three years after katrina (part II)

(part one, here)

I haz a big blue.

My depression is, I guess, totally reasonable. So my friends, family, and therapist tell me. In the last three years, I've endured my share of grief: a drowned city and a failed marriage, followed by multiple moves and subsequent loss of support networks, along with mother's sudden, early, though not unexpected, death. I'm currently stranded in a place I've always hated and see no easy escape from. If I could click-click my way out of here, I would. I'd be gone in a heartbeat. Throw my most-favorite treasured bits into the back of my truck and hit the f*cking road. I'd sleep in the truck. Wash up in truck stops. Wait tables in truck stops, if it came to that. Anything and everything to keep moving. Anything and everything to keep this dark cloud from descending upon me. Anything and everything.

But...

After all I've lost, I treasure the stuff I have. When my ex left, he took some treasured bits - forever to be unrecovered (if I didn't fight for it then, there's no sense in holding out my hand now). With my two moves after him (to MS, to NY), I jettisoned quite a bit of crap and hand-me-downs, along with a whole bunch of stuff that reminded me of him. I've whittled it down to the keepers, including an orange couch and chairs, several shelves of books, and many, many boxes of kitchen goods. I don't use the latter; I don't have a kitchen. The pots and pans are space-holders and remind me of a life once-lived and one to-be-lived again (I miss the dinner parties, the brunches, and long-ago red-beans Mondays). Someday...

But yeah, I'd give up the couch and chairs. The kitchen shit. Even the books. ('cept a box or two of near and dear favorites. The ones I'd take to that imaginary deserted island.) My truck's big, so I'd probably take some pictures - the drawings and photos that mark moments of my life, that remind me of what I was like then, those that keep me humble and tender, those that remind me to take care. Maybe I'd take my elegantly framed diplomas (BA and MFA), as proof that I was someone once, that I accomplished things. And that that someone is still me. And I can still accomplish things.

I'd take my purses too, the ones I hang in display. I don't carry a purse. I carry a bag. But I LOVE handbags. I don't know where this fetish came from. I've never carried a purse. I've always toted a bag. But I have an amazing collection of handbags, all proudly displayed on a wall in my current domicile (and both prior ones post ex). I think of it as my womb on a wall. Some are mine - acquired through the years, purchased or gifted - and some are hand-me-downs from grandmothers and mothers. Every now and again, I'm invited to a dress-up event and always, always, I have the appropriate accompaniment hanging on the wall. I would take my purses, yes. Leaving them would mean leaving my ladies behind.

What else? What else goes into the truck? Oh yes. The journals. Only a box of them. They'd fit easily. But what a treasure that box is. I got journals going back twenty years (though the early years are sporadic). They are, so far, my life's work. Yes, a lot of it is blathering garbage and myopic navel-gazing, but - in the hands of a good editor (hello R.Jay) - I believe there's a best-seller in all that prose. Maybe I gotta get famous first, before my journals have any worth, but I know (having written it - and being a very harsh critic) that there's gold in dem dere hills. At least a nugget's worth. Considering the volumes.

So the journals and the pictures. Some clothes too. Toiletries. Music. My address book. My laptop. And the big red "A" that has adorned a wall in every place I've lived since my early teens. It was a gift from an uncle, an "A" from an outdoor sign, like a drive-in marquee, with hooks to hook it into place. It's the first thing up and the last thing down in every place I've lived. Maybe I'll figure a way to hook it onto the truck. On the outside, of course, so folks will see me coming. Or going.

Going.

Ha!

I'm not going anywhere. I'm not hitting the road. While I fantasize about filling my truck with all my precious bits - the bits that fit into boxes - there are precious bits that do not take to boxes, unless they're litter boxes.

I cannot take - and I will not leave - my cats.

My cats have preceded and outlasted my marriage. Except for one lonesome year, my cats have lived (and moved) with me for all of the last 11 1/2 years. (They lived with my parents for that year, traumatized and sequestered in the basement, too scared to meet the other cats and scary dog upstairs. They were also renamed - from Iphigenia and Electra to Fluffy and Speckle - due to the ample fur and spots, respectively. Though be true, fancy-names beside, they're just Iphi (Iffy) and Elly to me, and while they're still spooked by other animals - and most other humans - they're lovely, gentle animals and a great comfort to me.) I adore them, know them, and cherish them. I sleep each night with one on either side, and often, with one on top. They especially like it when I read in bed. The preferred spot is in the way of the book. I never move them out of the way. I move the book. I love them. And I love that they take comfort on the warmth of my chest.

So there's no leaving them behind. If I could leave the bed of the truck free, and just make it an all-cat zone, maybe (they've lived in a truck-bed before). But what kind of living would that be? For them or me? So. No leaving. No living in the truck. Instead, somehow, I gotta make a living here. No. Better. I gotta make a LIFE here. As long as I am here. And I am here.

As much as I hate it. I'm here.