If you asked me six months ago to imagine a scenario which would result in me living with my parents, I would have laughed heartily and given you some wildly unrealistic turn of events, like a complete mental breakdown or traumatic brain injury. I mean, shit, I’ve been away – hundreds if not thousands of miles away – for fifteen years now, and there’s simply no way in hell such a thing could happen, yet somehow here I am, upstairs in the house my father grew up in, the house where my Grandmother lived for most of her life. My brother and I used to stay in this very room when we visited Grandma. I remember we needed to have a bucket to piss in, so we wouldn’t have to make the long trek to the bathroom downstairs. I wish I had that bucket right now, as my mother has some friends over and I’m trying to wait them out.
I’m starting to get better at adapting quickly to change, as life has been unfolding in unpredictable ways for the past several months. Since August I’ve stayed in Kentucky, North Carolina, Vermont, Mexico City, “The Pueblo” in Veracruz, New Jersey, and now good old Troy, New York. I’ve got two weeks to continue “pre-habbing” for knee surgery, then I go under the knife and begin the nine-month to a year long rehab process. The doc says no way can I go back to Mexico until February (at the earliest), which means I’ll be missing my wife like crazy for longer than I’d like to. It’s all good, though.
Today I took a stroll around the neighborhood, breathing in the crisp autumn air and noticing the many changes wrought by the fidgety hands of time. Those hands had hold of my mind as well, sliding my thoughts around like chess pieces from present to past to future and all around. It’s good to be home again. I feel a sense of reconnection that typically gets lost in the chaos of brief holiday visits. And I’ve been able to maintain some equanimity this time around, whereas I usually withdraw (for reasons I don’t quite understand) into a passive daze.
Even though I was only there for a couple of months, my time in Mexico was a real tonic. In fact, despite the difficulties I faced there, in some ways it was easier to tap into the energy of creativity, and easier to maintain focus and discipline in the face of inertia and stultifying habits. I felt more awake and alive than I have in a long time. Of course, this has been the case whenever I’ve made big changes or, more commonly, when big changes have been thrust upon me. Once things settle down, however, and I settle into a relatively static routine, it’s not long before I drift back into a semi-daze, feel existentially/spiritually disconnected, and start to feel the whole Restless Soul Syndrome coming on all over again.
I’m determined not to fall into the same old traps this time around. If it’s change I need to keep the juices flowing, well shit, there’s nothing but change, if I take the time to notice. Maybe I’ll finally get it, or maybe I’ll continue this same old shuffle of “one step forward, two steps back.” This reminds me of something my father-in-law told me last week. He was quoting the Jungian analyst Robert Johnson, who said something like, “For years I was taking one step forward and two steps back, but that’s okay – I was headed in the wrong direction.”