I have an addiction. I admitted this yesterday while staring at the ancient lady–her bright-red, hair-sprayed beehive and two-tone glasses–at the New York Public Library. She is practically a fixture, and has been here forever, or at least during the three years I lived here, and even now when I stroll the marble halls as a visitor. She looks the same. She is still perfectly coiffed. I like that she’s still here. But my brain says, Ugh, how boring. I don’t want to be her, or someone who, at any point in time, is still anything. And therein lies my addiction. I am addicted to that shameful, self-conscious, liberal, privileged concept–new experiences in new places. It feels as strong and confusing as a drug.
“Go a mile wide, not deep” has always been my family’s mantra. I lived in five different countries before the age of 11 and my parents instilled in me the importance of a particular mindset–global, open and evolving. As an adult, I have translated that vision into two principles: the need to continually change environments in job and place (not so hard) and to seek out, in our “like-attracts-like” world, a good proportion of friends who don’t think, look, act, or feel like me (harder than it sounds).
But, knowing that the flip side can be sweet, I also have a thing for the word local and the idea of being deeply connected to a community and a landscape. The instant I start to slip into reverie about such a life, my wandering self barks, “But you must always push beyond your comfort zone! DO NOT get stuck in your comfort zone.” So I live my life wondering, Which way is better?
For example, I recently emerged from the glow of a friend’s wedding. From my outsider’s perspective, it seems that his lifelong romance with Washington State informs his profound confidence and confirms that this place of his roots is the only place he wants to be. One week later, I met an American woman who spent 30 years living abroad, everywhere from Pakistan to Saudia Arabia to Brazil to New Zealand. Her eyes sparkled with the wild look of broad understanding.
What is better? There is no answer and, let’s be honest, it’s totally personal. I just can’t seem to side one way or another. This is my split. I crave a rootedness I don’t have AND my addiction encourages constant upheaveal. I grew up assuming that learning lies in new backdrops.
Like any addiction, the solution to this one requires weaning. But not completely, because I hold to my conviction that changing it up grows your tolerance. That said, I need to start by slowing down and giving myself whole-heartedly to a place without feeding the repeated thought, “Oh, it’ll just be a year or two.”
And, as a wise friend once reminded me, the silver lining might be that local and global aren’t mutually exclusive.
This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 8:36 am and is filed under Career/Life, Environment, Orienting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
There are currently 4 responses
Querida Moll-
Another great piece. I love your writings like this one. I think you nail it with your wise friend’s thoughts, I think that you can do both. Again, easier said than done. But why not just stay, ruminate, reflect, be, in one place, until it feels like you have to go? I think that, for the most part, we know when that is (although I have been struggling a lot with that myself lately, so I might be changing my mind on that one). Why not go a mile wide exactly where you are? I would argue that doing all sorts of things in one place is spreading yourself quite wide, and that, in turn, makes you go a mile deep. (I understand what your family means with this, though, and I know it’s not that.)
In an ever global world, I think we are pulled more and more by travel and other place experiences. Unfortunately, those quick forays into other cultures and existences don’t give us the depth that we might want. So it seems to me that we should try to create community wherever we are, whether it be in the islands of the pacific northwest or the deserts of Mexico. Grasp the opportunities to explore the vast reaches of the world, while diving deep into each and every one of them.
Why CAN’T you do both? I think we can, but it may require having a home and community to come back to, just like your friend in the pacific northwest.
Hi Mol,
I loved this one since I lived it with you. I don’t see your addiction as “shameful, self-conscious or privledged”. It’s all a question of what you’re wanting.
Some see an avocado as a Super Bowl party dip. Some will walk by it in a supermarket and say it’s too expensive not even knowing it hangs heavily from a tree. I know avocados as green globes piled in a pyramid, held high in an outstretched, black-skinnned palm at an intersection in Santo Domingo. Price… one peso….year 1980. Each is an experience neither wrong nor right.
Love,
Mom
Knowing the woman who sits at the Information Desk at the New York Public Library, I can offer this.
For the price of bus fare she can have the world come to her, and it does. Visitors from all over the world all day long. Many with wonderful tales to tell, questions to ask, anecdotes to offer. Perhaps she is wiser than we know.
Kate,
“Go a mile wide exactly where you are”– well said!
Mom,
Thanks for the avocado metaphor.
Maura,
Glad to know that you also know that incredible woman. I do agree that she is wise, and did not intend to make her seem boring. It’s merely the idea of “being still” that is hard for me to grasp in my life, though I respect the people who are still and watchful. In keeping with your description, I once worked for a New Zealand orchard manager who had never left his tiny hometown. He used to always say declare, “The world comes to me!” and it did, in the form of young apple pickers who hailed from places like Malaysia, India, Brazil…..