, I lived vicariously through their ramblings around the country and followed suit as soon as I finished college…While, maybe a little bit while I was still in college. These late nights spent flipping the pages of Kerouac’s “On the Road,” are a large piece of the puzzle comprising my life and my own wanderings.
It is on the corner of Jack Kerouac Alley in North Beach that Vesuvio’s, a beautiful little hole in the wall bar that screams of a time of jazz music and literary geniuses, and the City Lights bookstore reside. I will never understand the fascination with Kindles and Nooks, for it is in old, locally owned bookstores that I feel most calm and comfortable. Browsing through the works of the Beat Generation, picking up books and reading a few pages here and there, breathing in the air of paper bound by decades of work, talent and perseverance, is one of the most inspiring things I can do for my writing. While standing in the upstairs room of this tiny store, I can feel the presence of Allen Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassady and the other characters who contributed to the weekly poetry readings in this little shack that literature built. I picked up a book written by Neil’s wife entitled “Off the Road,” coincidentally….I was going home soon.
Leaving Oakland by train the next day, a wave of memories and sentiment overwhelmed me as I sat in Jack London station, awaiting my ride to Fresno where I would visit my dear Aunt Sue, also a leader in teaching me that it’s okay to pick up and go; that there is a big beautiful world out there worth exploring. The last time I sat in that station was with my ex; the one who broke my heart into so many pieces that it sent me spiraling into the Caribbean. He lived in Oakland, but now resides with his fiancé near Tahoe, and I would fly out from Denver and we would take the train to meet up with his band mates in Truckee for one show or one tour or another. It was fitting that I had just fallen so hard for another man while in Portland and it softened the blow of the memories of photo shoots on the bench that I now sat on, of a time we had to pretend we were married to board the train because he had lost his wallet, of intellectual discussions of music and books and future plans. Still though, it stung a little to think of those bittersweet moments in time with a person I loved so much that it hurt. I pondered for a moment how far I had come, the strength I had developed and the leap of faith I had taken in moving to St. John under the cloud of momentary insanity that settles over a broken heart, and I thought to myself, “I wouldn’t trade my life now for a lifetime of those moments with him.” And that felt amazing.
The short of it is that I am now HOME. On island. Back on the rock. When the plane landed on St. Thomas just last week, I was giddy with excitement to be reunited with my island family and the crystal clear waters of the most beautiful place on earth (in my opinion), a far cry from the anxiety and panic stricken discovery of the reality of my decision to move here when I landed in the USVI for the first time last fall. It’s a beautiful thing to discover your true place in life. Even if it’s just for a short moment in time…
wherethebreezesblow 