Restless

I'm restless tonight. I'm struggling to write something on this page. Instead I want something or someone to capture my attention and engage all of my senses so completely I forget about myself. The Buddha folks call that being in the moment, but I'm not looking for peaceful.

It's not new, this restlessness. In fact, it's been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. As a child, I lived in a perpetual state of miserable boredom, waiting for something, anything-- back then I still believed there had to be something -- to happen. I taught myself to read when I was 4. Reading books helped, but there were never enough of them. And then I wasn't allowed to read very much in school so it got worse.

I was eight when I first started planning my escape from the small town in Iowa where I grew up. I started collecting things I might need on the road: little packets of salt, matches, raisins, pencils and paper, pennies, books. I stored them in a big concrete drainage pipe that had been abandoned near the elementary school. But I never got further than collecting things until I was 17 and I really did leave. But this isn't about my journey out. It's about the feeling of restlessness that rarely goes away.

I'm an E on the Meyers Briggs. If their scale is 10 points, I'm turned up to 11, so I need lots of people stimulation. But it's not just extroversion I'm talking about. I've lived with people most of my life. It's not about being with people. It's about feeling constantly understimulated in general. Not bored, exactly. Just running through most of my life in first gear, maybe up to second on a good night. I hardly ever get to rev my engines and take my foot off the gas. I'm always holding back because there's nowhere to go.

Most of the time, I ignore it. It's there, but it's been there all my life. Sometimes though, it rubs at me, like an itchy wool sweater in the summer. Sometimes people notice. Even if I'm acting just like I always act, sometimes a friend will say that I seem edgy or dark or even angry. Some friends say I just need to get laid. Well, yeah. Who doesn't need to get laid? Even if I did though, I'd just want more. I don't expect to ever find anybody who could keep up, and not just like that. Social media helps, but it's passive. Riding my bike fast for miles along the river helps, especially when it's really hot out, but I can't ride far enough or fast enough, even when I ride alone. Playing music has even provided relief at times, as does dancing for hours. But it's fleeting.

The Buddhists would say that's the problem. I always want more. It's true. I can look back on this blog and see the thread running through. I couldn't even go to a fetish party and not want more -- and I'm not even sure what I want more of. I don't have a fetish.

I want to clarify that I don't necessarily mean I'm dissatisfied with my life or that I don't have fun. I'm blessed with amazing kids, remarkable friends and a city that offers many activities. I have fun. I'm not complaining about what I do have.

I'm not sure I've explained this very well. I wrote a poem several years ago, when I was living an entirely different life. Some of these things I've done since. Some seem silly now. But the feeling behind the poem, the ache for .... I can only call it more intensity .... has always been lurking. Maybe it's something I was born with, like mitochondria or chromosomes or red hair. Probably, if I'm to be honest, I would miss it if it were gone. Maybe it's simply my passion.

Am I the only one? Do you ever feel this way? Do you always feel this way too?

I'm not going to solve this problem tonight or ever, so here's the poem. I should probably write a new one, but it would be even longer ....

Spring Fever

Spring is here.

I want to do something wild,

something to quench the swollen heat,

balm the longing that threatens to escape and

create new universes

or destroy old ones.

I want to dye my hair dark, copper red

like it was when I was a toddler

and spike it with Elmer’s glue.

I want a flat stomach

so I can wear low-rise jeans

and a snug tank top and

clunky platform shoes

like we did in the 70s.

I want to put on a low-cut black tee

and a mini skirt short to my crotch,

red cowboy boots and long silver earrings

and go to a biker bar.

Drink tequila with old, pony-tailed graybeards

in Harley shirts and leather chaps.

Lick the salt from the bend of my thumb, throw back the shot,

suck the lemon hard.

Play pool and bend over as far as I can across the table.

I want the biker chicks to hate me.

I want to drive through the night

listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd and

ZZ Top on the radio, turned up loud enough to blow the speakers.

Stop for coffee at an all-night truck stop.

Sit at the counter next to Eddie from Chicago

look at pictures of his kids.

I want to slow dance with a woman

and feel her breasts against mine

our bodies so much alike we forget

where we start and when to stop.

I want to skinny-dip in a stranger’s pool at 3:00 am

while he sleeps in his house, unaware.

Draw on white walls with crayons.

Ride a black horse bareback.

Streak a crowded mall.

Try on everything in Victoria’s Secret

even the water bras.

Paint my suburban house periwinkle, lime and hot hot pink.

Yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater.

Sing karaoke in a country and western bar

and …what the hell…fuck a cowboy in the parking lot

in his pickup truck.

I want to write a letter

to an old high school boyfriend,

tell him what a prick he was—

Choose any of them,

they were all pricks.

I’ll write a form letter.

I want to play euchre all night long,

eat eggs and bacon as the sun comes up

then fall asleep together like a pile of puppies.

I want to fuck around with another woman’s husband--

not a friend’s husband—

someone I don’t know.

Then I’ll spank him.

Hard.

Tell him to never

never

never

do that again.

Send him home to his poor wife.

And then maybe I’ll fuck her.

I want to build a bonfire

and dance around it

dressed only in blue paint

with red ochre on my nipples

and the bottoms of my feet.

I want to get a tattoo of a dragonfly

on the softest part of my inner thigh

so I can feel the bristly brush of wings

like a secret under my gypsy skirt.

I want to shoot paintball guns

at the neighbors’ barking dogs.

stain their white coats the color of fear

so I can take an afternoon nap

in perfect quiet

before the lawn mowers start growling.

I want to run and run and run

       And run and run

             And run.

What I don’t want to do

is take a long bath in flickering candlelight

in pink-scented bubbles.

I would write “SAVE ME”

in the steam on the mirror

and leave through the window.

I don’t want to sip herbal tea—

not chamomile, or orange blossom or even Red Zinger.

I want hot, black coffee

bitter with the sweat of South American labor.

I won’t eat milk chocolate

and watch Dr. Phil fix

all the fucked up suburban lives

in 10 minutes plus applause.

How’s that working for you, Phil?

I don’t want to scrapbook my photos

Or practice my yoga

Or run on the treadmill

Or spin on stationary bikes to techno dance music.

I don’t even want to zumba.

I don’t want to hang my sheets

on the line in the warm spring sunlight

and slip between their fresh virginal smell tonight.

I don’t want to sleep at night.

At night I want to be kissed hard

by a stranger with whiskey and Marlboros on his breath—

the red box, not the lights.

Or a woman who grows her own herbs,

carries the scent of sage and lavender in her hair.

Spring is here.

Spring is here.

Damn it, spring is here.