This is that point

Today I thought of this:

“From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.”  

                 - Kafka

Paul Bowles uses that quote in “The Sheltering Sky,” his first of many novels set in Morocco. And as I hang in the sky between Nashville and New York, and later tonight, New York and Casablanca, I can see what he means.

If there were ever such a point, one of no return, mid-air has got to be it.

But me, I’m very squirmish about such decisiveness. Let me present to you, dear friend, several episodes over the past few months when turning back could have maybe been possible, maybe tempting. Not from lack of desire! But from inability of ever envisioning this day, of not being able to believe what I was doing was actually leading to something:

-          The most obvious would be early spring when I woke up to this email:

I forget the rest. I just remember calling everyone I knew, my family members and then friends, none of whom would answer at ten am on a Wednesday. Finally someone answered, my friend Naomi on the west coast. Naomi! “Naomi!,” I said, “I have news!” I’d woken her up. “What, are you, like moving to Africa?” “Uh yeah,” I said, "I am.”

-          I thought I had inadvertently turned back when I realized I was horrifically late – like months late – turning in official forms to the Fulbright people “accepting” the grant on paper. Mid-heart attack I called the head guy Mr. Jones in NYC, a very kind, chill dude in a very official role, who said to turn the forms in whenever I found the time. When I thanked him gushingly, as though patient to doctor, he said, “Yeah, sure, we're not gonna like…take the grant back.” And I slept very well that night.

-     And lastly, I could’ve even backed out last night, (though not technically) when my sister/roommate Rachel gave me this limerick she wrote and I, upon reading it, made a low wailing sound not unlike a whale. I continued in that way for a good half an hour while I packed and cleaned, not unlike someone who has totally lost sight of emotional reason, who has totally lost sight of everything. 

What I told myself as I hurtled closer and closer to the departure date this summer was that even though I felt unprepared, even though I wasn’t ready, what followed would always be better than the waiting period. It’s good for plans to stop being plans at some point and happen already. It’s good for a woman in labor to have her baby. It’s good to get the show on the road.

My best friend happens to be pregnant, maybe that’s what has me thinking about it. I'm sure she's bombarded with questions, questions from friends and strangers, questions she can’t or doesn’t want to answer: boy or girl? Pink or blue? Names? Names? Names? Nauseous yet? NAUSEOUS YET?!

It must get old answering questions about someone she doesn’t know yet, an experience she hasn’t had. But it’s such a hopeful time. They’re hopeful questions. In fifteen years, maybe her child will struggle with acne or have a bad day or not get asked to homecoming and the questions will probably be more tactful, less idealistic. But she’ll have her child…Later, it will be messy but it will be real. It will be hers.

Likewise, I can only answer so many questions right now. I can only know so much. I haven’t been there yet! I’m sure it will be hard, I know it will be beautiful, I hope that it challenges me and my views of the world. And later, my answers will be less clear cut, not concise enough for a sentence or a blog post or even words themselves.

It feels safer to keep plans at bay, to be defined by what one plans to do. But how do you move forward with ease, maybe even grace into the unknown?

One day this past year, I asked one of my favorite managers at the store I worked at how, day after day, she does such a killer job. She gets so much work done, she brings out the best in people, she makes people happy to be on her team. 

“How do you do it?”, I asked her in awe, kinda joking, kinda rhetorically.

“You do it,” she said. And it resonated in me very deeply.