“This must be the place, this is where I’ll be.”

It’s only been a year-and-a-half since Jane moved to the beach. Upon making this move, she still hasn’t figured out if she’s left her hometown, or if she’s returned to it.

As discussed in previous writings, Jane has found refuge in various, sometimes unexpected places: her 1997 Jeep Cherokee she basically lived out of when she was 45 minutes away from her friends in high school; that boy with the nice smile; her friends’ homes; that other boy with a great laugh; her college dorm; that boy who fell in love with her; her 1999 VW Cabrio; the tiny, mini teal-colored house small as a shoebox where she and her friends stayed at the beach one summer; and that boy who’s heart she broke.

It must be recognized that at one point Jane was thrilled with renting and moving and exploring and relocating at about the same time every year, when a lease would end or when she would terminate it, losing her security deposit. But Jane is no longer simply searching for a place to crash and doesn’t just want a roof over her head – she wants to reinvest in a home of her own.

So what makes a place “home?” Is it the people that encompass it, or an associated feeling? Can someone be in love with a feeling, a place – the company that it keeps?

In Dido’s song, “Life For Rent,” she sings, “If my life is for rent, and I don’t learn to buy, then I deserve everything that I get, cause nothing I have is truly mine.” But Jane doesn’t think Dido is referring to an actual house. Instead, it sounds like “buying” means permanence, a commitment. And being a 20-something, she wants to know whether or not to buy, especially in this market.

After all the parties have been attended, the guests have been accounted for and the Open Houses have been explored, being single can feel like being open to the elements with no safe harbor from other singles and their insecurities that stem from a certain lack of return.

Jane has also learned that paying rent gives her a sense of freedom, a very long leash, frolicking from one setting to another. But it has also left her broke at the end of a year, searching for a new place, without any kind of return on investment.

But what happens when one buys? Once every year there won’t be the fresh start found in moving and redecorating. However, committing to a certain type of permanence could allow Jane to look at the same thing in a different light. She can learn to appreciate the constant, the stability, while also finding new things she’d like to tweak and improve upon. Without leaving things behind, she can take her time in seeing something brand new, if she looks for the right things.

And with this, perhaps “home” actually doesn’t have to stay put, and one doesn’t have to stay put in order to establish a home. And this is where Jane turns on her Talking Heads album to hear the words, “Home is where I want to be…but I guess I’m already there.”

Ideally speaking….

(April 23, 2010) When old friends or new acquaintances discover that Jane lives at the beach, normally their first response goes something like this, “I wish I could be a beach bum like you, sipping frozen cocktails on the beach.” These statements are made, even in the dead of winter.

There’s an old adage about people hearing only what they want to hear, no matter what the other person is telling them. It seems this wise saying goes similarly for an idea that someone has about a place, versus the actual reality. Those who don’t live at the beach year-round, who have not made Ocean City their home, more often than not develop their own skewed ideal of what it means to “live at the beach.”

According to this ideal, moving to the beach has made Jane cold-blooded, given her a higher tolerance for alcohol in order to live up to sipping cocktails every day, even on a snowcovered beach, and has earned her loads of unwarranted cash so that she never has to work again — hence, the “bum” reference.

After working a 12-hour shift in the height of the summer season, Jane remembers these farces and giggles as she drags herself into bed and rests her feet and her mind for only a few hours before beginning another workday for a consecutive sixth day without a break.

But when Jane thinks about it, these misunderstandings about living at the beach are a bit excusable. It goes back to the fact that distance from a place or situation lends to enchantment. Being able to admire something from afar allows the onlooker to create his or her own scenario, dialogue and weather — which, in this case, are constant sunny beach days.

Yet with enchantment comes a challenge, which is to get up close to something admired and not have that expectation or fantasy shattered. Disillusionment usually cannot survive close proximity. Seeing things for what they are tends to wash away the silver lining. In this sense, it’s almost like having a hangover —something that seems like a lot of fun with no strings attached.

When jumping into the mix of things, Jane is prepared to come out on the other side harboring an opinion contrary to the expectation she held going into it. To have fun, to make money, to live life in a location that exists off the beaten path, things must be given up, a different lifestyle must be chosen and priorities will be shifted.

And unfortunately, sunny days must be countered by rainy, cloudy days.

But like they say, a bad day at the beach is better than a good day anywhere else.

