Up and Away
It’s snowing big, lusty flakes here in Chicago, the kind that pad the sidewalk white and make conspicuous your trip to the corner coffee shop. From the 29th floor of this highrise apartment I can see the white lights of so many homeward bound people alone in their cars, some slow, some swerving and darting, a forever stream of eager travelers that in this city, never really ends even as the sun rises.
I’m in the place the relocation company calls my “layover,” that spot not where you started but not where you’re supposed to end up, some kind of no man’s land that begets an extra blank line on the contact form for a different phone number. I had to call them to ask what that line was for. The fact that it exists means that not everyone goes straight to their destination. The fact that I had to ask what it was for perhaps means that most people don’t use the line. And why bother? Why not go straight where you’re headed? Is there really time for the scenic route?
I guess I wonder, is there ever time not to take the scenic route, especially if you are unlikely to travel that same path again? My friends have commented that the time has gone quickly, from the moment my assignment transfer was approved to the day I bought plane tickets across the Atlantic. Uncharacteristically, I saw it as a slow chain of days advancing steadily forward, although not passing any more quickly than those deadline-free days and weeks of time past.
Time only moves faster or slower for those who wish to stay and those who are dying to leave. For once, I can’t say I fall into either category, knowing that my life in California as of late has arranged itself into a convenient and agreeable amalgam of hard work realized and fortuitous adventure, the latter of which has spilled into my lap like booty from a once parsimonious slot machine. Yet I can’t stay either, knowing that to stay because it is easy is the choice most people would make with full knowledge that it is the same choice, that when made by others, they would hold in lowest regard.
I understand too, that it is most difficult to leave when you’re winning, or at least when you believe yourself ahead of whatever you’re pursuing or whatever is chasing you. And when that happens you are most likely to run in a straight, undeviating line, the line that everyone else runs, and even when you trip and fall by the wayside, you leap back to your feet and continue running in the same direction, convinced that whatever treasures you accumulated along the way are sure to continue if you keep going that way.
Nothing says it will or won’t continue on in the same manner, but there is a good chance it will, and you’ll have the 401k, the house, the car, the marriage, and the two weeks a year to pretend you’re on vacation. I’ve run this line, more or less, over the course of my life, and to this day I don’t think it was a bad choice, even though at times it’s been numbing. As they say, we all have to make a living. It’s rather curious that the word “living,” is part of that adage, because if all they mean is “staying alive,” then yes, for some reason we feel the need to stay alive. But if they mean “living” as in “living life,” then there is a lot more to “making a living” than the showcase of expected achievements the world lists for us in bulleted format.
When people ask me why I’m moving to Europe, I ask them why they’re staying in California, and they sometimes act as if the same question posed to them has three eyes, breathes lightning, and died in childbirth. But it’s the same question. If their answer is, “Because it’s easy,” then my answer is, “Because it’s hard,” or perhaps, “Just because,” because I don’t need to give them any reason at all when they don’t have any reason for staying. Periodically I get answers like, “My parents live here,” or “My job is here,” or “I own a house here,” or “I like the weather here,” or “My boyfriend lives here,” all of which are sort-of-but-not-really answers that go into my left ear, through the bullshit translator in the middle, and out my right ear as, “Because it’s easy.” It might simply make more sense to say, “Because I don’t want to.” No one can argue with that statement or shape it into anything other than what it is.
And so, my answer for why I’m going to Europe is, “Because I want to.” If you want to come visit, or move away also, or travel the world in a hot air balloon, I hope you find the courage to do that too.
