Alligator State of Mind

When my employer shut down its headquarters in Manhattan and announced a company relocation to Florida - my heart left my body.

Leaving the city of my dreams for a town suffocated by hedges was an impossible decision. My gut said don’t go … but I had an infant. Who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? 

What I wouldn’t do to see that gift horse today. Not only would I look him in the mouth but I’d punch him in the teeth.

I feel ill in the suburbs. Feverish. 

It’s overly quiet. Unreasonably clean. Fearfully safe. 

A few years have passed since we moved to the twilight zone. I’m on the PTA and host themed birthday parties. What’s next - ballet flats? Nothing against ballet flats except that my body rejects them like a poison.

I’ve become Shelby, the well adjusted, straight-A student I was plagued by in the 3rd grade. She wore penny loafers.

I can smell New York City from here and nostalgia brings me to my knees. From down on all fours, I slip into a dream. 

I’m crawling north through Florida’s 4700 native plants all the way up to Georgia. From there, I scale the Blue Ridge Mountains, dive the Delaware River, kayak a secret canal to the Hudson River, and front crawl to the Christopher Street Pier where I make an amphibious landing and continue on foot to my old apartment as if I never left.

Or I could just book a flight. But it’s not that easy.

Sometimes it feels like I am in-between the entrance and the exit of someone else’s life.

What is it called when you aren’t lost but you aren’t found? 

A few months ago, in a trance, I pushed my desk into my closet - a long, narrow space lit by a single strand of twinkle lights - and for the first time in years - I found myself writing.

They say being in a liminal state is linked with creativity and can become the place where great ideas are born. 

My closet isn’t a closet after all. It’s a tunnel with a light at the end of it.

I am not stuck anymore. These words have set me free.