thoughts, words, deeds

Both. Neither. Could you repeat the question?

Which is better, never leaving or coming back to where you started? This may mean anything and it is up to your interpretation, could be a place, a goal, a person you love, a vocation, or a hobby.

I’m not sure. First off, I can’t decide, because both of the choices imply a kind of stasis. Never leaving. Coming back to where I started. Both choices return me to some position that existed in the past that I’m not sure I believe in anymore. I’m more like that song in Pocahontas, where she talks about never crossing the same river twice. If I have never left, or if I return to some previous beginning, the world has changed and I have changed and I’m not the same person that I was when whatever it was started and I will react differently and the world will react differently to me.

Now, it’s harder to see that if you never leave. We don’t see the gradual shift when we live in the middle of it. And sometimes that’s a good thing. For example (and this is an odd one, but my brain is fried), I have a knitting project that I started a couple years ago when I started knitting again after learning as a child. So, this particular knitting project involved laceweight yarn and complicated lace patterns that I hadn’t done before, and even though I could do it, I struggled. I put it aside for a while and started other things. I didn’t see the competence that I’ve grown in that hobby until I picked it up again and realized I knew what I was doing and that it went faster now. Coming back made me see the change while staying with the hobby gave me practice so that the change could happen. Both together.

Part of my uncertainty, of course, is the fact that I’ve moved around so much. Places aren’t something that stick to me very well. I’ve lived here in this house for nine years. I’ve lived in this city for eighteen. This is the longest that I’ve lived anywhere. By more than double. And I still don’t feel the kind of roots here that I do in the place I was born, where I only lived three months. In a way, the notion of never leaving feels foreign to me. I have to concentrate and work to come up with scenarios that involve staying in place. Change is my constant.

So, if I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of never leaving, and I know that there is no where to come back to the same condition that I started from because I don’t believe in stasis (that change as a constant thing), the question becomes very difficult.

I guess the answer must be, yes. And no. All of the above. None of the above. Both. At the same time.