strange musings of a distracted spunk

Jazz music wafted into the air, slow notes languishing upon one another, dancing on elevation of keys. For the second time in two days, and the second time in the year I’ve been here, I entertained. We sat on my floor, trading stories of doctor horror stories, pending engagement (theirs, not mine) and just enjoying each other’s company, something that hadn’t been done in a long time. For the first time in what feels like years, my ribcage hurt from all the side splitting laughter where there would be that moment of silent comprehension and then as the joke became clear, we would crack up.

The music provided a background to what will definitely be one of my favorite nights in a long time. Why is it that it’s only when one is leaving that the earth conspires to make everything seem beautiful and lovely, after putting one through so much emotional trauma? My apartment glistens with its quirks and charms, and I think of how much I’ll miss the sunlight streaming through the bathroom window, lighting up the bath and making my baths in a clawfoot bathtub ones that I sorely needed. The kitchen with the oven I still have not bothered trying to learn how to use because it’s from the 1940s is a testament to all things old fashioned that I love. Even the construction zone outside my window, where I used to wake up naked and find construction workers leering at me in through the window while I stood in front of my mirror trying to decide what to wear before I noticed them will be missed.

I am ready to say goodbye, to this, to so many things, but I’m not. I want another day. I want a few more days. I want more days of this, of sitting on the floor and laughing, eating grapes, apples, cheesecake, whatever we can find that will help empty out as much as we can before it all gets turned over to McGee. I want more days of sunshine, of meandering down streets with McGee and Skylar Blue and Not Mary and all the other wonderful people I’ve met out here in the past nine months; I got so lucky in being able to meet such amazing people. I want less days of running packages to UPS to be shipped back east, thousands of dollars worth of clothes in a single box. I want more days of actually being able to walk around my room, no longer cluttered by all the furniture that it once held, hiding the narrative that would unravel my story.

It feels empty somehow, and almost too big now with all this space. There are moments when I lay catatonic, unable to do anything because I am so exhausted from the poor sleeping, from the overactive dreams, from the packing, from the lifting, from the moving, from the $400 bill I’m being charged to cancel my cable service, from the medical bills I just received for no reason, for all the money that moving requires, not to think about traveling.

I haven’t even wrapped my mind around the fact that tomorrow’s my last night here, in this apartment, in Berkeley. That Friday morning will see me get on the fourth plane ride in a month, having taken a brief respite this past weekend to stay in one area. That come Friday, my address with the quirky “__24 and a half” will no longer be mine. I’ll be back to a perfect Court, the residence of my parents, where my bills and mail will pile up for a month while the East Coast not-so-eagerly awaits my return.

There won’t be a bar outside my window. There won’t be jazz music wafting into my room, or even marching band music, which was the soundtrack for a conversation I had with GDB several weeks ago over webcam. It’s hard to have a serious conversation when the band outside sounds like it’s about to break into a rousing rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever, made more so by the irony of it being at one of the best places to get beer in town. There won’t even be an odd neon blue phone on my wall anymore - not that it actually works, but I always imagine that one day, it will just start ringing, and on the other end will be the fairy tale life one always imagines one is due.

Why is it that life always pushes us into a crossroads before we’re actually ready for one? It’s so hard to pretend to be strong all the time. Part of the reason I look forward to all this traveling is because there’s no time to think; there’s only time to do.

I will miss this place. I will miss the memories I’ve made here, the laughter I’ve had, the friends I’ve hugged and said hello and goodbye, the hills I walked and the streets I tripped over, the laundromat with the homeless people stripping down in front of me, the Tibetan protesters and the tree huggers, the radical Berkeleyan neighborhood, the walks down as the sun sets upon the Golden Gate Bridge, far off into the distance and the bay gleaming below, the crappy drivers and the awful BART, the bubble baths, the huge library, the high schoolers hanging out on every corner when school lets out, the absurdly long lines in Walgreens at all times of day, the amazing French bistro a few blocks down, the random Victorians only a few blocks away, all the little nooks and crannies that you find on Shattuck Avenue, and more. I will miss Berkeley.

But most of all? I’ll miss those quiet nights, with or without laughter, when I could write, jazz music lilting the air around me, instantaneous in its relaxing effects, as though all it took to soothe the uneasy world was a calming balm of saxophones and guitars.