I spend money like I actually have any
Moving lavishly through life doing all that makes me happy and perhaps
that’s what landed me living in a shed in a dirty house in Eugene
but it’s also what took me across Europe and
dining in eccentric restaurants and
spending 60 dollars at City Lights Bookstore on
important literature, living in a room in a house with
a beautiful California jewelry-maker and
Perhaps my money spending and not saving is
an illusion that I created of
false wealth because
I’m addicted to pleasure and
mental health that can only be fed by
aperol spritzers and sunshine and a
very particular glass of wine and
the constant hunt for the best caesar salad and
alone time and
rogue but somehow valid
conversations with old men at strange cafe’s
who tell me: “You know what I can’t stand is a woman with a feather brain,”
which is strange and kind of sexist to say but
I told him I appreciated the compliment as I
sipped coffee and read my book on
Alexander Von Humboldt.
I spend money like I have any, graciously
adorned in rings that were traded or given to me and
great grandma Janet’s bracelets that I took from the
picnic table at her memorial and it’s funny,
I obsess over these moments,
as with most things, they
mean everything and nothing
but oh the joy of
hearing Spanish spoken by the two men
at the table beside me and
jazz reverberating from an unforeseen place and
the sound of cars obnoxiously honking their horns whilst
legs unapologetically cross the busy street
and then there’s me:
This nothingness of a speck of reality,
this person alluded to in 9am cocaine scribbles in little notebooks that
Giovanni from across the street got for me and
perhaps that’s why I love being alone so much
because there’s no energy vortex of
another person or
perceived expectation pulling me in —
It’s just me next to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and
Maya Angelou is saying something to you in the pavement,
its conversations surrounding the table I sit at and
zoning in and dropping out
whenever I feel like it.
The man behind me said “I should know French, Thai, Spanish and probably Chinese.”
He also said, “I’m designing my life,” and “I will use my privilege to:”
and oh what gratitude I feel for this man and his dreams as
beautiful people walk the streets and a Latino woman with a raspy voice and
a New York accent and oh the diversity of options when I
Spend money like I have any
Its taken me to all the best and most uncomfortable places
and for this I am infinitely gracious.