A blog post about the feeling of wanting, or rather of wanting wanting.

I remember a night cold as this, twelve odd years ago (jesus, twelve!) one of the first times I ventured into Brooklyn as a young student; a classmate who lived out there at a young and early age, no dorms for her, was throwing a house party and everyone from our section was going, including the girl I had an enormous and unspeakable crush on. I remember a lot of talk, and some minor dancing, and seeing her mostly across the room but feeling so damn much.

It's strange. In some ways I remember most sharply these feelings which sprang from fantastical unfulfilled crush-dreams. Times I was in love — which is a reciprocal situation, something of considerably greater depth and complexity — I know about feeling-wise mainly because I wrote about it in one place or another. Of course I remember all the facts, but only bits and pieces of the real emotions: saying goodbye the very first time, at a subway gate; bawling my eyes out on a hardwood floor; romantic petty theft; brief but indelible bedroom moments... still, by in large these quantities of time and whatever ticked by inside me have submerged below accessible consciousness. Amnesia of the heart.

And on a night like this, pedaling a borrowed bike through the city of my birth, a cold foggy Saturday night years beyond years beyond any of these times I remember, remembering those kinds of feelings makes me wish I had some of that kind of jumpy excitement in my life. Honestly I'm inwardly still somewhat Buddha calm about things like settling down and having kids; what piques my angst is this bland numbness, the staggering lack of epic romantic fantasy.

Thus the allure of fanning old flames. Thus the desire to radically switch up my situation. Thus the tendency to rhapsodize the potential of things that never happened. Thus the desire to play the lottery, to strike gold after scaling some yet unknown height.

Back on the west coast, where I'll be for at least the next two or three months. It's been a long and winding road, and lots of fun, but I'm happy to be decreasing my rate of motion. Time to come to a more settled place and process.

There's still a big load of things to get through before the end of the year, and I wish wish wish I had more time to digest and to write, especially to write good big emails to all the people I love. Maybe that's a good holiday project. It's a good way of figuring out where you are in life, writing your old friends.

Anyway, I'm safe and sound in rainy California, getting ready for a final couple weeks before I retire to the relative isolation of Oregon for a spell. More when I get the chance.