In the song by Johnny Cash he lists numerous places he has been. I have not doubt he has been to all those places. I have also been many places, South Africa, China, Bulgaria, even Rabbit Hash. By far my favorite city was Athens, Greece, noisy, busy, crowded, yet beautiful and vibrant and exciting. My favorite place not a city is a beach in Michigan, quiet, secluded, peace filled and for me a place I feel at home. I have lived in many different homes, different areas, urban, rural, suburban, diverse, isolated, monotone and dull. I’ve lived in an urban neighborhood and the noise never ended, gun shots, cars, screams, the din was constant and eventually unnerving. I lived in placid bucolic bliss where noise disrupted the quiet with ease but was short lived and the quietness grew again. All these different experiences, different sounds, different smells, different views yet never satisfaction. Maybe its just me but I believe there is a restlessness in us all.
We are a people whom like to wander, to search, to seek something other than what we have or know. This tendency to wander I believe has its genesis in a desire to learn and know the world, the universe, the small town, the big city all created to quell a sense of wonder. Yet, even when we have seen numerous places we still yearn to see more. Can this yearning be satisfied or is a restlessness that we must endure until a new time comes. Were we created to yearn for more, to seek out new things, new ideas, new places. Is this restlessness our need to fill a void within our spirits, a hole that can only be filled with something still and content. I do not have the answer, just more questions, more yearning for something outside me. The desire for something outside has been lessening as I get closer to other side of life. Maybe a fill of seeking an elusive prize has taught me I can not, will not, have that thing I want so badly.
As I watch the never quiet, never resting media we consume maybe just maybe that is making us more aware of our desire to seek, making the yearning more acute. We can search for information, for knowledge, for images, for stories of anything we want. We can not get lost now that we have devices to guide us from our beds to our destinations telling us where to turn, where to eat, where to fuel up. In a way we do not need to think for ourselves with all this assistance. All this ease of knowing about other things emboldens our yearnings to wander. Yet I think if we are constantly seeking something other than what is here and now we will forever be unsatisfied. How do we rediscover the art of being still, being quiet, being content. Is it even possible?
I would emphatically say yes. I had a revelation a few years ago. It came as I lie in bed with my partner, a woman I have slept with for going on 40 years. There we were me on my back her with her head on my shoulder and my arm wrapped around her. I was struck with the idea that right there and then I was in my favorite place in the universe. Lying there next to her it did not matter what our actual location was or is, what matters is that we are there together. Contentment comes not from the infinite search but from a life shared with passion, with tears, with joy. A life that would have always been restless, always searching, always seeking has become a life lived utterly connected to another and in that connection was birthed contentment, birthed peace, birthed passion, birthed wonder. I will not trade my favorite place for anything and I intend to do everything I can to stay right here and pour all I have, all I am into her.