confession #10

“When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low…”
-Joy Division

I have been at this desk for a year now and it’s getting hard to sit still. Job, relationships, certain street corners – they’ve all lost the sheen of newness and possibility. I’m bored, yes. But more than that, I do not know what to do with the disappointment, like nut grass, that has taken root, thriving on my own failures -- of nerve, will, kindness – and on the failures of others. Last night I sat on the dark steps watching the lightning bugs drift through the air and scheming of ways to move to Paris. I don’t know anyone in Paris; there is no one to hold up a mirror there.

In the past I might have pointed to my parents and said “You did this to me,” citing both nature (my Bedouin grandmother, my father’s wanderlust) and nurture’s (Home is where you put up your Christmas tree, kids!) role in shorting my attention span and shoring up the impulse to move on to the next adventure. But that’s not really fair, and I know it. For all their quirks and oddities, my parents are not flakey. They might have taught me how to pack and unpack boxes, how to move and navigate through foreign landscapes. But they never taught me to run away.

Sit tight. Watch and see. It’s going to be okay.