magnets

(written Jan 19, 2008 @ 7:10am)

I was looking at the magnets on my fridge, just now - here in Innsbruck at not even 8am after going to bed at 4.
And it dawned on me how long it has been since I've had a fridge - to put magnets on.

When my husband and I returned from Christmas in America - we also probably as no surprise, brought back with us, two more full suitcases.

The plan was I would collect what little I had in the back room, of my childhood home. I would fill at least one suitcase, if not two, full of things like photo's of my family and friends, my little pumpkin music custom-made electric guitar, my first guitar with the signatures from songwriters I now feel I am not far behind, a few odds and ends here I managed to not sell, give away or throw out along my travels. The last of the good stuff.

But because it was his first Christmas with my family and even though we only chose one name for secret Santa - Helli was lavished with things like a pasta maker, kitchen gadgets, two different sets of very heavy poker chips with cases, a pasta maker, handmade tequila from Mexico...

And when I tried to pack our original two bags - one each, full of what we brought and this - for obvious reasons, it did not work.

So we filled two bags my mom loaned us with his Christmas goods - and that was that.

By the time we made it to my childhood home - the one in the neighborhood with the broken down car in the driveway, long gone over-grown rose bushes, a shingled roof about to collapse. The one abandoned almost three years ago after the divorce was final.
By the time we made it there, one day before our flight left, I realized rather quickly that even though some part of my tumbling ways, hobo'ing it lifestyle - for who knows how long - was coming to some sort of end - or change - I would not fulfill my small, tiny dream of and now what seems like a luxury, hanging the photo's of my past lives in America, since 16 leaving the house, on my walls.
My guitars would sit untouched and probably warping in the un-temperature controlled house - what was, is - left of it all, would not ... this time, be coming "home" with me.

So while I was looking at the magnets & few photo's & mementos I did manage to pack on my fridge, just now - at now a few minutes past 8am, after going to bed at 4am - I look at the albeit small but big reminder of who I used to be, the places I have gone and the people I have loved.

The skydiving in Phoenix, Arizona picture. The dive I took with my long-gone x-fiancé that never was to be and our friends. The jump that started the now wrecked and 3 knee surgeries knee - with the man that ruined me for all the years before my now husband found me. Being held by the first magnet I bought living in Colorado, where ultimately - oddly enough, he left me, I left me - I checked out from the world awhile.

The kind of photo's where one of you holds up an arm, and snaps. Ones with my little sister before she even had her braces off, with my nieces when they were too young to object to Auntie Tina snapping a million ridiculous pictures with that arm held out. That magnet I had completely forgot about - the one from the Body Shop saying women were not Barbie's and if we were, we wouldn't be able to walk. It was displayed prominently in my too expensive but most amazing studio apartment in Noe Valley in San Francisco. The apt, that despite having already lived many lives, in many states with many apartments - the one that made me feel all grown up. The one some day I would write a song about, "The window on 24th street."
And the last place I would really call home - with a fridge to put those magnets.

It is in this instant that I finally - in some strange way thanks to these crazy magnets, photo's and what they represent - put to rest the old ghosts, the broken promises, the trails gone cold - the ones I loved that didn't love me back.
It is in this instant that after all these years, chasing something I don't know or even why I am (was?) chasing - I put to rest the girls I used to know. The ones that took shit from men, from strangers, the road. The one that didn't want to live, that fought hard - for far too long, to die.

The me I was running from is as of now, back.
She - me - collected those stories, scars on roads that although made me who I am, will never hold me hostage ever again.

And although I sometimes still live in the past, it took those silly little fridge magnets to remind me to keep hoping for the future.

And even without my guitars and things I finally after all these years have a place for, I am the proud owner of one small fridge and a whole lotta' living.