Wanderings

When I first met Andrew, one of my colleagues here who has also become a good friend, we had this conversation about how terrifyingly dull he feared it might be to live in Washington. I remember that he said, "Sometimes, you're talking to people who have been here for a while, and they get this look like, 'How did I ever end up in this place?'"

I never understood how people ended up living places they didn't like. I always thought, well, if you like the beach, lots of people live there, so why shouldn't you be one of them? Especially if you're a teacher or a bank teller, or you have some other portable occupation, and if you don't have family responsibilities--just go somewhere you like, and live there. It still seems odd to me that I know East-Coast natives living out West who long to come back but simply can't do it for one reason or another, and West-Coast natives out here for whom the opposite is true. It all seems maddeningly inefficient--I want to clap my hands, get everybody's attention, and have everyone switch on count of three. But perhaps it is testament to the depth of the ties that hold you to a place (and even to God's blessing upon it), that you can't leave even though you never imagined yourself there.

And more and more I'm realizing how much our lives are constrained by happenstance and by factors outside our control, which may or may not include a sense of calling. We become rooted in places, and we find that a world has been created all around us, and to leave it means not only to lose what that place offers us, but also to lose that part of ourselves that we've planted there. Uprooting might mean, at the end of our lives, being less deeply nurtured, even a little stunted, because we've grown only short roots in each place we've been. It may not be that we're called to a place, but we may be called to the kind of depth that requires staying there.


Of course, the flipside is true too. Exploration brings its own growth, and I can't imagine a life without some kind of adventure and some kind of discovery; it would be a kind of death. But I've been thinking about the costs involved in moving about freely . . . not just the start-up costs of settling in somewhere, but the costs you can only count at the other end. Like being surrounded with lifelong friends. I have a number of lifelong friends, whom I cherish and with whom I hope always to be close in heart, but none of them live nearby, and if they did, or if these friends I am making in Washington became lifelong relationships, I can see how their very physical proximity would change me over time.


As Americans, we're raised with a sense of endless possibilities, but I wonder if thinking that way leads us toward choices based on the illusion of possibilities instead of real, present happiness, or toward inevitable disappointment because we can never really have all those possibilities. Here Washington, I have the little house, pleasantly short walk to campus, friends who live blocks away, great church within walking distance, a city close enough for me to get there as frequently as I want. Also, work that I think is meaningful, with people I respect and admire, who are supportive and just plain nice to me. Occasionally I still feel wistful about other lives I'd like to lead, and yet I've been feeling that way less and less. One way of looking at this would be to say that I'm dreaming less, which would be a sort of sad thing. But another would be to say that I'm living my actual life, my real life, with fuller attention. In a way, it's scary to stop imagining glamorous escape fantasies, but maybe I'm learning to be happy.