Have I ever felt trapped?

Drawing on Coleridge for this question is so appropriate because in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" it seems that so much of what the characters suffer springs from feelings of guilt and compulsion. I've felt trapped in both literal and metaphorical ways: literally because of finances, family obligations, and--most often--a simple lack of knowledge and intellectual and/or emotional resources; metaphorically because of guilt and fear. Most of the time, I feel trapped by myself. I feel like I don't have the keys to access certain possibilities. And I never stop second guessing myself. And like the Mariner, I often find myself compelled to inflict my doubts on the poor, unsuspecting innocents around me.

Hmmm...I sense that this could easily turn into another one of those moments of self-pitying self-confession. So I think I'm going to switch prompts mid-blog. (How's that for a grand escape?)

So revisiting Tuesday's in-class freewrite:

My Grand Antarctic--er, make that Pullman--Adventures

The most foreign environment I've ever visited is probably--ironically enough--Pullman, Washington. But I should qualify this with "in comparison to where I was accustomed to being."

For me, Las Vegas has been home for over twenty years; it's the town where I came of age and where almost every horrible, agonizing, happy, wonderful thing has happened to me. There are also so many things I took for granted while living there: 24-hour grocery & even department store shopping; movie theaters with twenty screens; 112 degree heat three to four months of the year; lots of sun; lots of places to eat; lots of entertainment; all the places my kids and I haunted from the time they were born; and the ones I haunted even before that from the time I moved there when I was fifteen oh so many years ago (like the high school I dropped out of and the university where I made my way back up).

Then I moved to Pullman.

When I first moved here, despite missing all of the above, the biggest shock was the cold. Even though I moved in at the beginning of June, I felt cold all the time. And it rained and rained (and rained) until I felt like I'd never see the sun again. And even though July brought an end to the rain, it remained chilly (again, only by comparison to what I'd known for the last 20-something years, of course) so that I felt about ready NOT to start classes but to go into hibernation by the time September hit. I imagine the bodies of those Antarctic explorers must have felt a hundred times more out of wack than mine did--especially dependent as they were on a sun that never stood quite where it should (i.e. where they were used to seeing it) in the sky.

But gradually I've become acclimatized--though, admittedly, only after inflicting a year of whining about the weather on anyone and everyone who would listen. Sorry, guys.

One thing I haven't become accustomed to is the quiet and the darkness. I intentionally rented off of College Hill, thinking that I didn't want to be around all the undergrad partying, and, for the most part, this was a good decision. I've come to appreciate the chirping of crickets and birds. However, although I don't really miss the noise of cars and helicopters and people shouting and the occasional gunshot at all hours of the night, I do feel lonelier somehow and isolated here--especially when it's dark out. During the day, there are all sorts of people walking dogs and such, but at night, if I take a walk around the block or down the street, I might not see anyone the entire time I'm out there.

And the dark! Oh gee, sometimes I long for the glitter of the Strip or the glaring bright lights of the corner gas stations. At the same time, I have to admit that the stars haven't been this lovely to me in years. When I look at the sky, I'm not seeing it through a haze of smog and city lights. Again, I guess in a very distant way, I can compare my experience with those Antarctic explorers.

What I miss most about Vegas: