Leaving Places

2/23/24

“Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place.”

(Thufir Hawat, Dune)

The sky put on quite a show for my last night in San Diego. Stratus and cirrus clouds glowing pink and red, reflected on cold calm waves. I stood for the good part of an hour, watching it until the very end.

The job I took at Imperial Beach ended up being different than I thought, not allowing me to connect with nature and youth in the way I hoped, and, being in my spontaneous era, I opted to leave. But I will always remember the two months I lived by the ocean, watching the sunsets and the waves.

In the book Dune by Frank Herbert, when packing up to leave Caladan, Thufir Hawat tells Paul that leaving their home planet isn’t sad, because it is just a place, and their new home on Arrakis is just another place.

When I read that in High School I found it poetic, and ever since wished that it could be true. I’ve parted with many places now, and I always told myself it wasn’t sad. But deep down I never believed it.

For any real wanderer of the planet, there exists a seemingly infinite number of ideal places to be. And, over time, to leave the best of them is like leaving good friends, when often much time will pass before you see them again.

For such wanderers, the only way to avoid losing one’s mind is to find joy not in residing in places, but instead in the continuous experience of leaving and exploring new places.

At least, I hope so.