Movin' on Up?

To the big time, perhaps

1 February 2001

I have Shawn Mullins on repeat and a bag full of Kisses. I am a happy girl. 

~Everywhere I go, you know, I take you with me, sweet darling.~ 

I don't want to travel down this road any more, but it keeps popping into my head. I want to move. Far away. Maybe Austin. Maybe California. Maybe Atlanta. Maybe DC, although that's not far. I just can't see myself living here forever, and I don't want to. It's not fair to me. 

Lately I've just been missing Texas something fierce. I don't know what prompted it. Maybe it was hanging around Allison and AB.  While neither of them are natives,  at least they live there.  I don't know. Knowing that they were getting on a plane and landing where my heart is, and I had to come back to the Heart of It All. All what, exactly? Snow? Flat lands? Mid-size everything? Where's all the BIG stuff? The Texas-sized stuff? Not here. 

And I miss my daddy. Is that silly? I just think of him all alone in that great big state and it breaks my heart. 

And I don't hate Ohio. I don't. My roots are here. My family is here. I connect with the land, but I can't deny the fact that staying here is just forcing it. 

And of course, now that I decide this, work chooses to become great again. 

Timing! 

It's always timing. 

And there are things I just don't get here. Here in Ohio. In the Midwest. There's no music like Shelby Lynne, Shawn Mullins or Cowboy Mouth growing in Cowtown. And that doesn't even matter, really. It's not like I want to pack my bags, move to Nashville and get discovered at the Bluebird. 

Even if I do dream about it. 

But I'm satisfied with karaoke and car stardom. No paparazzi that way. Although I do have a fan. 

One night at Keegan's, this guy kept staring at me, and since he looked familiar, I asked him if he went to Miami. He was like, "Yeah, actually I did, but that's not how I know you." 

So I'm thinking, great, did I hook up with him? 

"I know you from karaoke at BW3s. You're Hannah and you sing like an angel." (Okay, about the last thing I sound like is an angel. Maybe a drunk, loud fallen one, but not a haloed wing-ed one, I assure you.) 

"Quit your day job," he tells me. Ah, my fan. Full of advice he is. 

I miss 75 degree January days. I miss a big city. I miss the heat, lord help me, I do. I miss having tons of stuff to do, all the time, everywhere around you. Granted, I grew up in the 'burbs, but still it was there.  I live in downtown Columbus. You don't really get much more urban than where I live, not including ghetto.  I'm surrounded by everything there is to do, and it ain't much. Ugh. I don't know. 

And what I miss isn't even something you can put your finger on.  It's just that Texas thang that I haven't felt or experienced in a long ass time.

Why do I have to have such a great job? (Wah, poor me, I know.) And I know jags in L.A. that could hook me up, work-wise.  But, do I really want to move to California? That's a gazillion miles and lifestyles away. But M's happy there, and he's the most home-grown Chicago boy I know.  Yet he's right there in his element. 

I could do it too. But do I want to? Do I want to be thousands of miles and three time zones away from my momma? 

In 1965 my parents loaded everything they had into Daddy's Beetle and drove out West. Mom said she had to prop her feet up on boxes and carry Sugar on her lap. Broke and young they made a little home in Utah. At 22 years old. He went to grad school and she waited tables, and they both talk about those days with shiny happy faces. In fact, those are the only married days my dad talks about with joy.

So I'm back to this place. And I'm confused.  I just want to make sure I'm not running away from something. I want to be moving towards it.

~When we run, we lose our way. We run so hard. Why don't we stay. And I don't know, where we will go, to find our way.~