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2004-04-22 - 7:15 a.m.
There was something I discovered a month ago while I was wandering aimlessly through the airport in Detroit desperately trying to talk myself out of a panic attack. I was utterly unfamiliar with how the telephones there worked. Because my cell phone, for whatever reason, was not working and I had bills to pay still and I had to tell my mother I made it to Detroit and I was waiting for Boy to call me. I needed a phone and I could not get the pay phones to work. I couldn't even get the payphones to connect me to an operator so I could ask what the hell was going on. I couldn't make a collect call, I couldn't make a call with my credit card. It was bizarre. I kept moving from pay phone bay to pay phone bay...finally I went to an airport shop and asked if they had calling cards, the woman said they usually did but they were out but the shop down the concourse a bit had them. And at that shop I was told the same thing, being sent to two more shops before a woman told me that there was a machine that sold calling cards at gate 63. So I wandered to gate 63 telling myself over and over again that this was not a dream, this was not one of my nightmares in which I work all night trying to get something done...this was real. Finally I got to the machine and...it was broken. At this point I panicked and convinced myself entirely that I was indeed having a dream, which calmed me down a little. But usually, in dreams, when I convince myself I am having a dream it is easy to wake myself up and I couldn't do that. So I was wandering up and down the concourse, completely at wits end, feeling stranded and alone. It occured to me then that I had gone to use those phones just as I would use any pay phone, because that is what I am familiar with, and perhaps...perhaps THESE phones were different. Perhaps I should let myself learn instead of just going about things automatically. Then I found a calling card machine that did work, and I went back to the phones and slowly went about making my quick calls. It taught me something about familiarity. We get lazy when things are familiar. We do not even notice things any longer. For instance...people. It occured to me that if, for whatever reason, Boy happened to be in the Detroit airport, if Boy were walking by me, I would refuse to believe it was really him. Because my mind already knows where he is, he is in France, or wherever. So my mind would refuse to believe that Boy is walking by me. Because I am terribly familiar with Boy. BUT...if my friend Jim walked by in the airport, I would recognize him immediately. Because I see Jim every six years or so. Because I am not familiar at all with him and therefore my mind would not overide instant recognition. Just like my mother never recognizes me when I see her other places than the usual places...because I am out of context. But if she were to see my sister, who we never see and who is only a sister by blood not really by relation, my mother would recognize her immediately...because my sister HAS NO context. Is this making any sense? I am just realizing that I need to step back a little, let things get a little unfamiliar so I can see them all clearly again. I need to stop letting everything get so stagnant. It's so easy for me to believe that I am truly coming to live here in the fall...when I am here. When I am back in that Boyless place I get all caught up in familiar routine and it seems hard for me to believe that I can extract myself from that. But once I step back from that, once I look at it from a different line of vision, it is easy to leave. Easy to extract. I really don't know where I was going with this...I wasn't able to take my walk today because I have three blisters on my feet (because I am an idiot and always think these shoes that ALWAYS give me blisters will surely not give me blisters this time)...so I am bored-ish and needed an outlet for thought. I am trying to get thought out throughout the day because when I don't I end up having terrible, vivid, busy, whacked out dreams all night long and wake up exhausted. I am going to take a bath now. And then I have to find a natural way to get rid of (not kill, get rid of) ants. I think the first step will be to remove from under furniture, five years of French bread crumbs. |
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