Mood: adventurous
Now Playing: Monster Hunter Portable 3rd (video game)
I have grown much calmer. The reality of the fact that I am out has set in. Free from California. Free from everything. Though I am currently confined in a tiny mini-sleeper on the train, I feel freer than I have in a long time. For the first time in a while I feel like I am doing something not to please other people, but because I want to. I am indebted to those people who have made it possible, my partner, his family and my friends.
Most of the anxieties surrounding my travels have been around hauling all my bags, and, of course, the pandemic. It took the help of some kind strangers to get all my bags in the Amtrak station from the hotel in Stockton. I'm wondering how I'm going to get things to the hotel in San Antonio. Hopefully there are some likewise kind people. But I will find a way no matter what. COVID has felt imposing, though. On the train from Stockton to Bakersfield, I was riding coach and it felt like a full third of passengers weren't wearing their mask. I kept mine on the whole time, even on the connecting bus to Los Angeles. There is a great irony in that the first time I set foot in the city proper, and not just in the airport, is the last time I will see California for a while. Not that I've had much desire to visit LA.
When I asked for directions to the train loading platforms, they informed me that I was "first class" (apparently these little rooms are) and they invited me to the lounge. Tons of snacks and soda. I had purchased dinner out in the lobby of the station, but I was glad to have them. I still have the pretzels. I'll keep them as a souvenir, provided I don't eat them first. When it came time to board they drove me on a little cart and loaded me up. After getting to my room I knocked out promptly. I was surprised how quickly I did; it was like the train rocked me gently into slumber.
I dreamt last night. I don't remember anything about it, but I remember thinking it was quite strange while I was. Before I moved my dreams were vivid. In each one I was trapped, a prisoner in an internment camp. In each dream I escaped. Somehow. But in real life I wouldn't be able to escape without the others. I consider it a blessing that I'm not remembering my dreams again. When I was a child, I was terrified even at the thought of dreaming, that I would have no control whether it was good or bad, no control when to stop it. It made sleeping rough.
I've been able to breathe a little easier, here in the sleeper car. I have my door locked tightly, so I can keep my mask off most of the time, but I need to remember to wear it to the bathroom and back, and to meals. Don't want to take any risk, but the people in the first class car are much better about their masks. The meals on the train are fine. I had an average continental sort of breakfast with oatmeal, a muffin, a sausage-and-egg sandwich, the like. Lunch I had penne pasta with meatballs, salad and a brownie. They're definitely not the stale sandwiches I was expecting.
We're in El Paso right now, a short layover while passengers load. An announcement just came over the intercom. Juanita is out on the platform, selling burritos. They range from two to three dollars. I'm not hungry, but I am glad that the train company supports her. To pass the time I've been on my laptop, playing games. Monster Hunter. In real life, too often I feel powerless. But in the game I feel power. Not the power to impose upon others. That is a power for which I have no desire. This is power in a way that creates communion with nature. In the Monster Hunter games, you are often protecting a village, people living a simple life of subsistence, from large, fantastic creatures - dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes, ornery birds the size of large raptors with the power to turn the tide of battle with their song, horned beasts that charge at you like bulls, fire breathing dragons and more. Just as real hunters fashion tools, clothing and weapons from bone and pelts, so does the Monster Hunter, and with their new equipment they protect the village from even larger threats. Monster Hunters also make equipment in the field from what they gather - herbs and honey to create healing potions, ores to smelt metal for heavy armors, dung to fertilize the fields. Subsistence.
At its heart, Monster Hunter is about getting by. Too many games focus on good and evil. MH presents the conflict of man versus nature in a way that judges neither. Often a monster is not even aware of their presence creating a disruption on the hunters' societies. They are only acting on instinct, and while the village must be protected, who can blame them? The beauty of the monster, of life, is still respected, and Monster Hunter will make you respect that wildlife. The Monster Hunter games are known to be crushingly difficult. An average hunt of a large monster can take ten to fifteen minutes, taking tons of hits, but a powerful monster can wipe the floor clean with a hunter in just three or four hits. Often new player find themselves caught off guard, having to adapt and learn. In its challenge, its cumbersomeness, every piece of the game moving toward the continuing, cyclical goal to subsist and persist, it is the picturesque ideal of hunting - the same one that real-life hunting tries and, more often than not, fails to reach.
I have been taking photos. I think I will upload them on a separate page, and then go back and create links where appropriate to make them viewable. For now, my journey continues.
