There’s a blues festival in Arkansas at the beginning of October. I’m thinking of going. I printed out a Sept/Oct calendar and started to pencil in which cites I might visit and when. As I kept adding cities, and as I kept pushing back my departure date, my arrival date has gotten pushed further and further out. Under the current “plan,” I don’t arrive in California until late October or early November. Mapping it out on a calendar like this makes me feel anxious, impatient, and conflicted. I haven’t even left, and I’m ready to arrive, to settle in to a new place, to start a new life (or at least a cliched new chapter in this old life). I’ve been ready to do this for several months now. My initial target departure date was back in March/April. Back then, I took a trip out to the Bay Area to check out neighborhoods with the possibility of moving in the spring. The thought of putting it off for two more months as I travel about has me antsy and questioning how much I really want to spend a month or two on the road.
At the heart of this conflict is an internal, bare-knuckled brawl between certainty and ambiguity. For the most part, I know and can envision what’s involved in moving into a new place and settling in. I’m familiar with and enticed by that kind of newness and excitement. In some respects, it’s a form of nesting. I like nesting. On the other hand, I don’t know what’s in any of the cities or places I plan to visit, how long I’ll stay, or what I’ll do. This has hints of the long and arduous migration. I am decidedly less comfortable with not knowing where I’m going. I look at the map four times before I leave the house. Those cities and travels could be duds. Furthermore, there’s no traction in this type of wandering and there’s no certainty that “progress” will be made. Typically, journeys have destinations.
But more than not knowing where I’ll be when or if I’ll like it, I’m uncomfortable because this entire process goes against my nature. I love and appreciate spontaneity – though I prefer it to be time-bound with reasonable guardrails. I’m a controlled chaos type of person who is trying to learn how to relinquish control. I can talk a good game and say that I’m all about appreciating the journey, but I know deep down, I have a strong preference for the predictability of arrivals and settling in. I show up to events early because I want to get the minor uncertainties of directions, parking, and getting in or getting a seat over with and out of the way. I want to be on the plane and in my seat because there are too many things that could go wrong between leaving the house, walking down the jetway, and finding an open overhead bin in which to store my well-packed and regulation-sized carry-on. I have a tendency to rush relationships because I find comfort in long-term stability and don’t want to agonize through the “are we or aren’t we” phases of courtship. A mistake I’ve made in past relationships (and maybe mistake is too strong a word here) is that I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking and saying “I can’t wait to start my life with you” as if there’s some sort of magical arrival point or golden starting line in the distance. On the surface, that type of sentiment sounds sweet and sincere. I know I mean it with the best of intentions… but if I dig a little deeper, it begs the question – aren’t we living that life now? What about the present moment? A perpetual question for me is whether or not I can re-frame my thinking to enjoy the here and now without the promise of an infinite number of future here and nows?
Earlier this week, I listened to a podcast about the benefits of savoring life – of learning to bend and slow time. I started to write about it and got sidetracked (I hope to get back to it). I got sidetracked in thinking about how for much of my childhood I was taught that experience, while often a bad teacher, should almost always have a purpose and a direction; that most things in life are practice for what comes next; that you’re either getting better or getting worse. I’ve been trained to believe that we play sports to get better at the sport; we write or paint to get better at writing or painting; we visit cities or museums with the intended purpose of enriching ourselves and appreciating art or culture; we go to the grocery store to get food for the night or for the week… There is an absolute kernel of truth to all of that (the only constant is change). At the same time, it seems like that way of thinking is a limited and utilitarian view on experience. It feels strange to be at this stage in life and wondering how to let go of purpose in favor of joy. As such, I have to fight decades of training with a vigilant commitment to practicing non-judgment and non-dualistic thinking. This, I’m coming to realize is what love and freedom teaches us (or perhaps vice-versa): love of life, love of others, love of the present moment, freedom from the heavy anchor of purpose.
For me (and perhaps others), it is surprisingly hard to savor the moment without some end goal or arrival point in mind. It is hard to appreciate the here and now in the turbulent waters of ambiguity. If I’m flailing about, I desperately want to see the shoreline. I want the security of knowing that the currents won’t pull me under or send me out to sea. I want the effort of paddling to have gotten me somewhere other than just feeling tired. Through all of this, I’m trying to teach myself that learning to be present is partially about letting go, allowing the tides to move me, and recognizing joy in the sometimes murky depths of uncertainty. I can’t speak for the rest of humanity, but this type of thinking doesn’t come easy for me.
As I’ve been talking with colleagues and friends in what feels like a protracted goodbye, I’m often asked, “so now what?” or “what’s next?” I usually chuckle nervously and reply that I don’t know, or that I’m heading west – California, but who knows. I’ll say that I plan to travel around, see some things, drink coffee and beer at quaint cafes and dive bars in different cities, meet people, write, volunteer… People have told me it seems like a bold move and I’m quick to correct – or maybe stupid, it’s a fine line. Most of the people in my circles don’t do these things. They always seem to have the next job lined up, or else they have five-year plans. They are decidedly more rooted in career, geography, and/or family. As such, I don’t have any personal connections to learn from. Sure, I could re-read On the Road or some travel adventure writers, but I suspect that would only draw me back into trying to have a purpose in this process.
These minor bouts of discomfort and this surprisingly strong urge to just get on with it and move already – to get to the starting line, are why I probably need to meander across the country and challenge myself in this way. Life starts today. It starts again tomorrow – and every day after that. Life starts in State College, and Bucks County, and Charleston and Birmingham. It starts at a blues festival, and in Austin or Sedona, Kansas City or Tulsa. Life starts by greeting the sky in the morning, by acknowledging the ways the body aches, by feeding the soul’s modest and wild hungers, by feeling how fond memories turn the corners of our lips upwards and put a crinkle at the corner of our eyes.
Because the question about what comes next naturally (almost forcefully) implies that I should answer with something about my career, I’m learning to be more comfortable with the simple and unconventional truth: “I don’t know, I might go see a blues show down in Arkansas.”