Elsewhere

Yesterday afternoon driving up the 101 from Tempe, I look north at the traffic and the city, and I think how at that moment, in this metropolis of five million people, I am utterly alone.

Jessica is out of town for a weekend conference. Her parents--mother and step-father--are, like so many of their neighbors in their park in Mesa, off on their annual extended summer RV tour.  

With that, I am basically a man driving in a car to an apartment which will be empty, in a complex where, despite six and half years of residence, is completely unknown to all my neighbors except by vague recognition of coming up and down the stairs or to the mailbox. Even the folks who staff the complex office would not recognize me at this point.

Who would have a beer with me, this evening, if I were looking for that? Maybe one former co-worker, but his is in his twenties and already I have disappointed in trying to maintain contact with him. My current co-workers are all Indian young men, who have their own enclosed society. 

I strain to think of one person who would recognize me, who would talk to me. My dentist? Perhaps. He lives next to the woman who wrote the Twilight series books and attends the same Mormon church as her. I suppose if I too were Mormon, perhaps I wouldn't have this problem. 

I think I don't want to feel at home here. I don't want roots here. I think about this as I drive, that if I were truly by myself here I would pick up and leave as quickly as possible. I'd leave the entire state of Arizona. First I'd go down to Tucson and say goodbye to my aunt and uncle, whom I haven't seen in many years anyway.

In the past I would have felt sorry for myself, but I am not sorry for myself. I simply note it as a fact. I think, however, that most people I know would not be in the situation, almost nine years after moving here from Portland, where I still know many people who would have coffee or a beer with me.  

Where would I go? That's easy, in some ways. The same answer as ever, whenever I have found in a similar situation: elsewhere.