My Life on a Couch: 1st Edition
by Em Bowen
From where I sit on my borrowed couch bed right now, I can see most things I own and use on a daily basis. My life and my clothes and my books are all in paper bags. Three, to be exact, with a fourth for dirty laundry that I will clean at my Mom’s house on my way home from camping this weekend. The rest is tucked into a mix of falling apart cardboard and plastic storage bins at my Dad’s manufactured home out on acres in Sahuarita. I got it there by car. My life easily fits in my car. I just turned 27.
After a life shift—the ending of a major relationship—I decided that I’ll stop trying to land. For years of my life, if not its entirety, I’ve been looking for responsibility. For furniture. For a love in the romantic sense. For enough hangers for my dress shirts. For a “job” that pays me well enough to build something in one place. I’ve slept on people’s couches before; or their basements on a gym mat, or in a dining room with sheets for doors, in Portland, when I was 21. It was right after college and I thought “this is temporary and a 2-3 time thing.” It felt that way. But here I am again.
Holly Hall’s Famous Friend Couch. My first late morning.
When I told my friend who is a therapist in Sacramento that I was sleeping on another friend’s couch and that I had no plans to find my own place for a whole year, she said “What an interesting journey. You should write about it.” I guess, in its own way, or in a way I had not yet considered—it is a a journey. Even it if it feels sort of cyclical.
A hipster couch in the PNW.
Where I am now is like the drier, more southwestern version of the same place I was at 21. Drier in many a sense. And that’s all an oversimplification. I’m not who I was then. For one, I’m not trying to be anywhere else and time feels shorter now. Like I no longer want to puzzle over things I never said out loud. I’d just rather say them. That’s vague. Home is inside me? Too cliche. The truth is that I’m still trying to understand what it means to lean on people and maybe for the first time acknowledging that it’s okay to do so.
Don't Forget the Margins 
I always enjoy your writing. Good luck on your adventure!
Thanks Dylan! I still have a job and some sense of something going on in my life but I do plan on adventuring!
Yes!!!!!!!!
❤
Hey Em,
I was going to write a whole inspiring thingy about how strong you are and whatnot, but halfway through I deleted it. You don’t need me to tell you who you are, you know that. But what you do need is the good literary fairy godmother poet Lucille Clifton to give you a blessing.
During a very rocky transitional period in my own life, her poetry did for me what I wouldn’t let anybody else (including myself) do. It forgave me, it mothered me, and I will give you this poem that made so much difference to me then. I hope that it helps you too.
Jess
Blessing The Boats
Lucille Clifton
may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that
A gift of words. I can’t think of anything better. I’m so thankful for you.
I love this! Also 27, someone (one of my bar patrons) recently asked me “you must be married, own a house?” That’s actually the furthest from the truth. In reflection I wondered how at 27 I’m living in a tiny guest house, my beat up bed in the living room, with my daughter’s things in our one and only bedroom. Our space fits in most living rooms.
Despite the questions from said patron, I feel most at peace with where I am. Truly and deeply happy. I’m almost sad for this patron who (like many if us) define ourselves by what we have.
Thank you for sharing Em!
I think late 20s is the new…early twenties? And yes, I think the biggest thing for me is not telling stories about where I am in life. I’m not in a regression. That’s impossible! Life is so much better now, even when it’s hard.
Breaks me…….. These words
I’m thinking el gatito looks like he’s in ecstasy so you must be doing something right. Seriously – look at that face! A friend’s hipster couch and all you’re lovin’. Good job.