To Be Determined by Sarah

This is life.

Maps, I never understood them. 

Perhaps it is because I never took the time to learn how to read them.  But I would like to believe that my real frustration comes from the fact that they want to tell me where to go, instead of letting me find my own damn way.  Or maybe it was because it made me think that if I knew all the roads, alleys and parks along the way that suddenly my journey wouldn’t be so scary or new.  Ridiculous.  Maps never served a purpose to me. Even when I seek their assistance I still end up helplessly lost. 

Which is what I am right now.  Lost and helplessly so.  What’s worse than maps?  Asking people directions.  “Oh you can’t miss it.  Turn left, then turn right, then three lights down next to the house with the chicken in the front yard you’ll run right into it.” I see no chicken and I see no water.  That is what I am looking for after all; water…not a yard containing a chicken.  It’s out there.  Almost as a sixth sense I can feel it.  Just a little further and I will reach my destination.  In the mean time, this map and these pointless directions are nothing to me. 

So where am I exactly? I am not so sure.  I am in a small city on the east coast.  I am blocks away from where I want to be, but for some reason or another I cannot simply reach my destination and it is bugging the fuck out of me.  I can hear the ocean, I can even taste it if that makes any sense.  But yet here I am circling this endless block, seeing the same house over and over again.  Seaside villages are quaint.  Don’t get me wrong they have their own special charm, except I am not where I want to be.  So the beauty of this place is hardly given its due appreciation. 

I pass another row of beautiful homes with perfectly manicured lawns on another hopelessly charming boulevard.  Perhaps I will call this place home.  It seems to be close to what I am searching for.  Is this the place that I will finally feel comfortable in my skin for more than a few months?

I blink and when I open my eyes and I am greeted with the familiar, yet torturous view of my ceiling.  I take a deep breath in, knowing that I had another dream where I am searching for something.  At this precise moment, my papillion Lilly decides to jump on my stomach to give me a quick lick on the nose.  Her usual morning greeting before she curls up next to my side and falls back to sleep while she waits for me to leave the comfort of my bed. I begin to pet her on the head while thinking it would help me if I knew what I was looking for.  The past several months have all been the same.  The dreams are of a different city, a different car, but I am always near water and I am always lost. 

This isn’t what most people dream about.  Most people don’t dream of the same thing for months on end. I have come to terms with understanding that I am not now, nor will I ever be a normal person. 

I glance down at the floor where I keep my alarm clock.  For a moment I think about ignoring it and try to get myself back into the realm of dreams.  I never understood the point of living in reality.  In reality my feet are bound to the ground here in LA, a place where my entire soul tells me where I don’t belong.  Yet for one reason or another I remain here.  Perhaps it is my sense of duty to my friends.  Perhaps it is my inability to find where I actually do want to live, but here is where I call home nonetheless.   I entertain the thoughts of living in the place I had just dreamed about.  A new place to call home, a new voice to speak with, and a new zip code that will suddenly make the universe simply understood.  It could happen right?  Certainly the east coast has more to teach me than here.  Or maybe I need to head north for awhile.  Or maybe London.  Or maybe New Zealand. OR!!! …maybe just another city would be enough. 

Another glance at my clock.  It seems as if I have spent almost an hour thinking about what I am always thinking about.  Where do I belong? 

Okay Kagome, time to get up.

So begins the daily routine.  Stumble to the bathroom while small, yet arguably the most adorable dog in the entire world scrambles between my legs.  Turn light on.  Glare at the offending light and curse everything in this world because of the headache the light brings on. Place ass on toilet. Pee. Poop if need arises. Swallow pill. Brush teeth. Comb hair. Throw some clothes on. Take dog outside to pee.  Feed dog.  Drink coffee spiked with Bailey’s.  Another trip outside.  Pat dog on her head. Work.  Drink more coffee sans alcoholic pick me up.  Play nice with annoying coworkers.   It has been the same routine for almost three years now. 

