In the fall I get restless and think a lot about leaving. I go to sleep and dream about renting a car and driving due north, barreling straight up the coast until I hit the border, spill over into Canada, build a fire by a lake, put on thick knit sweaters and cozy hats. I think about applying to grad school, finishing a manuscript, cutting off all of my hair. I grow impulsive and strange, run down the middle of the street at sundown just to feel my heart squeal. I kiss near-strangers and ask someone to drive me to a far-away lookout point on a cliff in Marin just so I can see the Golden Gate up close. I end friendships and relationships brutally, with robotic ease. I think about getting another job, getting another apartment, doing anything that could alter the direction of my life, even slightly. I want to run very fast, into the ocean, into anywhere.
A boy sits on my bed and hands me a CD. There is a mixtape with hearts drawn on the front. He says, “It’s wonderful to be here with you tonight,” and I make a joke, deflect, say, “You sound like a band approaching their last song. ‘Thank y’all for coming out tonight, get home safe.’” On the bed we keel over laughing, hard giggles erupting from our throats. We die laughing so we don’t die of sweetness. I won’t let him come close.
Living in four cities in five years has taught me that the only thing moving changes is your perspective. Here, the sea alights my synapses and I don’t jump in shock when a shopkeeper’s hands graze mine as he gives me my change. I touch and am touched with resonance, in both big and small ways. That I moved here because of faint childhood notions that lay trapped like a fluttering bird in my chest is something best repressed. Sometimes, I miss my family so much that when my Dad tells me The Philadelphia Inquirer is hiring I actually consider moving back to Pennsylvania. A friend asks, “Why did you move here?” and I say, “In New York I was the most positive person in a place full of negative people, and here I’m the most negative person in a place full of positive people.”
He looks at me pointedly, lets his shoulder brush mine.
“And you prefer that?” he asks.
I say, “I don’t know.”