Strange Reality

I don’t know if I’ve been quite frank up until this point. So I’d like to begin to relate more closely my experience. I’m living in a van by myself. I’m searching for something of interest. Something of which I’m not quite sure. I sleep. I wake at varying hours, usually several times throughout the morning if not during the wee hours of the night. I dream a lot about various people in my life, that is my constant life of school friends, home friends and family. Usually though it is clearly these people enacting my own misgivings and self-disapprovals. People telling me that the work I am doing is invalid, that it’s basically a waste of time. Or when I’m in a good mood while asleep I will have dreams of approval and comradery. This is a lonely trip, but not depressingly so.

I think often of my time spent in Ghana when I lived alone in Accra. There I was certainly alone and longing for some sort of connection. Here… well, it has only been a week, so how far in loneliness can I go? But, I am also once again self-inflicting a lonesome lifestyle, the point being to extend my ability for finding “home” in others, in strangers.

The hardest part is the search. The searh for the willing subject. The search for a place to park – usually at night when I roll into a strange town. I tool around the neighborhood making sure things look reasonably safe. Ideally I think I desire to roll into the unsafe situations set up camp and start filming and experiencing. To be honest though, I haven’t really come upon these places so far. The closest thing was tonight in Montgomery. For the most part it seemed safe enough. But the area I was drawn to, as I slowly explored, definitely had an active homeless community wandering about. I don’t think it’s wise to just bust out an expensive camera, then park my car on a back street and doze off. So I moved on. But I’m restless. I want adventure. Is there adventure left in this country? I think so…

It’s difficult when avoiding cities to find interesting elements of conflict. Cities are difficult to know within a matter of days. So I need to admit where I stand here. I set out for the rural areas, and I shall stick with that. I think the interesting personal experience here is that I’ve set up a living situation which geographically manifests my own fitful spontaneity. I’ve spent the last couple of days split between searching for wifi and trying to figure out where I’m going next.

Birmingham was a city. Pretty straight up. A picturesque downtown area: historic details mixed with institutional grandeur. There was an industrial area further out. Beyond that were the sprawling highways lined with every major chain retailer and restaurant you’ve ever known. I don’t mean to sell the place short, probably a very pleasant place to live, a place to enjoy culture and such… Montgomery felt like The South. Gritty and wet. Sprawl in the sense of the word’s onomonopea – like the legs of a spider. People hanging out in delis. Homeless women knocking on your car window asking for a dollar for their birthday. Only the basic chains: McDonalds, BK, Waffle House. A grocery store chain called Calhoun’s – I couldn't help but note the irony of which I will not elaborate now.

But still, I could not stay tonight. My restlessness needed some more driving. I needed a place I could tackle within a 24 hour time span.

I’ve ended up in Greenville. Not at all the grit I’ve left. I found the single bar in town, apparently in the whole area. I think more than anything I needed to just chat with some people my age. And there in lies the simplicity of this entire excursion. I just want to meet people. I can charge the significance of these meetings with whatever I may grab out of the air at the time, but the fact is as simple as a verbal exchange. I’m living on highways. I’m blasting Moby Dick on CD (18 discs – totally engrossing). I’m spastically pulling off the road to videotape some old burnt out sign or shack. What I need is to talk to someone.

It is absolutely amazing the amount of comfort to be had from the simplest conversation with another person. But only when this conversation is free of judgment. This is the beauty of getting directions or buying produce. But this beauty only grows with the depth of the conversation. A talk about mullets or the beard/semi-tint glasses hunting look makes me happy as a clam. Tell me your feelings about contemporary racism and I will probably cry with emotional connection.