around noon i up look at the bright blue sky. somewhere up there is the airplane with a seat reserved for me – i guess i’m considered a “no-show” now. decided not to fly back home. god knows that i would have wanted to be in europe, or in beirut, but not here.
but i feel immobile now, it has been too much. the feeling that “here” starts to slip away – too much of being in between places, jet lagged, not very grounded. i am so used to juggle different places, to travel in between them, to have different relationships with and engagements in them. not sure if i would know how to live well in only one place.
but this time, this place, i’ve hit some kind of limit. it’s the fact of being in a place i don’t really like and therefore being unable to turn it into a good pied-a-terre which makes it so much easier to be mobile. it’s the sheer distance – i should stop pretending california-europe is another version of brussels-utrecht, brussels-luxemburg, brussels-london or brussels-istanbul. it’s the body – that material map of the things one does – getting older. it’s… whatever it is, it’s hitting a limit. a kind of exhaustian which unsettles “here”, not as a particular place, but a disposition of body and mind.
when i look at that blue sky my mouth tightens – god knows how much i would have wanted to be on a plane going east. but i know i need to stay here.