Neither Here Nor There

It’s the last of a glorious seven days in northern Michigan. The heat wave broke, but the lake waters are still warm enough for swimming. My day began as usual— quick morning walk up the giant sand dune called The Sugarbowl, breakfast, bike ride on the lonely back roads of the countryside (hardly ever pass another person, bicyclist or car) and then a long swim in the lake. My little triathalon.

But it all feels a bit different today because tonight I fly back home to San Francisco. That little edge to the day knowing it’s the last, partly here trying to savor the last moments and partly there, packing and thinking about what lies ahead. This life of perpetual arrival and leavetaking keeps me on my toes. Not enough time to wholly settle in for the long-haul rhythm nor enough time for things to get too sedentary or routine letting the grass grow under my feet. In the past six weeks I’ve been in Finland, Estonia, San Francisco, Barcelona, Madrid, Michigan and soon San Francisco, then Carmel Valley, then Korea. Truth be told, I love it. But sometimes there’s that feeling of neither being wholly here, perpetually passing through on the way to there.

But as Baba Ram Dass advised years ago, there is only “here.” “Wherever you go, there you are.” The trick is to inhabit fully the here of being here, the here of heading to there, the here when you arrive there. So here I am in the Frankfort library, soon to be here in the Traverse City Airport and then Seat 5C and so on.

See you here!