I Moved Back to Nashville and I’m not a Perfect Person and That’s Okay.

I moved back to Nashville and I’m not a perfect person and that’s okay.

I kissed California goodbye. Adios, beautiful. I tipped my hat and stumbled towards the East. She won’t miss me, but I’ll miss her during the winter months. She’ll go to the desert and get stoned and get laid and forget about me. I’ll awake in a Southern riverbed and pretend I’ve forgotten her. But I won’t. She’s too impressive. And that’s okay.

I built a large container to wear on my back as I walked away from her. As I walked across America the Fucking Beautiful, these are the objects I carried in the container:

1. A picture book. The book contains every image I don’t want to forget during my time in the West. Baby whales. The galaxy above me as I laid on a road at the base of a mountain. A girl’s laugh. Ancient trees as big as gods. Midnight cigarettes with strangers. The sun tickling my apartment walls. The glow of a joint under a desert tree. Silent rooms where I could hear my heart beating.

 

2. A mirror. It is small with a brass handle and reflects only who I was before I moved to California. Late at night, I talk to the reflection, and the reflection talks to me. It’s a real bummer of a time, but I tell myself that it’s important to remember who you’ve been. I hope that it keeps me from returning to that shadowy figure of a shit human being. The more we talk in the dark, the more I know I don’t miss him. The more we talk, the more I can see the weight he carries in his spirit and his mind, and I just want to get as far away from him as possible. Occasionally, he asks me, “Who’s the fairest of them all?” I tell him, “You. Of course, you are.” But he knows it’s a lie, and I know it’s a lie. But I think sometimes the only way to be able to bare the past is to tell the past that it is beautiful.

 

3. A light bulb. This is for when I arrived to my new home. In this home will be a new book with a new chapter. I will turn its page and get to read  its words for the first time. I’m getting older and can’t see or hear shit. So to read this new chapter, I assume I’ll need a good light bulb. 

 

Also, everyone needs a good light bulb eventually. (Write that down.)

 

Along my walk across the country, a bird decided to adopt me. She was golden and beautiful, and she knew it. She sat on my shoulder and whispered memories to me. Some made me smile. Some made me hurt. So, I loved this bird, and I hated this bird. Once I walked past the road sign for Tennessee, I asked her to leave. She shook her brilliant wings and told me to go fuck myself. She then told me a memory that made me grin in a way that only someone who has attempted to live life can grin. That memory was just for me. If you want to know this memory, you can go fuck yourself. 

Eventually, she picked me up and flew me to Nashville and laid me in my new bed. The first morning in a new place that is also an old place is the hardest morning. But why would returning to a place be simple? Why would coming home have no turmoil within it? You are a new creature with a magic ghost mirror and a golden bird on your shoulder. Get used to it.

Nashville is the same, and Nashville is different. Because time is fickle, and time is change. There aren’t oranges outside of my window, and the sun doesn’t dance like it did in California. But there are beautiful things that surround me. At first, it was hard for me to realize these things. I was overwhelmed. You see… I spent most of my days alone in California. Alone at the water. Alone in the desert. Alone in the mountains. Alone in my apartment. I drove with no purpose up the coast. I roamed the streets and bars with books and headphones and talked to cheap whiskey. I sat under a waterfall in Yosemite soaked to the bone and laughed to no one. I ate the world in all its majesty with only myself to share it with. And this does feel special. It feels like you care about life even though it’s only witnessed by you. But eventually you want to listen to an orchestra in a crowd and not by yourself. Eventually, you want your heart to grow so large you can cut it up and give it to other people. The hope is that they will take that piece of your heart and plant it inside themselves. And then…you live on in others. Then…your love becomes immortal.

Eventually, my golden bird installed a giant glowing clock above my bathtub. There are no numbers, only wonderful things that I can allow myself to have in this new Tennessee chapter in life. Because you should know…you have to allow yourself to have wonderful things. They need your permission to enter your life. And once you allow them to enter, they never stop walking through your door.  (write that down)

I lay in my porcelain tub filled with camomile tea and watch the illuminated hands of the clock move above me. Tick by tock. The hand lands on my family. I grow with them. I cut out parts of my heart and give them to my brother and his wife. They give little bits to their children. We watch them eat the pieces on their back porch at night. Tick by tock. The hand lands on my friends. We make new memories in water and mountains and deserts. We smoke new joints, and I tell them about the baby whales I saw by myself on the coast near Big Sur. I think about being alone with those whales and say to my friends, “I wish you were with me then. You would have loved those baby whales.” Tick by tock. The hand lands on me making love with someone I care for and who’s kind to me. It’s a simple thing, but it’s something we all need; I’m learning that. Slowly, but I’m learning that. It’s okay to let kindness take care of you. Tick by tock. The hand lands on me closing my eyes, and I am alone. Because there is still importance in keeping close to myself. He needs to be loved by me and I by him.

At night, I am exhausted in this new/old place. I spend my days sweeping the past into piles to make room for the future. My golden bird reflects images of my time in California above my bed as I fall asleep.

Then the bird shows me images of a time before that: when I lived in Nashville for 17 years. 

Then before that: when I was a teenager in Texas. Scared but bold and just beginning to eat the world on my own. 

Then before that: when I was a child. In my mother’s arms as she sang, “Safe am I. Safe am I. In the hollow of his hands.” I remember thinking about laying in the hollow of God’s hands. I remember the comfort of that image.

Now, I think of laying in the hollow of my own hands. Resting in my palms as they grow bigger and stronger by the day. And I hope they never stop growing. I hope they reach a size in which I can provide shelter for all of those I care for in this spiraling life. So, they can have comfort from the spiral and are able to expand their own hearts.

And in the hollow of my hands, we can cut our hearts up together and pour the pieces into a cauldron and cook them over an open flame. The flame rises around the stew and illuminates the faces of my loved ones. And they feel seen and they feel loved. And as the sun rises, I’ll see its rays tickling the edges of the hollow of my hand. And I will want to tell them the story of how the sun danced on my old apartment walls in California.

But I won’t, because we’ll be passing plates of the meal we’ve made. The meal containing bits of our broken little hearts. And we will eat each other. And we will live forever. Together. And the world will be new.