Dropping out of my life

[annburlingham]

sushi in geneseo tonight. a quiet, fine time, dropping out of my life for a couple of hours, a visit to another life, among strangers. yet the language was the same. i posed as the sushi expert, offering tips, when asked, on the use of chopsticks. chatted with the sushi chef, about sushi, his business, my business, our young children. read the new

Comments

[vasilatos]

write me a few panels and i'll draw you something

[vasilatos]

[flarenut]

I understand the desire to drop out and wander (!) but also wonder how the notion of wanderlust makes sense outside the context of people who are solidly rooted in some place. When I think about my own family's peripatetic history, it comes off as a long series of failures to create or inhabit an enduring place. (My greatgrandfather was sent away from home at 17 to apprentice somewhere that there might be jobs, spent the next 20 years moving by fits and starts all the way to China, then returned to his native country. His son stayed home after a Grand Tour, then spent the last decade of his life trying to figure out which distant countries his offspring might safely live. And so forth, down to my own decision that I couldn't do New York any more and to move to a quiet country town -- whence my kids will almost certainly emigrate as soon as they can. Heck, I can't even show people my old college dorm or where I used to work because they've all been gutted or razed.