Here and There All At Once

At the eastern entrance to I-40, on the outskirts of Wilmington, NC, an official green highway sign reads, "Barstow, CA 2,554 miles."  As I drove past it Friday, I happened to be talking to a colleague who lives near the western entrance of that same freeway.  On Monday I will fly over Barstow, in fact, when I head her way.  The fourth trip so far in my 9-bed September, my own absurd strategy for measuring the relative zaniness of my travel schedule.  I will sleep in 9 different beds between September 1-30, only one of which is technically my own. 

I am a "seasoned" traveler.  I know, for example, to avoid winter layovers in Denver or Chicago, that summer thunderstorms can paralyze east coast flight patterns, and that Houston and Atlanta are best avoided altogether.  I know I can get a quick nitrate-free spicy sausage near gate C-20 at Phoenix Sky Harbor. I know the women hired to clean the Charlotte Douglas rest rooms live on tips and a paltry $2-3.00 an hour. 

These are ridiculous things to know (except that women cleaning our airport toilets go home after 8 hours of unappreciated work with approximately $20 -- that fact is appalling.)  And while they engender a certain misguided travel pride, I cannot escape this fundamental dissonance:

At the same time my professional clients need a heightened personal presence, so do my family, friends and community.  California staff need hands-on help to improve some thorny processes, women cleaning bathrooms need generous tips, Appalachian farmers need folks to buy their delicious tomatoes, and my home needs a family dinner.  All at once.  We are past that euphamistic breaking point and need genuine, live, loving, consistent human connection.

This is not suggesting my presence is important.  Rather, I believe we all increasingly need to be both global and local, in multiple time zones, conversations & cultures and contributing to the wellbeing of many layers ... all at the same time.  

I don't know how to do that yet.  Oh I post, update, text and skype with the best of 'em, and I don't blink at a cellular call across opposite ends of a freeway or continent.

But I feel a universal tug to be all places at all times, as if the worn tethers securing my identity to gravity and locale are unravelling.  As if the seams of a self I once concretely defined as only my own, as only in this place or with that person, are being gently removed stitch by stitch.  I feel increasingly boundless, just beginning to imagine that maybe I can be Here and There at once. 

Sure, I'm momentarily freaked about a possible personal implosion.  But ultimately I'm comforted by a growing belief that I am -- we are -- so much more than these individual bodies & lives suggest.  That perhaps being Here and Everywhere all at once is our original blueprint.  That at some point I will, in fact, help a west coast clinic improve its health services, pick dinner fresh from my neighbor's garden, and nestle up to my husband in our own bed ... all in the same day.

 

Comments

[Paul Zelizer]

Jeanne,

Thanks for sharing your musings. This could be titled Dilemmas of a Conscious Traveler. As I'm procrastinating making some final reservations as I write this, I'm definitely smiling about all the contradictions in a life you've described so well.

I love the last paragraph and would love to hear more about that line of thinking. That's where the juice is for me - how to live deliberately in a complex, fast paced world.

I appreciate getting to know you a bit Jeanne. Can always count on your authenticity!

[Jeanne Supin]

Paul,
Thanks for reading & commenting! And would love to hear more about your continued commitment & efforts to live deliberately in a complex, fast-paced world. I find my priorities and my sense of presence are sharpening each moment -- my list of what's important shrinks rapidly and I'm increasingly focusing only on 1 things at a time. Not even by choice, necessarily -- to do otherwise just makes me so dizzy these days!
I appreciate getting to know you, too!