In my early twenties, when I was first traveling on my own, there was a thought that crossed my mind each time I would arrive in a new place. As I walked through an unfamiliar city or took a bus through a countryside still unknown to me, I would be astounded by the number of people I was crossing paths with, the number of faces that I never would have encountered, the number of lives there were in the world, the number of stories I would never get to know. It is one thing to know intellectually that I share this planet with some seven or eight billion people, to know that I could never meet all of them or hear all of their stories. It is another thing to walk through a place I have never been and brush shoulders with hundreds, sometimes thousands of people that I otherwise would never encounter. A different set of knowings come with that experience: a felt sense of just how big this world really is, an understanding of how random the circumstances of my life are, and a clarity around how much possibility lives in each moment of life.
This afternoon I walked around a city I’ve never been in and, though now in my mid-forties the same set of knowings arrived in my body. There is a kind of presence that is required when navigating a place I’ve never been, a way that I have to be more attuned to my surroundings, a way that my imagination has to be more open. As I walk past people speaking languages I do not speak, living lives I will never understand, a part of me starts to wonder: what would my life be like if I lived here? What would happen if I just decided to stay, to learn a new language, to adapt to a new culture? Could I do it? Would I want to do it? Does every place feel this vibrant and alive when you don’t know it? Does every culture seem more ideal when you’re just passing though? Do most lives become monotonous in the day to day living of them? Do all places become less bright when they become familiar to the mind? Is it we who dull our own experience of things when we think there is no newness to them?
For seven or eight years I spend a few days each summer on an island off the coast of Vancouver. Because of how long it takes to get there by ferry I often take a seaplane. The first time I took the seaplane I was overcome with excitement. I remember the feeling in my body as navigated the Vancouver airport complex in search of the port where the seaplanes took off: the heightening of my senses as I walk through an unknown place; the sweat building up on my body from both the internal anxiety of now knowing where I am and the external effort of walking with a heavy travel pack; the mix of excitement, curiosity, and nervousness that comes with not knowing exactly where I am, not being entirely sure where I’m going, and only vaguely having a notion as to how I might get there. I remember finding the small shack at the edge of the water where I “checked in” for my flight; I remember watching the planes take off and land in the water; I remember walking onto the wooden dock and climbing onto this tiny mix of sea and aircraft; I remember sitting in the co-pilot seat as we picked up speed and lifted up from the water; and most of all I remember looking out the window in complete and utter amazement at the landscape of sea and island mountains unfolding in front of and beneath me.
This first seaplane flight and everything associated with it lives vividly in my memory. The second seaplane flight I took, the third, and the fourth do not. I remember little things from different times I’ve taken the seaplane: the time we made an extra stop in the middle of the ocean and picked up some passengers from a small motorboat; the time the plane landed in the opposite direction because of the change in wind; the time I saw them towing one of the planes out of the water for maintenance. But for the most part these trips have blended in my memory. The more I take a seaplane the less distinct each experience is, the less attention my mind needs to pay is. For me, a seaplane ride is not longer venturing into the unknown, it no longer feels like an adventure.
This summer I brought a friend with me on my annual visit to the island. We took the seaplane together and I got to experience it from her eyes. Her excitement, trepidation, and awe at the experience re-awakened my own. I found myself paying more attention as we took off from the harbor, I found myself reveling more in the view of the sea and island mountains we flew past, I found myself once again feeling the sense of possibility that comes with a new adventure.
The truth is, every day is full of possibility: every day there exists the possibility that my life will change, that something will happen to upend my routine and open me up to a set of previously unfathomable possibilities. But it is also true that most days do not act in this way: most days are full of rhythm and routine, most days blend into each other, most days are filled with the beauty and comfort that comes with predictability and knowing (or at least thinking we know) what will happen next.
Today, as I sit at a bar in this place I’ve never been, having recently finished a season of work, not knowing what, where, or around whom the next chapter of my life will be oriented, I am once again opening my imagination to the possibilities of where life might take me. Today I am aware that I do not know what will happen next. It is scary to face the unknown in this way and it is exciting to be open to having my life changed by the situations I find myself in. In this moment of possibility the thing I have to remember, the thing I keep reminding myself is that there is beauty in the unknown, that the unknown and the possibility that lives within it is what makes a life a life.