Mad World

(April 16, 2010) If you are what you eat, are we also byproducts of what we read or see? So what does a book someone reads or a movie someone watches say about him or her? If it’s advised not to judge a book by its cover, how about judging a person by his or her choice of entertainment material? What’s content got to do with it?

In this case, content might make Jane a young, blonde girl who can morph into a larger or smaller version of her with the subtle suggestion of a bottled liquid — which, in such a case, also makes her what she eats (or drinks). And it seems that she might, in fact, be very late for an important date.

In the new hit movie “Alice in Wonderland,” Alice is faced with typical dilemmas associated with being a young, single girl. Dilemmas like whether or not to marry the Lord, despite all the onlookers waiting for a “yes,” while Alice can’t stop focusing on the aspects of him that are undeniably unattractive.

In order to deal, Alice pops off to a little place we all know and love — Wonderland. Though a place like Wonderland doesn’t necessarily exist for Jane, she still finds herself jetting off to various rabbit holes, if not to jump down, but to merely bury her head. Instead of staying in her own little world and accepting how things are, she’s managed her own coping mechanism, figuring out how to face what’s presented to her while exploring other options altogether.

And as the story with Alice goes, such curiosity and need for exploration have their positive and negative attributes. With the endless options abounding, when should Jane know when to be satisfied? Be it with a job, a friendship or marriage, when is it a good idea to be thrilled about and accept a proposal offered her way?

Is reaching for more dissatisfaction, or simply ambition? If we know we’re happy doing one thing, do we seek to do another for further fulfillment, so that we never stop improving? Or do we seek to do something else so that others approve? Is such a search one for self-improvement, or self-approval?

For Alice and Jane, things had to go out of whack so they could get back in balance. No matter where Jane retreats to, it seems she meets the people she’s already known. Every place Jane goes, she draws in the same type of person, mirroring those she already has in her life; she faces the same type of obstacles she’s already battled. Like Alice, Jane had to step out of her comfort zone and face things in another world in order to gain another perspective to see things clearly in her own life.

It is interesting, though, that Alice did eventually leave the mad world of Wonderland, isn’t it?

WHATday FUNday?

(April 9, 2010) When you were younger, did you ever wear your “Monday” underwear on a Thursday? Sometimes Jane got mixed up, too, but other times she purposefully wore mismatching days just to jumble it up, to add an unexpected element to her ho-hum weekday. Now that she’s older, she no longer sports the weekday cladden under garments. Instead, she’s found a path that structures her life by what she has come to define as the “mixup rule.”

As an employee in the service industry, she’s come to know it’s Saturday by the traffic increase on Coastal Highway and has come to love her Monday and Tuesday nights by the free time she has to spend with friends and loved ones.

Since becoming a year-round inhabitant working at a restaurant in Ocean City during the past two years, holidays haven’t been marked by daylong celebrations with family and weekends haven’t been defined by having drinks on the other side of the bar. Jane has spent Fourth of July, Easter and New Year’s Eve with her co-workers, welcoming customers who venture into her restaurant to share celebrations with her extended resort family.

Instead of spending a few hours with Aunt Marge who pries at Jane, asking what she’s going to do when she grows up, she enjoys her holidays with likeminded friends who entertain themselves watching the restaurant patron families share in their own personal nuances.

If asked what she’s doing on a Friday night, Jane first has to recall what day it is. Upon realizing that it’s the beginning of the weekend, she knows her response is not going to be, “Leaving the office early to make happy hour.” Instead, she’ll be the one greeting the 9-to-5ers as they arrive to de-stress from a long week. On Easter morning, Jane leaves surprise peanut M&Ms for her boyfriend before she heads to work to serve Bloody Mary drinks and kids’ meals to families coming in for lunch. On Memorial Day weekend, she stocks up on a number of energy drinks, puts her head down and gets through the craziness knowing that the following week will be her holiday.

It might seem like this is a sad thing for Jane not to be with family, close friends and loved ones on important days of the year. And she admits, it certainly was an adjustment. But only until she realized that maybe she was wearing her “Monday” underwear on Christmas and that all it would take is wearing “Christmas” on a Wednesday, and maybe she could create her own type of holiday combination. And perhaps this wasn’t the literal switch of “days” that she was wearing, but more of a state of mind that she assumed.

