It’s like Van said. It’s that I have a gypsy soul. Something molds too comfortably to me, a job, a house, a person, a place, a — whatever, and I get…uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with stability, hungry for the new and not-yet-gotten. It’s why travel is more of a life-pledged holy practice than frivolous fun off-the-clock. Travel is my clock…”What time is it? Oh, 208 days ’til Budapest; that’s what time”. It’s why I can’t remember where I call home, or how to answer, “So what do you do?” I change. I grow. I maximize myself. That’s what I do. I’m in the business of making memories. I climb into cloaks and try on assorted costumes for size, say “that was fun,” then derobe. Tailor another outfit. Seek another dot on a map. Break another bond, heartwrenchingly. Then march on, tissue at my eye, compass in my gut.
Constant orbiting, onward revolution, try try try, this one might fit, wonder what that’s like, think I’ll give it a go. Go Go Go. Can’t stop, can’t fall prey to “same everyday”. Spiraling evolution, fast and furious, and my path is coated with succulent experience, laden with raw-sugar-spun tales. I want to eat the world, taste every bite, do the hell out of everything. Ravenous, exhausting, lonely at times. Yet onwards and upwards, not willing to argue with my DNA.
If time could speak, its language would be in memories. I’d sit it down over tea and a hookah, and we’d chatter into night’s thin hours, laugh ’til our sides split open and released all regret. But we don’t say words like regret; we say, “Ahh yes, the roads we didn’t take.” There is a fondness for that too, and that’s okay. We take a moment of silence to recognize the lives we could have lived, and emerge thankful again for the ones we did. Chuckle as we toke. Sip another cup. Nod our heads, and sigh – a silent signal cementing devotion to the pot-holed road that is. The mother in me cradles the memories it birthed.
And I remember every costume, the fine silk garbs and shredded burlap rags. Their smells come back to me. I relish each one, for I gave myself fully to each part they had me be; all those beautiful characters they had me love. I beat each stage with blistered, dancing feet, cried full tears at the finale; sometimes played the encore, when I was too devoted to simply saunter off…..Until alas, curtain close, and the troupe prods on in search of other scenes.
Yet one garment remains. Evermore suctioned to my skin. You wouldn’t know it ’til it’s gone, when the locals gather and chatter and peer their curious eyes over yonder, up towards a hill I’m ascending at nightfall. They’ll nod and they’ll coo and suddenly you see it too. Towards a tapering silhouette, they point and they utter, “There goes a gypsy girl”….
The Blyss Catalyst 