by Jessica Fox
“Venice Beach – long-term relationship gone very bad.” Her hand swatted the air as if to brush the significance of it aside. “I haven’t lived on my own for ages but this… I can’t believe I found a place with a garden.” Her eyes lit up as she faced me. “It’s been my dream for ages now to have a place of my own with a little garden.”
In that moment, all my fears about leaving Los Angeles and the apartment and venturing into the unknown melted. The Hindu concept of Dharma came to mind, what I understood to mean that we each have a responsibility to follow our own path – unique to ourselves, our interests and talents – for by doing so we give the space and opportunity for others to do the same. This woman too had a vision of her perfect home and it was my studio. By leaving to follow my dream, I was making room for someone else to follow theirs. It reminded me of Schopenhauer’s views on will and fate, for it all seemed to work together like some mysterious choreographed dance.
The following day, with my confidence renewed and my apartment released to someone else, I started telling people I was moving. The greatest test, I thought, would be telling my family. As the youngest, “the baby”, I was typically hypersensitive and, whether I liked to admit it or not, still had the childish desire to earn my parents’ approval. Perhaps that’s why I had felt so at home in Los Angeles – a city filled with inner children who were still searching for applause.
I called my sister first, knowing breaking the news to her would be easier than telling my father and mother. My sister, who had supported my move across the US to Los Angeles, was equally encouraging about me following my heart now.
“I’ll miss you Jess,” she said.
“Well, don’t worry.” I awkwardly attempted to make it sound okay. “It won’t be for ever.”
She sighed. “You don’t know that.” In the background I could hear a child yelling. “Look, honey,” my sister scolded. “The batteries are in the left drawer. I told you to wait until I’m off the phone with Aunt Jessy.” The yelling continued. “Jessica, I have to go. I love you.”
Without hesitating, I hung up and dialled my parents' number. As the phone rang, my trepidation grew. I was going to give my mom more sleepless nights worrying about me. They didn’t deserve a child like me.
The moment I heard their cheerful voices, I blurted it out. “I’m going to return to Scotland for a while.”
There was a pause.
“It sounds more massive than it is, I promise. I’ll actually be just as far from you there as I am here.”
“We want you to spread your wings, and go wherever you feel is best for you.” My mom’s voice, though showing calm restraint, wavered slightly.
“Your mother and I just want you to be happy.” My father chimed in, not to be left out.
“That’s most important,” Mom added. Their silent concern shouldn’t have surprised me or unnerved me; my parents had a history of being heroic in their parenting. On my first day out driving with my new licence, my mom had returned home to find me standing in front of my father’s totalled car.
“What happened, are you all right?” she had asked, heading towards me.
I had nodded. “Someone rear-ended me.”
Banging had rung loud from the car. My mom had looked around confused. “Where is your father?”
I stepped aside and pointed to the trunk. My father was inside, curled up with a small hammer, trying to undo the damage himself. My mom had burst out laughing. My father, infinitely understanding, had insisted I get in the car the same day, saying even if you fall off you get back on the horse.
From an early age my parents had balanced their love for me with giving me the increasing freedom that I desired. Growing up, I never had a curfew, as long as they knew where I was and I had taken my vitamins. The first for my mother and the latter for my father.
“Will you have access to vitamins over there?” my father continued.
“I’m not sure, Dad.” I couldn’t help smiling.
“If not let me know because I’ll have to order you some…”
*
The Mariachi band finished and the restaurant burst into applause. I smiled, quickly bringing my attention back into the moment. My birthday was almost over, and I felt sad, as if a really good carnival ride was about to end. I was 26 years old. So far I had toured with a rock band, made a film, started a company and worked for NASA. I had also had a major, disastrous relationship, dated infrequently and was stubbornly alone. I was “no spring chicken” any more, as Rose would say. It was clear that I needed balance in my life, and in three weeks I would be moving across the ocean, not for my career, but in the hope of honouring my heart.
A slice of cake was placed before me. “I don’t think I can eat anything else. I already have a food baby.”
“No problem.” Anna’s fork scooped up a chunk of icing.
“Picture, please.” Rose stood up and offered her iPhone to the waiter.
I tried to protest. “Couldn’t we have taken this before I started eating?”
Everyone gathered around my side of the table. It had been just a few weeks ago that I had told my friends I was moving. What I had thought would be the easy part of this process surprised me as being the most difficult.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving me. You’re never coming back,” Rose said.
“Of course I’ll be back.”
Josh had wanted to come with me. “No, please, Josh.”
“Why not?” Josh looked offended.
“Because this is about me going on my own.” I felt mean but I needed to be firm.
“Okay, okay,” he had said half-heartedly.
Max had also been reluctantly supportive. I had broken the news to Max on a visit to one of my favourite spots in LA, the Getty Museum. It had been a glorious day, bright blue sky, the off-white walls of the museum looking stark and regal. “What about your friend Max? Did you ever think of him? What about our films?” We retired to the shade, sitting on a bench, and he put his arm on my shoulder. “Well, I hope you have a nice time. Stay a week or two, or three, then come back to us.”
