Posts tagged andrew mcmahon

Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin posted a blog on 8/29 on www.jacksmannequin.com. Read it below:

Wheels up…again

I flew home to the west coast this weekend. Orange County to be specific. And, while it is my home it is also the birthplace of a reality television nightmare. One that has often made me question humanity, as well as how close I choose to sleep to the enemy. I ran from this place more than five years ago to hide and lick my wounds, but as all prodigal sons do, I returned.

Home is a strange concept, one that I have meditated upon from a very young age. I am a true believer in being proud of where you come from. If my travels have taught me anything it’s that places, like people, are a combination of flawed and beautiful, but most are worthy of one’s time, exploration, forgiveness and defense. No place is perfect, but then again, what truly beautiful thing is?

Where I come from is no exception. Still, for every fake breast and botox injection there are infinite grains of sand for me to rest my feet upon. For every strip mall, off ramp and teenage mercedes benz driver there is a kid ditching school in pursuit of that noble, perfect wave. When I left here for Los Angeles I was feeble, injured and shaken. A worn textile with all fraying edges. I had not quit believing in myself all together, but I drifted that direction with alarming regularity.

I say these things because life should be a conversation. I say them because what I choose to project of myself is too often a fraction of my personal truth and it exhausts me. Still, I cannot deny that in losing myself I often learn more about the life I should be living and begin living it. I’d like to think I am in such a moment now. If I didn’t drift so freely and occasionally pack without my compass, this home of mine would be useless and my bones, though weary still, would be without direction. We are where we come from. Shame is useless and running is a fools errand. I am a tourist of this planet but on a cellular level I am a Southern Californian, and I am proud. I take my salt air with a pull of medical marijuana and my jammed traffic with an eyeful of faux spanish architecture. There have been countless moments in the past five years I thought I had forgotten who I was. It occurs to me now that I was simply in the process of remembering.

-A