State of Place

Photo by Marty.fm

A couple months ago, I told some friends and family that the time had come. That I’d been home almost a year, and would soon hit the road to teach English in Asia. Boom–gotta get out of here. Next stop: Daegu, Korea, or Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

We’re trained to follow through on what we say, to walk the walk. I certainly talked the talk this past spring–including to a handful of recruiters who could have had me in a colorful classroom by the end of July. It’s now the first day of September, and these places are on indefinite hold.

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would you want to hang around Pennsylvania?”

I get a bunch of travel newsletters via email, and one that shows up every now and then is called Escape From America. I haven’t unsubscribed, but I haven’t read an issue lately either. It goes unopened because for a while now I’ve been getting an unexplained bad vibe from the title.

Like plenty of other Americans, sometimes I feel a vague, uneasy desire to escape. Only this summer did I realize that it’s easy to confuse that feeling with a desire to escape from America.

Back in May, a few surprisingly trivial things made me feel trapped, and the confused response was pursuit of a ticket to teach for a year in Asia. I feel lucky to have stopped the saboteurs in time. There’s a fine line between travel to get closer to something–adventure, freedom, authenticity–and travel to run away.

I say saboteurs because, upon further reflection, it became clear that the adventure du jour is right here, in unsuspecting ol’ Bethlehem, PA. I’m wrapped up in a few storylines, and am both working and waiting to see how they play out.

Yes, it’s embarrassing that I asked a friend for advice on making Korea happen, and later saw her Facebook status of, “People should follow through on their plans.” Entirely coincidental, but still…

Yes, I feel stupid when I end up explaining (yet again), Well, looks like I’m gonna be around here a little longer after all…

But what I’m not worried or ashamed about are the reasons why I’m excited to stick with my American life:

Because I’m learning through doing. Because despite having no formal timeline or contract, leaving now would mean abandoning projects I’ve invested serious effort in. Projects much bigger than the annoyances I almost fled from.

Because I’ve accepted that going abroad isn’t automatically preferable to being at home (if you need further convincing, ask an anti-war vet).

Because staying here strengthens my ability to sustain commitment. Because (and this last one can devour a lifetime if you’re not careful) if I stay here and finish what I’ve started, my travel choices in the not-too-distant future will be wide open.

Exploring this town and keeping an eye on my developing options makes the anticipation of purposeful, educational travel with hand-picked goals, well, delicious. (The inevitable comparison is learning not to throw away a Polaroid picture after five seconds of nothing.)

Please, don’t get me wrong. It’s great to be drunk on a travel plan. Just make sure you know why you picked up the bottle.

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PS — Tack a “for now…” on the end of this post’s title…

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