Russel Lee: Cot house in the oil town of Hobbs, New Mexico. Hobbs is now experiencing a boom and the cot houses are necessary for the swarms of workers who come in. This is typical of all oil boom towns. (1940) United States. Farm Security Administration

"I'd been shipwrecked before. I knew the routine."

Until The Muse and I were Exiled following our unfortunate bankruptcy, I hadn't understood how Experienced I had been at the odd art of exiling. Anyone accustomed to living and working in a place might never suspect a simmering exile economy surrounding them. Traveling salespersons might live in perpetual exile, as do consultants. I had been a consultant before the crash, so I had grown accustomed to working anywhere but home. One year, I stayed in fifty different hotel rooms and a few for longer than overnight. Each business trip amounted to a practice exile, for I would be rechallenged to find a cup of decent decaf and an acceptable bakery. I ultimately came to pride myself on being able to locate both within an hour of landing in any strange city. Traveling for a living seemed little different from being Exiled, except for the returning home part.

Leaving home was another matter. Once Exiled, I felt as though I was swimming awfully far from my oxygen. I'd occasionally panic, wondering where I might recharge my batteries and where I might take respite, for continual foraging wears one down. Nobody grants a fresh exile a day or a weekend off. The almost frantic search for more permanent quarters consumes most waking hours. The absence of the familiar pots and pans renders even supper preparation into the realm of an extension. Everything's a stretch. When I'd happen upon an old familiar, be that a brand or a book, I'd quietly acquire it, for these held identity for me. Without a dedicated home base, I felt untethered, unanchored, literally at loose ends, and while disconnection might seem to enliven when taken in controlled doses, it seems like a form of waterboarding when it's unrelenting.

I fell into my first depression shortly after I left home for the first time. I remember staring out a window at a cemetery in the distance, wondering what strangers I would be buried next to. My anonymity wore on me, as it did when The Muse and I began our latest Exile. It was as if I had neither a past nor a future. I'd learned from that first experience that I was best if kept busy. I needed an occupation, even a trivial one, to keep me going onward, if not necessarily forward. Direction seemed less important than simple momentum. I needed some sort of mission. The endless search for permanent housing came to consume my foreground. The Muse would create a list of potential places provided by a realtor she distantly knew, and I'd follow through. I walked almost every neighborhood in Greater Washington DC, including suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia, seeking something I couldn't quite describe. This activity was little different than when I'd seek and find that decent decaf and acceptable bakery. I'd know it when and if I stumbled upon it.

Aimlessness became my friend. I continued honing my skills at getting good and lost. I tried on streets, checking them for walkability and noise, accessibility to public transportation, and potentially annoying neighbors. This search was anything but systematic for I'd learned from experience to appreciate how resolution tended to be stumbled upon. One engaged in the game not with a laser-like focus but with more like its opposite. Fuzzy vision could see through hasty resolutions. We could have settled for the first place we looked at. We could have found that acceptable, but our experience had taught us that we could afford to be picky and not settle for Wonderbread® when artisanal might be possible. Most of what I saw in the first few weeks of seeking would have made Wonderbread® seem wonderful. I continued in ever-expanding earnest.

The tenacious irresolution seemed like holding my breath. It felt smothering. There was no respite. I put a smiley face on it. I learned to ride the Metro and was eventually able to reliably ride connecting bus lines without always getting lost. I introduced myself to people I met on the street. The natives taught me how to be there, acknowledge others' presence, and share a few words in passing. I got to know my supermarket checkers and deli countermen as if I were a native. I slowly became less of a stranger, though I still felt every inch a stranger there. I drew upon some skills I'd developed after my divorces, which tried to teach me how to live alone. I was never skilled at solo existence, and my forays into the Metro invariably left me feeling over-extended. I'd feel the hollowness and continue anyway, understanding that there would be no way to render anything any different until we were somehow settled on that unwelcoming shore. I'd been shipwrecked before. I knew the routine.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz