Stepping Out of the Door

The trouble with setting foot outside your door is that grand adventures don't happen often enough. One foot set in front of the other over the threshold of all that is home and hearth usually leads to the grocery store, the post office--work even. And so we read books, imagine on our own and pray for grandchildren with no common sense.

I can think of a whole industry built around making the mundane both unusual and engaging. It was Coleridge's plan, to make the usual strange. He did most beautifully. Nowadays we have The Office to remind us of how insane our sane lives are. But media that finds beauty and magic in our lives without resorting to the sentimental? Can't think of any: just adrenaline junkie shows with lots of people running around either saving the world or looking over their shoulders.

We step out our doors. We find things and people to believe in, things and people to fight, things and people to mock, things to do. But this is not life worth salt. These are all tasks, mechanical for the most part though somewhat spiritual. They are all endeavors that leave us satisfied to some semi-measurable extent. And so we plod to our graves, feeling either somewhat-fulfilled or somewhat-not-fulfilled.

And then occasionally we lift stakes and live in India for two years.

By the way, I never set foot in either an ashram or a call center. Money and God were not my purposes for living there.

Adventures adventures adventures. I have not had adventures, even in India. I lived a life there, no different from others. I stepped out of my door with the same trepidation and resignation that I step out of it here. Another day in the office, so to speak.

Adventures, I am convinced, happen when you step out of your door intentionally, when your foot falls with a finality that wipes away the mundane behind each step and refuses to find any path already taken. Your personal density must be very low, I think, for true adventures, as the baggage of life can only nod you towards the comfortable ruts of yesterday. To crawl through the woods to an uncertain death like a character in Beckett is an adventure. To leave your car in a ditch and tramp without speaking to any family is an adventure. To surprise your family by becoming the parent you always thought you were is an adventure.

They're not too far to find, really, though long distance travel does help adventures occur.

Perhaps now I must step out my door and find them.

Comments

[bryan plymale]

another day at the office, with the possibility of wiping away the mundane...

wishing you well on this new non-adventure

excellent post btw.

[Meg]

I'm sure that to your many friends in India life in backwoods Connecticut seems more than passing strange.

[Justin]

Strother: This was one of JRR Tolkien's favorite topics in the Lord of the Rings, which has several references to adventures beginning with the first step out of the door, and not knowing where they would lead. Some of this he captured in Bilbo's walking song:

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I oft have passed them by,
Aday will come at last when I
Shall take the hidden paths that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun

Hope all is well. I am just catching up on your blog and it appears you are back in the US. Would love to see you sometime soon.

-Justin