October 17, 2002

• I’m a little bit stuck on the upcoming chapter of my memoirs.  It’s a peculiarly perfectionistic hangup.  Somewhere, I should have a journal I kept on the trip.  There would be details in the journal that I may not recall otherwise.  My problem is that I don’t know where the journal is.  I can’t even be sure that it still exists.  But that doesn’t keep me from wanting to try to find it, in order to make this story as complete and accurate as possible.

  
  

  I started looking for it, at my old place across the highway, inside my trailer, out in the old school bus in the yard–all the places it seemed reasonable that the papers might be.  It’s more than just a journal, you see.  It is a bunch of documents including my pardon, a divorce or two, awards, letters, notes and mementos.  The search for the missing documents began when my memoir blogs were about to enter the time period during which I accumulated those papers.  This was early this summer.

  
  

  Some of the letters were ones I wrote and never sent.  Many were addressed to Stony in the long hours I spent alone in the bus or the cabin that winter we spent on Hoosier Pass.  I console myself for the lack of the journal of my boat ride across the Gulf of Alaska with the knowledge that as long as those papers are missing, I don’t have to read those letters in which I spilled my guts at a very unhappy time of my life.  Not exactly the sweetest of walks down memory lane, it might have some therapeutic value, but I’ll probably be okay without it.

  
  

  I probably will be okay no matter what, which brings me to what I’m here to blog about this time. 

  
  

  Happiness

  
  

  Comments on my recent blog about the 104 homes I’ve had this time around made me realize I haven’t been writing enough about my feelings.  I blog about things that happened thirty years ago, and about the emotional responses of the young woman I was at the time, because it would make no sense to tell the story from anyone else’s perspective than that young woman’s.  My perspective has changed a lot.  My feelings are not the same as they were thirty years ago.  I know I can’t keep all of my current attitudes out of the story, but I do the best I can to keep the story authentic and true to who I was at the time, so that not only the facts and events are clear, but the motivations.

  
  

  Back then denial was my style.  I played the blame game.  I had only just begun to learn that things were not all either black or white.  I played a zero-sum game.  When I lost, it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t take responsibility for my choices.  I might say I was sorry, but I never believed I was wrong.  My thievery was rationalized by the indoctrination I had gotten from Gary when I was eighteen.  My sexual relationships were euphemized as love affairs and rationalized by fairy tales and soap opera.  I had an explanation for everything.  I was defensive and irresponsible.  In short, I was fairly normal.

  
  

  I am ever so much happier now.  In the hope that LuckyStars and quiltnmomi will stop troubling themselves over my lifestyle, I want to address that issue of happiness.  It is entirely true that I would be very happy in a “nice” house with hot and cold running water, but I would not be any happier that way than I am here now.  It is silly (but sweet,  dear Marian) to be sad that I don’t have that nice sunny kitchen and all.  If we are going to be sad because Kathy doesn’t have her dream house, let’s really take a look at the house that Kathy wants.

  
  

  It has to have a professional-grade kitchen, walk-in freezer and fridge, multiple restaurant-style ovens and cooktops, and all the accessories.  I will need a staff to make it work, too.  The house has to be big enough to accomodate family, staff, guests and clients.  It needs its own water supply, clean water, not something from a public reservoir poisoned with chlorine, fluorine and hexametaphosphate to make it potable.  Since the location must be remote, we need at least a fixed-wing aircraft and a helicopter and people to operate them.  And that’s just for starters.  Really, there’s a lot more like that… when I dream, I dream big.

  
  

  I only want that big remote retreat staffed with like-minded weirdos as a home base.  My dream also requires other bases of operation in places like Australia and Arizona, and the land, sea, and air transportation to make it a totally technomadic community.

  
  

  I would be happy if I had all that, but those things would not make me happy.  Happiness lies not in getting what you want, but in wanting what you have.  It comes from within, and is not based on externals.  For me, happiness comes from who I am and what I do.  It’s a strictly individual thing and might not work for anyone else, so don’t try this at home, kids.  With that disclaimer out of the way, let me tell you what makes me happy.

