A Single Step
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." ~ Confucius
My cross-country odyssey, redux, began yesterday. I am en route, circumlocutiously, from my home of the last years in PDX to Nash ... Music City. Back to the South. A journey of a good bit more than a thousand miles, but at least I'm not walking it. I had kept far more than a mere car-full of belongings, so after shipping 22 boxes of what would *not* fit in the CRV, I jammed the rest in, leaving room for myself, natch. Barely.
The winter weather has predictably gotten things icky on the most easterly route, so I go south and then east. Once again, I ewchew the direct for the curvy. Conveniently this time I suppose I blame the weather.
The round-about approach or route is in itself incredibly ironic for me, because I move through this world in a pretty direct fashion. On any given day, I am cutting to the bottom line, saying what is on my mind, divesting myself of bullshit and bullshitters. It seems the one modicum of vacillation I permit myself is in the how I do Big Stuff: my big decisions sort of erupt and flow downhill like lava from a side vent, bounching off canyon walls and zig-zagging out into open spaces. No wonder vulcanology fascinates me. Lava Butte
Circumlocution: it's a great umbrella descriptor for this trip, for the route that's gotten me here, and for maybe the entire course of my life. Back when I believed in fairy tales and nonsense, my zodiac symbol resonated: the Crab. A creature seemingly incapable of taking a direct route between one point an another, they lurch, backtrack, angle and amble. They walk sideways to go forwards, for crying out loud. Beach Crab Walk But they mean well. And they only follow their natures. Certainly I can't say that's any less than I have done. J.R.R. Tolkien said, "Not all who wander are lost." I have to assume he was referring to himself and a host of other folks like myself, who have to jump in to know how they feel about the water. Even when it's maybe croc infested or too murky to know how it will turn out. We may look like we have no clue what we are doing, and maybe we don't. But at least we are trying to figure it out.
Embarking on a cultural shift like a long-distance move presents its own set of pecurliaries. After the agony of making the decision itself, the logistics are just the beginning of the headaches; beyond the vagaries of getting one's worldly possessions from point A to B, there's the ripping up (I do not embellish) of roots, relationships, and potential futures. There is pain and loss there. Will it be outweighed by future gains? A gamble.
It is a bit like taking up an intangible set of die and shaking them thoughtfully in your fist before letting them fly. What will come up? What will the outcome be? All of life maybe be a gamble, but the Big Moves in life seem to be the most fraught with potential failures.
A friend of mine likes to say "you miss 100% of the shots you never take." It's a pithy sports perspective, and I usually am not terribly fond of those, but I like this one. I guess because it so boldly encourages unfettered attempt; it sounds so pervasively optimistic, even in the face of what might be overt failure. It makes the sentiment of "nothing ventured, nothing gained" so kinetic that I can feel myself drumming up the courage to take those shots -- chances -- just in uttering the words themselves ... "I miss 100% of the shots I don't take."
I managed to exit town yesterday without shedding a single tear in the car. But I find as I sit in the room of my hotel, a mere 20 miles from the state line, about to drive permanently away from Oregon as a resident, it is now crystal-clear to me what I have actually left, and how very vague and undefined what I head toward is. And it is in this quiet moment that I mourn what I have lost in leaving Portland. The decision to leave was one born out of frustration and a sense of what I could not have, could not achieve, there. And so presumably the grass is greener in the familiar, in what I have known before -- my Southern roots, proximity to family and old friends. But that stuff has moved on in the six years I have been gone, and it feels as much a mystery to return there as it did to move to Portland, sight-unseen, in 2004. Because I am not the same person I was six years ago. The place I have called home in the interim has altered me, and what I want, in ways I never expected.
So. This, like all Big Moves or decisions/choices, remains a gamble. I just have to make the leap, believe it will be what I hope for, what I need. And say goodbye to a chapter of my life now closed. When will the new chapter start? Perhaps it has already. And here I go.
Photos from the Road:
