not home
“Really, this much thinking can’t be good for a person. Why am I doing this again?”
“You’re not thinking. You’re conjuring. And it *is* good for you.” Harley and I are up on the ridge, looking out over the Jungle. The house in the clearing below the ridge is gone.
“Where did our house go?”
“Our house,” Harley says, “not yours. You’ve never lived in it, nor do you have any need to. Don’t you remember what it was?”
I did. It was a cute little house I had seen for sale in Ojai, years ago now, when I wanted to somehow go back to school. While I still might go back to school, I won’t do it living alone in a tiny little house in the woods. That path was gone.
“So it was kind of silly to keep living in it, wasn’t it?” Harley asks.
“But it was cute.” I frown. “Can’t I use it as a blueprint?”
“Things you give your attention to matter,” she says. “And things all have the meanings you assign to them. You assigned a life path to that house. One you ended up not taking. It’s not a blueprint for a domicile. It’s a blueprint for lack of closure, of regret, of living in the past.”
“I don’t feel any of those things,” I say. Harley looks at me. “Not often.”
“Maybe not at all would be better,” she says. ‘If you want something, want it. If you don’t want something, don’t want it. Don’t worry over proper. Expect delays, but don’t expect roadblocks. There’s always a way through. To anything. Because in every moment you are choosing how to live the next moment. One sentence from now you could decide to become a hairdresser. You could thank your collegues at work very much for their time, say goodbye, and drive to the Paul Mitchell salon and begin. You could open up a bed and breakfast in Cincinatti. Learn to surf in Costa Rica for a year. You can plan or not plan. Decide and change your mind over and back again. But don’t regret and wish. Decide and do.
“C’mon,” she says. “The Jungle is immense. We’ve barely even started.”
Tags: harley
