~ Oscar Wilde
With this, I was going to do a great many things. I was going to discuss the idea that tattoos were a road map; each one marking a different year, journey, or period in my life. I was going to reflect on how they get more complex with my age, or how you really get to know a lot about me by scanning them over; how they add color to an obediently caucasian canvas, and how excited I am whenever I have money to add to the collection. But that was just one part of the story.
I wanted to talk about the many times I have mastered the living hell that is riding on a Greyhound Bus. I wanted to illustrate that each stop along the way is like a tour of all of the worst things about American society. I was going to explore what it's like to see NYC at four in the morning, fresh of the bus, bottle of Courvoisier in a brown paper bag, going to eat Chinese food. How the rats are as large as raccoons, and the city is still as alive as a pulse. Or maybe talk about what it's like to be crammed in a giant metal tube that reeks of sweat and anticipation, every person a character in someone else's tale, all with the desire to be where they're going, and staring, blankly, out of the windows, watching the country pass them by, just like the lives that they so desperately long to get back to. In a way, it's a lot like stepping out of time. That, too, is but part of the tale.
I wanted to talk about living in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Maine. I would touch on the differences in climate, standards of living, cultural diversity and where you can or cannot get a pimento-cheeseburger at two in the morning. I could regale everyone with the fact that I hate the snow, but also hate humidity, which means I've never truly appreciated any of those places. How I ended up drinking in, taking picture of, or hanging out in a cemetery in all of those places, or how people are basically assholes everywhere you go, which pretty much makes everywhere you go the same. But that just doesn't seem to work, either.
I guess what Im really saying here, is that no matter where I've been, or what I've done, I collect it all as I go. The adventure that is living - this life that I am drinking in and experiencing, even right now, is the only journey, the only real travel that has ever been important to me.
Alas, there is still much to do and more to see.
I don't know about tone--I guess this is pretty monotone--but I admire the voice here, which, from my POV has changed and improved immeasurably since we first crossed swords.
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't fear you've lost the Biddix touch, but to me this is essentially you, sounds like you, deals with your stuff (I remember a cemetery piece you did last year) but has shed all the imitative, solipsistic, and self-indulgent stuff.
This piece knows what it wants, where it is going, and how to get there--and reader is able to go along completely happily, confident that we can 'take the bus and leave the driving to us' or in this case, you.