a trail of bread crumbs

A month or so before I moved from San Diego to San Luis Obispo I went to the post office and completed a ‘change of address’ form. Additionally, I verified it on-line, as directed. I also went back to the post office and had it confirmed that I’d crossed T’s and dotted I’s and things were set.

That was three and a half months ago and I have yet to receive a forwarded piece of mail from back there on W. Upas Street. I mean, I know I don’t get a lot of mail, being a loner, gypsy, wandering, bedouin kind of person. But not one piece? And I recently repeated following the directions on the post office box, in my move from Broad to S Higuera streets here in SLO. Ditto – no mail.

Now, hop into the time machine and it’s September 1982 and I am crashing in a back room in Nicky and Heather’s graduate student housing at the University of California Irvine. Drinking Hamm’s and Olympia, stealing and smoking their pot, paying no rent. I’ve had nothing forwarded from anywhere, cause why would I? And one afternoon the telephone rings and I’m the only one there and I pick it up to take a message for one of them, and on the line is the State of Massachusetts asking for me, because there’s this issue of unpaid student loans they’d like to talk about.

People can find you. The post office can find me, especially since I’ve gone out of my way to tell them where I am. I guess maybe some – and quite possibly most – of the time, I don’t get it. Forwarded mail – or understanding.