I am going to start filtering some of my more private musings. Since blogger does not have a tool for that, you will need to visit my Live Journal and ask to be friended there. I will continue to post Daily Gratitude and other subjects here. There is also a FAQ for my Journal at the same link.
nomad
| Friday, March 31, 2006 @ 07:15 yet another installment in my chronicle of the TJFH realizations. I am a Virgo (5 planets in my birth chart). Under traditional astrology, this means I am ruled by Mercury and I don't like things to be static. I like new things, new places, new experiences. I thrive on change and movement. My paternal grandfather is descended (maybe one or two generations back) from a nomadic Native American tribe that traveled between Mexico and Arizona for generations (centuries?). While they may have had roots in both places, they did not sit still. While our society talks about being more "mobile" and how people don't stay in their hometowns anymore, it really means that they move away for a job a few times over the course of their life. The exception has always been the military and certain sales jobs. However, usually the family stays in one place and the wage-earner moves. Likewise a bi-coastal couple generally means that each person stays in one place and they have to visit each other. Laws, employment, health care, government, politics, economics in this country are geared toward those who stay in one place for long periods of time (preferrably decades). The few who have defied this are usually performers, the independently wealthy, and the retired. I didn't talk about my "RV dream" with anyone and barely admitted it to mysElf. Then boy came along and in the first few weeks of our "dating" mentioned something about wanting to go on the road for a few years. I was so startled that I didn't say anything for days. Then I felt compelled to share with him my own nomadic urges. he was just as surprised. As we decided to commit our lives, there was much talk about how and why and when we might realize this dream together. We could focus on his poetry, performance art, and drag king act. If we ran out of money, he could be a cook-for-hire and I could do office temp work pretty much anywhere in the country. About the only problems would be corralling four cats and an iguana in such a confined space and finding room to swing a flogger & cane. As with everything else, this dream has been blocked for all these years, by my adherence to the status quo (my new shorthand for the current economic-political-work model). We need employer-provided health care and retirement options. We need X amount in savings and to reduce our debt by X% before we can do anything. boy has to be established as a poet with enough of a following that people all over the country will invite him to read and perform. Whatever we are going to do needs to be built in our "spare time" while we have "real jobs" until we've "proven" we have a sustainable lifestyle so that we aren't at risk when we go on the road. Sounds a lot like my ideas of how to become a successful writer and artist: use your energy to maintain the status quo and keep your dream "on the side." When we came to Kansas last fall, I told boy I expected him to use this as practice. We were leaving behind our FOC & network of friends. We were leaving our beloved desert & mountains and neighborhood. We left the state we love and the city that has multiple gay & leather bars, many natural foods outlets, and even herb stores. We traded our arid, warm-to-hot climate for the humidity of unpredictable weather (& temps). Could we maintain connection with the people, places, and energy on which we thrive when separated by 1500 miles? Could we adapt (including our animals) to different environment and climate? Are we really nomadic or just mercurial types who will get homesick at the drop of a hat? (boy, being a Gemini, is also ruled by Mercury.) The nomad in me is getting louder. It's not enough that I went to college on a different coast, visited Europe as a teen, traveled to friends and conferences in other states as an adult. It's not enough that I moved to Arizona five years ago and then came back here for a spell. It's not enough that boy and I try to take road trips several times a year to see new things together. The nomad doesn't want to move to a place nor does he want to visit a place. The nomad wants to go from place to place to place. To stop for "a while" and then move on to the next place. To follow the wind and the stars and the impulse of the moment. TJFH finally drove home that the status quo is NOT what I'm about. I don't want a 'stable' paycheck from a company where people spend their breaks talking about buying houses and settling down. I don't want to wake up in five years and realize that I need to call "Clean Sweep" to help me out from under a mass of things I thought I needed and never really used. I need to create a new life for mysElf and my household that invigorates and inspires us with new places, new people, new experiences on a continuous basis. In the weeks since the TJFH served as a catalyst, we have done a lot of brainstorming, researching, and developing a vision of what our life will become. I'll reveal more of the particular plans as they solidify from idea to practice. Phoenix will always be home base. We love the people and the energy and the climate too much to stay away. But I need to honor the nomad, the ancestral call, the need to be in places, but not of places.
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