when an anti-establishment hippie is established...

I Flewed

 

So I fled. I fled so abruptly that I sit terrified now in front of this computer. My fingers are half-hearted, almost repulsed to have to touch the keys, to string out words and have to recall how exactly I used to do it.

It took me almost a week to even unhinge the laptop. I was assured by my own reminders that even back then it took me days to begin. All week I stared at the screen and pecked out a few words--- always the words that didn’t fit, those that stumbled all over the place.

A month ago exactly, I turned in my resignation at the newspaper. I had the perfect plan in my head: to join a humpback whale survey in a faraway Northern island for two weeks; then to skedaddle off to Indonesia for a month---funding care of my year’s slaving savings. I had taken an extra elective class at the high school where I taught, and was playing with the idea of going full-time as an English teacher. In the meantime for resources, I would continue to write. Perhaps finish up those comics I’ve had tucked in the dresser for so long. Heck, maybe even begin a novel. The possibilities were infinite.

My mother did that long, drawn-out gaze of defeat of hers after I’d told her I resigned, which I’d expected. She always did that whenever she felt one of her daughters was well on the way to becoming a riff raff or a druggie. My sisters and I have this mutually unspoken urge to push her buttons more every time she did.

“You will be contributing to an ample number of publications, I would hope.” She told more than asked, not looking up from a tiny square on the floor where her dismay had sunk and settled in.

“Actually, no. Nobody’s requested for my services yet.” I answered a bit truthfully.

A sigh as visible as it was audible emanated from my mother. “And just how much would these contributing fees fetch you?” She continued.

          “About 50 pesos per article.” My older sister pitched in, in all seriousness.

My mother was silent. “And what exactly do you intend to do now?” She finally whispered, no longer able to disguise the horror. You could almost see her innards crumbling into tearful segments, one part questioning her youngest daughter’s future---a patchy one held together by 5o peso bills--- the other part humbly accepting it as part of God’s will.   

“I’m not sure exactly…I was thinking of joining a band of gypsies in Indonesia and see where their caravans would take me…” I trailed off, pretending at that point to think of places.

It must have been the hundredth variation of that exact conversation. Mama never caught on our sarcasm, never noticed the bursts of giggles, always believed everything we said.

The latter portions were the most familiar.

“What will you do now?”

And from my end: “I don’t know. I was thinking of mooching off your pension for a year or two. Maybe reacquaint myself with television. I don’t know, I was thinking of going back to school to learn computer. Maybe become a teacher. I don’t know, I just want to get out of the system for a while. I want to see the whales and a different country. What do I really want to do now, mama? Become a rock star and be filthy rich without even trying.”

I remember having that last cigarette break with my editor and chief of dilemmas,and I finally told him I was packing up. Heading out. Going away.  I knew I sounded level-headed and assured, a respite from my usually bratty assertions. He listened, tried to make me change my mind, but knew I was set. Just before we climbed in the elevator I declared sweepingly, “Thus your attempts to convert me have failed. I deem myself fully incapable of embracing the evils of capitalism and the ways of the corporate world.” Woot woot.

For the entire year I had worked as a reporter, he had been plotting to cement my doom. He enticed me with the chewy goodness of owning a credit card. He sent me drooling over notebooks I never understood the configurations of. He tried to bait me into getting a proper phone and a phone line, all of which necessitated credit, all of which necessitated a step further into the scary world of banking and finance, which I could never… well, maybe I could have, but I’ve fled.

 I sit now, trying to remember how it goes, the flow of one idea to another, the placement of commas and then what next. I feel queasy at the thought of discovering I am not a writer after all, never was, and that all those articles I wrote were churned out only by conditioning: a mind circus where instead of whips there were deadlines and instead of hoops there were cursors, a Pavlov reaction where instead of treats I was tossed paychecks--- little sweet squares of paper that periodically filled but were never enough.  

 

 So I sit here with whale thoughts, inhaling freedom, infinity and all the world’s bigness before me, quietly taking roost.

 

 

 

Posted by: Hoon at 12:10 | link | comments (2)