Yoda Says: "Do or Do Not Do"

Somewhere along the path of forty long years, through numerous starts and stops and starts that never started, I became a do-er. One of those strange people who instead of saying every year, ‘this year I’m gonna X,’ for ten or fifteen or twenty years, actually does X. I don’t know when this happened. I’m not sure even how. But I know that it has. Maybe it is a process of knowing myself better. Maybe I know that I’m NOT going to be happy being or doing things that I used to waste time thinking I would be or could do or would come to love. Maybe I just got tired of having more ideas than experiences.

When I said ten years ago “When my son goes to college, I’m going to Italy to learn Italian!” I didn’t really think I was going to do it. More than anything, I was finding a thread for him and I both to hold on to that would get me through the thought of him moving out one day and keep him from ever deciding his life around what I needed. I figured if in his mind I was off in Italy then he was free to choose any college in any city rather than having his choices limited by his parent, as I see happens to so many children. Between you, me, the wall, and the two people in my life I told the truth to, I never thought I would go. And then I did.

When I said I was going to couchsurf western Europe, I didn’t think I would do it either. Of course now I was a bit concerned because I had already followed through on such craziness once. It usually hits me somewhere in the airport. “Oh my god, am I really doing this?” By then the ticket is bought and my ride has left and I figure what the hell, I may as well go. When I said, “I’m going to pursue my life long dream of writing” I figured I was more in love with the idea of writing than the task. Now with over a hundred articles written and half a book I can’t say I dream about writing; now I am a writer. Of course I still dream about being paid for it one day. So now I’ve learned I have to be really careful what I say I’m going to do because chances are I’m really going to do it. Things like “Gee lets go to New York with $400 and settle in for a few months to earn some money and get back on the road.” What kind of idiot goes to New York with $400 to their name? The kind who knows they can make things happen.

This is a wonderful sense of empowerment and a tremendous amount of pressure. People watch you from the sidelines with a mixed sense of admiration, envy, and hope; hope for your success and hope for your failure too. If you can do it, they know somewhere inside they can do it too. And nothing, nothing scares us more than our own potential. When I am on that high, that I can do it, the universe is a loving place.

The streets of New York are much like life. Walking down 119^th street near Columbia University the wind coming off of the river cuts through you like a ginsu knife. It is sharp, stinging, penetrating your coat and all seven layers of clothes beneath it. Turning the corner requires a force of will akin to what they had to cross the Mississippi River. You put your head down and drive through it, seriously wondering if you are going to survive to the next block much less wherever your destination is. Even the sun, in one of the few places it reaches you unhindered by buildings, cannot warm you through the whipping wind. It is sufferage. And sufferage always feels like it will last forever. And then, somewhere in the long, undivided stretch between 119^th and 116^th the wind is gone. Like that. Like magic. The sun is warm on your face. The sky a beautiful Carolina blue. Rays of light glisten off the sides of the old Europe architecture and the barren birches and forlorn winter cherry blossom trees. The sufferage just a few short steps back is a distant memory as you close your eyes and lift your face to the sun. It is warm enough to take your coat off and dance. I had a hard time resisting the temptation.

I stood there, basking in the sunshine, eyes closed, a smile on my lips, thinking how unbearable everything felt just moments before, how beautiful everything felt now, and how unbearable it would become again. I thought for just a moment of rooting myself to that spot, spending all afternoon sitting right there in the sunshine, but I knew the sun would pass and with it the warmth. I knew too there were other things I wanted to do with my few hours of free time that I would have to move in order to do. And so I stood still, took a deep breath and inhaled everything in that moment – the light, the winter trees, the Ivy league architecture, the river sparkling before me, the blue sky, the glorious, glorious sun, I noted with appreciation all that wasn’t there – the cold, the wind, the rain, the sound of cars, people pushing, freneticness. I drank it all in and once satiated with the moment, I continued on my path braced for the wind that was waiting for me just a few steps onward.