Later Max undermined his air of disapproval by handing me a book about a man travelling to a bookshop. “I actually think it sounds like a great adventure, Fox.”
By the time my birthday arrived, I had told so many people about my decision to return to Wigtown that it almost felt like there were two versions: the narrative that existed on the outside, shaped by others’ concerns and opinions, and the one that existed inside, still pure and belonging only to my own hopes, desires and worries. Although I told people I could fulfil my film dream from anywhere, it did feel like I was stepping off the treadmill. What would become of my dream if I was no longer in LA? Also, Euan, for all intents and purposes, was a certified bachelor. He liked his own habitat, his own space, and I was a meteor, bursting into his world, intruding on his privacy.
We had reached the end of the evening and, to my great pleasure, there had been no talk of Wigtown. The night had been full of LA stories, inside jokes, copious food and a river of sangria. We left carnage on the table and stumbled out into the cool Californian night.
The restaurant was half a mile from my home and I decided to walk back alone. We said our goodnights and people piled into cabs. In my drowsy, tipsy haze as I watched my friends disappear one by one, it didn’t feel like a goodbye. I was waiting for some kind of seismic shift, but there was not even the smallest tremor. It all felt quite normal, like I would see them next week.
I turned up Santa Monica Boulevard and walked along the empty sidewalk. The graffitied concrete walls behind me ignited intermittently as the bright headlights of cars passed by. My last night in Los Angeles and I was on foot. That morning, a cross-country service had come to pick up my Toyota and drive it to my parents’ house on the East Coast. It was driven up a ramp and into a double-decker trailer, surrounded by other homeless cars. The man gave me a pink slip as a receipt and drove off, leaving me vehicle-less on the sid
e of the road under the Hollywood sun. Seeing it go had been a big deal, as the car was the last vestige of my Californian lifestyle. It had been like losing an identity badge. I was no longer a Los Angelino.
Chapter 25
“Entropy isn’t what it used to be.” – Anonymous, GREATEST JOKES OF THE CENTURY, BOOK 2 by Thomas Shubnell: Humour section, across from Children’s section on the left.
The serendipitous meeting of like-minded souls is like a star’s birth – forces compel the gathering of elements and in the vastness of space, flakes of gold touch each other, compressed and heated, creating something new yet unaware of the organic serendipity of their meeting. My collection of particles had yet to travel anywhere, however, whether across the vastness of space or over the Atlantic Ocean to Wigtown. It was now November 23rd and, while Euan was busy with the shop, I was back in Lexington, caught in the madness of pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping at the local Stop & Shop.
Stop & Shop – a once small, ordinary, fluorescent-lighted food chain – had grown massively over the years as my small town had changed from a typical quaint, historical New England village to a posh and wealthy suburb of Boston. Town gossip and friendly greetings still echoed between the many shelves and it was clear to me that despite the cosmetic changes, Stop & Shop’s aisles remained the local hub of social networking
Overhead, paper turkeys hung from the ceiling and Britney Spears droned away in the background. As we passed four shelves dedicated solely to olives, a dizzying selection of fresh mozzarellas and a whole wing of organic produce, I smiled, thinking how different this was to shopping at Wigtown’s Co-op.
Following closely behind my mother, I took on a teenager’s slouched stance, avoiding the glances from familiar-looking, middle-aged faces. I didn’t feel like seeing anyone I knew. Looking up the aisle as my mother put another bottle of apple juice in her cart, I realised I had, unwittingly, regressed back to my childhood.
Gertrude Stein, on returning to her childhood home only to find it had been demolished and replaced by a parking lot, resolved that “there is no there, there”. I beg to differ. I had been sleeping in my childhood room, living with my parents, and even something as harmless as walking behind my mother in a grocery store was confusing my sense of adult identity. Everything – all current reminders of my adult life – were gone or packed in boxes. Even the warm glow of my Hollywood tan had disappeared. I was in some liminal time between the past and present, neither here nor there.
My mother and I pulled into the shortest of the long lines and I looked at the young cashier who couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old. She smiled at me and suddenly I became conscious that I had a scowl plastered on my face. I quickly smiled back. I needed to relax.
There was nothing I could do about being back in Lexington. In fact Homer, if he existed, would think it appropriate that I had returned home before my next adventure – a symbolic rebirth. Perhaps I had to re-enter the cocoon of my childhood in order to start a new life.
Chapter 26
“I am an outlaw, not a hero. I never intended to rescue you. We are our own dragons as well as our own heroes and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.” – Tom Robbins, STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER: Fiction section, front room, hardbacks under R.
Grant was shorter than I had remembered him. But memories could turn mice into giants. It was the night before Thanksgiving, and I was shivering. We were standing in the cold outside a movie theatre on Tremont Street right across from Boston Common.
“The movie was pretty awful,” Grant said, shoving his bare hands in his pockets.
I snuggled into my down coat to escape the wind. “I’m glad we saw it though.”
Then we stood in silence.
Just as in myth when a donor figure equips the hero with exactly the right thing to make his adventure a success, I had asked the people dearest to me to offer something, whether it was a word, a bit of advice, an object, a wish – anything that I could take along with me to Scotland. It had meant a great deal to me to have these tokens.
