Lonely Street of Dreams

Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable. Charles Baudelaire

T got me Whitesnake’s greatest hits the other day (against his better judgment, I will add, but he kindly indulges my whacked 80s music fixation) and he added that “Here I Go Again” was my theme song. Not sure why, but that disturbed me a wee bit, probably because it is true, and also probably because Whitesnake are an awfully cheesy, big hair, metal band. And what does it say about me if Whitesnake sing the anthem of my life? Even if the music video has cool slow-mo, Tawny Kitaen and cartwheels on a car!! Still, me thinks this is not a good sign.

“Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient .”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As I was driving down Main St to work this morning and looking out at Lake Champlain sparkling in the distance, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of comfort, as though I may finally be at home in this small, sleepy town of Burlington, VT. I have spent so much of my life on the move, always changing, growing, reevaluating, in a state of frenetic activity. It all started when I was too young to make my own choices and my single Mom moved us from the country to the city and back to the country again, from apartment to apartment and place to place with great dexterity. I suppose a part of me got used to carrying boxes and making new friends. I can’t even imagine growing up in one house in one town with familiar people and places around me my entire life. Part of me has always wished that my childhood could have had deeper roots in one place but I know I would be an entirely different person today if that had been my childhood.

“Once in motion , a pattern tends to stay in motion .”
J. G. Gallimore

I left home when I was 15 yrs old and I have been moving ever since, and this was my choice. If we are raised in constant motion, do we grow up to expect the same thing? (Again, is it just me or do I sound like Carrie Bradshaw with these tacky ass questions?)

“There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought --a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities! ” -Mark Twain

My 32 years read like a schizophrenic’s wet dream:

3 years, Cherry Valley, NY – 1 residence
4 years, Manhattan – 2 residences
8 years, Johnson, VT – 3 residences
1 year, Bloomington, IN – 1 residence
3.5 years, Great Barrington, MA (college) – 4 residences
.5 yrs, Norwich, England – 1 residence
6 years, Berkeley, CA – 3 residences
4 years, Oakland, CA – 2 residences
3 months, Salt Lake City, UT – 2 residences
3 years, Burlington, VT – 1 residence

Totals
10 Places Lived
20 houses/apartments/dorm rooms lived in

“Hell is the place of those who have denied;
They find there what they planted and what dug,
A Lake of Spaces, and a Wood of Nothing,
And wander there and drift , and never cease
Wailing for substance. ”

William Butler Yeats

And do you even want to hear about how MANY jobs I have had in these 32 years? Suffice to say, there were about 24 and most of those were each in a different discipline: food service, film festivals, art world, non-profits, dot coms, child care – you name it and I have probably done it at one time or another. I can barely keep my head screwed on some days!

Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name! ” - Walter Savage Landor

What is it about the act of motion that is so addictive? Already I am feeling antsy, three years in the same place and watch out! “This is ALL wrong! How to get out of here, how to escape!?? Run away, fast as you can!” A part of me longs for the big city, bright lights and late night adventures. A part of me longs for the West Coast and its flavorful cities, diverse populations, spicy food and wistful stretches of ocean. My hands are itching. Something needs to give!

"I am going away with him to an unknown country where I shall have no past and no name, and where I shall be born again with a new face and an untried heart."
- Colette

But is this desire to escape, to venture out into new, freshly laid snow, also some attempt to run away from the present, from the daily life which perhaps frightens me with its regularity and constancy – is this desire for constant motion healthy? Or has it hurt me over the years? Always this push and pull between longing for the new, unchartered territory and also longing for home, roots and connections. How to you manage to achieve both – to keep the balance right?

“I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with ” - Plato

I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
Colette, The Last of Cheri, 1926

Well, until someone creates a magic door that opens onto different towns and cities such as in Diana Wynne Jones’, “Howl’s Moving Castle” (also made into a movie by Hayao Miyazaki), I guess I am stuck trying to figure this out. And in the meantime, here I go again on my own, going down the only road I’ve ever known. Like a drifter I was born to walk alone, and I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time, here I go again….

“We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love... and then we return home. ”

Australian Aboriginal Proverb

WHITESNAKE “Here I Go Again”
(coverdale/marsden)

I don’t know where I’m going
But, I sure know where I’ve been
Hanging on the promises
In songs of yesterday
An’ I’ve made up my mind,
I ain’t wasting no more time
But, here I go againHere I go again
Tho’ I keep searching for an answer,
I never seem to find what I’m looking for
Oh lord, I pray
You give me strength to carry on,
’cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams
An’ here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known,
Like a hobo* I was born to walk alone
An’ I’ve made up my mind
I ain’t wasting no more time
I’m just another heart in need of rescue,
Waiting on love’s sweet charity
An’ I’m gonna hold on
For the rest of my days,
’cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams
An’ here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known,
Like a hobo* I was born to walk alone
An’ I’ve made up my mind
I ain’t wasting no more time
But, here I go again,
Here I go again,
Here I go again,
Here I go...An’ I’ve made up my mind,
I ain’t wasting no more time
An’ here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known,
Like a hobo I was born to walk alone
’cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams
An’ here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known,
Like a hobo I was born to walk alone
An’ I’ve made up my mind
I ain’t wasting no more time...But, here I go again,
Here I go again,
Here I go again,
Here I go,Here I go again...*

in the 1987 version this word is changed to drifter.
Davids management thought that hobo could be confused with homo! :)