books and plans and HOPE

“Are we…dead?” I asked Laura as we smoothly rose upwards.

“Because this is ‘heaven’?” she responded.

“I sure hope heaven is a lime green escalator in a giant room of books with sunshine as we rise into clouds,” I mused.

You’ll never guess it—we were in the Seattle Public Library downtown for the first time. After promptly picking up our “Discovery” library cards, we took to the escalators to explore the block-wide building of windows, books, and steel.

 Like teenagers getting their drivers’ licenses for the first time, we giggled and held our new library cards in awe.

We spent the afternoon sitting on the top floor, gazing out of skylights and writing at the tall desks on square stools. Laura dropped her pen, and we both looked down at it. “It’s so far!”

Two letters and two postcards later, we started towards home again, managing not to check out any items with our library cards.

I’ve been thinking a lot about timing—how right it feels to be in Seattle. Even something as simple as going to the library can feel like just what I’m supposed to be doing. Yet I have no plans. Sure, we have events going on this summer to attend. We have the usual cadence of community and DG and all. But I have no plans.

I used to have plans. I used to have it all figured out. At any point in time, I could pull up a Word doc that listed out my five-year plan. In college, it was always, these are the classes I am going to take or these are the clubs I am going to run. I’ve finally reached a point where I have no idea what the next five years will bring.

I used to want things: to get an MFA, to have a boyfriend, to have a designated place that felt like “home,” to travel internationally often…the list goes on. Of course I still want it all. I will never stop aspiring to be all that I can and do all that I can and absorb all that I can.

But I am learning that life comes in seasons. The weather is not in our hands.

By some mystery, I have been pulled to this small (feels so now, anyways) city on the West coast, and I couldn’t imagine myself anywhere else. Not even my childhood dream, not even Arizona.

When I think about how much I love this city, I start to question: could I ever actually leave here? I can’t say I’ve ever actually wanted to stay in a particular place. I’ve always been gogogo; where to next? (I’m not sure this is entirely accurate, considering I’ve always lived in PA until now, but it feels so in some way.) When I moved here, it was with the intent that I would stay a year and then move on to somewhere else. Since my whole one-year plan was tossed out the window within two or three weeks of moving here, every new step has been a blessed surprise.

So maybe I won’t be going to grad school in Pittsburgh or Missoula or Tucson anytime soon. Maybe I won’t even be leaving Washington in the foreseeable future. Maybe I won’t get to go to Europe or Asia in the coming years. Maybe Pickle & I won’t ever get to spend a year in France.

I’m learning to accept that timing is perfect, and we must go where we are called, even if we don’t know why we are going there or what epiphany may follow a loud boom in the middle of the night on a weekend alone in a big red, creaky house.

So I have no plans because I do not know where I will be called next. And I might not know for sometime. And I might not know until just then, just before I am to go.

Until then, I will live actively and with intention. Until then, I can only have HOPE.