(Karen, this one is for you)
As I put on my coat and slung my bag over my shoulder at lunch time today, it suddenly struck me how much I looked like I was about to go to the airport. I liked it.
In truth, I was just going to my car to try to eat and escape my cubicle as much as possible in the 60 minutes I had, but the idea that I even looked like I was going somewhere of more consequence--that made me happy.
It's not that I need to get away (though I do), or that airports in particular are the place I would like to be right now. It was the possibility of action, the potential energy added to a person by a coat and a carry on. When my laptop is in the bag, the potential is increased tenfold. Today I only had books and a Gameboy Advance, but still, a sort of strange un-urban power surged within me.
Recently I've felt somewhat deflated by adult life, perhaps because of the cosmic parody of childhood it seems to be; dressing up like you've got somewhere to go, trying to look and sound as important as possible, like you've got connections or know-how. But the farther you go, the less hope there is that you truly are what you initially thought. Still, perhaps the parody is simply a challenge to overcome. The deep sense of inadequacy we sometimes feel often flows not from the reality of our situation, but rather from the daunting feeling of finally reaching a place where that power of action is put to the test. As a child one always imagines this power is mightier and more easily accesible than it is.
I do not want this thought to crash into anyone else's quandry and set them on a wrong path; I simply want to enhance this fact in life: I really could have gone to the airport today. I could've jumped on a plane and headed east, or pulled my car out and driven south. I could've written a song yesterday, or gone jogging. I could have walked along the shore or buried myself in the corner of a bookstore with some poetry or a book on physics. I could have written this blog right then. The coat and bag were always there in my closet. So was the pen, the running shoes, the fuel, even the music. All I lacked was execution. All I lacked was volition.
So today, take stock of your coats and bags, the nail and hammer you've left in the tool box, or the phone you haven't picked up. Take out the whole lot of them, if only mentally. Then do something. Don't put it off like I tend to; you might miss your flight.