Taking My Leave

Making the last days count

10 days on the counter. Months ago I thought that by now I would be freaking out, desperately clutching at time and trying to make it stand still. I used to feel a flash of claustrophobia gripping me whenever, in an unwatchful  moment, I would count the weeks remaining. What a crazy twist of fate, to now be finding myself so comfortably on the edge of my time here. I’m even so at ease that  I’m actively counting off the days, just because I like counting things. As the days progress, more and more people around me join in awareness of my immanent departure. “So sad!” “Don’t leave!” “I’m going to miss you so much!” I don’t recognize myself in those statements anymore. I have turned away from stagnation and have shifted my gaze to the future again. I feel resolved: I know why I’m leaving, I know it’s the right decision, and I know I will be back one day.

How could my feelings shift direction so drastically? Since fall quarter, my position in the Trico-ops had changed. Gradually, I had to start disengaging myself. Part of this disengagement was unintentional: 11 out of 14 Piercians were brand new and I had no prior connections with them to release. In fact, I had to play this strange double game of investing myself in my new house while starting to let go of it all. But another of part of this disengagement was that I felt myself zooming out on the community. I was drawn to its history and legacy, its old inhabitants. And I was thinking about its future more, working on a handbook that would capture some of our institutional memory, for times when we would need to represent ourselves, and to help new members navigate their first steps into the community.

Trico-op Thanksgiving

The big shift however, came after Trico-op Thanksgiving, Nov 22. Being so focused on the community at large, I had been living up to this event as the great climax of my Davis year. And it was. The people who choose to live in and love this place do so deeply, because we’re all a bunch of sentimental eccentrics. Those of them who go out of their way to travel here for the annual Trico-op Thanksgiving, even more so. As someone chronicled their co-oper days in the Thanksgiving guestbook: “They loved so deeply they needed stitches.” Our houses, our gardens, every last little corner of this place, are so infused with love. But these buildings would mean nothing if it weren’t for the people who consecrate them as homes of their hearts, again and again. The space dimension won out over time that night, as the generations gathered. You could tell how happy the houses were to have so many of their meaning makers meeting here. They were humming with life. The next morning, as the old co-opers packed up and left again, one after the other, I felt as if they had all come in like a wave, and gently carried me out with them. Something inside me was stirring. The traveler had woken up again.

Trico-op Thanksgiving 2014

The day after Trico-op Thanksgiving was the day my last month here went in. I had planned nothing for it, as I didn’t know how I would be feeling, and where I would want to be. Now I was on the other side of Trico-op Thanksgiving, and I felt fine. Was I really just supposed to sit here and wait around for the end? That didn’t sound appealing at all. That didn’t sound like me. I was feeling antsy, I needed to move. So a few days after Trico-op Thanksgiving, I packed my roadmap and my bag and hit the road again: one final trip across my new land.

I was on the move for 9 days. It turned out to be a magnificent decision, the best thing I could have done. That was because I had let my heart take the lead. I hadn’t even really understood why I felt such an urge to go, but my heart knew. I pulled me across the state to make a few last real connections. And knowing that I probably wouldn’t see the people that I visited again, it became a microcosm of my current situation: a practice in leaving, and saying goodbye. I learnt two great things about saying goodbye on that journey, and those two lessons are what brought me back home to Davis so at peace with my departure.

On the road again. California you are beautiful.

It’s not a funeral

During one of these early goodbyes, a friend pointed out to me that we should lighten up a little. ‘It’s not a funeral.’ Man! How true! Recently I’ve started identifying a lot again with a name a friend gave me many months ago. “Are you a drifter?” he’d asked me. I am a drifter. I forge these super deep connections, share so much of myself, but shield myself in the safety of moving on soon, before it gets a chance to wither. I’ve been treating Davis this way, and many of my friendships here. Granted, I have no choice but to end this journey, since my student visa is expiring and I graduated. But I’ve been approaching my departure so gravely, wanting to make a perfect end, give it complete closure. Silliness! Yes, I do care about ceremonies and celebration, and I’m glad I created the space for them. But this is supposed to be an end to a period, not my life. My attitude toward goodbyes changed after that funeral remark. I don’t like them anymore. They’re too dramatic, and they’re flawed. Life is crazy. Who knows when people’s roles in each other's lives end, or take an unexpected turn. Who knows who out of all these people I will see again. And where. And under what circumstances. Those that I won’t: no big deal, it must mean that we fulfilled our purpose in each other’s lives. Those that I will, will have something more to teach me. So I prefer a casual ‘see you later’, saluting the potential of our wide open future.

It was a big thing for me to start taking my leaving lightly. I think it was easier for me now as I spent the first weeks of the quarter attending to the genuine sadness that has a place in it, too. It’s like this process is constantly one step ahead of where I expect it to be. The sadness came prematurely, and now the acceptance came before I even left! I see the same trend in my goodbyes with friends. With a few of them we’ve already said our goodbyes, with a moment of very intentional and mindful appreciation of each other, and that was that. The next few times I saw them there was just love, a simple enjoying of each other’s company. No more expectations, no looming dramatic final scenes. Just a casual ‘Later dude’ to look forward to.

Everything happens in the moments

The trip also showed me that two humans can connect so deeply in such a ridiculously short amount of time, that it can’t be time that holds the key. Connecting deeply has happened for me again and again this past year. To different degrees and with different outcomes of course, but whether it was a matter of days or months, I’ve begun to realize that all connecting happened in just a handful of moments. Everything happens in the moments. It all just depends on how deep you choose to go into them, but when you choose to dive, whatever mysterious potential lies between you will bloom. It’s a realization that the circumstances are forcing on me, since I have nothing left to me here but a few moments, but it’s a profound realization nonetheless. Moments really are where it’s at. And moments are timeless. Perhaps I have found a way to make time stand still, after all.

This realization also allowed me to get on the road in full confidence that it didn’t matter if I spent all my last days in Davis or elsewhere. By now I feel so secure in my position in Davis that I know that for the strong friendships I have made here it wouldn’t matter at all if I’d leave today or in a month. We’ve already had the moments we needed to have the seed of our relationship germinate. It found its little niche and took root in our hearts. I’m simply grateful for my friends’ existence, and excited for our mutual future.

My Pierce babies

I’m so content. I really made the most of my year. I saw more, felt more, and made more soul connections than I could ever have possibly hoped for. There is nothing I regret not doing, because I have done it all. Everything I could possibly think of. It’s crazy to think how much I managed to squeeze into 12 months. All corners of California explored, all true-ringing friendships pursued, every moment cherished and loved. And now, I even feel less of that looming loneliness ahead of me. At another Thanksgiving dinner, with my friends at the Turtle House, I heard myself giving thanks to my year in Davis, and say that I would have a lot to take home with me. Well there’s a new thought. It’s true, I will go home empty handed, free to build something new back in Holland, but I certainly won’t go back empty inside. On the contrary, I have lived in my light this year, and people saw it, loved it, and loved me for it so deeply that I now take off into my future strengthened by the confident belief that dozens of dear friends have in me and in all the great things I could achieve if I keep living in my light. How lucky am I, to feel propelled into the next adventure not just by my own drive and passion, but also by so much love from my Californian friends and family. Thank you California, it’s been real.