The Perspective of a Blackbird

Chapter 1

117 days. A new record: the longest I've occupied one place since the night I left my disapproving family. The longest I've stayed somewhere since I started running away from memories of my lost love, Stella. Congratulations Seaside, Oregon, you managed to captivate my attention the longest out of the 32 places I've now inhabited in the past 1440 days exactly.

Most of the time I try to avoid pelagic areas or anything similar because of my comprehensive fear of bodies of water. But Seaside was comforting in a way I haven't been familiar with for such a long time. Now that comfort has evaporated to boredom so it's time to begin the all too familiar process of moving again.

I don't have to bother with packing; what little belongings I have remain in my knapsack. It makes life quite a bit easier that way. I've been renting out this squared room from an elderly couple for the majority of my stay. The bedroom I live in used to belong to their granddaughter before she disappeared into the night only to need to be bailed out of jail for underage consumption and then say goodbye again. She sounds like an asshole.

I honestly don't care and wouldn't have bothered to listen if the rent wasn't only $54 a month and partially furnished. But that isn't enough for me to stay here. I put two twenties, eleven ones, and exactly three dollars in varying change on the kitchen counter along with a note reading: Here's this month's rent. I'm leaving.

They'll get over it.

I head back to my room down the hall to stuff my phone and earbuds into the jacket's pocket. This black lightweight one is expertly made and was bought for $3.57 at a Goodwill in Broussard, Louisiana. I cut the bottom half of the jacket off and reattached it with safety pins so that I can turn it into more formal wear without the extra baggage of carrying a second overcoat.

And I can use the safety pins as a weapon if necessary.

Now, where is my wallet? Scratch that, calling it a wallet is being too generous. It's simply a pencil case I got from a fourth grader after trading my shoelaces for it when I lived in Bockenheim, Frankfurt, Germany for 78 days. Honestly, those were great shoelaces. They were from a vendor at the Les Puces de Saint-Ouen flea market in Paris, France, and were decorated with rainbows.

Ah, there's my wal-, I mean pencil case, right by the keys to my rented blue 2008 Nissan Versa and on top of the overturned sand pail that serves as my bedside table. The bucket was found in a similar manner as everything else in my life: pre-owned. It's the kind of thing I usually wouldn't bother acquiring, but I had already stayed here longer than intended and was getting tired of having to bend down to the floor to get everything.

My room consists only of bedding, a mattress—both provided by the owners of this house—the knapsack now over my shoulder, and some miscellaneous items that normally spend their time in my pocket or on the floor of wherever I'm staying.

That floor varies greatly. Maybe it's the rough carpet of an Inn ranging from uncomfortable to hazardous; perhaps the cold tile of a rented-out single room; it could be the dusty floor mat of whatever car I have (although I often go without one); or even the wood paneling of a shabby apartment building I snagged by well-told lies and a deal.

Pocketing my wallet and palming my keys I exit the room flipping off the lights as I do so. As I walk down the hall for the last time I think of all the goodbyes I've had. This moment will just be stacked up with all of the others. One farewell in a group of over two dozen. It's like checking off a box from a list of one thousand. Not monumental in the grand scheme of things. At first, leaving was so difficult, but now it's the easiest thing I can do to escape the breaking of the blockade I put up to my memories.