Riding the rails is everything I dreamed of.
Mood: exhausted
Now playing: Melt-Banana - Zero (Spotify)
I took no pictures of the apartment I left behind. I desire no memories from that place. Looking back, from the comfort of my hotel, I can now see that I was beginning to shut down. I felt like my phone, which started holding less of a charge when I used an off-brand power cable for it. I was living in the wrong voltage. I was being charged well enough to function in life, but my circumstances blew out my batteries and hurt me more than I could imagine.
And all I could think about looking around in the squalor, waiting for my friends to pick me up, is everything that the word "home" meant, everything I was running away from. Home was the scent of rotting meat that filled my nostrils whenever I opened my fridge, thanks to all the food I had let go bad because I stopped cooking. It was the fact that I had to open the fridge by grabbing the side and pulling because the handle had fallen off. The fact that it was easier for me to do this for years than tell the landlord that they needed to replace it. Having to do everything I could to keep the repairs out of sight and out of mind. I tried to do everything I could to keep my landlord from having an excuse to come up. But I couldn't help but have to remember feeling of rough, unwanted hands, mixing with the scent of rancid flesh.
I was able to stand it for about a year and a half. He said he would stop, but after my toilet started leaking, he had his excuse again. He'd come in, make sure the bucket was still leaking, and then would say he would "come back for it later." His payment, which he always wanted, was my breasts, which he loved to jiggle in rough circles. Sometimes, other places. I would have to negotiate with him to not put himself in my mouth. "I love these, girl." The only time he recognized me as a woman. If I left a mess, it ws only "sir" for me. Otherwise he would just skirt around the subject. In my knowing him he not only controlled my body but my identity.
I thought of having no control. Losing my grip on life. Seeing the train come within feet of me, and somehow, instinctually, jumping away. I thought about being one second from death. I thought about the origami spoons in the ER they gave me that you can't hurt yourself with. My father taking knives away from me because I didn't cut potatoes the way he wanted. Feeling like a child, feeling completely incompetent.
I fished a popsicle out of the freezer - the rotten smell cut through the frost - and memories kept flooding in. Being asked to keep it a secret, the implicit threat of retaliation sewn into such an innocent-sounding request. Would it be repair fees billed to me? Eviction? Worse? Uncertainty was swallowing me as I sat in the middle of my room, surrounded by the kipple that I left there for him. My body was giving out after loading up and trashing so much. My mind was letting go of doing more and more in the interest of keeping myself from severe retaliation for breaking my lease. Waiting for my friends in the heat, I felt weaker than I have in a long time, more than physically. "They're garbage", I told myself, looking at my old notes from one of my favorite classes at Berkeley. That's what I had to keep telling myself to justify such difficult decisions of parting with my possessions.
But my mind no longer needs to be there. I have let go. Boxes left with my friend and his wife, and seven bags come with me. I fear that I will have to leave some behind. I am hoping that I do not have to make any more difficult decisions.
I am not the only one being displaced. Incidents of domestic violence and sexual assault have increased greatly in the time of the pandemic. People prey on what's close, I suppose. Many don't feel safe trying to leave. Some are like me, afraid of retaliation and afraid of the unknown. Some have families that they have to support and who they don't want to leave behind with abusers. Sometimes, it's not abuse - evictions have skyrocketed. Many are becoming homeless. I am lucky to have the support of loing people to help free me. But all it makes me think of is those who don't. Survivor's guilt? Not the first time I have felt it.
I am, of course, afraid. I have flown from one uncertainty to another. I fear every frog in my throat, that I've finally gotten sick after months of having to come in and do essential labor, that I won't be let on the train, that I'll be homeless. I always fear that it will not work out. My partner has reassured me there are ways. He has been very kind in doing some research for me. I will still be covered under COBRA, I have a right to break my lease, even if you get sick we'll think of something, all of these things. I need every piece of comfort I can get.
I took some pictures of the hotel here in Stockton, which is beautiful. I will have to upload them. I almost feel like I will have fonder memories of this one day than the entire 6 or so years I lived at the old apartment. Escaping under cover of afternoon. Bringing all my bags in. Sitting back and, for the first time in a while, relaxing. And relaxing is what my body is doing. I will take a shower, the first one I've had in a while, before sleeping. My old apartment only had a bath. If it weren't for the rest, that'd be the worst part.
I'm thrilled for tomorrow. I have always wanted to take a long train ride. Here is hoping I stay well. laurel