Packing (A Short Piece)
Packing. Always packing.
My body has been in fight or flight mode since… well since 2014.
It settled, then picked right back up in 2021.
Like so many other writers and artists, I believe I’ve reached madness. My slow descent began when the clock struck 7:32pm on Thursday, March 28th, 2024 PST. (I don’t talk about that day much anymore.)
I am hopelessly exhausted of fighting and running. I’m tired of chasing the high in the uncertainty of nomad life. Maybe. No, that’s not right, not quite accurate. Too much left to see and do, too many people to still meet. It will never truly end for someone like me, someone with a mind and drive that no amount of wealth will ever satiate. It must be something else. No matter where I go, what I do, who I’m with, it’s never enough.
I think I’m ready to head back to Europe and find a place to finally call home; a place to finally call my own. That’s a nice line. A roof to always return to.
Something as fabulous as Cher, as meek as Jesus, as metal as the Vikings, as fierce as Virginia Woolf, as passionate as Sylvia Plath; rock and roll like Hendrix, elegant like LDR or Hepburn. A place considered holy in the eyes of both Gods and men.
Somewhere quiet. Beaten down but lots of character. Good beer and better food. Repairs I can mostly handle myself. Windchimes and paint brushes and mosaic backsplash and exposed brick. Nook-and-cranny cafes and book shops. A garden, equal parts vegetables and Belladonna. Or a winding staircase seven stories high. Faeries and the boots they wear, whispers of elves in the wood. Moss. Butcher-block countertops. The click-clacking of an old typewriter beneath a radius window. The smell of rosemary and lavender, grapes and bourbon. Blinding sunlight and limitless stars and ethereal aurora. Silver and golden Rosaries hanging from necks and bedside lamps. Candelabra behind Sommelier Hermitage glasses of Châteauneuf du Pape. Sweet talks in sultry gatherings, lots of short dresses and lingerie, but even more winter coats and knee socks. Rumbles of jazz music vibrating cobblestone streets, Montecristo smoke lingering. Dark seas and jagged fjords. Possibly a gentle, kind man with light brown eyes to come home to. God, I’m a sucker for light brown eyes, liquid amber and molten flecks, it’s a hunger food can’t fill. A safe space mottled with pheromones, body heat and bite marks. No overhead lighting. No more plumeria, hibiscus, and cherry blossoms. I want thistle, lily of the valley, and black tulips. No more cheap twinkle lights that burn out in a year. I want lanterns. Bookshelves lined from floor to ceiling; dusty first editions, shiny new editions, brass knick knacks. Bottomless dirty martinis. And a dog named Moondance.
Some Under the Tuscan Sun with an Old English and absinthe-soaked 19th century Paris spin type shit.
Yes, I think it’s time to leave Asia and the “Western World” behind for some time, head back home to Italy, then travel North from there, until I find this place that calls to me in my sleep and haunts me by day.
It’s just yet another less-traveled long road ahead for me, and there is… much to prepare for. Like usual, I have no idea where I’ll be one year from now.
The third of five total one-ways is purchased, waiting in my pocket, and I am left packing up my small life once again. Eyelids raw, head down, the bottomless pit of anguish has become catatonic. Wish me safe travels, it’s gonna be a long flight as I furiously blink away the tears.
