"I am a camera with its shutter open..."

April 12, 2002 | 5:26 PM

To All The Homes I've Loved Before (Part 49)

This is part Forty-Nine of the entries about all the apartments in which I�ve lived since moving back to Boston

8B) ## Harvard Ave

Once upon a time when I was 16, I went on my very first acid trip.

It was New Years Eve In Rochester NY and Heidi, Katie, and I rented a $30.00 motel room. We dosed liquid sunshine, a potent form of LSD and the three of us were transported to another planet. It was magical in the cliche manner that all great acid trips are magical. We played in the snow. We danced with candles and dripped wax on each other�s bodies. We writhed and revelled and wrote poetry and crayoned. We said things that didn�t make sense, but boy did we ever mean them at the time.

A clarity of purpose and divine understanding enveloped me. I wasn�t afraid of anything.

And then I came down.

I wanted to die.

Because I realized that nothing had actually changed. I had only caught a glimpse of what life could feel like when lived so fully and intensely. But I was unable to embrace it, unable to build upon it. And this sent me into a depressive tailspin lasting several months.

I attempted to re-create that moment of acid lucidity again and again in different ways�with and without the aid of drugs. But it wouldn�t work. I had become stuck. Fixated like Narcissus on the frozen reflection of my fleeting holy realization. I wouldn�t allow the moment to wash over me like rain and then just naturally go on to the next thing. I tried to re-run the reverie again and again like an old film strip on a loop.

Each moment lives and dies at once and zeroing in on one point in time or one specific epiphany induces apathy and even psychosis.

This particular moment, that of the eye opening acid trip, was dead. And ironically, the very act of searching it out again and again, pantomiming it into parodies of itself, prevented any real organic shift in my own consciousness. All personal growth ceased as a result.

Moving to Harvard Ave was sort of like that.

Once we unpack all our things, once we survey the neighborhood, once we cram all the junk into closets and cover up holes in the walls, it doesn�t take long for me to come down hard.

I hadn�t learned that when you move, you don�t leave anything behind. You bring your whole life with you. In the Autumn of 2000, I carry a lot of baggage to my new home. Hiding inconspicuously amongst my boxes of books and record crates, are all the delusions I�ve collected over the past few years.

I am under the delusion that somehow once we move, working at The Stupid Company will be far less painful.

I am under the delusion that my ambivalence re Angus will sort itself out magically. That all of the longings and misunderstandings and hurt feelings will be alchemized into a banal buddy-dom.

I am under the delusion that John will find me more attractive and will be more committed to our relationship once we play house in a different locale.

I am under the delusion that John will leave the Stupid Company. Obviously, he has only been saying this lately to placate me, and anyone with half a brain would realize it. Besides, his track record for keeping big promises is frightfully poor. But I believe it because it�s what I want to believe.

I am under the delusion that it is OK and normal to be so caught up in someone else�s life; I am under the delusion that control has anything to do with love. I am under the delusion that if you love someone enough and put enough energy into that person, he will reward you by following through on all of the potential that drew you to him in the first place.

I am under the delusion that the mere existence of potential means a fucking thing.

I am under the delusion that all of the rage, resentment, and fear I have built up against John will melt away into the rapture of newly found domestic bliss.

(After all, doesn�t hanging pictures and figuring out how to assemble futons together provide the necessary bonding experience to facilitate intimacy in even the most divided of couples?)

I am under the delusion that I will stop being afraid.

I am under the delusion that I will stop hating myself.

I am under the delusion that this�this job, this relationship, these friends�are what I want from life. I will make myself want it. What else is there? I cannot imagine anything besides what exists now other than the chaotic vagabond hell preceding my current reality.

I have lost my imagination.

I am under the delusion that all I need to be happy is four new walls and a new zip code.

For the past couple of years I �ve attempted to re-create the sense of accomplishment and unbridled ecstasy I felt when I finally got a promotion and became un-homeless, and the comfortable joy I experienced during that subsequent year when John and I were so in love..

When things stagnated after John graduated from college, I fixated on the idea of moving, of perfecting my living situation as a magic spell to negate passivity and induce change.

After all, it worked that one time, right?

The new apartment reverie lasts a week or two.

And then.

And then

And then.

And then comes the rest.

(Cue bomb exploding.)

(Cue mushroom cloud.)

(Cue silence.)

Stay Tuned For Part The Fiftieth...