I took an impromptu trip to Memphis for the 4th of July. I was invited to several 4th of July events in L.A., but all of them sort of overwhelmed me for one reason or another. Maybe I just need to be sedated to function properly.
Being back in old Memphis was both comforting and weird. Flying back over L.A. when I came back here made me feel blank. I looked over all of the lights of the city from the air, watching them blanket the ground for thousands of miles, remembering a time when all of those lights represented opportunity to me. They represented a chance to do something with my life. This time, though, I looked over them thinking, "This is the last time I'll see these lights while I am living here. This is the last time I'll see these lights while I'm going 'home' to L.A." But I didn't really feel anything at all. I just felt blank. Maybe it's because I was sitting next to this rat bastard kid who kept kicking me while I was trying to sleep, and she devoured an entire family-sized bag of tortilla chips, and little chip fragments were ALL OVER Row 5, and I kept dreaming (while I was attempting to sleep) that rats would smell the chips and bite my feet while I was asleep with my mouth wide open.
Going back to Memphis, every single time, is totally weird. I go back to my parents' house and unload the dishwasher and have no idea where to put the Tupperware. I used to know where the Tupperware went. This makes me feel like I don't belong there.
Every time I feel like I start to figure out what I'm trying to get out of life, I all of a sudden realize that I pretty much feel exactly the same way I did in the 7th grade, except now I'm more educated and more irritated. I guess a lot of people feel like this, though. Even U2. One of my most hated bands.
And I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
Or The Stones, one of my most loved bands.
I can't get no satisfaction.
I had this epiphany in Rome that I've probably written about before, as I tend to have the worst memory in the universe and often repeat myself regarding ideas or experiences that I find particularly insightful. I was standing in front of the Pieta in St. Peter's Basilica on Christmas Day, recognizing that I'd finally done pretty much everything in life that I'd wanted to do by age 25, which gave me quite a sense of accomplishment. I felt proud of myself for the first time in my life. Moved to California, got a graduate degree, visited Rome. And I stood there wondering what really mattered in life after I'd already done everything I wanted to do. It's like I thought, "Now what?"
In the middle of this "Now what?" moment, I imagined this voice saying, "The only thing in life that matters is your relationship with God and your relationship with other people." I thought about this for a good long while, and realized that I'd never have a relationship with other people in L.A. I can experience God anywhere, any time, but meaningful relationships are hard to find. Most people in L.A. don't give a crap about you. Not all of them, but most of them.
It's weird how the ideals of Memphis are completely opposite of the ideals of L.A., and I don't really agree with either one of them, but I take little fragments of each and apply them to my life, and wonder what the crap it all means or if it means anything at all.
I remember going out about two months ago to James Beach, and being with a crowd of acquaintances that I really have no relationship with, and in their drunken philosophical states, several of them tried to convince me that staying in L.A. made sense because I could make it as a stand-up comedienne, and I was abandoning my chance for fame far too early in the L.A. game.
That depressed the hell out of me.
That's just how it is, though. Everyone grappling for a few seconds of fame and fighting for a few extra bucks or a mic on a stage or a chance to be discovered. Even with my few seconds of stand up, which I really liked, I didn't feel like it was something I'd ever want to sell my soul to do. I like it because I enjoy laughing with people, but not because telling jokes to drunks in bars gets my jollies.
Anyway, back to opposite cultural experiences. Memphis vs. L.A.
I saw Khloe and Kris Kardashian about a month ago with their film crew. Khloe was driving her white Range Rover down Washington Blvd. and Kris was running behind her on the street, all coy and laughing because the cameras were all up in her face. Even though I got excited, because I love that trashy show, and I started waving to Khloe frantically like she'd know who I was, I thought it was sort of retarded. If my mom tried to whore me out, I'd be pretty disappointed. Part of the reason why I love my parents so much is because they really act like parents. They send me cards in the mail when I'm down and out and they take me out to eat when they pick me up from the airport. They're not running down Washington Boulevard with a camera crew, being phony fame whores and trying to prostitute me out on E! Thank God.
Anyway, let's get back to Memphis.
I sort of felt like I had amnesia or something the whole time I was in town. It's like I forgot that I live in L.A. now and I forgot that my good friend's daughter goes to school with Arnold Schwarzenegger's kids and I forgot how tough life is when I'm not living it simply. It's like nothing really feels familiar. For instance, I woke up on Sunday morning to a note on the stairs from my dad that said to please tell my boyfriend not to wear a tie to church, because it is "No Tie July." I thought that was so funny. People DO still wear ties to church. And jackets. And full-fledged suits. I used to be so appalled that people out here wore white shoes after Labor Day, and now I watch these hoe-girls walk into church wearing booty shorts and spike heels, and I hardly notice. A couple of weeks ago, there was a girl sitting in front of me at church who had a huge purple hickey on her neck, and it didn't even phase me.
It will be nice to live somewhere where beer is a buck 50 and gas is less than $3 a gallon.
I turned in my notice yesterday that says I'm moving out in August. A month from right now, I'll be living with my parents in Memphis again. I have no idea how to feel about that.
Sometimes I feel really nostalgic about it. My boyfriend comes from a real estate family and when I was in town, he walked me through a couple of houses that are being built right now. Walking through those open rafters and raw buildings and tall green grass in the heat sort of felt like "The Notebook," like everything was calm and simple and easy. I wasn't all worked up like always.
I don't know what my problem is. I get scared that I'll move home and get sucked into some sort of stepford wives role and have to wear pearls and vacuum all day. And that just isn't the case. I have no idea why I think this. Then that Sylvia Plath quote spins into my mind, "So I began to think maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterward you went about as numb as a slave in some private, totalitarian state." Maybe this is because I look at my peers' facebook pages and see them with their babies and their "girls nights out" and I'm so scared that Memphis will be so slow, that I'll just get sucked into a baby-making machine role and my life will be over. WHY DO I THINK THIS?!
Memphis is way too slow and LA is way too fast. Could they have a baby, and could I live in that well-balanced Walden Pond?
I always try to figure my life out, like what I really want out of it, or what I really want to do, and all I can come back to is that I've never gotten sick of writing. I get sick of EVERYTHING except that. Then I think about the really great writers. Let's put aside the fact that they were all raging alcoholics. But I think about the best ones, and realize that they lived pretty simply. They didn't have to live in an energetic city like L.A. to be great at what they did. Maybe i could be like Faulkner or Hemingway and live in a log cabin to clear my mind and write better.
Or maybe I could turn my life into some sort of screenplay. Then I could merge the writing with "the industry" with my story with my background with my current life.
Because I'm always quoting Plath, I might as well end this with some Plath. I'm sure I've quoted this before, too, because like I said, my memory is total crap, especially when I'm stressed. I can sum it all up with old Sylvia.
"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet." ~The Bell Jar
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