Cole had given me a string of photos, a book of matches and a letter sealed tight in an envelope with wax. I was to open the letter on the plane, he had instructed, not before. My best girlfriend, who lived in South Africa, had sent me a quote and a picture of steep cliffs and the shining sea. I also had Euan’s iPod with all my favourite songs. I was well equipped now for the journey into the unknown.
Grant was part of this ritual, too, though he didn’t know it. We had left things on a dramatic note: no ending, no goodbye, just a lingering discomfort. I wanted to make sure the balm of healing was covering all past wounds before entering a new relationship with Euan. From Grant, I wanted the gift of closure.
In non-metaphorical terms, it was I who had brought Grant a gift. As a late birthday present, I had bought him a book that he'd said he'd always wanted to read. After a year of no contact I had thought it would be a nice gesture.
In the chilly silence lingering between us, I reached into my backpack and took out his gift, wrapped in shiny gold foil. Grant took the package and looked at it suspiciously.
“It won’t bite. Take it. Please. It’s for your birthday.”
“Thanks.” Grant took it under his arm. He suddenly smiled at me with a familiar expression. “Do you need a ride?”
“Oh um…”
His eyebrows rose and he glanced towards his parked motorcycle. He playfully smacked me on the arm. I couldn’t believe it. After all that we had been through…
“No, I’ve got to get back.”
“For what?” His intense eyes flashed with hurt.
“It was really good to see you though.” I was trying to make him feel better. “I hope all goes well at work. It would be fun to catch another movie some time.” This was the man who had broken my heart. Why did I feel the need to be such a girl scout?
“Yeah, sure.” Grant smiled and turned so quickly that I instinctively began walking in the opposite direction. My feelings were suddenly all over the place. I was about to dissect them when I realised that I was walking entirely the wrong way, up Tremont Street.
Reluctantly, I turned and I could see Grant a couple of yards ahead of me. I didn’t want him to think I was following him so I walked slowly. He approached a trash can and I watched as he dumped my unopened gift into it. I was dumbstruck.
After all the heartbreak and deep talks and reconciliation, he would still sleep with me but he had absolutely no desire to be friends. A gong rang loud and clear. I had my closure.
*
The following day my parents presented me with their gift right before the Thanksgiving meal. It was wrapped in blue tissue paper and I asked if I could wait and open it on the plane.
“Of course,” my mother said and patted my shoulder. Mixed into the strange cocktail of emotions that had been brewing ever since I returned to Boston was guilt. I felt like I was leaving my family, tossing aside my loved ones for more exotic shores. I watched as my mom disappeared into the kitchen.
We were at my brother-in-law’s parents’ house, a beautiful period home right by the sea north of Boston. It was the ideal setting for a Thanksgiving meal, and I helped my niece and nephew set the table. They were instructing me where to set the plates, but I was distracted, looking through the doorway of the dining room into the hall, where my sister, her new baby, her husband and my father were chatting. My sister looked up and caught my gaze, smiling.
Instead of taking the time this November to enjoy my family, I had been removed, totally self-absorbed, by my upcoming adventure to Scotland. I instantly regretted having been so distant and was surprised by my feelings of homesickness for people who were just a room away. Whether I was on my way to Wigtown or the many other places in which I have lived, I perpetually found myself in self-inflicted exile.
The dining table was overflowing with food. Dishes were changing hands quickly as the Thanksgiving feast piled onto people’s plates and I tried to grab spoonfuls of ever
ything as it passed. Sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, turkey, stuffing, gravy and green beans made a delicious collage, each colour dynamic with the tones of autumn – oranges, reds, browns – and the aromas were intoxicating. I was on sensory overload. The adults were trying to have conversations over the shouts and screams of the children. My sister looked at me and was about to say something, but the baby started crying and she became distracted.
The weather outside matched the liveliness within, with rain hammering down onto the pavement and the wind whipping the shutters with a howling intensity. Over the rooftops I could see the fog-covered ocean, a dull grey streaked with white peaks of foam. The rain made me nervous. I had become more and more scared of flying over the years and I hoped it would be better weather tomorrow.
My gaze drifted from the window to the middle of the table, where I suddenly noticed a massive starfish decoration. I peered closer and found it wasn’t a decoration at all, in fact, but a real petrified starfish. It must have been very old because it was large, as if it had been pulled from a Victorian zoologist’s collection. I wasn’t sure how it fitted into the theme of Thanksgiving, but it was delicate and majestic and held a mysterious quality. What a magnificent thing, I thought, and suddenly felt grateful. Grateful for my family, for this meal, for the rainswept evening, for the giant starfish in the middle of the table and for my new life, which would begin tomorrow.
Chapter 27
“He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.” - Arundhati Roy, THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS: Fiction section, paperbacks, left of the window under, R.
I had a dream. I was in a stagecoach speeding along a bumpy road. My companions sat in shadow as the sound of horses’ hooves echoed through the night air. Gunshots fired. A woman in front of me leaned forward into the moonlight. She was young, ornately dressed and terrified. Taking off her earrings, she quickly put them in her mouth. The coach suddenly jolted to a stop and men were yelling.