I am one of the contributor’s to this issue of iLikemyStyle, a collective fashion magazine that is on its 2nd year! I’m so glad to be a part of it!
As a little girl, I grew up saying goodbye, living with a nomadic mom and a strange extended family of sorts, who moved every time the air was too still. I would change countries every time I had an existential crisis. Between the ages of 19 and 22, I ran to and from “homes” perpetually. I wanted to be borderless. I wanted to know people everywhere. I’d meet a band playing in town and leave the next day for a week and spend my nights drinking Pernod and getting lost at train stations, but I always felt slightly alone.
I’ve always believed in love at first sight. The truth is, I fell in love with the boy of my dreams when I was 17. Our eyes locked from across a crowded grocery store. He had long limbs, graceful fingers in shredded gloves, long doe eyelashes framing seeking eyes that burned themselves in my memory. I’ll never forget the day that I didn’t meet Brandon Lloyd Burkart, and I’ll always remember the time we did meet and had tea on the steps of a bus café and I couldn’t breathe for an entire hour. It took years for us to become a couple. I knew we were meant for each other, but we needed to live enough life to become perfect soul mates.
My eyes opened this morning without any sort of purpose. I trace Brandon’s features as lightly as I can with a tentative hand. He smiles; I exhale. Our room resembles a cave today. Beaded capes are maying on the golden settee at the mercy of the cats, a single boot abandoned on the floor, begging to be tripped on. Accidental altars are towering on the dresser, illuminated by votive candles burnt to the bottom, snapdragons float in a teacup besides a photo of him as a baby, sleeping n a huge black cat that looks protective and wise. I love the stripes of sunlight pouring in through the gauzy violet drapes. I love the prints of muses and courtesans that are framed and eternally watching us, their calm faces hiding a lifetime of excitement and passion.
I love our little lair, but now we’re getting ready to go on tour for a month with The Saint James Society. Into the giant white and baby blue Dodge Ram will go our boots and sequins, leathers and journals, cameras and tambourines, some big amplifiers and vintage suitcases stuffed with pedals and cables and microphones…Just the band and a writer from San Francisco named Jason Myers (The Mission, Exit Here) and everybody’s favorite mix tape.
Brandon and I moved to Texas after living in the back of an old Lincoln limousine for a couple of months. There we met David Dubois and Candice Bertalan, who were also strangers in town, just coming from California as well. Gypsy road love. For over a year together, we’ve collected skeletons of wine bottles, had our songs pressed into a record, held pow wows on the floor of our living rooms, sang in empty hotel bars, and played above hungry crowds in legendary clubs. Once again, my dreams are becoming a reality.
Sometimes I feel these invisible hands around my throat. I feel like there is smoke in my eyes, and I think about the things I don’t have. I don’t have a degree, I don’t have credit, I don’t have a driver’s license. I’ve never gone the conventional way. What matters most is what you do have: I’ve driven cars and read beautiful books. I’ve never let money get in the way of doing something I wanted. Even in fear, I’ve gone where my heart leads me, because I know that even if I made a mistake, it was just a lesson that needed to be learned.
So here we are. It’s time to pack again, to say goodbye to the calm, dark walls of our little house, to kiss the three little cat-monsters on their soft little heads, and drive through the desert, to the freeways of California, littered with dancing palm trees. I will be sitting in the front seat reading horoscopes for everyone in the van and drinking bloody marys in old dusty bars. Brandon will be barefoot and driving quietly. I don’t know what Candice and David will be doing, but Jason will be recording it all.
