I'm Like A Bird, I'll Only Fly Away, I Don't Know Where My Soul Is, I Don't Know Where My Home Is

--"I'm Like A Bird", Nelly Furtado

Before I could drive and even before I knew about the restorative powers of the drive up PCH, I used to do a lot of my thinking on top of my parents' roof. I would go around to the backyard, I would walk around to where side fence met the lip of the roof, and Ild would climb on top. There I would sit, facing out into the street and waving to anyone who would pass by, and just let my mind wander wherever it may. I don't know what it was about sitting on the roof that allowed me this sense of serenity that being in my room didn't. It might have been that it was away from where most people could find me. After all, who sits on the roof of their house for hours at a time? For that matter, who takes a two hour drive to clear one's head and waste half a tank of gas in the process?

All I knew is that living in a house with three other people, having people know where to find you all hours of the day, made me stir crazy every now and again. Aside from those precious hours after ten, when my parents and Francis would go to bed, I never really felt I could get away from the clutter of the world. And every now and again I find it important to distance myself, even for a few hours, from everything. I don't know--climbing my roof really wasn't putting all that distance from anyone. It felt like it, though. Even when I would hear my parents call for me, even when I could hear the phone ringing in my room and the answering machine come on, even when night would fall and I still hadn't come down, it felt good to be alone. Alone by choice is a good alone, I think. It means that you have the power to come and go as you please into the world. While I hate when loneliness is thrust upon me, there are many times where optional isolation has brought me back to the point where I can face the days ahead.

There are some days where I wish the time we live in now didn't have so many portals to find me. There are some days I wish you couldn't type in "mojo shivers" or "Patrick Taroc" and find thousands of hits. There are some days where I regret ever getting a cel phone.

And there are days where I sorely wish where I live now had a decent roof I could get to.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers