The woman in a suit came onto the bus to continue her conversation. I sat, hands still muddy with clay . . . holding my music inside me. There’s a whirling noise in my head sometimes. I was trying to figure out what pitch it hums at . . . trying to distract myself from the nonsense demons that won’t leave me alone.
The woman’s words interrupted my thoughts.
“Yahh, Yeup. I know. Ah huh. Well, I’m working on this case – yeah – ten year old sat his mother down in a chair and shot her. Yeah she died. Ah huh. Six out of seven kids. NO Kidding! Can you believe that?
Six out of Seven!!”

Sometimes I just don’t understand.
This city that isn’t me. I love it completely, you know. I’ve learned you can love it completely and still need more – as if the word love is 360 degrees around, rather than the normal 180 for words like dried mangos and your favorite pants. 360 leaves room to miss things while still being satisfied. I wait for the moment I smell cows and hear the sound of kids playing in a pile of fallen leaves. I pray and try to figure out these feelings that come with loosing the big I’s – independence . . isolation, . . . and gaining the things that seem so scary – consistency, companionship. Sometimes in my head I decide to go home, pack my bags, and move to Italy – just to be unattached, because its familiar and in some warped world I try to justify that its more safe . . . but every night by the time I get home, buying a plane ticket just isn't as exciting as analyzing the arches of my feet.

I’m learning a lot about the idea “familiar”. I can see the value in not becoming the Larry in Somerset Maugham’s book. It just takes a lot of deep breathes is all.