I’m a little tipsy. I just played a three hour game of Trivial Pursuit with my mom and little brother. And it is times like these that I wonder why on earth I am putting 5000 miles between myself and the people I know and love so well, everything that is so comfortable and comforting. But the truth is that the answer is kind of in the question. Comfortable. It isn’t a bad thing, really. Unless you’re talking about the way one lives her life, in which case, you might as well substitute the word “cowardly,” as far as I’m concerned. There was a famous author who said something like, “Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.”* (I’ll look it up later and let you know in a footnote.) It’s such a funny thing for a writer to say, because when you think of authors, you always kind of picture quiet, mousy people. At least I do. Which is more than a little odd, because I’m a writer, and whatever else you may call me, I don’t think you’d say I was mousy.
Over the past three years or so, I’ve mostly been disappointed in myself. But it’s been lessening in recent months. And it’s not because I’m living where I am, or working where I am, or anything like that. I think it’s because I’m coming back to acceptance with myself. I was digging through old writings yesterday, trying to decide what to take with me to Poland, what to consolidate onto my computer, what to leave behind and forget about, and I found lots of scraps of yellow legal pads with frantic scribbling about how miserable I was, how confused, how unsure of what I wanted or afraid of trying to get it. I think that’s what’s different now. I’m not trying to boil my life down to one answer: a career, a person, a place. There isn’t one thing I want to do. And there never will be.
I want to live. I want to teach a class, learn a new language, wander unfamiliar streets. Then, I want to zipline, despite my horrible fear of heights. I want to salsa dance, even though my friends will think it’s lame. I want to fall deeply into inconvenient, imprudent love. I want to risk my own safety and comfort to help people in dangerous corners of the world. I want to talk to Travis Gasper again and tell him what I never managed to say: how much he always meant to me - just for the sake of saying it. I want to go to Provence and bet on a goat race in the dusty streets, fight with tomatoes in Buñol, go to Burning Man. I want to build houses in New Orleans. I want to write something and put my heart on a page for publishers, friends, family, and (hopefully) the public to mock and stomp on, if they want to. I want to be an old lady who never gives up on being “young.”
Maybe what I want isn’t this one overriding focused objective, but it sure as hell isn’t comfortable, either. I can rest when I’m dead, damnit!
For the first time in my life, I kind of (seriously, kind of) understand evangelists. If their faith makes them half as joyful as my carefree abandon makes me, I can see why they’d want to shout from the rooftops about it. I’m not so sure about condemning people, but the preaching part, I could see.
If you feel like taking part in the new gospel according to Rachel, try something new in the next few days. Something (borderline) embarrassing, but that you’ve always wanted to do. Then report back to me about how you feel, having done it. Mine is that I’m going to go to the park with my mom’s friends** and do Tai Chi. Time allowing.
*It was Edith Wharton
**This is even funnier because I don't think my mom is going to go.
**This is even funnier because I don't think my mom is going to go.
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