An excerpt from the book I’m working on
Lost and alone in Ise, Japan. What else do you need from traveling? The dark, the night, cold and silent. Owls and frogs in the forest and rice fields reminding you of the animals that live in the world. All the hotels are closed and the hostel isn’t answering. You walk down the highway and it’s been a long time since you were in anything that dark. The convenience store worker takes you to the train station where you try to sleep on the bench out front but you don’t have enough clothes to stay warm. The world is indifferent. You don’t panic—there’s nothing to panic about. Until the same car circles the block three times before entering the driveway of the station parking lot. You get up and leave but there is nowhere to go. Tonight your legs have done all the walking they want to—there are kilometers left to go before you sleep. You find a place that’s like a truckstop from home. Except this one is full of high school girls. That’s all right, you don’t mind that at all. They’re looking at you. You try to write a poem. You space out thinking about violence—the closest you ever get to any real physical action. You wonder if you can still fight. You tell yourself you can—what else could you say? You constantly think about returning home and trying to piece together your old life, how you could move to Oregon and start a scene and maybe recruit some of your friends. You think about the possibilities for love in friends, old girlfriends and the women you know you’ll meet. But none of it seems to matter and you think it won’t matter, that life starts when you realize your dream. You’re sickened by that, because you’re wasting your youth wishing for something you cannot control. You know you’re good enough; you also know you haven’t written anything good enough. You think you’ll quit your job when the contract ends and you’ll move to the country and write for three months and finish everything. You also know how hard that will be to make happen. You tell yourself you’re done traveling, that you’ve learned the most important lessons. That you want to work and finish things and save money for a good life of developing your talent. You know the most important thing is simply to write, to work, and through that you will have everything. You won’t need the beautiful people you see in the subway, you won’t wish for old lovers, you won’t desire everything that you don’t have. You read the Tao Teh Ching and know Lao Tzu is right. You want what he’s telling you. You’re tired but there won’t be any sleep for at least another night.
