Return of the Timeline: 2009-2013, When I Lived in Georgia, The Beginning

In the spring of 2009, after the exciting election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, my boyfriend decided he wanted to move to Georgia to manage a restaurant and winery for some of his family members. I have always been desperate for adventure, and he promised me a garden, told me he liked the way he thought when I was around, and that he would be able to add me to his health insurance plan. He also bought me an iPhone. I moved to Georgia for a garden, an iPhone, and health insurance.

I must have been quite a mess before I left everyone I knew and loved to live in a small town with a guy that had never really been the nicest person to me. Oh, he tried, but he wasn't ready for something like this, and neither was I. Looking back on things, I feel like I should have been able to see my inevitable major depressive breakdown coming from a mile away, but I didn't. And suddenly I was alone in a cabin in the woods with very little natural light, a new Netflix account, no friends that really knew me, and a workaholic boyfriend. I was teetering on the edge of a terrible realization.

I went to Dahlonega, GA on my own for the first time to scout a place for us to live. I stayed in a charming bed and breakfast with lovely hosts and enjoyed drinks and dinner at a local bar while I mulled over my housing choices. Dahlonega is possibly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. Even today, when I drive through the hills, I am overflowing with words and thoughts and feelings....all of which require a full symphony to express.

However, the other side of that coin is crowded with all sorts of different discomforts, and my least favorite has got to be the tick. I became obsessively terrified of ticks. I had been terrified of them before, found a tick in my head on the last day of camp when I was about ten years old and will never forget the sound of someone repeating, "it's digging into your head" in terror as I sat, helpless to do anything about it. Years later, I remember finding a tick on my hiking boot the summer I lived and worked in Shenandoah National Park, plucking it off with my thumb and forefinger, laying it gently on the asphalt of Skyline Drive in beautiful Virginia, and violently crushing its horrific shell with a rock from the side of the road. Ticks and Black Widow spiders. That's when I let out the rage.

That summer, we could see ticks floating down from the trees and alighting on patio decks. I could feel them gently gripping the hairs on my legs before attempting to clamp down into my flesh. I huddled in my room in the bed, bingeing 30 Rock and imagining I was hearing my phone receive multiple text messages. No one was texting, though. And if they were, I couldn't trust them. They didn't know what I was going through.

I left for Pilsen, Czech Republic to teach English in late July, eager to get back to Europe, to some form of activism, but I found myself feeling overly nostalgic for my time living overseas. I knew this would be my last visit to a different continent for a while, and I was in the middle of a major depressive break. I sat up all night on the weekends, crying and writing letters as little girl Caroline to my parents. Seriously. I think because of a chapter in the book Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, or maybe Getting the Love You Want. Also, Seriously.

During my stay in Pilsen as a teacher of English that summer, I had the rare opportunity to watch the Health Care debate in the U.S. from the outside, and let me tell you, it was not pretty. It didn't help that I was also watching the state decide my fate as a citizen from the outside, that people with whom I went to church and sat beside on Sunday mornings were addressing me personally to say things like:

"I'm sorry, Caroline, but a health care system that allows patients with pre-existing conditions just can't exist here."

Take a minute with that.

We sat together in church and heard the same sermons and stories about self sacrifice, piety, love that passes all understanding, and this is where they took it. But politics don't belong in church anyway....right?

I cried myself to sleep every night, and when I opened my eyes in the morning and realized I still had to get up and teach classes, I cried some more. The ONLY way I made it out of my door every day was with the help of the Wellbutrin a friend was sharing with me because of my debilitating depression and rejection from buying healthcare and, consequently, medication. It was not really the drug for me, but it got me to class, and it previously helped me finish my Master's thesis.

This is the life to which my fellow "Christians," my extended family, condemned me. I certainly made the best of it, didn't I?

Drinking and speaking English, pic credit Mayinka Maya

I taught an advanced all ages class and a beginner adult class. I was originally told I would be teaching intermediate adults, but when my first session "meet and greet" activities garnered horrified stone faces (I love the Czechs), I suspected that was not the case.

I cried a lot. Not because of the students...they were incredible, striving to communicate with me on the same level through shared language...that level at which adults begin to understand each other...usually over wine and beer...delicious, fresh, czech pilsner. We played guitars and sang music at pubs into the wee hours. We talked about poetry and politics, family and the future. They were so excited about Obama as was I, despite the very public battle for the fate of my well-being going on across the pond.

On the last night and at the farewell party for all teachers and students at the Summer Language Academy, after multiple shots of local clove liqueur, girlie shots of a minty beverage referred to simply as "green," and more beer than I can ever remember, a student lifted me off the ground in celebration, then, unaware of his own strength, dropped me hard on the dance floor. I landed on my feet, but one of them was twisted around backwards, and I heard a pop.