  
  

  I’ll get the “negatives” out of the way first, the things I’m happy not to have.

  
  

  I don’t have a job, a boss, a contract, or indenture.  The only demands on my time are those of my survival and that of the ones I love.  Everything else, I do because it pleases me to do it.  I am constrained by a minimum of deadlines and obligations, no more than required to live in this society.  All of this serves to further one of my main personal priorities:  autonomy.

  
  

  I don’t have significant debt, or other big bills to pay.  We own our old place across the highway, Greyfox’s acre up the highway where Charley lives, and this trailer we’re living in on Mark’s land, free and clear.  This helps me attain some of the other things I value in life, things like leisure time and peace of mind.

  
  

  I don’t have anything to hide, no big secrets that would embarrass me if they were revealed.  I might be inconvenienced, threatened or temporarily troubled if some of my old illegal actvities came out, mostly because of the reactions of some of my companions.  What I’m trying to say is that such revelations would really upset some of those involved, but not me.  I won’t, in my blog, tell the whole story because parts of my story belong to other people, too.  I respect their secrets.  Otherwise, and always with my intimates, I’m an open book.  What I get out of that is self-esteem.

  
  

  I don’t have the phobias, fears, and such things that are “normal” in this culture.  I can speak extemporaneously in comfort in any setting to audiences of any size, on practically any topic.  I can usually do it coherently, too.  Dying doesn’t bother me.  Not only do I recall many lives and deaths before this one, I’ve died this time around, too.  Sure it’s traumatic, but I survived, so it wasn’t all that bad, now was it?  I do surgery on myself.  I’m prepared to deal with illness, injuries and wounds, assist in a birth, or respond to any emergency.  I’m ready.  It feels good.  Makes me happy.

  
  

  I don’t have beliefs, superstitions or fetishes to limit my potential–and here is the place to qualify some of this.  It’s all relative.  I don’t mean I have totally transcended every little false and limiting belief, every nagging worry.  I just know that I’ve already gotten through so many things and come out of it all happier, smarter, stronger, more loved and more loving.  I know that worrying about the next crisis coming at me isn’t going to help prepare me to deal with it.  And I know better than to say that this is absolutely right or that is certainly wrong.  It’s all relative, all depends on the circumstances.  I am responsible, and competent, and that’s enough.

  
  

  I’m happy.  I wouldn’t be any happier if all my dreams came true.   I’ve already realized many of the things I used to dream about and all the time I keep finding even more interesting possibilites than I had ever dreamt of before.  What I’m trying to say, I think, is that the reality I’ve found here transcends all the wildest dreams of that younger, rootless Kathy. 
  *Hmmm… Expressing that thought just brought to mind the summer that I went around so blissed out that everyone who saw me smiled.  To my closest friends, who wanted to know what was up, I could only grin and say, “…beyond my wildest  dreams.”*

  
  

  Due to the fact that I started my Xanga weblog as a therapeutic tool to deal with my food addictions and health issues, my readers have gotten an indepth view of the dark side of my life.  This, here, is group therapy only thinly disguised as a weblog.  When real life jumped up with those family reunion surprises and I found my son, Will, the blog became my autobiography and my readers provided the feedback that helped me stay motivated to tell the story.  Caring, empathetic, honest comments from my regular readers are empowering me.

  
  

  The least I can do is offer some reassurance in return.  Even I, sometimes, feel a little maternal pity for that idiotic young woman I was, wandering around under the influence of fairy tales, trying to make a soap opera out of her life.  So, I understand part of why Lucky and momi are saddened at the thought of my not having some of those conveniences they value.  The trouble is that the mere conveniences of a comfortable, well-furnished house are not enough for me.  Rest assured, everyone, that although I don’t expect ever to be content (What sane perfectionist with two brain cells to rub together would expect to be content?  Perfection is an ideal, not an expectation.), I’m fully prepared to just go on seeking perfection forever.  It makes me happy.

  
  

  And I thank my LuckyStars and beloved quiltnmomi, for launching this splendid train of thought.  Following it has made me happy.

  • 12:41 pm
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