Running Away From Home

“But if I knew heartbreak was coming
I would’ve set out running
across the muddy river
and the smog stacks on the bank
swallow that horizon
hunger beyond hunger
’til the cloudy blue Pacific
took the air in my lungs…”

 

Sometimes it’s no fun to be an adult.

Don’t get me wrong. There are jillions of upsides to it; in reality, more pros than cons. But there are times when relationships, bills, work, losses, missed opportunities, high expectations, a slow internet connection, and cat barf on the kitchen floor (Life) all pile up and it feels like the world just slides beyond your control. I want to run away from home. More precisely, I want to run away back to a time when problems could be solved by being picked up and held. When there was someone to say, “everything is going to be okay”. A time when it was almost for sure going to be okay.

About ten years ago, I rambled through Washington’s Olympic Peninsula for a few days and got my first experience with the Washington coast. I was running away from home. It was quiet and beautiful. It wasn’t gaining back a lost childhood security, but for awhile, everything was okay again.

Ten years later, and sometimes it’s no fun to be an adult. Life doesn’t get any easier. And I’m still running away from home, this time back to the lower Washington coast and Cape Disappointment. It was quiet and beautiful, smelling of summer coming on by day and spruce and smoke by night.

“Halfway between the gutter and the stars, yeah.
Halfway between the gutter and the stars, yeah…”

“The way you walk, the way you talk
and try to kiss me and laugh in four or five paragraphs,
all of your compliments and your cutting remarks
are captured here in my quotation marks…”

 

“How many times does the truth that you take to be true 
just truth falling apart at the same speed as you
until it all comes away at a million degrees 
and you’re just a few pieces of falling debris…”

 

“I love you
is all that you can’t say,
years gone by and still
words don’t come easily
like I love you…”

 

“I can’t stand to see you sad,
I can’t bear to hear you cry.
If you can’t tell me what you need,
all I can do is wonder why…”

 

“Your skin
 oh yeah your skin and bones
 turn into something beautiful
 and you know
 for you I’d bleed myself dry…”

 

“I don’t want to doubt you
know everything about you
I don’t want to sit across the table from you
wishing I could run…”

 

“You give your hand to me
and then you say hello
and I can hardly speak
my heart is beating so
and anyone can tell
you think you know me well
but you don’t know me…”

 

“I know your name.
I know your skin.
I know the way
these things begin…”

 

“I got a stolen wife
and a rhinestone life
and some good old boys,
I’m writing my will
on a three dollar bill
in the evening time…”

“I wish I’d looked before I leaped,
I didn’t know it was so deep,
been down so far I don’t get wet
haven’t touched the bottom yet,
this river scene is gettin’ old,
I’m hungry, sleepy, wet and cold…”

“I woke up this morning with a bad hangover
and my penis was missing again.
This happens all the time.
It’s detachable…”

The ones that got away… I was in such a hurry to pack my camera gear, that I didn’t check to make sure that I had a telephoto lens in my pack. If I had, I would have had images of the bald eagles circling above and this guy would have been much sharper when he came up to chat and show off his awesome fish. Next time: less angst, more thoughtful packing.

And probably everything is going to be okay.

 

On the iPod: Set off Running, Neko Case; Weapon of Choice, Fatboy Slim; Everyday I Write the Book, Elvis Costello; Hopeful, Josh Ritter; Sorry, Tracy Chapman; Someday, Some Way, Marshall Crenshaw; Cold Yellow, Coldplay; Love You Madly, Cake; You Don’t Know Me, Ray Charles; Caramel, Suzanne Vega; Sissyneck, Beck; Going Down, The Monkees; Detachable Penis, King Missile