Here, There, and Everywhere

Admittedly, I haven't seen that much of the world. Various family members in various cities, while earning me vague familiarity with those cities, have hardly earned stamps in my passport. I can claim brief interludes in their airports, but our acquaintance is only passing, a temporary sojourn. This is reality. I am not well-traveled.

So why do I feel like I am? Why do I feel like I know cities and their problems when I've never been to them?

People often claim familiarity with places based on the books they read. If you read enough books about a certain place, you begin to feel like you know it just as well as the people who call it home. Reading about these places creates the illusion of a connection, and we claim that illusion for better or for worse.

This isn't necessarily a problem. Except that it is. It's no secret that reality is often disappointing. When we go to these wonderful places with our high expectations and lofty ideals, we are, in a way, setting ourselves up for great disappointment. Cities are often dirtier in person than they are in our imaginations. Imagine that. And being in a remote location away from the "hustle and bustle of it all" can sometimes seem lonely instead of restorative.

The grass is always greener on the other side, so the saying goes. Perhaps this is why the place always seems to more appealing when presented in black and white on the pages of a book.

Day In and Day Out

People often speak of routine in terms of monotony. Routine is boring. The daily grind. It's too predictable. There's no spontaneity. I am a creature of routine.

Every morning I do the same things. I get up, have coffee, read the news. I check the DVR for shows that I might have missed because I go to bed at the same time every night. I know exactly where I'll be and what I'll be doing at almost any time of day. I like the control. Having a routine gives me the ability to live my life on my terms. I authorize any and all changes to my standard operating procedure. Except when I don't.

Funny how routine just sort of happens. I didn't make a conscious effort to plan out exactly what my days were going to be like. Routine is what happens when we are trying to figure out what to do with our daily lives. We slip into patterns of behavior that feel comfortable to us, and they become our norm without our realizing it. We don't start to notice until we feel that we've been living the same day over and over again. But if that day is by all measures a good day, why do we feel like we're doing something wrong? Where did the stigma come from?

Control. I hate to be out of it. Life takes so much of it away that I sometimes feel remiss in not reclaiming it when and where I can, even if it's just deciding when to have coffee or read the news or catch up on old television shows.

There's Just Something About a Pencil

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. It's a habit I adopted long ago that I just can't seem to break. The things I write in these books often don't make sense. No matter how hard I try I will never remember when I saw the turkey in the tree. Even more difficult will be trying to remember why I wondered if that turkey liked jazz. Maybe I was listening to jazz and sitting on the patio. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe there was no turkey at all; maybe it was just a mindless ramble.

Every now and then that happens. I am struck by a thought that seems so counterintuitive, so random that it has to be put down on paper. My favorite books to revisit are the ones that are written in pencil. A pencil is so much more forgiving than an ink pen. With ink, you cross out the mistakes you make, but they are still there. And their powerful glare still reminds me of a failed attempt at something every time I see them. A pencil allows for change. A pencil lets you change your mind when you decide that what you've written is not at all what you meant to say. The sharpening of a pencil indicates progress.

In some ways the writing I've done with a pencil reminds me more of my actual life than any other writing I've ever done. So many changes. So many times I've said things only to realize that they only made sense to me. Sometimes I feel like I'm constantly explaining myself only to re-explain myself a few brief moments later. A pencil allows for mistakes. And corrections.

After looking at old notebooks, I can't help being struck by how many things have changed since they were written, and the thought occurs to me: maybe there is nothing in life permanent enough to be written in ink.