People are always calling me a Free Spirit. I\u2019d like to think it\u2019s because I remind them of one of those Kabbalah types, the women with the rolled-up rubber mats tucked under their armpits, running errands in stretchy pants.<\/p>\n
Fact is, I just look like Drew Berrymore, but with eczema. And, I like to steal.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
I first heard the term as a pre-teen. My parents forced me to spend my summer out in The Country, picking crabapples and kicking dirt with Aunt Millie, after they found some poor sap\u2019s billfold in the wash. Picked clean, save his State ID.<\/p>\n
Courtney, I think his name was.<\/p>\n
Anyway, we went into town to do volunteer work. There were rows of guys in empty stainless-steel tubs, veterans of the foreign wars America won. We were supposed to sponge-bathe them. I just wanted to play Tetris, told Aunt Millie as much.<\/p>\n
My guy\u2019s wife was still alive, seated on a folding chair next to his tub. She looked Hawaiian.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one\u2019s a Free Spirit,\u201d she said to Aunt Millie. \u201cShe\u2019ll land wherever the wind takes her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a little cunt, is what she is.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
I did a week in County once, for lifting bus passes with the intent to distribute. I wasn\u2019t going to sell them to anyone. I just needed rides home from malls I had no business being in, the ones where even the Lanc\u00f4me counter girls have their Master\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The ones with the best shit.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t awful, my incarceration. I had the top bunk and my cellmate only talked to herself, and in Polish. I read a book from beginning to end, a memoir about the author\u2019s mentor\/apprentice relationship with a toner cartridge salesman. The guy never let on that he was a terminal case and the apprentice ended up finding him dead on the stock room floor, ink everywhere.<\/p>\n
The lady that processed my release papers was nice, too. She envied my nail beds, told me that they belonged in a Marie Claire. She even snuck me a lemon bar while I waited for another admin to get my street clothes.<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations,\u201d she said. \u201cSoon, you\u2019ll be a free woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
I told her about my Free Spirit, how there wasn\u2019t a space for it anywhere on the forms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I suppose that\u2019s the sort of thing that\u2019s between you and your maker.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Sandeep is sweet to indulge me. He runs the Speedway by my house and he knows I don\u2019t mean anything by it. The petty theft, that is. He smiles when I walk through the sliding doors and, every time, I\u2019m convinced he has the whitest teeth in human recorded history.<\/p>\n
When I pay for my gas, I\u2019m careful to throw in some extras every now and again. A quart of milk here, a Sudoku book there. That way, I don\u2019t fret about the conditioner in my coat sleeve, or the nylons in my gym bag. Times are lean, and I don\u2019t mean to add to his overhead.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all about balance.<\/p>\n
I bought Kit Kats once, only to discover they\u2019re Sandeep\u2019s favorite. He held the package up like a magician who just found the Jack of Clubs in your breast pocket before he checked me out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are Kindred Spirits, you and I,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t mention my Free Spirit. I figured that, if what he said was true, he already knew.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Boyfriends tend to believe that Free Spirits make the best lovers. They read online interviews with famous martial artists, hear all about their recent Canadian trysts, and they get ideas. Positions they want to try, potions they want to invest in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought you were a Free Spirit,\u201d they say. Then they bend your knees back behind your ears until you swear you hear your menisci tear. Then they look real disappointed when you suggest you keep things simple, that the Velcro and the pomegranates are really unnecessary.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t understand that, sometimes, we just want warm skin, breath that doesn\u2019t smell like bruschetta. They don\u2019t understand that, sometimes, Free Spirits prefer an empty bed.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
The hardest part about being a Free Spirit is the movement. We\u2019re constantly on the go, tailing our dreams and dodging Service of Process, and this can be both tiresome and lonely. It\u2019s not the sort of thing Dramamine can quell because, believe me, I\u2019ve pocketed a few boxes from Rite-Aid in my time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not without its upside, though. Free Spirits get to lay out maps on picnic tables, pick towns with funny names to hole up in while things blow over. We get to throw horseshoes with tacquer\u00eda owners, arm-wrestle piano tuners, before and after we comb through their luggage. We\u2019re governed only by our own desires and, occasionally, the laws of the Continental Forty-Eight.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll leave the pros and cons for the experts, the high school debate team members with their sights set on Dartmouth. Free Sprits aren\u2019t exactly interested in crunching the spreadsheets or manipulating the wheel, in case you haven\u2019t heard.<\/p>\n
No, we prefer to navigate this life unencumbered, casing your snowmobile repair shop for weeks, maybe months, just to get a feel for your schedule so we can swipe your Garmin during your lunch break.<\/p>\n
***
<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Thomas Mundt<\/strong> is the author of one short story collection, You Have Until Noon to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe<\/em> (Lady Lazarus Press, 2011), and the father of one human boy, Henry (2011). Teambuilding opportunities and risk management advice can be found at www.dontdissthewizard.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People are always calling me a Free Spirit. I\u2019d like to think it\u2019s because I remind them of one of those Kabbalah types, the women with the rolled-up rubber mats tucked under their armpits, running errands in stretchy pants. Fact<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[22185],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2266,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions\/2266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}