Needless to say I definitely hurt something, but the alcohol numbed the initial shock of everything, and I limped out of the hotel with a gooey smile on my face and attempted to walk back to my dorm alone. Luckily, someone was behind me that could see my struggle to walk, announced himself, and swooped in to pick me up as I apologized profusely for my own body weight.

He, another teacher, get me back to my room and offered me a few different methods of pain relief. I accepted a couple, but I had to draw the line when, after telling me how remarkably beautiful and mysterious he found me, he offered to make my night...with a loving nod to his wife. I respectfully declined.

Then, I sent an email to my boyfriend and called him on the phone to ask him to take the train into Atlanta to help me with my luggage the next day as I would be having a difficult time walking and carrying things. He said he would, but when I finally arrived after a miserably painful trip back overseas, he hadn't come to the airport to help me. When I called him to find out where he was, he got mad at me because now he was going to be late getting back to work. He had taken time off to come and pick me up and how could I not consider his job when thinking about my injury. He convinced me that I was ungrateful, and I went back to the corner of my bed, to 30 Rock, a silent phone, and no one.

That's when I had my break. My depressive breakdown. That's when I started on the long road to finding the best anti-depressant. And that was really the beginning, when I actually became a resident of Georgia.

The links throughout are blogs from my early days in Dahlonega and from the Summer Language School in Pilsen that year. Enjoy!

Nina Simone is an American and So am I (Part II)

Nina Simone came back into my life just a few years, which included an eye-openingly toxic relationship and a move to Georgia, after I returned home from England. Pandora internet radio introduced itself and destroyed Slacker Radio forever. 

I was living in an adorable little house in downtown Dahlonega (the site of the first American gold rush, I kid you not) (I’m a woman of the world) with my dog and two cats. The little house had a clawfoot bathtub, the bottom stained with red clay from my days as a full time gardener and general mud wallower, and I would fill it with hot water and epsom salt, light me some candles, and put on some Nina Simone Pandora radio. 

Because I chose not to pay for an account, my Pandora stations always had advertisements, and those sneaky advertisers are always creepin’ around on your internet searches to find out what they need to be advertisin’ to ya. If you listened to Nina Simone radio at regular intervals, like I did, you would more than likely hear this ad: “Are you a strong black woman in search of a strong black man?” 
And I always thought, I wish. 

I had never been introduced to a woman who sang with what felt like her whole body and soul. I felt embarrassed for her because of that vulnerability and the hostility it invites...or had invited into my life. 

I never really learned to stand up for myself. I don’t know if white women aren't taught to do that, or if it’s everyone, or if it was just me. Thus, I spent a lot of time trying not to rock the boat, despite my (kind of really) intense emotional relationship to, well, reality. 

I also spent a lot of time trying to keep from having a noticeable muffin top, trying to hide my psoriasis, trying to hide. Trying to live up to that khaki WASP standard. I despised my hips and my thighs. So wide. Too wide.

But black women, at least the poets (All women experience shame within the constructs of a patriarchal society. It's a form of domination, control), spoke of their bodies like a painter might paint a figure, with respect and awe. Maya Angelou uses phrases like “swing in my waist” and “ride of my breasts,” and she has that deep gravelly voice that you can feel along the hairs of your neck. She says her secret lies “in the reach of my arms, the span of my hips, the stride of my step, the curl of my lips,” and then she tells us she’s a woman, with a knowing half-smile.

In the same vein, Nina Simone, with her smokey, lovely moaning, made me feel the span of my own hips, to sit in silent awe at the ride of my own breasts, and to breathe fearlessly into the stride of my step...for a moment...in the tub. 

I want to let my body spread out as wide as the ocean. Then, what I might normally think of as my wobbly bits, become ripples on the water. I want to see my imperfections, delicately painted, like flower petals. I want to sing with my embarrassing voice, the vulnerable one, the one that sings, “take me for what I am,” without quivering. Without shame.

Everything is Copy

Everything is Copy. I don't remember who said that, but I do remember my mom saying it all the time and telling me who said it. A lot of people probably said it. It makes a lot of sense.

I walk a fine line between revealing too much and revealing too little. I occasionally forget that my blog is not my diary. It feeds my narcissism while I practice my writing skills, for what, I don't know. Or maybe I do know.

I paid a visit to a favorite bar of mine when I was in Dahlonega, GA a month ago. I sat at the bar and ordered a glass of wine and some Crack Dip. Trust me. It earned the name. Then I watched and listened. Everyone's (least) favorite street festival had just come to an end, and the tourists were slowly seeping out of the local haunts. Neighbors were huddled together in corners drinking in celebration of the coming calm. And I was deciding to quit my job.

