lost amid the thickness

You all know how it is when you feel lost... when you look around and see people's mouths' moving, but you're not sure what they're saying. You're not sure they're making sense. It's that way when everything that was once familiar now looks more alien than you would like. The landscape of my conversations has that tone lately, one of dread and doom. It's strange, because theere has been more laughter than usual, but it's like the uncomfortable sound that covers a funeral.

There is talk of war. Peace is gone and battles continue to break out, day by day and hour by hour. The forces align, and it is all whispered about late at night. It's not just the Middle East. It;s not as simple as one region anymore. The heat of summer is getting to us, and we all feel it closing in, a strange pressure.

Out tonight, we talked of feeling foreign, all of us in our own circumstances, in our own worlds. Sometimes I cringe at the momentum. We talked about home, about the way we grew up, about slowness, anonymity, and isolation. There seems a fine line at times, and my guess is much of it depends on your mood. And it's funny, but sometimes, what we need are those outside sources keeping us on the straight and narrow, like a map with huge arrows pointing to the road home.

And then we talked about our friends, our "urban tribes" as my good friend Mike used to refer to it. We discussed family, and home, and how fluid those terms can become. Two of us have found ourselves without our urban home, two people without a public house, and we're looking. The city is a constant maze of walking backwards, a rare place of opportunity and feeling awash amid the thickness-- stifled.

So I'm looking for a new place in the middle of it all. Something close to home proper. Some place where I can read and laugh, where I can talk and question, some place where I know what to expect and understand what I will get from the time I put in. I'm looking for a new public house. Not a bar. A bar is something much more common, and much less discerning. I am looking for a new place to be myself, and a new place to go when the thickness outside begins to weigh down the inside. The other day showed me a new side of the Famous Bar, but right now, I'm like a woman in the wilderness. I have a map, but I'm not sure which way is the right way to go. I need my arrow.

Suggestions or comments? Help me find a new second home.