This time, Going to Atlanta is Like Eating Change Breakfast.
Have you ever eaten Change Breakfast?

It’s When You Go to a Restaurant Because You Have to Eat And You Order Food Because That’s What You Do At Restaurants But You Aren’t Hungry At All And You Are Served a Full Course Meal You Have to Eat. You look at the food and feel empty. But you are extremely full.

On the plane from Seattle to Atlanta: 

September 19, 2016

I’m gone. Ketchikan is islands away.
It was beautiful as I left. The sky had white clouds and the imminent threat of over-medium sun piercing through them. 

And Now I’m in go-mode. I could be processing a million feelings, but I have so much documenting to do before I can feel any of them. Ultimately, those feelings are going to make me sad. “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” I’m trying to crank out 10 more conversations in Alaska and write through the rest of my posts about Alaska before I touch down in the ATL.

It’s not going to happen.

I gave myself permission to sleep from Ketchikan to Seattle. It’s 1 hour and 26 minutes and I was asleep for 1 hour and 16 minutes of them. I wanted to look across Canada, that would have been a first, or be productive, but I stayed up the night before in a wired-state of writing and goodbye, furtively penning letters and incessantly redistributing suitcase weight. Don’t forget the halibut in the freezer. 

Three hours in to the Atlanta flight:

I’ve just had the shortest flight from Seattle to Atlanta. I’ve flown this trip so many times and sometimes the 5 hours can feel inordinately taxing. But not today. It’s because my fingers have been flying across the keyboard the past three hours and I still have a ton to write. And even though I’m physically approaching the Southeast, I’m still not in Atlanta at all. Not even.

My sister will pick me up, I will be immediately crowded by stupid humidity and my hair will poof up like I’m Bonnie Tyler in the best music video of all time. My soul is in Alaska Daylight Savings Time. Ketchikan. 99901. In 6 days I will be in Houston. In 7, Guatemala. What the heck, Nat. What the heck. 

And another pancake on the pile: what will my parents’ house be like? Her room has been changed, I guess to cushion the weight of her absence, or to move ahead, or both. The sadness is so sticky that a new headboard won’t change much. 

Atlanta: please be kind to me. I’m not ready to come back to you. In fact, I’m not ready for whatever is about to happen. I guess I need to eat this pile of grief pancakes I apparently ordered except I have no appetite.

Adrienne picks me up with her new dog. Both are ungainly: the dog and the conversation: what to talk about? It was strained, unfamiliar. In a way Gretchen and I haven’t really been. There was an elephant in the room, and a dog in the car. That elephant was a lot of things: a side helping of transition bacon I also didn’t order.

When I got to the quiet house in Mableton, I saw a pile of Amazon prime orders for packing. It’s faster and cheaper to send them here than to Alaska. Plus, how could I pack it all and bring it home from AK? Reminder that another transition is ahead. I will open those boxes and decide what I like and what I want to return. Can I send everything back and return myself to yesterday, when I was still in Ketchikan? 

I come in, let the house flutter and settle around me like a flowy skirt.
I sleep in until noon. I miss actual Breakfast with Dad because I am cattywampus with exhaustion, and I’m jetlag. I wanted to be awake, but I needed the also unwanted helping of sleep.

I made my first visit: Marguerite.
Rude awakening: getting in my car and onto 1-20. I go through a drive-thru and think about how happy I am to be close to delicious, affordable coffee after our summer separation. I think about feeling happy, but all I can do is think the happy.

I hug Marguerite, we catch up. Her baby has grown, she looks like a near-toddler and not a baby anymore. 10 months to the day.
Marguerite has been our neighbor for the last 12 years but her family moved to a far-away neighborhood. Sad side order of grits.

I go shopping, I do feel the happiness about this. Walmart is actually Walmart prices instead of Walmart Island Prices, which is not Walmart Prices at all. I spend $157 on peace corps needs. I drive to Adrienne’s for dinner.

I’m greeted by Jacey and Adrienne outside. They are dancing. They are happy to see me. I am glad to see them but I can only think glad. I’m like a fish in a new stream, haven’t adjusted to the temperature. I’m sure I’d like it but my body hasn’t caught up yet. I’m in a state of shock. A Hefty Serving of Bewildered Eggs Benedict.

My second night in Atlanta. 

I am in my sister’s guest bedroom. She owns a house, has a dog, has a husband. She is younger than me. Why is she doing things first? What’s all this about? They’ve almost been married a year but I’m still learning what it’s like to be around a married sister, to be around a brother-in-law, and now Ruby- the long white dog that keeps barking. 

The heat never relents. It’s almost October and the heat feels like it is crushing me. We went for a pleasant walk but it was still muggy air. Always muggy air. I didn’t see any mountains, no mist. City lights and strangers passing anonymously, friendly enough I guess.

In the Lights-Off Time for Sleep, My Thoughts Have Room To Stretch.
It Is Not Time to Sleep.

I miss being in a small town. The difference here is bleak: feels like everyone is busy being important but no one knows who you are. I noticed a woman in Walmart dressed in heels, thin, tall, draped in black and fancy. I think my face wrinkled at her, I instantly remember who she is. She is big-city Casual Fancy Beyoncé. Her walk says: She is not even trying, she woke up like this. We both know that’s a lie because It wasn’t long ago that was me. On the inside, I was miserable, on the outside, I was making girls feel insignificant in Walmart. I’m so used to carhartts and tennis shoes and beards and extra toughs. I don’t recognize these dressy people, except I am still that dressy person. I know how to dress to keep up here. But it’s been a while and I’m threatened because I forgot: I haven’t been using the image I have to assemble as counterattack. I forgot that going out in public means putting on armor. I left the Rainforest but I returned to the Jungle. 

No hoodies, foreheads glisten at the mention of going outside. I’ve seen more outstretched highway in a week here than I did all summer. I’ve never loved Atlanta, but now that Nana is gone, I’m even more detached. I am sad. I’m reminded of when I used to be a slave to my car and my office desk, always sitting: a slave to the radio and google chrome. It was truly lifeless. 

Ketchikan is small and funny and rainy and windy and green and sketchy and annoying and SMALL and SLOW and quiet and odd. It took me a while to warm up to that, too. But it’s TOO HOT HERE TO WARM UP. I’M OVERHEATING.

I hear the chorus if crickets outside Adrienne’s window. I think to myself, tragi-poetically: I’ve traded rain drops for cricket chirps. I’ve traded community for family. The sight of water for humid heat. I post on facebook saying something like it.

At least there is Top 40 Radio again, and TJ Maxx. Hollandaise Sauce.

There is a cafeteria tray brimming with all sorts of food and I can’t pick up the fork.
But I have to pick up this fork.

It’s time to refuel for the next thing.