"backwards looking ghosts"

"When Danny and I talk about the past, about high school and Pensacola back then, it feels real. It isn’t anymore." mb

when mike & i talk about the past, for me, it's like doing a sudoku puzzle. it's a brain exercise. i don't feel like quentin compson, trying to piece together a sensible narrative out of senselessness. there are some facts that can be agreed upon(or not), there's some hazy memories that can be cleared up(or not), & there's whatever connection we may or may not have to a certain place at certain or various times. since i left florida 15 years ago, it seems to me that other places(c'ville, berkeley)have assumed the role of p'cola, meaning a place where i conduct my daily business, accumulate memories subsequently, & to which, i establish varying degrees of connection. does this make me a "where ever you hang your hat is home" realist & mike a faulknerian "backwards looking ghost" romantic?

beats me.

i suppose this has a lot to do w/our conceptions about "home."

underlying all this, i think, is the idea of the "pensacola crowd," the group of friends(more or less) who've maintained(more or less) contact since high school. i'm not surprized mike felt compelled to reflect however obliquely on this after narsai's reception for he & eka's marriage. after all, there were five p'cola folks there(w/their significant others in tow). the fact that you can get this group of very disparate(at this point) people together after x number of years & there's a relative ease in interaction seems to infuriate others who aren't "in" the group. personally, i've never really thought about it other than reflecting on how the others react, since their vehemence seems to make no sense.

but it's precisely that vehemence that allowed me to find a key to thinking about the past & the idea of "home." we know that home isn't necessarily where we're from, that it takes on metaphorical meaning, that it can be a space where memory & comfort intersect. if we've exaggerated our claims on a place(or a person), if we've behaved shamefully(re: having unresolved/unresolvable regrets), if we've lived our lives in an attempt to address(imagined or not)inadequacies of the past, we're basically embodying sartre's idea of bad faith. the bad motives undermine the narrative presented to anyone "outside" the narrative. they smell a rat. it leads to resentment. home, our place of comfort, becomes a source of ambivalence. the unreasonable &/or jealous "outsider's" behavior makes more sense.

when george had his decade of "success," he wanted so badly to get back to p'cola & show it off to everyone. his only problem was that he'd burned so many bridges when he left, he couldn't go back legally. i think he sensed that being served a subpoena during a triumphant "george is back & successful" dinner would take some of the shine off the fantasy fulfilled thing. georgie WAS bad faith but the fact remains there was his p'cola & the p'cola that awaited his return. he at least knew he never could until he resolved the difference.

i'm not necessarily saying the truth will set you free but a less than truthful approach to the past will prevent a satisfying return home. home isn't a vacuum. it's where you've settled down. there's no settling down if there are unresolved issues & anyone settling down w/us under those circumstances can't be settled either.

one of the favorite sayings from the late outrigger days was, "we all have our version of events." this sparkling, witty relativism landed me in rehab(well, in truth, it nearly killed me). while being kind of true, if enough folks line their differing versions of events up against me, it should give me pause. it's easier to deny your home than to accept it but it's stubborn existence remains. pensacola is very real. the "pensacola crowd" proves that. it's how we deal w/the both of them that makes the difference & determines how we settle down so that we might find our real & true home.