It's time...
I've been asked occasionally what I'm running away from. It seems a strange question to me and always makes me hesitate, searching for an answer. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not running away, but toward, every time I move; toward the answer to what's around the next corner, down the next alleyway, over the next ridge and beyond the edge of the visible world.
Many people put roots down, digging deep and fast into a town or city, neighborhood or region with family, friends and work anchoring them. I keep moving; moving toward the unknown, toward the satisfaction of discovering someone or something that is common to others but unique to me. I'm not looking for anything other than what may be mundane to someone else but sends my heart leaping as I experience it with eyes, nostrils, ears and fingers seeing, smelling, hearing and touching.
My first move was when I was one-year-old. My father had accepted a new job as city manager in Dayton, Ohio. It was the first of five moves before I turned 19 and went away to college for my final three years. In between, we lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, Ahwaz, Iran, and finally returned to Wichita, Kansas where I was born. My parents stayed behind in Wichita while I continued on. From college onward for the next 50 years, I moved another 20 times. Packing is down to a science now and I've culled my possessions in recent years to a few boxes of household needs and mementos. If it all went up in flames today, I wouldn't miss it. I have my memories. My goal is to own only those remembrances and the few essentials that I can fit into a duffel bag. I'm not there yet but am gaining on it.
Moving to New York City after graduating from college, I lived there for 20 years before taking a sabbatical in 1989 when I moved to the small, coastal village of Castine in Downeast Maine. I returned to New York City in 2011 after living in Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle, I wanted to come back to experience the city once again. To fill up on the museums, the theater, great restaurants and long walks of exploration on the streets of Manhattan. I wanted to feel the energy of the city once again and to experience the many nuances of the city's diverse residents. And so I did just that.
But I discovered that the old is rapidly being destroyed and the new erected in its place. That 58 million tourists a year are clogging the sidewalks and pushing long-time residents to distraction as they try to combat the crowds to get to work, shop for groceries and get across town on the bus to meet a friend for dinner or a play, or get to an appointment with their favorite hairdresser in midtown. What I found when I returned was not the city that a remembered. Granted, the people were less brusque due to the coming-together after 9/11, but residents had often fled, replaced by out of town oglers in doubledecker buses and developers re-shaping traditional communities into canyons of steel and plate glass high rises that are home to millennials who seem to believe the city is theirs alone. Sadly, small, family-owned shops that knitted together residents are gone now due to increasing rents. CVS, Duane Reade and multinational banks have replaced them.
It's time to move on and collect more memories like seashells deposited on the sand by the ocean's tides.
Many people put roots down, digging deep and fast into a town or city, neighborhood or region with family, friends and work anchoring them. I keep moving; moving toward the unknown, toward the satisfaction of discovering someone or something that is common to others but unique to me. I'm not looking for anything other than what may be mundane to someone else but sends my heart leaping as I experience it with eyes, nostrils, ears and fingers seeing, smelling, hearing and touching.
My first move was when I was one-year-old. My father had accepted a new job as city manager in Dayton, Ohio. It was the first of five moves before I turned 19 and went away to college for my final three years. In between, we lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, Ahwaz, Iran, and finally returned to Wichita, Kansas where I was born. My parents stayed behind in Wichita while I continued on. From college onward for the next 50 years, I moved another 20 times. Packing is down to a science now and I've culled my possessions in recent years to a few boxes of household needs and mementos. If it all went up in flames today, I wouldn't miss it. I have my memories. My goal is to own only those remembrances and the few essentials that I can fit into a duffel bag. I'm not there yet but am gaining on it.
Moving to New York City after graduating from college, I lived there for 20 years before taking a sabbatical in 1989 when I moved to the small, coastal village of Castine in Downeast Maine. I returned to New York City in 2011 after living in Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle, I wanted to come back to experience the city once again. To fill up on the museums, the theater, great restaurants and long walks of exploration on the streets of Manhattan. I wanted to feel the energy of the city once again and to experience the many nuances of the city's diverse residents. And so I did just that.
But I discovered that the old is rapidly being destroyed and the new erected in its place. That 58 million tourists a year are clogging the sidewalks and pushing long-time residents to distraction as they try to combat the crowds to get to work, shop for groceries and get across town on the bus to meet a friend for dinner or a play, or get to an appointment with their favorite hairdresser in midtown. What I found when I returned was not the city that a remembered. Granted, the people were less brusque due to the coming-together after 9/11, but residents had often fled, replaced by out of town oglers in doubledecker buses and developers re-shaping traditional communities into canyons of steel and plate glass high rises that are home to millennials who seem to believe the city is theirs alone. Sadly, small, family-owned shops that knitted together residents are gone now due to increasing rents. CVS, Duane Reade and multinational banks have replaced them.
It's time to move on and collect more memories like seashells deposited on the sand by the ocean's tides.
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