Greener Grass by the Home

Ever since I can remember I’ve been particularly attached to places. Each patch of land stores in it an imaginary identity, a personhood I could inhabit.

I daydream of being a wanderer, a citizen of the world, of dwelling in airports and airplanes. Of being the kind of person who responds: “I am based between Paris and Jingdezhen. I work out of Sao Paulo this year. I just came back from a sabbatical in rural Indonesia”.

I daydream of being a hermit. Of building a home studio with my own hands deep in the Pyrenees woods. Of eating from my own garden or an orchard, and never leaving my solitary cabin.

What I’m trying to say is that I am afraid to settle down - I fear that contentment with the present may hinder my ambition. And I am afraid to never settle down, worrying that my restlessness will deprive me of all pleasure. Leaving one place means abandoning the possibility of being the kind of person who would stay. Staying necessarily means surrendering a potentially grander life elsewhere. But what if it were possible to embrace the immensity of Earth’s magnificence and not pay the price of being forever rootless? 

Looking at the landscapes from the safety of an airplane window offers a daydream outside of fixed coordinates, a momentary glimpse at the possibility of another, more significant life. The dream passes as quickly and inconsequentially as the plane moves on to another view below.