Inner Cartography, Part I (Joe)

It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say, "That's exactly how this grace thing works"
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start

--“Roll Away Your Stone”, Mumford & Sons

In the week since making the decision to move to Miami, I’ve felt myself bumping up against long-held fears. Monica’s certainty and enthusiasm only make me want to pull back more, investigate it, get more information, suss out The Facts, all the while knowing that more Facts is not at all why I feel this way. When it’s done and we’re there, wherever there is, this time, this transition, will be told in the histories as a stark inevitability. It feels much less so now.

Maybe this is more about staking out a place inside. Maybe my fear as we get ready to launch off into Doing A 180° is that I’ll be pulled this-way-and-that by the vicissitudes of our daily life, like the tourist who thinks he wants to live in every beautiful place he’s only seen from the hotel window and the art district cafes.

Maybe the real definition of adventure has nothing to do with not knowing the answers before you go, but not even knowing the questions. That could mean I’m forgetting to factor something into the project plan, or it could mean that there’s nothing left to fear. I’ve spent so long living with the former, it’s hard getting used to the latter.

Regardless of how the anxiety manifests, it’s only now that I’m able to swallow and admit that it has nothing to do with the particular place we’re contemplating. It has more to do with trying on a metaphorical new set of clothes, in a style I’ve never worn before. It could be Miami, Quebec, Santiago, Kurdistan. My fears have to do with letting go of crutches, of dropping this lifelong habit I’ve developed of allowing myself to be less than I could be because of the obstacles I’ve put in my way.

You see, now I am naked to myself and my world. I am moving rapidly toward becoming the person I want to be, removing distractions, rooting out bad habits, doing instead of watching, being instead of wishing. I am 50 years old, but it doesn’t feel that way. I feel as if my life is just beginning, as if Doing A 180° is a declaration of adulthood, something you would do in your 20s when you finally Discovered Yourself. I am being where I want so that I can be who I want. This is not the Geographical Cure. This is geography as the cure.

So as I look that 23-year old me in the mirror square in the eyes, and tell him how You Need To Do This, and Everything Will Be Better-Than-OK, I squirm with the inner knowing that maybe, just maybe, there are new questions out there. As I decide to myself that yes, this will happen, and I look at the cheap fold-‘em-up map of the United States taped to our closet door in the living room, with its circles, X’s and question marks to denote the Yes, No and Maybe of our possible landing spots, I think to myself, yes, questions. Bring me more questions.