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1. I enjoyed it and it’s full of rather poignant truth about the social world we inhabit.

   I’d also like to point out that if he had just equipped his vehicle with a manual transmission, his brakes going out on an exit ramp would not have been the death defying moment that it was. Engine braking FTW.

   I know the feeling…sort of. I’ve never “kept going” for the sake of success, but i spent pretty much all of my youth focused on the future and how if i just kept going i’d get better wherever i went to next. The next country would sort me out, exorcise the demons or whatever. Run, run, run. In some ways i probably needed to run, the psychological energy i expended during those years was probably the stuff of mental snapping later in life had i done nothing with it. It was actually part of my reasoning when i reduced my life to international luggage dimensions and left for Russia. I had a good job at the Kalamazoo Public Library, and they were about to offer to pay for me to get a masters in Library Science at UofM in return for working there for some years. That would have made me quite happy, but i feared the rut…i could see the settled life, the mortgage and all that other stuff. I could also feel the desire to move, to see, to do. Not in a vacationing way, but in a life-living way. It was like i could see making the “right” choice and then freaking out ten years down the road and throwing it all over for dreams i had passed up when younger. And so i left on what would end up being a twisted journey, physically and psychologically.

   It wasn’t until i got to Marquette that things changed. I had that “just stop” moment. Or i decided to try the opposite of what i had been doing. I’m much better since stopping, though at times it takes some energy to remain still ’cause i’ve still got the wanderlust bug inside me and i dearly miss some of the places i’ve called home. Maybe that’s why i’ve come to find such a connection with plant life, they seem to do pretty well without being able to move about. Maybe they’re teaching me how to put down roots and do your thing right where you are instead of off in the future, where you’ll be next.

   I can guarantee that not one person who knew me well through the 90’s and early portion of the 21st Century could have envisioned me here and now. I certainly couldn’t have…well, that’s not exactly true. I envisioned that when it was time to stop i’d do so on an Aegean island where i’d live off the fruit of the land. Given the snow, lack of ancient ruins and barely passable baklava i’m a long, long way from that.