It cuts close...and is exactly 750 words long, according to Word's count. You may learn more about me than you want...but here it is --
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I was born without roots, destined to wander. I fell into this pattern almost from the moment I joined the world, in San Diego; my parents divorced a few months afterwards so I was shifted to San Antonio to live with my grandmother. Then my mother married a non-commissioned officer in the Air Force. He adopted me, so even my birth name proved impermanent. And as we changed abode from Reno to London to Kansas City to El Paso to Grand Forks, I grew comfortable with keeping friends and living quarters at a distance, since I knew none of them would be consistent. But it was in my sophomore year of high school that I finally understood that consistency was not to be part of my destiny...nor was being fully included in any part of anyone’s life. The world would see to that.
My stepfather was stationed at Hickham AFB in Honolulu for three years. I would be nearly eighteen when we were to return to the mainland. I wanted to make the trip back on a boat, but my parents laughed at the very idea...so I decided to pay my own way. I applied for my social security number and started looking for a job to save money. There were just two problems with this -- first, I was fifteen; second, I looked like I was twelve. I still talked my way into a part-time position at a newsstand in downtown Honolulu and started working towards my goal. But the city proved expensive to live in, so at the end of the school year my mother, brothers and sister and I were shipped back to San Antonio, and I left behind friends I’d intended to keep for years. This is when I gave up on any chance of inclusion, consistency or control in my life.
But by this point, I had grown used to being handled by others, so could not settle. I started a career as an artist. Changed to working in a bookshop. Attended two different colleges for a degree in film; two different cities for my master’s in screenwriting -- which I never finished. I moved apartments and got new cars as soon as they became too familiar...too much the same. Lived in New York, Austin, Houston and LA, where I continued to change living quarters and vehicles in search of something fresh and undemanding. Worked in more bookstores. Worked in film. Wrote screenplays. Did storyboards. Production design. Never able to settle.
I even avoided relationships. Being gay, there were ways to find pleasure without fear of commitment...until AIDs hit and I became an inadvertent celibate. Then I began to realize what I was really doing was keeping myself as naught but an observer of life because it was all I knew. To be part of the world takes some sort of control.
That’s when I began pouring my wishes and hopes and dreams into my writing, building characters like...well, like a ten year-old boy who sabotages the sale of his parents’ home so they can’t move; a book cataloguer who hides himself away from the world because of a family tragedy; a fighter pilot seeking an excuse to settle down; an artist desperate for commitment after nearly losing everything; an actor on the cusp of superstardom who treats his ex-wife and child like a scheduling issue. All of them seeking something I know I will never really have -- a place to belong to. Someone to be part of. A form of control. Inclusion in the world. Consistency.
I now write books and live in Buffalo, handling yet another kind of job: packing libraries and archives. I travel a lot, which helped me settle into one apartment for nearly nine years; I'm not home enough for it to grow too familiar. My wanderlust is held at bay because I’ve worked in places I’d never have gone to on my own -- Salt Lake City, Boise, Lisbon, Munich, Hong Kong, Milwaukee, Key West, Albuquerque, Denver, Birmingham, York, Burlington, Salisbury, Portland, Bangor. My current career has returned me to London many times, as well as Dublin, Derry, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, New York City, New Haven, Boston. I almost feel settled here.
But I still remain without roots...and still accept that my ethereal destiny is carved in stone. I will never be in control...never included...cannot be. I am unable to view life as something to be shared.
Except when I write.
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My stepfather was stationed at Hickham AFB in Honolulu for three years. I would be nearly eighteen when we were to return to the mainland. I wanted to make the trip back on a boat, but my parents laughed at the very idea...so I decided to pay my own way. I applied for my social security number and started looking for a job to save money. There were just two problems with this -- first, I was fifteen; second, I looked like I was twelve. I still talked my way into a part-time position at a newsstand in downtown Honolulu and started working towards my goal. But the city proved expensive to live in, so at the end of the school year my mother, brothers and sister and I were shipped back to San Antonio, and I left behind friends I’d intended to keep for years. This is when I gave up on any chance of inclusion, consistency or control in my life.
But by this point, I had grown used to being handled by others, so could not settle. I started a career as an artist. Changed to working in a bookshop. Attended two different colleges for a degree in film; two different cities for my master’s in screenwriting -- which I never finished. I moved apartments and got new cars as soon as they became too familiar...too much the same. Lived in New York, Austin, Houston and LA, where I continued to change living quarters and vehicles in search of something fresh and undemanding. Worked in more bookstores. Worked in film. Wrote screenplays. Did storyboards. Production design. Never able to settle.
I even avoided relationships. Being gay, there were ways to find pleasure without fear of commitment...until AIDs hit and I became an inadvertent celibate. Then I began to realize what I was really doing was keeping myself as naught but an observer of life because it was all I knew. To be part of the world takes some sort of control.
That’s when I began pouring my wishes and hopes and dreams into my writing, building characters like...well, like a ten year-old boy who sabotages the sale of his parents’ home so they can’t move; a book cataloguer who hides himself away from the world because of a family tragedy; a fighter pilot seeking an excuse to settle down; an artist desperate for commitment after nearly losing everything; an actor on the cusp of superstardom who treats his ex-wife and child like a scheduling issue. All of them seeking something I know I will never really have -- a place to belong to. Someone to be part of. A form of control. Inclusion in the world. Consistency.
I now write books and live in Buffalo, handling yet another kind of job: packing libraries and archives. I travel a lot, which helped me settle into one apartment for nearly nine years; I'm not home enough for it to grow too familiar. My wanderlust is held at bay because I’ve worked in places I’d never have gone to on my own -- Salt Lake City, Boise, Lisbon, Munich, Hong Kong, Milwaukee, Key West, Albuquerque, Denver, Birmingham, York, Burlington, Salisbury, Portland, Bangor. My current career has returned me to London many times, as well as Dublin, Derry, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, New York City, New Haven, Boston. I almost feel settled here.
But I still remain without roots...and still accept that my ethereal destiny is carved in stone. I will never be in control...never included...cannot be. I am unable to view life as something to be shared.
Except when I write.
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