Leaving

Brooklyn, NY Gazing East - A good friend here in my neighborhood is packing today for a trip to a northern port city in Poland. In May, she'll be there.

It is one of the most thought-out trips I have witnessed and she has planned. She returns to her native land to prospect for work, to settle affairs business and personal. She is full of emotion: fulfilled in following an inner calling, anxious to walk into an unknown future, determined to follow a trajectory she's set out and excited for options that await her. She is someone who knows what she leaves behind and what she is running to.

My friend is also in pursuit of happiness, a worthy and an ephemeral goal. She knows this. We both know this as we talk. Does a change of place render happiness? This must be a hot topic in philosophy courses everywhere. Still, the motive to do what one feels one must overrides all. To leave is one of life's biggest compunctions, however right it feels.

In her place, I think I would feel liberated. To have been adopted and lived in America, to have Europe as a homeland in which to return, and to have these dual perspectives—this makes for a rich kind of life.

I can recall the feeling of liberation. I was on either on a train or a bus ride—it was long ago that I forgot— from Tarifa to Madrid as a college student. I knew not what laid in store in Madrid, especially as I spoke minimal Spanish. I thought one of the most southern points of Spain held some experience for me in my own search for ephemera. Having gotten there and seen that its attractions laid in its surfing, I stayed for a night only. I was anxious to leave and I did. I knew nothing but the joy of leaving on that ride. That is liberation I think my friend must feel. Or so I think—as one who is left behind of one who is leaving.