I had arrived in North Georgia the day before, but I skipped town to avoid the festival. Instead, I drove a little further north to Raybun County to visit some good friends in a magical escape the madness cabin. I was an exhausted mess, trying to see so many people that I cared about in so little time, checking my email from work to see if I needed to look forward to any "meetings" when I got back from vacation.

I worked in that kind of environment. You know the kind. The job that you always feel like you're going to lose. Everyone is constantly talking in hushed tones about new policies being rolled out or the fact that the management was now referring to us as "subordinates" and getting fired as "being terminated." They actually used the term "termination" in regards to getting fired. I saw the movie Terminator, and I saw it's incredibly terrifying/awesome sequel (I kind of stopped there because nothing tops T1000). I know what "termination" implies.

My friends in the cabin offered me some anti-anxiety medication, and I slept like a baby. At breakfast the next morning, when I told them I had to head back that day, they were adamant. I was going to have to quit so that I could stay longer. I was also going to have to quit so that I could live longer. I figured that out...or have figured that out.

At one point, in regards to my former position, I thought, "what if I get fired before I can see my psychiatrist about getting on regular Xanax or some form of tranquilizer so that I can handle my job," which ultimately lead to the conclusion, "then I won't be working there, and I won't need a tranquilizer."

So there I was, having made the decision not to go back, the night before I was supposed to be back, sitting at this bar where I used to live. I had a few conversations with some locals that I knew, but was never very close with, one with whom I taught. He was a little drunk in celebration of the thousands of tourists exiting his very small town square after laying claim to her streets for a weekend. We talked about trying to be an artist, compromises you make, the things you never compromise, and the weight that goes with every choice you make, and before he left, he hugged me and said in my ear, "don't stop writing."

There it was. The answer to the next question. The answer that's been following me around since I learned the alphabet. The answer that I knew sitting in the back of Mrs. McCart's class writing poetry about stars and drawing pictures of my flute while she talked about Billy Bud and how to diagram sentences. The answer that I've finally figured out after a number of guys have told me, "you send me these insanely long texts with lots of words."

I have done many things and I have many things left to do. I've been to Paris, Berlin, and Rome, lived in Texas, London, and Dahlonega, Georgia. I've taught Theatre, English, and writing. I try to make people proud, try to make myself proud, fall in love, run from love, fall out of love, drown in fear, get fired, online date, make decisions about my life based on sex, delete my online dating accounts, drink wine, ride my bike, go to the gym, grow vegetables, take medication for anxiety and depression, take risks, cook, quit jobs, play with my dog, make a fool of myself, perform, make sales, make music, try to write comedy, try to write.

Everything. All of it. Is copy.

My Self-Summary

Before I had mastered the art of training my dog, he used to get out and go for these long runs about the neighborhood. I would, naturally, run after him, calling his name, taking it personally, waving off the angry looks of the neighbors around me that made up our small little town square in Dahlonega, GA where I was teaching theatre at the military college.

He always seemed to set off a pair of dogs who spent most of the daylight hours on the porch of their owner's home. They would bark furiously at us as we passed, Linus either on the leash or off, gleefully running in front of me. I often stuck my tongue out at them. I may have flipped them off once or twice.

I did so on one particular day when Linus had brushed past me and set off running as fast as he could away from the house. The dogs were barking in their little dog voices that sounded like screaming children, so I stuck my tongue out at them.

Once I had gotten Linus under control and headed back home, I heard the screen door screech open and slam closed as I passed the porch. Then, I heard a voice grunt, "I saw what you did."

Bewildered, I turned around. "You stuck your tongue out at my dogs."

I had no idea how to respond. I just apologized, ironically, and headed back towards my home. She tagged it with, "if you would keep that mangey mutt on a leash..."

At that point, the fire started burning a little hotter. I got home and watched Linus, his tail forever wagging, and his eyes forever loving. I thought, "nobody talks about MY dog like that and gets away with it."

So I went back to her house, and I stood in her yard. When she came out to meet me, I implored her to keep her dogs from yelling at me. Implore might be a bit too polite. In any case, she stuck her tongue out at me, and I began screaming nonsense at her to give her a taste of her dogs' medicine.

"You're a retard!" she gasped with a look of pure astonishment.

"Oh sure. that's right. I'M a RETARD. Nice one! That's real p.c."

"I don't care nothin bout no p.c., YOU'RE A RETARD!" She repeated.

And then I realized, this is one of those times you just walk away.  So...I walked away, laughing quietly under my breath, my heart racing with excitement.


**This is what I have written on a dating site, who's name I will not mention, as my actual self-summary. If this doesn't hook 'em, they may not be able to handle all this jelly.