Here I am again. It never feels quite right, but I am drawn nonetheless. It might not even be healthy, but the addict does lust in spite of herself. In the dark, the moth sees only one thing...

I recognize it by the curtains - Venetian blinds, badly broken and making screeching noises just to do what Venetian blinds do. Or a tapestry, thin and slouching away from the two thumb tacks keeping it up. Today: drapes, with the predictable Paradise Resort Completely Isolated From The Land And Culture I Used Up All My Vacation Time To Visit stripes from ceiling to floor. And that plastic magic wand that tugs on such things, which along with a sign on the door knob, has the power to create an impenetrable sleep fortress "for your all-inclusive napping needs".

I recognize it by the scenery I can see from the windows when the magic wand pulls those curtains back - bumper to bumper traffic, construction noises, and Mexican working men taking a cigarette break or trying to escape the Bondo dust and primer fumes steadily radiating from the garage service door. Or rain all day, a balcony constipated with terra cotta pots, and the voyeuristic peek of a dark haired woman folding laundry or doing the things dark haired woman do protected from the precipitation in the neighboring living room. Today: the tops of palm trees, manmade waterfalls, and an endless ocean playing tricks on my eyes - are those dolphins or waves glittering reflections of island sun?

Yes, here I am again. Home, sweet, home. A place populated by strangers, undependable currencies, and evasive time zones. A place that the longer I stay, the more I miss. For almost as soon as I arrive, the faces become familiar, my coins take value, the jet lag relents and I open my gypsy eyes only to find my home has forsaken me yet again. And I must drive, fly, hitchhike, hop a train, I must compulsively find Another New Space so I can feel comfortable again where I know nothing and myself, am unknown. Without isolation, a place I can be alone.

But as healthy as I am, perhaps I have underestimated what a harsh home I inhabit. The love of which periodically drains the life force from my very limbs. Perhaps ecstasy, orgasm, adrenaline and mania are enlightening, but strenuous states, meant to be visited but not lived inside. The more often we visit, the longer we can sustain our stay, but as magnetic and worthy as our pursuits of enlightenment are, we absolutely must step away to process and rebuilt. Else we fall either in delirium or ashes.

In the face of nourishment, in the name of nurturement, this full moon, I close the drapes, place the sign on the door knob, turn out the light and hear the moth's wings, with awkward relief, become strangely...suddenly...and finally....

still.

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