Today marks 19 years since I moved from Atlanta to Indianapolis. I’ve lived here longer than anywhere. I have more connections here than anywhere. Yet, there is this eternal, nagging feeling that this is not home. I constantly question whether I’m doing anyone any good by being here. Two weeks in, I knew I had made a horrible mistake, but I was contractually obligated at the time, and by the time that contract was over, I was too broke to move back. That condition has remained the same ever since, and now Atlanta’s changed so much that I can’t see myself returning there. I’m not sure there’s anywhere now where I’m going to feel at home.
There is no way today is a good day. The rain kept me in pain, tossing and turning all night. I’ve had the headache from hell all night but I can’t take more pain meds until after 7:00. I gave up and decided to sit at the desk a little after 4. The dogs started pawing at me around 4:30, but I tried putting them off until at least 6. When they paw, they scratch, and my skin is fragile enough that it bleeds. So, at 5:00 I finally relented and let them out. When we came in, as per routine, I fed them and the cats. If I don’t feed the cats they get loud. Apparently, that was a mistake. The dogs eating woke Kat up and now she’s pissed at me.
The rain will continue to fall all day. My body hasn’t liked rain for years because of the arthritis. In my current condition, all pain levels are elevated. I can’t sleep. Eating is difficult. Walking is difficult. Sitting isn’t comfortable. There’s nothing about this existence that’s going to feel good no matter what I do. I’ve shut the door to the Recovery Room and will do my best to stay away from other people so that I don’t ruin the day for everyone who has to put up with me.
19 years ago, I was contractually obligated to be in Indianapolis on this date. That meant I had to leave on Ben’s 10th birthday. There was a big party going on in his grandparent’s yard when I had to say goodbye. He seemed annoyed that I was interrupting his fun. After all, it was his birthday. There were more important things than Dad leaving, right?
I didn’t get to talk to him yesterday. I messaged him, left him a voicemail, but his life still has too many other things going on. I hear from Ben the least. I’m not sure where he’s working or what’s going on in his personal life. From his perspective, it probably doesn’t matter. It never has. Even when his mom and I first separated, I’d call in the evening and after a couple of weeks Ben told me, “Dad, you know you don’t have to call every night.”
What I did get was a very attractive picture of Gabe, my third in line. His hair is about the same length as mine now, only more full, like mine was when I was young. He turns 26 next week. My leaving hurt him the most. He didn’t understand that I wasn’t coming back for his birthday. The phone call I fielded that afternoon still hurts me today. I wasn’t there for my baby. I should have broken the fucking contract and gone back.
Now, I worry how much I’ll disappoint G and Tipper. I need to find someplace to live where someone can take of me without being stressed, if such a place exists. I’ll be leaving two more kids that I love. Maybe they’ll be like Ben and it won’t bother them that I’m gone, that I won’t be here in the morning or when they get home from school. After all, they have their own friends, do their own thing, spend a lot of time in their rooms on the phone or in games. If I’m lucky, they won’t miss me.
Groceries yesterday totalled a touch over $330 including a 44-pound bag of dog food that I struggled to wrangle into the house. One of the issues with having groceries delivered is that it is only right that the shopper be tipped. A 15% tip on yesterday’s order was just short of $45. I would have rather paid a friend to take me and walk with me as I did the shopping myself. It would have been more productive. 12 items were substituted out of a list of 30. That’s over 30%. I have trouble believing that the only substitute available for frozen french fries was “potato puffs.” When I ask for a frozen family meal, an individual meal is not an adequate substitute. Isn’t that just common sense? Apparently not.
Food items and their costs are only going to get worse. There’s nothing I can do to stop that. Earlier this morning I was reading that more companies are looking for ways to reduce the amount of cocoa in their products, including candy makers such as Mars and Hershey. Global warming and disease are to blame. Resources have diminished so dramatically that it is not sustainable for companies to continue using high-price ingredients even if they raise the price. They know that there’s a limit to how much people are willing to pay for a 2.5-ounce candy bar.
The problem isn’t just with cocoa, though. Last year, coffee prices took a huge jump after supplies ran dangerously low. That’s why you’re paying $6 for a six-ounce cup of your favorite brew. Part of the issue is that competitive alternatives, such as mushroom coffee, still contain bean coffee in some form. By the time you add in the cost of the additional processing, the alternatives cost more than the original, making them not so much of an alternative for anyone who’s on a budget, and who isn’t on a budget? More and more of the things we at are being affected by the weather and the result is we’re paying higher prices at the store.
Of course, it would be insensitive of me to not mention that at least we can get to food. There are still millions upon millions of people around the world for whom food is a pipe dream. They keep hoping for relief and each day their hopes are dashed. The problem isn’t so much a lack of food, but a lack of desire to solve the fucking problem. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, billionaires could eliminate hunger completely by 2030. They just have zero motivation to do so.
There is no sunshine today, only gray. This has taken long enough that I can take more pain meds now. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep. I’m not expecting anything to be any better later in the day, though. Why would it? Life is little more than a string of pain punctuated by disappointment.
Point of Origin
Royalty (2011).Model: Danelle French. Face paint: Jennifer Baxter
That means that every human being – without distinction of sex, age, race, skin color, language, religion, political view, or national or social origin – possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.—Hans Kung
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For as long as I can remember, I have had to answer the question, “where are you from?” No matter where I’ve lived, with no regard to how long I might have lived there, the accent with which I speak has never quite matched where I live. I’ve never minded answering the question because it seems reasonable to me that point of origin is a central part of our identity. What amuses me, though, is that as I get older and tell people I’m from Oklahoma (forget those first 12 years in Kansas), they sometimes give me a quizzical look and respond, “No you’re not. You don’t sound or act like anyone from Oklahoma.” For that, I am grateful.
Point of origin has always, throughout history, been an important part of our identity. To which tribe one belonged could mean the difference between free or slave, or even life and death. Our species began as nomadic foragers, roaming to where ever food and shelter were most readily available, but the place from where we started, our point of origin, has always been, and strongly remains, a critical factor upon which judgments, whether just or not, have been made. Inherent social construct inserts a geographic tag into our identity from which there is no escape.
One of the reasons our point of origin so often comes into question is because we, as a species, don’t stay put. Even after all the building of cities and farms, creating and fighting over national borders, and even cruel attempts at keeping people in or out of certain places, we are now more migrant than we have ever been. Our point of origin is but a GPS marker from which all our travels begin. Move so much now that scientists who study such things are referring to the 21st century as the age of the migrant. Not only are we already moving around a lot, it’s going to get worse.
We are all migrants, not because we are born as such, but we cannot help becoming such, leaving our point of origin, sometimes by choice, but with increasing frequency because we have no choice. By engaging in this conversation, it is important to understand the vocabulary. An emigrant is someone known by where they have left. An immigrant is known by where they are going. Coming or going, though, there are over one billion people on the move at any given time, and that number is growing rapidly.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Thomas Nail, a philosopher at the University of Colorado, recently published a book, The Figure of the Migrant (Stanford University Press, 2015), in which he explains:
Whether to keep us out, keep us in, or simply segregate us for statistical purposes, both societies and governments are concerned with our point of origin as a defining piece of information. There is no escape. The more we move, the more we are connected to where we began. Our great migration is a tremendous force of social change and progress. The world into which one is born holds little resemblance to the one in which we die.
So, more than ever, there remains this question: where are you from?[/one_half_last]
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