The Global Soul

It's the price of rootlessness; motion sickness. The only cure: keep moving. Mr Lies, Angels in America, Millennium Approaches

I'm halfway through Pico Iyer's Global Soul and funnily enough, his description of these rootless, displaced, anywhere-and-nowhere-is-home human beings makes me long for home. Not a place, per se, but a feeling. And as I don't really like flying, hovering in the air, in the middle of nowhere, always on the way to someplace else, worrying about immigration wherever I go to (unless I'm on my way here, in which case, my passport allows me to bypass the human factor, stick it in a slot and verify that I'm me) that feeling will only come when my feet are on some earth somewhere; when there is some/any ground beneath my feet.

I hate rushing about trying to catch up with myself. I prefer to saunter, my head in the clouds, dreaming, repeating bits of poetry, phrases from books, song lyrics, extemporaneously to myself, scribbling down thoughts into a minuscule notebook, maybe transferring them to a blog (or no), getting nowhere fast. Enjoying the journey, nonetheless.

As it is, I take root nowhere. Or rather, I grow like a weed on the fringes, waiting only for the painful, inevitable uprooting that happens to all who grow where they don't belong.

I bought two more Iyers (ordered another one), two more Chatwins (ordered another one) and one Mann. Books referencing other books as I chase the elusive signifier from one text to another, from one description to another, from one definition to another - a Derrida-en journey - the kind that is a journey for the sake of itself, leading nowhere....

The price of rootlessness is that you belong nowhere. The price of rootlessness is that you drink yourself to oblivion with other rootless people, all you hovering in the air, somewhere between jobs, somewhere between relationships, somewhere between homes, somewhere between cars...nothing to ground you (because if there were, you would abandon it, give it up, put it to sleep, resisting the anchor, because anchors are heavy and you want to breathe).

Your idea of noble sacrifice; my idea of needless suicide.

What happens when even the familiar faces become strange? When you no longer remember what you're doing here, or who these people are, and why, why, why you are filling your days with such banal inanities?

So yes, I'm looking for home. The smell of cookies baking for Christmas? (No. I tried that. And it doesn't work) Lace curtains fluttering in the breeze? (No, I tried that. Didn't work) Another F*R*I*E*N*D*S episode? (No, it served its purpose then. Doesn't work now. Not anymore) Getting drunk and writing some more of this? (No. At least I don't know. I'm not drinking at the moment)

And therein may lie the problem.