Once upon a time, life was supposed to be different than this.  I’m not sure what it was supposed to be, but this was never it.  Not that I ever knew what I would be like by the time I hit this age.  I was never one to really plan out how things end up.  Oh sure, I’ll jump head first into anything presented to me.  Especially if it is new and shiny.  But to actually plan something; ick.  No thank you.  Move to the next person.  Because I am not your girl.  Who wants to plan when you can live?  It’s a good thing that my career as a photographer affords me the short attention span in life that I have.  Who cares about substance when there is a trend to follow?  Ok, that part makes me a little sick. But at least it keeps me from thinking about things I don’t want to.  What shade of pink will be in next season?  That question I can handle.  Where will my perfectly in season pink shoes take me?  That one is best left for my dreams. 

I’m pretty sure that if someone told me that I would end up shooting photos for a magazine such as the one I am, instead of exposing life’s injustices I would have charged at them with a knife.  You may think I am joking, but I’m not.  At one point I likened myself the world’s knight with photography as my sword.  I planned on sleighing the evil dragons of forgotten hookers raped by their customers, the ghouls of hungry children ignored by those who pass by, and the evil pixies of river otters.  Maybe river otters aren’t so evil, but they are so cute who wouldn’t want to take photos of them for a living?  Instead I am in another photo studio that is the same as the last one I shot at photographing a $50,000 dollar dress by someone I know is supposed to be important but I can’t seem to recall why.  Oh yes, because someone else said he was important and everyone is afraid to voice an opinion around here that is contrary to that.  Just like everything else in my life, this too is the same as the rest.  Nothing new to show here; move along people. Maybe someone will fall on their ass so we can all have a good laugh at their expense.  Maybe someone will actually realize how pathetic this whole thing is and their world will come crashing down on them like mine has. 

Watch while the squawking heads flutter about a model for another hour or three, adjust the lights here, adjust the lights there, release the shutter on the camera, bend in strange angle and then click on the camera some more.  I may get the opportunity to call someone useless a few times, which makes me a feel a little bit better about the monotony of it all. There is a reason why I don’t have blowie uppie powers.  For at this very moment all of these people would have been in fact blown up and that $50,000 dress would have entrails decorating it instead of silk chiffon.   Now that would be a picture worthy of taking, the deconstruction of the fashion industry.  I could even turn it in to an expose on eating disorders or something.  It could work.  Anything has to be better than what I am shooting right now.  Even puppies pooping on babies. 

Only a few more hours.  Just think of all the negative stereotypes you will no longer project in.a.few.more.hours. 

This model is getting on my nerves.  Who is she?  I never shot her before yet she looks like every other girl that has been here before her.  Too thin, dark circles around her eyes, blonde with bleached eyebrows…I mean seriously?  It makes me think of how people plucked their eyebrows out during the Renaissance.  Then I remembered I’m not supposed to have any form of actual thought while working here so I stop mysel. Ever been around another human being that thought they were the only human being on the planet?  She’s what 12?  Does she not realize that I can ruin her career at any moment by simply saying I no longer wish to photograph her. Funny thing is that in this little universe of a fashion studio, I am the only person in the world.  The editor knows it, the squawking heads know it and unfortunately I know it.  Not proud of this, but I’m an asshole to these people.  They mean nothing to me, so why should I bother treating them with dignity? 

Of course that is what we are supposed to do isn’t it?  Treat other people with dignity.  Treat others, as you would have them treat you. Or some bullshit along the lines of that.  But who actually does that these days?  Who actually treats someone nice when they cannot use him or her in some way or another? 

GOD! When will this day fucking end!  Oh yes, in two more hours.  Go me.  Then I can drop this act, drop the fact that this job is slowly eating away at my very soul and making me into a fashion zombie with perfectly in season pink shoes. 

Maybe if I just close my eyes, I can think back to my dream.  To that feeling I get whenever I am looking for my home.  Happiness.  Remember what that feels like?  Because I’m starting to forget.  Isn’t that what the pill I jam down my throat every morning is supposed to be good for?  To make me remember happiness.  Or perhaps it is only able to make me forget that I am miserable.   Either way, it is not doing its job.  I am neither happy nor not miserable.  But I suppose it is hard for a pill to do its job when I know that the entire reason I am miserable is because I haven’t made a move to actually change anything about my life.  The world is calling, and at times I feel like I am the only person in existence that hears it the same way that I do. 