Spring cleaning

There’s something about the smell of sawdust and drywall that makes Jane excited with anticipation. Anyone who has renovated or built a new home can attest to the characteristics associated with a new start.

Sitting on the floor of her newly tiled apartment, Jane surveys the influx state that her home is in and revels in the idea of the various options available.

As the spring season makes its way back into Ocean City, so does the feeling of beginning again. The fleeting people that comprise an “Ocean City summer” make their way back into town. Hopefuls who want to rake in hard-earned dough before returning to college or their hometown in the fall fill out job applications.

Having already spent six summers living and working at the beach since she’s been 15, Jane’s learned more than just the hard knocks associated with 12- hour workdays in a restaurant.

She can really get to know herself after working long hours, doubles and consecutive days without a break. Boundaries are explored, limits are reached and commiseration with fellow coworkers is found somewhere in between.

When working in the service industry, an alliance is formed between the restaurant workers and bartenders and an unavoidable screen placed between them and the visiting tourists.

An unspoken language exists between those in the service industry. It is easily forgotten by those who leave at summer’s end, but quickly recalled upon their return each year.

Lifelong friendships can develop after only a few weeks of meeting someone. Working with an individual day-in and day-out for five months lends to an inescapable bond found between friends who otherwise may have placed themselves in separate categories where they never would have met.

Tolerance is a newfound virtue. Tolerance of hot weather and heavy crowds. Tolerance of loud music and bad drivers. Tolerance of sore muscles as they get you through the shift, through the next day and through to the end of summer.

One of the greatest lessons Jane has come to realize is that nothing is permanent and that life works in cycles. It’s one thing to stay in one place and to never venture out, to stay in one place and to never renew. It is, in fact, another thing to exist as part of a cycle, returning to the same job each summer, or the same place each year, while still growing and advancing as an individual.

Through newfound knowledge and enriching experiences, Jane makes it a point to gut, renovate and redecorate internally as each cycle comes to an end and another begins.

One size does not fit all when it comes to making lifelong plans

(March 26, 2010) Traveling to an island far away from Ocean City, Md., gave Jane the perspective to understand that home can exist in more than one place. For a whole month, Jane’s home was in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Caribbean — depending on which part of the island she stood. Now that Jane is back in OC, she hasn’t been able to fall right back into place as easily as she’d expected.

Since she touched down in Baltimore, she has been on the move. With her OC apartment being renovated, she drove back to the beach and relocated to yet another destination, packing yet another bag. Having spent her teen years in transit, driving 45 minutes to where her friends lived, Jane is used to living out of a bag, a car or a backpack.

Things that might otherwise bother some people no longer affect her. Padded walls and bubble-wrapped situations don’t become her. And she’d venture to say the same for most people she’s met in OC, who have chosen a similar path and meet back at their shared home base to recharge.

As anyone who has been following Jane can garner, her journey isn’t about feeling safe or falling into routine. Instead of pulling down the shades at night, settling into her cushiony nest, Jane whips open the windows in the morning, calling out to the new day, beckoning, “Show me what you’ve got!”

The convergence of energy through the people who live in Ocean City stimulates her. If anyone raises the question, “So, what’s your plan?” Jane does her best to withhold laughter, tries not to explain how plans and the feeling of safety actually worry her. To feel that safe, to set up plans for the future — isn’t that the quickest way to be fooled? Isn’t that the best way to chop off your legs, despite your heart, forgetting how to stand on both feet?

And what about being afraid to be alone? Some find themselves in someone else. And where does that leave them? Simply lost within another. Without a cushion of security, Jane is tested to see who she is without all the bells and whistles. What is she without a roof over her head? What does she have if not material items that define her? She sometimes thinks she could just try these things on for size. But what if they’re worn for too long, what if the fit is too tight and she can’t take it off?

After viewing the hit 3D movie “Avatar,” Jane felt a similar revere for a world that she understands but that the majority question, just as the Na’vi feel for Pandora. Benjamin Huff puts it best in “The Tao of Pooh” when he explains, “To adequately describe the Way of the Universe in words would be insulting both to its unlimited power and to intelligent human mind to attempt to do so.”

For Jane to attempt an explanation for her life, she would only succeed in an inglorious account, told only to those who share an understanding of the unspoken, or perhaps, a language of their own.

‘Til Death Do Us Part.

