Leaving to search, to find, to discover, to create, to breathe, to grow, to learn, to come back, but mainly to get away from. To get away from the noise, the rain, the routine, the pain, the old patterns, the familiarities, the disappointments, the miscomprehension. To get away from me, mostly. The me that was there wasn’t the me that I know.
I leave because I do not know how to stay still. I leave because the grass is always greener elsewhere… until it isn’t, and I leave again.
So, I left.
I left everything I had that felt secure—my family, my friends, my house and its town, my job, my childhood memories, my anger issues, my regrets, my habits, my melancholia, my facade […]. And now I’m here, away from it all, standing in the middle of a vast field where the grass has never been greener and yet, I doubt. Will the grass always be that green? Will it nourish me enough? And if so, for how long? Until I leave again?
The turquoise sky covers the city and the tall, skinny palm trees sway in its foreground. I see the hills ahead and I know the ocean is further to my left. The sun gently kisses my face each time I step outside, the warm weather soothes my cold tears and this land, hated by so many, welcomes me and offers the sense of Home I longed for, long ago. So, for once, I’ll stay.
I’ll stay to search, to find, to discover, to inspire, to create, to breathe, to grow, to learn, to go back to, but mainly to receive. To receive, the sun, the adventures, the pleasures, the miracles, the satisfactions, the realizations, the lessons. To receive me, mostly. The me that is here is the me that I know.
Or so I thought.
So I left, again.
This time, I didn’t leave too far, nor did I leave too much. I left the tacky and plastic, the false glamour and the fake smiles. I left the incessant sirens and the unexpected 2 am helicopter searches. I left my expectations of an open entrance to film sets and the pretentious thought that the world owes me. I left to be closer to nature, to wiggle my toes in the wet grass, to exchange smiles with passersby. I left close by but far enough to remember the essential, often overlooked, need to be part of a community.
I find it amusing, how I spent most of my teenage-hood counting the days when I would be able to leave my hometown, move across the world and let myself be swallowed by the city of angels. I yearned for it, parts of me died for it... but six months knee-high in its waters was enough to dissolve the illusion.
The throat tightens and the chest burns when the time comes to let go of a childhood dream. “Follow your dreams” one might say, “it is the only way to find pure happiness”, they might add. But what if the dream tastes bitter when realized? What if the vision, once clear as rock water, that grew and evolved alongside the dreamer, turns out to be a reflection of shadows? Well, guilt and shame builds up, questions fill up the mind until the heart is paralyzed and decisions can not be made. Everything becomes hazy and excuses make up for most of the action taking. In that moment, redirection feels heavy, almost impossible. Other’s opinions take up way more space than they should. And finally, the dream dies and the compass breaks.
For a long time I believed I wasn’t allowed to change my mind. I grew up on a strict mantra shared by my grandfather, than my mother: “one nail at a time”. In my family that translated to focusing on one task, one project, one dream at a time instead of pursuing multiple things and spreading oneself too thin. My mother and I share the wandering mindset of the passionate artist. In our primal state, daydreaming is part of our daily routine, ideas arise anytime by surprise like a divine intervention, and spontaneity leads most of our actions. Yet, we force ourselves not too act upon those impulses deemed too elusive, too ephemeral, in other words, “not productive”. But, deemed by whom? And, what does “productive” mean in that case? Mom, who is the voice in your head suppressing your wild woman? Mine is yours, but I know it isn’t you. Listening to the voice overtime, we became visionaries trapped by our own curiosity and our creative energy becomes suck in fantasy rather than embodied expression1. “In her guts, a woman knows there is a deadliness in being the too-sweet self for too long.”2
But what if being pulled by a variety of ideas, projects, dreams at a time is my natural creative state? Rather than forcing a rigid, consistent personality—one that isn’t even mine but is dictated by the voice—can I embrace my expansive, dynamic and naturally contradiction-filled personality? I am large, I contain multitudes.3 I am allowed to change my mind at any time, to reinvent, redefine, reconsider, reimagine, myself, my life, my dreams. I can leave when I said I would stay, and stay when I said I would leave. So I left, this time to stay... but maybe one day I will leave again, and it will be okay.
Enjoyed reading this share. That Walt Whitman quote is one of my lifelong mantras. Where are you from originally?