Maybe there should be a pill that allows you to transport to another time or place after it is digested.  Or maybe since the thought of ingesting another strange pill makes me feel slightly off kilter, I would even settle for a magical portal. Something unassuming like a well, but not so cliche as a closet. Isn’t that how things work in movies or books?  Take the red pill…or was it the blue pill…and poof you are worthy of the air you breathe.  The world suddenly makes sense, and you have more purpose than listening to the annoying squawking heads that are still squawking.  Shock me, shock me, shock me with the surprise of the century.  Not that life would make perfect sense if suddenly all the annoying people would suddenly be…not annoying.  But it certainly give me the peace I need in order to figure out this existential crisis number five billion I am going through right now. 

Seriously.  Blowie uppie powers would be so freakin’ nice right now.

Could you imagine what that type of power could do in this world?  Just look at someone a certain way and POP goes the weasel. Ok it may be a little bit bloodier than that.  And it may make people think you are certifiable, and want to lock you up for all eternity.  But come on!  You can’t tell me that you haven’t thought of the myriad of people you wish you could just explode.  But as I live, no such ability has come to me.  You may breathe a sigh of relief. 

So you want to know what has all the people around me in a tizzy?  The dress.  The dress that I feel should seriously be burned to save everyone this torment, has a bead missing.  A single bead in the sea of beads.   Has the mysterious bead committed suicide because it too could not handle the life that was thrust upon it?  Bead suicide could exist somewhere.  I’m pretty sure.  Although I do admit it is rather funny to see the stylists crawl around on their hands and knees knowing that if this bead was lost because of them, they are fired and will never get to work in fashion again.  Yes, that thought makes me quite happy.  So it is of little consequence that I stand behind my camera with a smirk on my lips, thinking of how miserable the unlucky one will be.  Other people’s misery is so much more entertaining than my own.  My details of misery are far too complicated to explore at the moment.  These inconsequential bead scavenger hunts are far more palatable, far easier to analyze the cause and effect of the bead.

The world will not cease to exist if the bead is not found.  My world will cease to exist if I spend too much time thinking about how I ended up like this. With a pill as my savior.  Well a pill, a shit load of alcohol, and a collection of people that I allow to pass through my life from one moment to another.   That is one thing that people don’t talk about much when they speak about being a nomad, which is what I have become; all the shit that you put the people in your life through all in your epic quest to find the unexplored.  Relationships mean nothing.  Attachments are not formed to living, breathing entities, but rather to ideals and philosophies that can only be explored when you are dealing with a sense that everything is wrong and right at the same time.  Culture shock.  Not knowing where a grocery store is.  Not knowing when someone might come out at stab you if you walk down the wrong street.  Not knowing what that wrong street is.  Only then can you face yourself and define your fears of the unexpected and the unknown.  Only then can you challenge yourself to think of something in a completely different way.  There is nothing like being alone in a new environment, and realizing that at this moment you can be whoever you want, and no one would know any better.

I wonder what my dog is doing right now.  Probably eating her poop.  And that would still be a better use of time than this. 

I can’t stop going down this mental path right now.  Life sucks.  Dreams are pointing me to something.  Life sucks.  Find water.  Life sucks.  Who the hell bases their life decisions off of dreams anyway?  Man, life sucks.  Maybe I should get something to make my dog stop eating her poop.  That can’t be good for her.  Oh look the bead has been found.  You guessed it. Life. Sucks. 

No one gets fired today. Pity.  I was rather hoping it was going to be me.  It would be the nice push I need to find another city to explore for a year or two.  Instead of paying attention to the people around me, I get absorbed into my work.  It is my job to make this dress look flawless.  So flawless it shall be.  A couple hundred uses of flash latter, I can move on with my life.  At least for the night. 

There times when I look at how things seem on paper, and how little I have the right to complain about things around me.  I get it.  All of these seem like first-world problems.  Problems that are terribly inconsequential in the long run, but for this moment in time they are highly annoying.  Like a fly swarming around a pile of poo; my problems are the poo, and I am the fly who is drawn to the stinky, festering pile.  I am compelled to spend my short existence fixated on one place, on one smell, on one function.  Isn’t supposed to be different for beings of higher intelligence?  Aren’t I supposed to be the creator of my own destiny?  Or have I fucked fate too many times in the ass, that she has finally just crippled my existence to a bead and squawking heads?