A Lovely Dream: August 2009

Gypsies.

There are no Gypsy Wagons in Jersey, and up until a month ago I had never seen or knew they existed. There aren't many people from Romania there either, or at least, like all good stereotypes, the ones I knew read my cards for 10 bucks and told me for 900 they could get rid of the demons attached to my spirit. That was Gypsy to me. The few women that ran that place on Woodbridge Ave in Edison who told me a Girl with Red hair put a spell on me. I kept my money, and my curse, and that is what I know of Gypsies.

A month ago I saw my first Gypsy wagon. It was a poetic interpretation of one, online, and with which I fell in love and promptly went and bought the closest thing I could find to it so I could paint it and decorate it and live in such a place. That is where I am now, in my dining room, in my wagon, sketchbook in front of me, figuring out and designing my plans, trying to live in a myth.

But there are GYPSIES! (Who knew?) Certainly not this little white girl from suburbia who scant leaves the house. And so just the other day Madonna has an argument with her audience about discrimination against who? Those mythical creatures, the Gypsies!

I only now realize they are real, slightly more real than fairies (those beautiful goddesses living in Dutchyland with that fairy talk. Finland too), and very much more real than Vampire Bill who, in recent days, has become the person (however imaginary) I spend my time with most. So now I'm prompted to do research, my dear chickies, cause its kind of interesting. Gypsies do not assimilate into the modern world. They do not want to stake out ground and be in one place where they can be kept an eye on. Wikipedia defines them as: persons of nomadic habit of life and does not restrict them to Romany. (Hey, that's me!)

What's with not liking people On The Road? Why this need to keep people in one place? Im sure with Gypsies it has something to do with sanitation, although I haven't looked into it at all yet, Im sure that's it. Without an address its hard to prove whether your kid is being schooled. No one to account to if you are beating them or keeping conditions hospitable. I know there is racism in there but underneath everything is fear, and some of it, even though I am most liberal minded, is valid. Gypsies in moving slums is not the same as a caravan of poetic expression, 40 foot with air conditioning and a little white dog. I have a social security number and an address. I can be found. I am an accountable traveler, that is the difference. But with whats going on over there, putting my two cents in briefly, considering Im sure the long years of discrimination against them, its old against the new and neither side wants to give. I dont know why the Gypsies in europe live in slums. Why they have no money. I will find out.