May 31, 2019
It’s bad today.
I keep thinking about how the Louisville time in my life is coming to a close. It’s already over, actually. It happened slowly, since that fateful call from my brother in early May. Then very quickly. Over a period of just a few days. Just a fleeting knowing, knowing it was time to close that time and move ahead. I’m moving ahead now, into a place I don’t want to be. I rebel. It does me no good.
One day, just a few days back, I started telling friends I had to move back to Washington. I started making lists. Today I called and made a reservation for the moving company to pack up and ship my things to Centralia. A little town, with no restaurants open after 9 pm, and perhaps five bars that call last call at 1:45 am. Likely less than five.
Those few times driving mom to Vancouver for her doctor visits, it truly is beautiful here, when the sun shines. The hills, hill after hill, green with evergreen. Lush growth, clear rivers that border the highway.
Why, then, do I miss the scrubby bare trees that line the highway from Louisville to Springfield, while riding Greyhound to visit my good friends? Why, then, do I miss driving around town, in the ever constant flat? Where stopped cars never fall back as they do on the steep streets of Seattle? Why would I miss a place I found so hopelessly devoid of nature’s beauty?
But the businesses in Louisville, the bars, the restaurants, the buildings. The buildings hundreds of years older than what you find here, with such character, such history contained.
The people, from all over the world. Come to Louisville. Why? Some for jobs. Most for love. More outsiders than locals, that was my experience. So the opinions were varied. I never felt the way I looked at the world was disrespected, not in the city.
I never spent much time outside the city. I was a bit fearful of how a West Coast liberal might be received. Pointlessly so. But it was entertaining to entertain the thought the city was the only safe place for me. I found it funny. Now I find it ironic I found it funny.
Ironic I had to make jokes to make it palatable living in such a place. At least at first. Later those jokes just became part of my repertoire of tired old funnies. My favorites. That have little bearing on reality and are intended only to make people smile. After all, Louisville is not a destination. Is it?
Now, back where I started. I will be here for at least three years. I committed to Paisley to see her through college, And as long as I can be with mom, I’ll be here.
I comfort myself in the knowing if I want to go back to Louisville after, I have that option. But why would I do that? Louisville is not a destination. It was my adopted home, it was my heart, all my heart, for a short time. Yet though I came to know Louisville as home, can you ever go home again?
I had three years in Louisville. Three years of the most intense suffering I’ve ever experienced. Magically offset by the most exciting connections I’ve ever had. Is the spirit of that time, is that over now for good? I had my three years of freedom. And oh how I loved how I loved. And how I loved how I lived.
It’s not so easy here. In this little town. Where people know your mother, your brother, your car parked in front of the little dive bar on Tower. Anonymity is not an option. There is no luxury of surreptitious living. That’s all over. For here. For now. Freedom lost. That is what I grieve most. That is what my tears are for now.
Pain is here. I wonder how long she will feed off this new season of discontent. I must embrace all the new.
I Persevere. And life goes on.