#movingnorth

There! That will serve as a title for this project that’s usable regardless the destination. Better than The [As Yet To Be Determined City] Diaries.

I’m reading a true shipwreck story from the 1860s! I think it’s called Island of the Lost. The whole story: Five guys. They go. They wreck. They’re stranded for a year and a half. They build a warm house and eat a lot of sea lions. Then three of them go back home in a boat they make from remnants of the boat that got them there. I’m at the part where those three just barely make it back in the homemade boat, and naturally there’s a hurricane, and they almost die a bunch of times. They take a breather for about nine seconds, and then head back with some guys and a better boat to get the last two.

I was going to try to make some comparison between what life here in Austin is like and what their life was like. I was going to compare my plan to go north with their plan to build their new boat (which they christened The Rescue), but now it just seems like it’d be in bad taste. They had to eat sea lions and get dysentery, and I have an uninspiring career and I have a shiny forehead for eight months out of each year. Still, we will end up sharing a few mileposts. The Day We Leave Here. The Day We Get There. The Day We Eat Our First [whatever].

Upon reflection, however, it seems much smarter if I view this in a more buddhist way: Life is change. You’ve been fighting that too much, so it’s time to see what happens when you reverse direction and force the change. Am I going to get somewhere like Bangor or Marquette, and begin to feel like it’s home, maybe even like it’s the place that was meant for me, and vice-versa? Will there come a time, when I’m up north, and I’ve been there a while, and I’m getting off work, and winter is starting, so it gets dark early, and I’m driving home, and it snowing, and I get home, and the lights are golden, and Zach cooked something that smells good, and it’s where I feel I belong more than anyplace? Will it feel right?

Because if it doesn’t, it’s going to be cold, it’s going to be quiet, and I’m going to feel like I’m a thousand miles from home. Basically I’m going to be on the moon. I’m going to be that family from ‘The Witch,’ or ‘The Amityville Horror,’ where l slowly go crazy while I keep chopping firewood and refusing to look for employment.

But anyway, the zen buddhism thing. I know virtually nothing about it, except what I think is its most basic tenant: that existence is change, and that our suffering stems from our non-acceptance of that fact. How do I apply that shit to my situation? I actually don’t know the answer to that. I have all my roots here, and I’m going to rip them shits out, and start putting down new roots there. I shall try to be sanguine when I eventually encounter something dreadful about living up north, that I never would have encountered in Texas, like sliding slowly off a roadway, or paying state income tax..

I have to admit, I sometimes feel like I never grew up all the way. I’m thinking this move will definitely cure that.

Here’s something I also have to deal with: I’m undoubtedly going to have job interviews, and I’m simply incapable of lying, or sounding like a team player any longer. So they’re going to ask me:

“Of all the applicants for this position, what makes you stand out? Why should I choose YOU?”

And I’ll have to suppress the urge to say, “Fuck should I know? Have I met those people?”

And I’ll have to suppress the urge to say, “Because I’m aging rapidly and care more about being able to pay rent than them?”

And I definitely won’t say, “Because I’m intelligent enough to have no patience for your Kobayashi Maru bullshit? Ask me a real question.”

I’ve actually dedicated some thought to how I’ll answer that question if I’m asked. The only thing I can think of would be, “Because whenever I’m out sick, which is exceptionally rare, of course, I always feel guilty about it, and therefore bring a couple dozen donuts when I return. I call them The Donuts of Shame, and they’re there for all to enjoy. Napkins, too.” If the interviewer is a fatty like me, BOOM. I’m in. 

In case it needs saying, there’s a part of me that looks forward to this adventure, and is eager to face it with bold curiosity! It’s a small, feeble, malnourished part, that’s suffering from polio, but it’s there. What if something amazing happens? Like...I get a job I actually enjoy, or we score a really great new home, or even just filming the kitty’s reaction when he experiences snow for the first time. Must be open to the good, as well as to the potential disasters.