September 15, scripting (and talking about traveling) (Patreon)

Since I would be leaving for a New York wedding at 7am on Friday, that meant I'd be spending Thursday shipping out orders, so my husband took over coloring duties for the comic again this week. He makes much bolder color choices than I do, which is always surprising to me since we're both working with the same four tones of pink. 

Can I... Will you mind if I talk about my trip a bit? 

You guys. 

What. 

I know we all say "amazing" and "incredible" and "magical" about things that are not, if we're being honest with ourselves, truly amazing or incredible or magical. But this trip was. And I don't know how to talk about it in a way that can convey its amazingness, incredibleness, and magicalness in a way that doesn't make me sound like I'm just being enthusiastic. 

The last few years my brain and heart have been shriveling up inside me from fear and anxiety and paranoia. Traveling and being around groups of people, even ones I'm friendly with, was such a terrifying prospect that I actively cut back from doing conventions and the few speaking gigs I'd agree to do, I'd cancel a few weeks later, along with outright nixing my annual cartooning workshop I teach to teenagers at the local art college each summer-- just to name a few things that come immediately to mind. The anticipation of going through with these things would make me dry heave till bile would force itself up from my stomach and out of my mouth and the convulsions from retching would make me fall on all fours, shuddering on the ground. 

That's no way to live. 

Like I said in that "I Want to Live" comic I posted a few weeks ago, I started getting help. With therapy and drugs things have slowly started to change. I've been aware the last few months have been improving, but it wasn't until I set out on this trip to New York that I realized I feel like a different person. 

A person who could travel alone. A person who could talk with her seat neighbors. A person who could feel genuinely happy to be outside and meet brand new people and draw because it just felt good to do so. 

On the plane ride from Portland to New York, I met Kirstin, a city planner, and her four-year-old son Nate, who had dinosaurs on his rain boats, a dinosaur backpack with a little dinosaur tail poking straight out of the back, and, when we were allowed to bring our tray tables down, he filled his with about a dozen different figurines of dinosaurs, which was just a sampling from the collection he had to leave at home. When I told Kirstin that I didn't mind when Nate's little socked foot would dig into my thigh as he'd nest in his seat, I really meant it. It reminded me of how Flapjack will shove his little paws into the same place when he's stretched out next to me, drooling and purring. It felt like being part of a family. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean that in the scary sense, like I MET YOU ON THIS PLANE AND NOW WE ARE FAMILY. I mean, it felt like being a little clump of human beings who are enjoying each others company and it's all very pleasant and safe. It felt like community. 

On my train ride from Penn Station to Rinecliff I met Paul, who met his wife in the traditional Isreali Jewish dancing community in New York and married her 32 years ago. Together they adopted all three of their sons from Portland, Oregon, all from the same birth mother. First she had the twin boys, twenty years ago. And then 17 years ago she contacted Paul and his wife again because she'd become pregnant again from the same man and would they want to adopt this son too? Oregon has really good adoption laws. 

At the lobby of my hotel I met Alphonso, who had either just turned 20 or was just about to, I'm not sure which. His family had relocated from central California to New York City when his parents business had gone bust during the housing crash and some relatives told them there were opportunities out east. He was supposed to finish high school in the city, but he was scared there. Metal detectors, security, and gangs, it was a culture shock from his old school, so after a year his family moved out to Rhinebeck where he finished his education and had just started college. But after a year, even with financial aid, the $7,500 semester tuition was too much so he just switched to community college, where he's working to become a police officer. He has a girlfriend and they've been together eight months, he told me proudly with the tiniest hint of an accent. 

I was going to tell you about Paula and Vince, and Sue and Michael, the two middle-aged couples who called me their "adopted daughter" after hanging out with me for less than a day and I made them promise to stay in my guest room if they ever come to Portland from their home of Ohio. 

I was going to tell you about Yané, the half-German, half-American mother and Portland Water Bureau worker who told the TSA agent that we were traveling together so we could go through security without getting split up and keep talking about American Girl dolls and sex education and Bronies and The Bechdel Test. There were more subway workers and taxi drivers and waitresses, and reconnecting with an old friend who shared her hotel room with me and oh my lord I haven't even talked about the wedding itself. 

But I think you get the idea. 

There's good people out there. Genuinely good people. People who will open up and share their life with a stranger who has a stupid haircut and keeps asking them questions so they won't stop talking till they reach their destination that's hours away. 

I couldn't have done this nine months ago. 

I couldn't have done this without the work I've put into fixing my heart and my brain. 

I had forgotten what this felt like. To explore new places and connect with people you've just met and may never see again but you'll carry their existence in your heart for years. 

Amazing. Incredible. Magical. 

So I got back Sunday night and today, Monday, I worked on the next OJST script. It's about taking naughty selfies. 

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