begin again

14 January 2008 - BEGIN AGAIN

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I'm rarely satisfied.

I've changed that line nearly ten times.

I still don't like it.

Ever since I was a kid I've had this need to alter my surroundings. I moved the furniture, wall hangings, and miscellanea of my youth around so frequently I can hardly remember any given layout of any of my bedrooms at the time.

On a smaller level I often come up with new rules for games, conceive of inventions I never write down, and any number of other things. I can't seem to settle for my world the way it is. Somewhere else always seems to hold the key to my longings.

Wanderlust smacks me in the face, but is unaffordable.

Looking at the bare walls of the cardboard cut-out condo for four long years hit hard a number of months back, beckoning me into an introspective bout of what I now refer to as paint therapy. It is astounding what a couple cans of paint and a deep personal exploration can do for a person. Unfortunately when the paint dries and your perspective becomes equipped with more clarity, those same surroundings become little more than a new version of the same prison.

It seemed inevitable that a real change had to come.

And it did.

Even if it was merely across town.

The character and aesthetic appeal that was lacking before has been replaced with an aged charm and walls that have every reason to talk. Even the well-maintained wood floors would hide the beating heart of a Poe character if only they could.

It's not New York.

It's not London.

It's not a lot of places, but it's a short walk from our downtown. A step out the front door does not offer a parking lot. The neighbors look you in the eye. There's a peculiar sense of community that is foreign to me on a number of levels.

This too will change.

I know the novelty will wear off, but the new reality and personal change that this welcomes and allows will be what matters as time goes by.

-2008-

-2010-

It is now two years later.

This afternoon I sat on the porch that this door opens up to and thought about the view, at times achingly suburban, at times soothingly serene, and now one I feel inclined to etch into my memory.

I have found myself again seeking change.

The above words really expressed a lot of peace and clarity for where I was in early 2008, however, I now see them as recognition of a need for a much more drastic change in my life. I believe I am cycling through that change right now.

So, I sat on the porch, musing, soaking up the environs, realizing more fully how my sense of home or anything familiar will be altered when I move. Sometimes we grow quite partial to certain types of elements in our life, rituals that keep us comfortably predictable, and key expectations for the way things flow. As I have been stumbling along the new terrain that is the psychological and emotional transition towards whatever is next, I have held a hyper-awareness toward the trappings of sameness, routine, and one's hard wired patterns.

Starting over. Beginning again. These are concepts that leave the world open to all possibilities. This is hardly the time to feel limited and constrained. Pack some bags full of the best of the past and move forward down the road. It seems not to matter the destination, so long as you're headed . . . somewhere else.

in flux

To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one's self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived... this is to have succeeded
-often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have had an attractively scripted version of that quote sitting prominently in my ever-changing office space for the last eight or so years. I think it's scrolled on the back of a lonely box lid removed from a small boxed collection of blank note cards, but I don't really recall. With all of the change occurring in myself and my life right now, I found myself pondering it a little bit longer as I was starting the process of boxing up my collected life into what turns out to be predominantly empty liquor boxes.

A major chapter in my life has ceased and I am currently segueing to whatever is next. There were times along the way that packing up only the 'house burning down' treasures and necessities seemed the way to go, but the clock's ticking has slowed its cadence some. Life throws so many logistics and formalities into the mix such that moving on to what's next tends to be sluggish at best, even as one's emotional and psychological state rushes many miles ahead. I'm running, I'm running - catch up with me life, goes an unexpectedly apropos verse from Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird".

In times like these I find myself hearing kernels of useful information, guidance, and advisement all around, especially now since I am feeling much more attuned and aware of the present moment. I like to bat around the term synchronicity. Lately things have gotten to the point that I feel this single month of drastic change has felt like a far longer stretch. There is a new intoxication in being alive that I didn't expect. I know the whole sea change and novelty scenario will batter me in myriad ways, but for right now I am accepting the challenge of whatever is next.

Nonetheless, it doesn't make sifting through mutually collected trinkets and such to find reasonable, even splits any easier. There's a highly surreal nature to the whole business of uncoupling that automatically suggests incompleteness, at least in terms of possessions - such as going from a complete Tori Amos Cd collection to a partial, say. It's certainly not what's important, but it's what is concrete. Much harder is wondering whether or not the individuals in a relationship have 'succeeded' by Emerson's definition. I don't think an end means failure. I think what matters most is what happens next. I have always been a hopeless romantic, but I have always understood there would always be another day after the ship sailed off into the sunset. For every Before Sunrise there's bound to be a Before Sunset. It's about balance.