Farewells are hard; we leave some places that we know we can never visit again. And being “on the Road” means always being at the advent of some new place or adventure. But it also means sealing off someplace you are saying goodbye to.
So, while roaming, I sought work, relationships, or new experiences. And I’d fill myself with some silliness of how glorious it would be and leave town thinking I could return someday and have people say something like, ” Hey! Look, It’s Wes! Great to have you back.” The pure stuff of fiction and movies. Generally, people get on with their lives and forget you unless you owe them a loan.
I say this as a cautionary tale to the young, the unwise, and the foolish: you are not in a feature role in your movie.
A boat show I used to do took place in one of my favorite towns. I had lived there several times while roaming, and I have fond memories of it. But it has few memories of me. Every time I’d do a show there it was like visiting with ghosts. Ghosts of friends walked the streets, businesses I knew were long gone. A few favorite restaurants were still open, but the waitresses and waiters I had known were vague memories, “Sally? Oh dear, that’s sooo long ago!” As it happens, I still subscribe to the local paper. And it has an online archive. So, on a whim, I searched for mention of myself and found one slender reference to my headlining at the local coffeehouse on an evening in January 1969.
Now here’s a bit of advice. Don’t allow your favorite places to recede. Hold them close, and don’t let them slip away.
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How can one forget favourites?
I don’t know. I’m not just a feature in my own movie; I AM my movie. I’m the director and the camera to a large extent. My actors are similarly directors and cameras in THEIR own movies. Places are longer and shorter episodes, sets and scenes, indifferent to my existence, absolutely, but not unreal yet largely extant in my perception of them. Occasionally episodes converge and overlap (like now one of my best friends was a woman who was once a friend of my brother). Life is just this cool movie we star in, direct, watch, critique, re-evaluate and understand better later (sometimes) — it’s incredible. I don’t go back to Billings, MT or San Diego because the love I bear those places is tied to people and abilities I no longer have. Billings no longer has my family. San Diego has legs that no longer run and people who have grown up and away. Life is just fucking amazing in this way.
I agree with you. But, I used that as an illustration to people who are terribly stuck on themselves that the universe does not revolve around them.
Ahhhh!!! Those people. Yeah, that’s not us.