Sometimes you notice a thing in Shitholes and it gets under your skin- that’s proving to be the case with ‘The Itch.’ Detailed in one of its hundreds of sidebars (each seemingly unrelated to the page’s major content) Shitholes defines ‘The Itch’ as the disease of a long-term traveler because it involves the sort of knowledge one picks up only after having traversed the same routes over and again. ‘The Itch’ is the flipside to American nostalgia- a symptom of having one’s favorites places spread across the country rather than confined to a neighborhood. My favorite burrito place is a thousand miles away from where I get my favorite pizza-by-the-slice. The natural places I turn to for quiet are always just out of reach and I always seem to come upon them in autumn, when the chill makes it difficult to stay still for long.
‘Long-haul trekkers beware of ‘The Itch,’ or, perhaps, be aware of ‘The Itch’ for ‘The Itch’ is not something that can be avoided so much as it is a thing worth understanding as inevitable. Early in a distance endeavor, there is a sense of one’s desires falling by the wayside and that absence brings about a spiritual coherence, for a time. In truth, one finds themselves searching for those same desires years later, treading and re-treading old paths in order to find them where they seemed to have landed.
‘The Itch’ is so named for its awful persistence and for its tendency to worsen the longer one indulges in scratching. Cut your nails, traveler, and grit your teeth and look back only when you believe something is following you.’
Reading between the lines, Shitholes seems to prescribe abstinence for ‘The Itch,’ a condition I am already intimately familiar with. I have kicked worse habits through feats of discipline and I have endured long years between fleeting romances. Abstinence in a realm or two is not the problem, for me, at all.
The problem has to do with all the small abstaining on the larger scale. How much will I need to give up to keep ‘The Itch’ mild? Does it mean never returning to an establishment I’ve visited before? Or does it mean never trying anything new so as not to instill further desires? I suppose I could curate my eating and drinking and even some of my recreation to national chains. One fast-food coffee is the same as another of its brand. That would keep ‘The Itch’ from spreading, I suppose, but I doubt it would quell it in the long term.
“Self-sufficiency,” I say, out loud, and the sound of my voice startles Hector. He hobbles over to see what the fuss is about, “If I could conceivably become the source of our favorite things,” I explain to him, “We would never miss a single thing.”
Hector thrives on rabbit food, clearance lettuce, and the occasional carrot. If I can continue to provide those things, he may have already seen the worst discomforts of his life. I suppose I’ll be the judge of that. Someday, hopefully not soon, Hector will be old and his discomforts will mount, again. They may, objectively, begin to approach his time in the sun room. If it comes to that, I’ll have to decide when enough is enough because, if I don’t decide, Hector will have no choice but to endure.
‘The Itch’ is a matter of endurance and I’m increasingly of the opinion that the same could be said of this project. I wonder if I will someday be considered by someone in a place to judge my tolerance for discomfort and I wonder what they will factor into their decisions about the shape of mercy as it applies to me. Will I be a testament to discipline by then? Or will I be ruined?
-traveler
