30 July 2010

There's something in here about the journey...

I watch back episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations when I eat.  They're just perfect.  I get to see a different place, it lasts for 40 minutes tops, it's funny and a little wicked.  I can turn it off if I'm not amused and feel no compulsion to finish them.

I was taking a break from all the packing this week to watch the Malaysia episode.  It's a really good one.  Not for the food he eats and describes, but for the commentary.  He has this running theme throughout the episode, the idea of travel itself, of a journey and how it changes you.

I've been thinking a lot about our year here in Brunswick.  I've been making some rounds and spending time with my few but beloved friends.  I've been saying good-bye and it's been much harder than I had anticipated.

I came home from visiting my friend C and her adorable newborn G and the Boy's friend E, and I finished the Malaysia episode and Bourdain was asking if it was possible to feel enriched and hollowed out at the same time and I thought--YES.  That's how I feel right now.

Full to the brim with love for these amazing women, but also drained from the year that has been.  Full of impossible wishing that I could gather all my friends together in one central location and we could all live there and also gutted by the residency, by assorted trials and by exhaustion.

Bourdain went on to talk about the necessity of travel, how it's often hard and ugly and gut-wrenching and sometimes heartbreaking.  But it's supposed to be.  That's how it changes you.  You come away from it a different person, a better person and hopefully you leave something good behind you too.

I agree.  I couldn't say it any better.  Well, except to say that maybe LIFE is more than simply travel.  Life is often hard and ugly and gut-wrenching and sometimes heartbreaking.  It's also sometimes comical and golden and sweet.  But at the end of the day it's supposed to be all of those things--the good and the bad.  And it's in the living of life that we change.  We grow.  Hopefully, we become incrementally better every day.  And even more hopefully, we're leaving the places we've been, the people we know incrementally better too.

Today is moving day for us.  The day when we cease to belong to one place and for a period of time we are indefinite travelers, bound to no where in particular.  Tomorrow we will belong to North Carolina again.

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2 Comments:

At July 30, 2010 at 10:05 PM , Blogger Unknown said...

If you want to belong to Maryland you can come crash at our place. :) Good luck in your adventures. I sure do love you guys.

 
At August 15, 2010 at 9:27 PM , Blogger Celeste said...

This comment is probably way too long for a blog - and I'm so not offended if you decide not to post it, but this post made me miss you more than ever. I used to be the one who moved, too. And it is hard. But, rest assured, it's harder for those of us who get left behind. I used to think myself something of a champ for all the times I have had to move and readjust, say goodbye, and learn a new culture, but living here for the last 7 years and looking forward to another 107, I realize, it may be just as hard, if not harder to stay in one place, put down roots, build lasting relationships, keep up a good reputation, and make a name for yourself. At least when I used to move around all the time, if I burned my bridges, I could always start again. But for those of us who have friends and family scattered far and wide, I think that's why the millennium is 1000 years. I'm definitely saving a couple hundred to catch up with dear friends like you :)

 

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