Seeing Clearly: The Geographic Cure

Sunday, June 7, 2009

The Geographic Cure

At AA meetings, you will frequently hear about this concept of moving somewhere else to make a fresh start, get away from the old grind, see things from a new perspective. We call it the Geographic Cure. We call it that because it sounds like just the ticket for a lot of what might ail you about where you live. If you are still out there drinking, you might be thinking of escaping from a variety of stinky relationships, obligations, and messes created while under the influence or trying to get under it somehow. We alcoholics have a way of finding every conceivable bridge that might offer a way out or up and burning it the hell down. We go through lots of friends, lovers, jobs, rental agreements, cars, library cards, volunteer commitments, gym memberships...you get the idea. So, moving sounds incredibly seductive and we do it a lot, only to find, to our horror, that wherever we go, there we are (to paraphrase another AA ditty).

If we aren't drunks or addicts, we still may have reason to want to make that leap into a new life. This seems to be the case with we boomers, as we contemplate the possibility of retirement, or just the possibility that we could die before we get the chance to live in the mountains or go to Bangladesh for a stint in the Peace Corps. We have a sort of renaissance of the same cravings for adventure, novelty and challenge that we had when we were starting out, except that we have some money in the bank, a longer and more impressive resume, and maybe a slightly more mature perspective.

For the past few years I have toyed with the idea of moving to Colorado or New Mexico. I love it out there, have friends and family strategically placed and once again am wondering how in the hell I will survive another winter in the Land of Grey that is Holland at that time of year.

This year, I looked into it a little deeper, talking to my financial guy, Ron, ever patient, practical and steady, and to some friends, and to my kids. What I found happening was that I began to create a sort of dichotomy or polarity between here and there in which I was able to create an ever-longer list of pros for there and cons for here. Some of them were no brainers: Denver gets 300 days of sunshine a year, there are cool people out there and I can live out all of my hippie fantasies in close proximity to Boulder. Others, a little more subtle: I have been doing the same thing for a long time here. That is the good news and the bad news of it all. That is the trap and the allure. Could I do it? Could I pick up and leave, sell it all, take off in my little car with my little dog and just go? Find a funky little apartment out there somewhere and simplify my life? Make a new start? Escape the sameness and the routine of my life here?

Of course, I am a drunk, and this could smack a little of the GC, though of course daydreaming about the possibilties in life is what keeps us interested and moving ahead. It could be quite the adventure to move away. The only trouble is, I can't figure out how to do it without taking me along. I have a sneaking suspicion that the things that are bugging me about my life have little to do with where I live and everything to do with my reticence to do the work I need to do to make it better. The grand gesture always sounds better to me than the daily work of making a life and making it worth living.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Thank you for this writing; I needed it today.; April 23, 2010 at 10:02 AM

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The Journey

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.

a poem from TRAVELING MERCIES by Annie Lamott

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feeling we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

--w.s. merwin

from Kabir, Indian mystic poet

Friend, hope for the truth while you are alive.

Jump into experience while you are alive!...

What you call "salvation" belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you are alive,

do you think ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic

just because the body is rotten--

that is all fantasy.

What is found now is found then.

If you find nothing now, you will simply end up with

an empty apartment in the City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

Night Letter to theReader by Billy Collins

Night Letter to the Reader

I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,

a bird leaving the nest,

a snail taking a holiday from its shell,

but only to stand on the lawn,

an ordinary insomniac

amid the growth systems of garden and woods.

If I were younger, I might be thinking

about something I heard at a party,

about an unusual car,

or the press of Saturday night,

but as it is, I am simply conscious,

an animal in pajamas,

sensing only the pale humidity

of the night and the slight zephyrs

that stir the tops of the trees.

The dog has followed me out

and stands a little ahead,

her nose lifted as if she were inhaling

the tall white flowers,

visible tonight in the darkened garden,

and there was something else I wanted to tell you,

something about the warm orange light

in the windows of the house,

but now I am wondering if you were even listening

and why I bother to tell you these things

that will never make a difference,

flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.

but this is what I want to do--

tell you that up in the woods

a few night birds were calling,

the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,

and that at one point, the moon,

looking like the top of Shakespeare's

famous forehead,

appeared, quite unexpectedly,

illuminating a band of moving clouds.

This poem does what all good art does-it makes my heart fill as I recognize myself in it, and I say, "yes! that is exactly it!" and I realize once again that I need to tell you so many things. I feel inspired. Alive.

There are not enough hours.

a note from Kevin Griffin, author and spritual leader from Shambhala