(March 19, 2010) More than once and from more than one person, Jane has heard the question raised, something along the lines of, “To prepare for the future, but still enjoy life, what’s a 20- something to do?”

Taking all things into consideration, she’s dug deep and come up with a suggestion that’s in the back of most people’s minds: A bucket list.

It’s a concept that’s been tucked below the day-to-day thoughts, brought closer into the foreground after the Hollywood movie starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. In short, a bucket list is a wish list of things to do before someone dies. Usually things this important are not considered until it is almost too late, until life is no longer something that can be taken for granted.

Regarding a bucket list, and now, regarding life, Jane advises: don’t do what makes you safe. Don’t blindly go along with something day after day. Don’t stay in one place and plant your roots because that’s what we’re wired to do. Go against the natural urge to nest, take on the basic instinct to explore.

Author Chuck Palahniuk threads that same theme throughout the majority of his books, urging, “Don’t do what you want. Do what you don’t want. Do what you’re trained not to want. Do the things that scare you the most.” Disregard that wish list of items that wears the disguise of completion. Replace it with a personal bucket list filled with things that would upset you if you didn’t experience them if you were to die in one month. Or one week. Or three days.

Because every one of us will eventually die, it seems we have begun to take death for granted. But what if death wasn’t issued to us all? It’s a bit odd for Jane to think so candidly about it, but once she looks around, she sees how so many people are living like they’re half dead already. Stop beating death to the punch. Stop meeting death halfway. Even Jane falls into the trap, walking around on days sometimes half alive, as if she’s overslept in life.

Jane also recalls a time she was wideawake, having family photos done, making faces every time a photo was snapped. The rest of her family smiling, Jane entertained herself making spontaneous funny faces at the camera after each “1, 2, 3 … smile!” When the proofs came back, she knew she’d be scolded for her antics. But she also knew, even at such a young age, that it was then or never. And now, when people look back at those photos upon her demise, folks will share in her humor, understanding why she couldn’t take every little thing so seriously.

It could be because, as a 20-something, we’re right in the middle of our beginning and our end. Yet, between these two distances, we can choose our life. Discounting death trivializes how we view our life. Death is a gift that urges us to truly live. It nips at our heels, whispers in our dreams. If it’s eternal youth, not eternal life on Earth we’re seeking, set up so that each day is an adventure, an experiment in happiness.

Island State of Mind

Jane pretty much has always felt like she was in a world of her own, living under a rock, cast onto her own little island. And now that she actually is on one, she’s realized that one doesn’t just happen upon an island; it takes effort to get there. Coming upon an island is not for those who wander aimlessly. The arrival is one of deliberation.

Choosing a life on an island is not exactly about getting away. Jane doesn’t seek to wash her hands of responsibility or care. She does not seek to live law-free or without rules. In fact, she’s been introduced to a whole new system by a society that’s not so much underground as it is under constant development through forgoing a preconceived notion. One way to reset an injured bone is to break it first.

Such a social set of rules is unspoken, yet still introduced. There is a simple respect for the vagabond wandering the streets, the stray dogs or the castaway souls. These are members of the community and responsibility to take care of them falls on everyone. They are fed, given shelter, given names, given love. If one goes missing, the whole town searches and the whole town senses the loss.

Although dressed in sunshine and accessorized with warmth, survival on an island is raw. The roads have no traffic lights, there are no street lanes. Getting around is simply a compliance to move aside when someone else heads in the opposing direction. It requires a trust within oneself to do the right thing, without direction. It requires a trust within others.

The local artists and musicians echo and display the common emotion associated with sitting smack-dab in the middle of the ocean. It is spoken in neither English nor Spanish. Rather, it is the sound the waves make as they lap against the edge of the earth. It the sound of recognition that most who inhabit the island share a unique perspective supported by a universal foundation.

No matter where Jane is, who she is cannot escape her. She simply applies aspects of her own structure in new ways. Some see an underlying basis to themselves that they don’t understand and they seek to destruct it. Attack a beautiful Man-O-War though, and Jane will find that its defenses are more powerful than its outward beauty. Integrity wears many faces.

Wherever Jane goes, she must go back to where she has originally begun, although not as the same person when she first began her journey. Just as it is a purposeful venture to come onto an island, it takes effort to leave. Maybe that is because the place where she goes, she finds a home in that place. It’s an energy that connects with her, that sinks into the center of her heart and beckons her to stay. It seems the conundrum here is that in order for Jane to exist in the place she loves, in order for her to discover her roots, she first must leave.

