Why is it that people have to go the distance to find themselves?
The book-turned-movie, Eat Pray Love, coming out this weekend is the real life story of Elizabeth Gilbert’s round-the-world journey as she struggles to overcome a painful divorce. She thinks she can find emotional refuge in foreign countries. There’s also a growing number of friends I know who claim they’re leaving the country and everything else behind to “search their soul” – cue the Ally McBeal theme song. I also interviewed a favourite local musician of mine, Peter Katz, who was telling me he finds Zen in touring; just driving his car across the country in silence.
I don’t want to find the notion of running away appealing anymore. The reason being, I’m tired. For 22 years, I’ve been doing nothing but running. I’m sick of running. I smoke way too much and I don’t even have on the appropriate shoes. My feet hurt. I’ve now promised myself to find my Zen within the four walls of my home. Within my downtown community, at the very least. I’ve done the whole “run-away-to-Europe-to-get-away-from-it-all”, which was fun and amazing and beautiful but it’s getting old. My passport’s expired. I can’t carry around heavy luggage anymore. I have to stay put. I need to stop running every time I get too scared to feel anything. What will it be like when my feet are planted on the root of my problems and not on the escape route?
Standing still is the hardest thing a spasmodic person such as myself can do. When you’re used to seeing everything blurred, it’s difficult at first to accept the still images of all the things you care about.
A great line from one of my favourite movies, Up in the Air, is “Make no mistake, moving is living.” Well, consider me comatose for the time being. Alas, I want my life engulfed with the still images of the things I chose not to let go of. Not that I take movies too much to heart or anything, but I’m hoping I don’t end up like Ryan Bingham in Up in the Air, as much my conscience tells me otherwise. Yes, maybe staying can be living, too.
