The Weekend and an Outside Memory

Great trip. Gunner’s dad is exactly who he is, and there is no other person he could possibly be. Spot on.

Incidentally, he will be joining Russ, Ln, Gunner, and me in Brentwood (the site of my new home, hereinafter known as “the ‘Twood”) for Georgia’s victory over Tennesseeeeeeeuuhheeee this fall. He happens to be a fan of the Vols (hereinafter known as “Poppycock”) and will thus be a good sport and a graceful loser this October. Nevertheless, you must meet him. He is salt-of-the-earth, honest, and concerned with more than himself. It is easy to see how Gunner became who he is.

Because Gunner said I would, I will tell you briefly about the new place. It’s not a hole in the wall. If there was a hole in the wall, there wouldn’t be any apartment left. It’s tiny, but it makes the parts of you that you wish were bigger look bigger (and unpierced!). Ok, here we go. The complex is called…. wait for it….. “Player’s Club.” Laugh. Go ahead. It’s better than “Shit Village,” the “Ain’tgettinnoplay Club" (thanks, Sarah), or “The Crabs at Piss Hollow.” I will give you the address when the lease is final. Guffaw now. Send baked goods and love notes later.

Editor’s Note: The remainder of this entry is catharsis and is born of my need to relive the past and spit out my recollection and the results of my long term pondering. If you’re not in the mood, stop now. You will not be held accountable for the remainder of the material.

I made the decision to leave on December 30, 2004. Go back and re-read if you wish. Since that time, it has been possible for me to back out. I could have changed my mind, and would have been welcomed back here for another year or several, though that would have been in profoundly bad taste. Early this week, it became impossible for me to back out, for reasons that will be revealed in the very near future. Now that I’ve sunk money into a place, it becomes impossible to stay in Athens.

The days I am living in right now seem very strange to me, largely because I have been anticipating them for years. I have wondered what leaving would feel like, how the place would look different, how the local newscaster’s voices would begin to sound less like old friends and more like long lost acquaintances. It is strange, and frankly rather painful, but it still somehow seems profoundly right.

What is still amazing to me is the beginning of the process of deciding to leave. I will not detail some of this, as it sometimes deals with affairs far too personal to more than one person. I don’t mind opening myself up on this blog, but I’m not going to open up anyone else.

What I am willing to say is that I was dealing with a personal situation, which involved myself and another human being. Though I had been talking seriously for eight months about moving on, there was someone in Athens who made staying here worth seriously considering. As the time when it became apparent that what I had hoped would be wouldn’t, I needed to seriously look at what might be next.

Just prior to this night, the Gunner was at my place talking to me about the size of the world and my perception of it. He was insistent that I take my time in Chicago to discover… to look around and realize that I wasn’t that big of a part of the equation that makes the ball spin. Trina would later join me for a viewing of Pushing Tin, which I highly recommend. I took the same message from this film.

All at once, I seemed to be bombarded with art, entertainment, advice, and what I interpreted to be signs or clues, all of which seemed to speak to that sentiment. Notable among them was “Glasgow Love Theme” from Love Actually, “Let Go” by Frou Frou (from the Garden State soundtrack), and one other song.

Though I was once perturbed and somewhat nauseated at the final work, I look back on my little experience with this song with a very grateful fondness. I left Athens for Charlotte on a small USAir twin-engine plane. I did fine on the flight from Charlotte to Chicago. Once I landed at O’Hare, I had a very difficult time getting to the train. I encountered a woman on the flight whose business was raising money for children who were victims of cancer. She detailed her life for me, and she had every reason to be upset or hang it up, but she pressed on. She was 20 years my senior, but I’ll bet she understood good wine and a nice elevation over Michigan Avenue. She encountered a Russian man who spoke no English who was trying to get to his family in Phoenix. We spoke on her cell phone with his English-speaking family in Arizona trying to get him to his connecting flight, and possibly to a bed for the 10-hour layover he had from Moscow.

After parting company with her, I rode the “L” into the city with the second shift United Airlines workers returning to their homes. If you have never ridden the L from O’Hare to something inside the loop, the ride is right at 50 minutes. There was no music, just the sound of the train hiccupping against the track over miles and miles of once great neighborhoods which had gradually become parodies of their former selves. Potential stories seeped from each airline worker. I asked myself, as I looked at each of their faces, whether one person’s job as a ramp worker at O’Hare was an opportunity or a necessity. I wondered if his family was proud of him for going to work and earning a wage, or disappointed in him for not becoming a suit. I didn’t know, and wasn’t going to ask. What I came to realize is that there are six billion stories in the world, and more that have passed untold.

As the train’s “cl-clunk” continued southeast through the chilly late night into Downtown Chicago, tens of thousands of apartment windows helplessly watched us pass by, stuck for the foreseeable future exactly where they were. Myself restless and not yet emotionally comfortable with the situation at home, I retrieved my iPod from the black nylon and brown feaux-leather backpack in which I held the personal belongings to which I had thought I might require ready access. I scrolled my iPod to the most recent purchase, which was a tune by Brad Cotter. In itself the song is worthy of existence, but does not come off as a work one might consider to be timeless.

My interpretation differs.

Untold impossibilities and hopes were all around me as my head bounced with the train and the white factory earphones began to play the plunky piano part and Cotter’s frankly not terribly profound words:

“So any pretty woman I didn't take the time to kiss
Any crazy thing I didn't do
'I meant to'
Any dirty liar I didn't stare right in the eye
And make him tell the naked truth
'I meant to'
I'm always on the run
Things get lost
Some things get done
But if I didn't have all the fun I meant to
'I meant to'
And if I never came out and said
To each and everyone I love
How much I really do
'I meant to'

“Maybe this one chance
Is all we really have
Maybe all you got is what you get to
I ain't gonna cry
I'll give it my best try
Then kiss the world goodbye
And say 'I meant to'”

For some reason, this simple little tune reminded me of every time I was alone, on some sort of mission, and scared. I was pissed, and I realized that it was ok to be pissed, scared, alone, poor, unemployed, uncertain… as long as you weren’t stagnant. It didn’t come from so much from the lyrics as from this awfully strange combination of a love-never-had lost, a well-considered discussion, a well-chosen movie, a Russian bound for Phoenix in Chicago, a train full of blue collar workers, and a guy doing an ok job of what I want to do well crammed into a 3.5 megabyte mp3 in a 4” x 2.5” white case in my backpack at exactly the right time and exactly the right place.

That night, the world got bigger. My immediate problems became much less significant and my emerging necessities became priorities. My existence as one six-billionth of the world became somewhat more fathomable. And my then-future regrets became my future attempts.

I love where I live, and I will not be happy when I leave. But I am more thankful than I can tell you that I now know that I won't have to live with those sick, unforgivable words:

“I meant to.”