Solnit observes that an image from the past, a memory in whatever form it may take, reminds us that the person we were is not. For me, the image came from a dream. I’ll not recount it here but say that my current iteration was interacting with a group of people who were part of my everyday life 25 years ago. I woke soon after, and the contrast between my different selves was at its sharpest. It tasted bitter.

It seems to be a feature of the human experience to range far from where we began and be able to acknowledge the beauty and the pain of that distance. I read recently of a South American blue whale showing up along the African coasts. Apparently, that’s abnormal. I’ve read of great white sharks traveling insane distances, a monstrous peripatetic of the ocean’s deep. Do they mourn the loss of the familiar? Can they?

I am among those who chose to “travel far,” who must “find our own ground, build from scratch,” as Solnit describes. Some mornings, we wake to find a profound loneliness. Whatever may be the abilities or instincts of great whites or blue whales, I apparently weigh loneliness much like the many dieters who are befuddled and depressed at how their efforts aren’t giving them the results they would like. And I’m also aware that health experts tell those same dieters that measuring health in terms of body weight is a misleading if not entirely harmful. Weight is rarely a clear indicator of progress unless our only goal is to reach a number that we have determined is good and all other numbers are bad. It is at best an ancillary sign of progress. We seem to like this approach because it feels concrete: until I reach that desired number I’ve not worked hard enough. Meanwhile, we miss the points such as that our lungs need oxygen, so exercise that increase oxygen volume is a healthier indicator of overall health; our blood needs a certain level of iron, so monitoring those levels is important; our arteries can’t handle more than X number of LDL, so watching how much animal products we consume is important. The scales provides an emotionally charged perspective of what we’ve deemed progress.

I’m wondering if the feeling I woke with this morning is based on a perspective that’s about as helpful as the scales is for measuring overall health. I have an emotional connection to the dream I had this morning that told me what I already know: I’m not the same person I was. The reality of who I am—a reality I’ve known for most of my life—is that I needed to travel far, to put some distance between where I am and where my life began. It’s easy to measure this distance geographically without paying attention to the non-geographical distances our lives navigate. Iowa sometimes seems further from the southeastern US than Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco, all of which felt familiar because I’ve spent the majority of my life in places that had a beach within an hour’s drive, sometimes within a 20-minute drive. The coastline is a place where awe holds me tenderly and whispers, “Remember how small you and your worries are, Michael.” Finding an ocean’s coastline in any direction is at least a 20-hour drive from Iowa City. I’ve tried Lake Michigan’s shoreline, but the lack of salt betrays it. Do I bemoan the distance between me and the beach? Sure—often—but I don’t judge myself negatively because I don’t live there in Sarasota or Charleston. The distance between me and the ocean is part of where my travels have taken me.

Which is what I think I was sensing this morning. I woke with a longing for something I used to have and likely took for granted. And like the beaches that I’m no longer near—-which are in places I no longer desire to live—-that “me” is an iteration of Michael Scott Overholt that is no longer true of the present. There is a longing I cannot ignore for some part of that iteration, but it is not the longing to be that iteration anymore. It’s a longing that simply acknowledges and values the person I was then. He was the construct of a great effort to own his life and desire life in all its fullness. He chose to pursue those desires with great effort because he knew that desire was and is good, and he chose his desires instead of fear. And he—-I—will continue leading with desire, not fear. There is no shame in acknowledging the “me” those choices have brought him to today.

On traveling far

Bridges