Go

It occurs to me that I only feel like myself when I'm in motion.

This realization hit me as I was waiting on the train this afternoon, relieved to finally be getting on it and heading north.  The idea of being on the train was comforting, calming - like being home after an extended trip.  I felt like I could spread out, be myself, take up the space that I know so well.  It was, all in all, a weird set of emotions for public transportation to trigger.

But I suppose that is how I've spent the last... however long.  I've been constantly moving.  My stride has eaten up miles and miles of sidewalk; black stompy boots beneath me strolling through the heat to the bus station, running through the snow to catch a train, walking in circles at midnight because I have nowhere else to be.  When my feet aren't enough, I take buses, trains, planes to where I'm headed - class, the club, the bar, the show, my lover's bed, my sister's aid - and then back again or further on.

Sometimes I rest, obviously.  I'll sink down and settle in for a couple of hours, a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks.  I'll cautiously start to relax, let myself become part of this space for the present.  I'll pull things out of my backpack or sprawl in the booth or fix myself a drink or possibly even do some laundry and hang my underthings up to dry.  But there's always something, some end, that sends me on my way.  The pistol-crack of the last call or the morning light or the return flight sends the stern message: Not yours.  Go.


And so I pack up, finding all my things and slipping them into my bag where they stay.  ("You really do live out of your bag, don't you?" my sister said in wonder as I pulled out deodorant, a toothbrush, a phone charger, and some assorted cosmetics one night during an unexpected slumber party.)  Then I go, out the door, up the street, on to the next adventure.

I spent the train ride back from class looking out the window and pondering what would happen to me in the future.  At some point my life will lend itself to stillness, right?  I won't always be zipping between a bunch of temporary landing spots like some sort of homeless hummingbird.  At some point I will have someplace that is "home base" instead just another stop in an endless litany of places that are not mine.

By that time, though, will I remember how to be still?