Known Territories

April 16

Sometimes it saddens me, that I haven't been many places.

Mom traveled around the country a good bit when I was a wee thing, but I don't remember much of that, and we settled in North Carolina when I was about five. I grew up there, in Eastern North Carolina. Sometimes we went to Missouri to see family, so I've been to St. Louis a few times. As for vacations, we didn't do that many-- a few trips to the beach, two hours away, and day trips to White Lake.

In college I moved to the mountains of North Carolina, and that was actually a big deal-- a very different environment, geographically and socially speaking. Real mountains. Hikers and hippies and rock-climbers all around. Snow in winter, significant snow.

I got out a bit more in college. When I was a freshman I went to Washington D.C., the most "city" place I'd ever been. I didn't see much of the city though, honestly. I spent most of that ten days holed up in the townhouse, critting and writing.

That winter, me and Scott took a road trip all over the South. We went to Charleston, Savannah, Atlanta, Nashville, and many points in between. That was good for me; it perceptibly expanded my horizons.

Later in college I went to New Orleans for a conference. The conference was such that it could be basically blown-off, so I got to wander the city a good bit. That was wonderful, and I'd like to go back for a more extended visit.

In the summer of '99 I went to Michigan for Clarion. East Lansing isn't all that remarkable a place, but it was as far North as I'd ever been. Ever.

And this last year, of course, I moved to California. I can get around San Francisco without getting irreparably lost. I know Santa Cruz fairly well.

And this Autumn, I'll be in New York. A city the like of which I've never seen. So I'm slowly collecting places, experiences. I've always told myself that it's just as important to appreciate the place where you are as it is to discover new places, but sometimes I feel dreadfully provincial. I've never been to Spain, or France, or Ireland, or Denmark (as many of my friends have), never been to India or Egypt or Bali-- I've never even been to Mexico. I've never even been to Canada. Hell, I've never been to Florida, for that matter, or Vermont, or Minnesota. Even counting states I've driven through, there are whole swaths of this country unknown to me. Driving across country was the first time I'd ever really seen desert, and it just floored me. The whole quality of the space is different.

So I want to go places. The problem is that, given my druthers, I like to live places-- if they're good places, anyway. I have no desire to live, say, in Dallas-Fort Worth. But I'd love to live for a few months in Savannah, and in New Orleans, and I'm sure I'll feel that way about other places I visit, too. I have no psychological problem with being a tourist (some people go out of their way to avoid being "touristy," but face it, sometimes you are a tourist). The problem is that I don't care much for touristy sorts of things. I'd rather just have a life in a place, find out the rhythms and flavors and foods and enticements.

Heh. It's sort of the same way I have trouble casually dating. I almost never just "date"; I tend to end up in relationships with women instead. And I sort of like it that way-- I find going out and doing date-type stuff a lot more fun when I'm already comfortable with the person I'm with, when I know them well enough to make them laugh and to figure out what things they'd like. I'm often something of a homebody, too-- I love spending nights at home with a lover, watching a good movie, or making dinner together, or taking a bath by candlelight, or reading to one another.

So touristy, whirlwind-style visits don't really do it for me. Oh, I'll take them-- I'm glad I've seen Savannah, New Orleans, and I enjoy my jaunts up to S.F. But they're not the thing I'd choose, and I don't pretend I know those places.

I don't want to date new places, have flings with cities, trysts with towns. I want to have relationships with them.

Of course, I'd also like a place to call my own, where I can plant grape vines and watch them grow over an arbor for years, where I can have a library and never have to worry again about transporting hundreds and hundreds of books.

The solution to this conundrum, of course, is to attain tremendous wealth.