A Little Ditty

Ever take a good, hard look at a shell that’s been removed from the ocean? When really searched for, they’re found all over. They sit on windowsills, countertops, in clusters within a glass container. They might even be glued to adorn a frame, or hang off the chain of a necklace. There is a similar feature they all share, those shells and rocks that no longer live in the ocean.

Physical challenge literally shapes what these treasures of the sea become. When removed, they no longer face the natural elements, no longer change shape, no longer break into pieces or tell a story of its journey. Sitting so lovely as decorative placement, serving as memorabilia for a trip not to be forgotten, has stunted its growth.

Pretty as they may look, these seemingly inanimate objects thrive on nourishment. Nourishment by fresh salt water, wind and tide. They change shape and texture through the movements of the ocean’s waters, the pounding of the rhythmic waves, water squishing through its porous surface. Devoid of this environment, the stones and shells of the sea dry out, showcasing a lackluster hue that is brittle to the touch.

When something is distanced from it’s natural element, it no longer sparkles the way it used to. Take animals in a zoo, and in that case, consider now people in an office. The artificial light, for one, is enough to make anyone seasonally depressed, year round. But so many people manufacture their livelihood within walls that it must be natural, right?

Only Jane can’t help but wonder if lacking adventure and settling into a routine is the natural way? Is nature reflected within the stagnant aspect of life, simply doing what is safe? Jane could sit on a shelf like a porcelain doll, without scars, without life. But those scars she has acquired through jumping off that shelf tell a story. The mistakes she makes and the lessons she learns write that story.

While some dolls simply sit right next to the seashells that have been collected, they don’t age. If wisdom comes with age and age from living life, then these dolls merely collect dust. Jane thinks it may have something to do with being stuck, and a system.

According to what Jane has observed, there exists a natural order of things. Whether or not that natural order was manipulated or contrived is open for questioning, like, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” Or, maybe the youthful playground song “First comes love, then comes marriage” explains the Feng Shui of life. But she has a sneaking suspicion that song is a bit out of tune.

Moonlighting: waxing philosophical

(Feb. 26, 2010) Wherever Jane goes, the moon seems to be her constant. It reveals itself to her in a usual way, coming out with the night and hiding most days. Sometimes, she’ll squint and see an outline of the moon from the night before, a fading silhouette of what once was a bright shining centerpiece in the sky. And if ever she cannot see its reminisce, Jane is still aware of its existence.

In a way, such blind certainty could be considered faith — a belief in something intangible. But who ever thought of someone believing in the moon? Perhaps it’s a belief in what the moon itself represents. What does it stand for? What keeps the moon up at night, thinking?

When traveling to new places, meeting new people or seeing things in a different way for the first time, it is wise to look at the base of the subject, look at the roots that spread out from beneath. Try not to look at them like a wide-eyed tourist; instead, center in on the soul. Adapting such a point of view allows Jane to recognize that certain things actually are a non-issue.

Otherwise, she might find herself seeking solace from a phantom in a looking glass, similar to the wicked witch in Snow White. When focusing on certain things that aren’t beneficial to the inner being, things like money, shiny belongings and security become magnified through a very narrow lens. With a warped reflection staring back, it can cause a skewed outlook on what being “the fairest” actually means.

Jane doesn’t want to look into a mirror at the type of person she could have been. She doesn’t want to look into the eyes of those who followed their calling and not see herself. It’s her humble belief that such people exist, to make others feel alive.

Being grounded in a higher level of interpretation should not be confused with the physical act of standing still. Rather, Jane harbors a rounded understanding of that which exists around her, ever changing as those things may be. No wonder being grounded had such a negative connotation as a child. To be locked into one place, that has to be a punishment, right?

Making her way in Ocean City leaves Jane teetering on the brink of a decision: to stay put on the path she has embarked upon, to head in the direction of security, or to continue even further into the abyss of the unstable, taking chances that place her even more outside the brink of societal norms. How far will Jane go until she has not only reached her limit, but is, in fact, satisfied?

Day to day, Jane aims to experience the unfamiliar. Through this steady motion of her existence, her perspectives will be altered, but there remains a fixed point serving as a reminder that through her journey, a center exists, if she so seeks it.