Time to go back
I remember as a child I would take long walks to explore the world. I would follow a road, or a path or the river behind our house for hours and hours. I wanted to know the world, what was around the bend or over the hill. I was so curious, and I had a lot of freedom.
The walks might go for miles, and sometimes I got tired. But I never would stop. Even when I lived in the city I walked and walked and walked. There would always come a time when I knew I should start going back. That it would soon get dark. But, at that point I always wanted to go just a little more, just a little more.
"Time to go back," "Just a little more," "ok, but now it is time to go back," "Just a little more" "no, now it is time to turn around and go back."
And there were times I would come home late, after dark. Because I had went to far, and didn't turn back soon enough.
Well, I am an adult now.
But in some ways I am still being pulled, like Lord Jim. I am still running away from something and towards something all the time.
I want to know more people, to know more places. I want to go here and there, and see this and that. I want to know the world in the same way I did as a child.
There are so many states in the country, so many countries in the world. So many towns, and streets, and people and well really isn't it all too much sometimes.
I feel like I keep moving and moving and moving, and a rolling stone gathers no moss. But a moss is a growth after all.
Years ago a friend told me she wanted to save the world. I told her, you can't save the world. It is too much. Just save yourself, and help the people and the community around you. Save little pieces of the world, because you can do that.
I set out to know the world and ended up on the long and painful journey Leonard Cohen warned would change nothing in my life. And, well I feel richer in some ways, and poorer in others. Could I not go home now? Could I not learn about the world just as well from books. Could I not learn about the world in relationships, which I haven't allowed myself to create because I move? Could I not learn about the world, by learning about myself?
Maybe I could even find a way to discover who I am. Find a way to be me in this world, this big world with too many people and places and names and faces in it. Find a way to be meaningful to someone else. I don't know who I am, I only know where I am.
Maybe it is time to go home.
I tried to know the world, but the world is too much, it can't be known. Maybe it is time to know myself. Time to create, or find a community to join and know. Maybe it is time to find out about home. And yes, I know where home is, I have for years. In some ways it has scared me to think of anyplace as home. But, one place is for me. And I miss it.
In all the travels of my life, maybe I have reached a point where it is time to go back.
But the voice, the voice is still there. I want to go further, just a little more, just a little more.
"It is time to go home," "no, one more town," "no, lets go home," "please, one more state," "we should go back to friends, go home"
I'm not concerned I won't make it back in time, because there is no time. But, what will another town mean? What will I discover of value around the next corner? Over the next hill?
Feeling like there is something out there I am missing is one thing pulling me on, pushing me out. But, of course there are things everywhere I am missing. Why not miss the world more and home less.
I never found any thing remarkable as a child, and I haven't as an adult. I think the world is full of remarkable places, but like Paul Simon said "every town is the same to me, with their movies and their factories, and every strangers face I see reminds me how I long to be homeward bound."