Gypsy

I like to call myself a hippie.  You know, being the product of two hippie parents, I have to assume that I must also be a hippie.  And I am.  In the peace, love and butterfly sense of the word.  I believe in Karma and the power of the universe and the Tao Te Ching.  I’m that person.  The one you have no idea what to do with because my God and my politics don’t make any sense to you.  I’m the girl doesn’t go to church or registers to vote anymore.  Because God and politics don’t make sense anymore.  I am that person.   I am the person you can’t fight with, because I won’t ever understand your argument. If you can’t incorporate the sunset or the ocean or the wind through the trees into your definition of how we should be living our lives, I cannot relate to you.   I always thought those things made me a hippie.  But I’m starting to think that I identified myself with the wrong group of people.  I might not be a hippie.  I think that maybe “gypsy” better defines me.  I might be a gypsy. 

Gyp-sy (jipse)  - (n) a nomadic or free spirited person. 

When I was little, my dad would come pick me up every summer after school got out.  He would drive 400 miles from the house on Warner Street in Ventura, to where I was in Lake County.  Then at the end of the summer, he would make the same 800 round-trip, so he could return me to the school year.  I thought all of that traveling was normal.  Because it was normal to me.  Then I got old enough to fly on a plane from Sacramento to Burbank.  And that became normal to me, too.  Then I became old enough to maintain a job and drive a car.  So, I would work one job during the school year, and then, I would drive my car 400 miles to my summer job.  And that became normal, too.  Moving was normal.  Doing different things was normal. 

During the school year I went to school and did the cheerleading thing and worked 20 hours a week at the pizza place.  Then over the summer, I went to Ventura and worked on boats.  Boats that did stuff.  It was really cool stuff.  Boats.  Kayaks.  Hiking.  THAT WAS MY JOB!!  Doing stuff on the water. But, what I remember most from those summer months are the transits.  The transits.  The 350 miles seven hours down I-5 because it was quicker and I was excited to get there.  Then three months later, the 400 miles and ten hours back up the 1 so that I could see Pt. Conception, one last time for the season.  So I could listen to Fleetwood Mac, as I drove through Big Sur.  So I could smell the vendors in Chinatown before I crossed the Gate and left summer behind, sheltered in the fog of memory.  That’s where I would forfeit boats and dolphins and breakfast burritos for textbooks and pom-poms and cheap, greasy pizza. 

Even then, I knew there was a time and a place for both.  And I never felt entirely comfortable in either place.  I rarely feel comfortable anywhere, though.  But that was the beauty of the situation.  When I became exhausted of one, I knew I could always leave for another.  I also knew that on the other side, I would be grateful for what I had.  A proverbial “grass is greener” kind of life.  By the by, I’m pretty sure that the grass is always greener adage was not derived by a gypsy.  Because when you are gypsy, you can go anywhere, anytime you want.  Therefore, you can choose the how green you want your grass to be.   I love that about the gypsy spirit.  Never bound to a well-manicured lawn or a grassy field or sandy beach.  They all have their functions, but none require commitment. 

I don’t know if I ever understood my attraction to the gypsy lifestyle.  We are socialized in a culture that has attached dozens of ugly connotations to the word “gypsy.”  Essentially, a gypsy is the antithesis of what society tells us is normative.  Gypsies don’t put down roots.  They don’t make plans.  They don't glorify money or status.  So, in this country, when we think of the word “gypsy,” we envision dirty transients who steal and seduce for survival. They can’t be trusted because they don’t value what we value.  And because of the way we are conditioned to think about success, we discredit everything that doesn’t fit our skewed definition of the word.  As a result, I have fought the desire to live with a free spirit.  It’s just not normal. 

I’m starting to realize that’s why I tried so hard, for so many years, to conform.  To try to be successful.  To live by societal norms.  Those summers that I transited the California coasts between two separate realities wasn’t normal.  Living in one place is normal.  Having a steady job is normal.  Getting married is normal.  Playing house is normal.  Gypsies don’t do those things.  So they are not normal and they are not successful.  And that friends, is how you destroy a gypsy spirit.  By stifling it.

I realized early that I wasn’t fulfilling my cultural destiny because I was comfortable with transience.  I knew that I had to get onboard with social expectations.  I got a job because that’s how you become successful.  I hated it.  I quit it.  I got married long before I should have because that’s how you establish roots.  I fought it out for 12 years.  It didn’t work.  Because I didn’t want those roots.  And before you speculate, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to be a mommy.  I did want that.  I got an education.  Because you can’t do anything without an education in this country.  It cost me 30k so I could work as medical records clerk.  I am grateful for my education, but not the demands to get one.  So, you ask, what all of this abiding by social expectations got me?  It got me unemployment.  It got me a divorce.  It got me in debt.  It made me feel like a failure.  Because those things just weren’t for me.  Now, culturally, I suck.   

In the last 16 years, I have lived at 14 different addresses.  I haven’t spent more than three consecutive birthdays at any one of them.  Until this job, I haven’t had a steady job for more than four years.  Ever.  Until I moved to Holly Heights, I never dreamed I would live more than 36 consecutive months in the same place.  And if it weren’t for my obligation to Radley and my commitment to keeping him close to his dad, I would have burned it down and gone somewhere else a long time ago.  This is my home because I make it my home.  This isn’t my home because society tells me I need to have one.  I’ve made a home at all of those other 13 addresses, too.  That’s not what makes me a gypsy, though. 

It’s the fact that I don’t feel obligated to the place I live or the stuff I have.  It’s because I feel obligated to the people I love and the places around me.  It’s because I can find beauty in where I’m at, even when I’m in the dark.  It’s because I value independence as much as I value community.  I’m not a gypsy because I don’t adhere to group-think bullshit, but because I recognize stagnation that comes with it.  I’m a gypsy because I am more comfortable by myself when everything around me doesn’t make sense.

 

-Inner Peas