Matt (Liz’ boyfriend) said to me the other day, "what are you runnin' from, girl?" I feel very bland. Milk toast. I wonder what this resistance is in me? In any case, it’s making my normal excitement period for travel turn into sheer dread because I feel so utterly uninspired by what I’m about to embark on. Will that change the minute I’m out of my comfort zone? Dear god I hope so. In part, this trip is a prayer to god to help me remember what it is I love and to remind me to feel something. I feel like my emotions are so dulled.
But I make choices and I hope I can stick by them; see them through so I can look back and say, “Yeah, see, my intuition was working fine. I knew what I needed to do.” This is the dream now. To say those words a months time from now. I need a serious bootcamp out of complacency. So I am doing the only thing I can think to do. Walk. Think. Be a little uncomfortable. Have panic attacks. And then get through them. Get on the other side of them.
Matt said I could get everything without leaving here. But. I need other things Portland can’t always give me. Portland gives me kindness, and PBR, and naps in the park, and people in Northface jackets signaling for me to go first and good decency and comfort. Lovely trees that strike my imagination. But I don’t want to slip into its pocket forever. I want to leave so I can miss it. I also want to get off wifi and pray. Pray for a country I’m afraid for—and pray for a relationship back to god whom I’ve lost somewhere along the way. I can feel myself going doughy in both mind and body. I can feel my initial anger towards trump and everything he signifies happening in this country, turn old and turn over, ready to forget and numb out. Some little spark in me is so resistant to that happening! It wants me to stay “woke” as they say, and not go into the bunker. It wants me to feel and cry and not go easily from one day to the next. Maybe why I do travel so much. This little fire keeps calling to me. But I too am fascinated by how it confuses people. I wonder if they are right? Am I always running away? Will I ever be okay? Settled? Able to be in one place—sticking it out, and making a life, the way others do?
The questions make me second-guess myself. But then I get a moment of peace and clarity, saying: “don’t second guess it. You know what is right for you, otherwise you wouldn’t do it. You already know. Trust in it, and grow a backbone to stand by it. Stand by it! Even if you are wrong—if you stand by it, it won’t even matter. Because at least you had conviction.”
Letting go is so painful. But. It can be done. And when something inside you says small and quiet, “now it is time to let this thing (this time) this place go”, well, then I guess you let go without being so precious about it. Without fawning over your sorrow too much, and look anew with positivity and hope and conviction that something better lie ahead. Something with your name on it. A return to god. And a return to feeling inspired. A return to yourself. A new one that you have not met yet. And yet, now it is time to meet her. The wait has been long enough. And the lessons you’ve learned here in this year have been sufficient. Now we look to the new horizon and like they say in the airport walk-way conveyer belts:
“Face direction of travel.”
In honor of my mom who told me recently to dream something bigger and to believe in it, I’ll believe these things:
That I will have a good trip.
That I will be inspired again.
That I will meet wonderful people who loves others and remind me what people can be.
That I will have made the right decision to even go in the first place. (despite being afraid).
That I will find what it is I love, and let it overcome me.
That I will find peace, and a kind of home.
That I will have turned the page of a new chapter, without self-doubt.
That I will drink sangria in a courtyard late at night, listening to crickets.
That I'll skinny dip in the Portugal sea feeling more alive than ever (the way I used to in Cornwall).
That I will spend a whole day without going on the computer--free from the news. (God, the miserable news).
That I will learn how to see things again, without it interspersed with looking down at a screen.
That a lizard darting across a rock will soothe, interest and hold my attention far more than the headlines of the NY Times. And I will. I will be thankful I came. Thankful I dealt with the fear and worry, and rather than let it sway me, sticking through it—holding fast. Patience. And smallness. Tenderness toward others. Toward myself.
That I'll skinny dip in the Portugal sea feeling more alive than ever (the way I used to in Cornwall).
That I will spend a whole day without going on the computer--free from the news. (God, the miserable news).
That I will learn how to see things again, without it interspersed with looking down at a screen.
That a lizard darting across a rock will soothe, interest and hold my attention far more than the headlines of the NY Times. And I will. I will be thankful I came. Thankful I dealt with the fear and worry, and rather than let it sway me, sticking through it—holding fast. Patience. And smallness. Tenderness toward others. Toward myself.
Shaky tenderness toward even my anger, (maybe...)
I remember when I lived in the French monastery. The only song that truly stuck with me:
Stay with me, remain here with me,
Watch and Pray,
Watch and Pray...
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