Journey to Nowhere in Particular

I suppose most of us can actually be somewhat enigmatic, in our own way.

For example, I do like having a plan concerning what I am going to do with my day, but I don't have too much attachment to that plan actually being carried out.

Since I tend to be fairly oriented towards stability and a measure of safety, most of my friends felt like it was completely out of character for me to uproot my world in Texas and move 2,200 miles across the country to Washington state.

I suppose the move, itself, wasn't so much of an issue as the fact that I pretty much had no plan, I was just going to go and then figure out to do, once I got here.

As I have mentioned in pervious posts, I moved to this town based only on having passed briefly through once before and having felt a sense of HOME vibe here... and that was good enough for me.

Knew nobody here, had no job lined up, had no place lined up to live.

The whole notion of "safety" is largely a matter of perspective. And it means very different things to different people.

To be honest, I don't like doing things that are unsafe, but I have little issue with (calculated) risk. I didn't think it unsafe to move myself clear across the country, but I did recognize that it had risks attached. Walking through an uncharted minefield is not only risky, it is unsafe. And I wouldn't do it.

When I was 21 years old, I voluntarily ran into a tornado, just "for grins."

No, I'm not kidding. I really did that, with a University buddy. We were in full firefighter gear, with crash helmets and aviator glasses... and the tornado was quite small, barely an F1. And we were stupid, allright.

But the risk was only to myself. As was the cross-country move.

The thing is that I don't have to know where I'm going or how things will turn out, as long as I have let go of any idea that I am going to try to control the situation.

As I have talked about before, sometimes I just go "driving around," with no place in particular in mind as a destination. And there's actually something very freeing about that... and I have found everything from great restaurants to secret beach coves as a result of doing so.

Sometimes I just drive a "different way" home, for no particular reason.

I don't run into tornados, anymore. For starters, I have already tried it. For seconds, I was part of the volunteer cleanup crew after a tornado struck the small town of Jarrell, Texas in 1997 and saw the aftermath of what 420 km/h winds can do. There's a reason they call it "the finger of God." If you have never seen wind actually peel the asphalt clean off the surface of a road... it changes you.

Of course, going for a random journey to nowhere in particular is very different. I like to do it simply because it frees me from having to "have a plan."

Thanks for stopping by, and have great rest of your week!

How about you? Do you ever choose to just "go nowhere?" Do you tend to plan everything? If you do, what do you think would happen if you suddenly had no plan? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2024.04.10 00:43 PDT
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