“A body in motion tends to stay emotional.”
For some reason I’ve been thinking a bit about escape. No, I’m not looking to escape my current life (well, maybe bits and pieces, but I’m guessing you’d do the same), but more about the concept of escape as an abstract. I’ve definitely had personal experience with escape throughout my life.
I grew up in a smallish Connecticut city. In the standards of the Northeast, it’s small, but its population of about 20,000 would make it a major city in Montana. Smallness was more a mindset than anything else, a river town constrained by hills, heavily lower-middle class with a decaying economic base. Like other Rustbelt locations, opportunity was quite limited. I also lived in another small town that was way more affluent, and the disparity was pretty striking, especially since I was pretty poor in comparison to many of my “peers”. I felt like I didn’t fit in in either location. Getting out seemed to be the only real option, but how?
From about 1991 or so, after spending a not-good year in North Carolina, leaving the state of Connecticut was my goal. As my senior year wrapped up, I got accepted to an art school in Georgia, a place I didn’t even visit before making the choice, as school trips were not exactly a possibility with my broke family. But it was far from home and my family, two things I seriously wanted to escape from. Except going to this school did not happen, as at the 11th hour I realized I had not enough money to pay for the school. With few options available to me at the time (this was before I got all punk rock and got into zines), I instead spent several more years living with family and working crap jobs.
No, I wasn’t happy with this, but I didn’t have the tools to figure out an alternative, and for many years I was too scared of drastic change to just get up and go. Instead I simmered. Things did get a bit better as the nineties came to a close. But as the new millennium dawned, the band I “worked” for broke up right at the same time I became terminally bored with that scene. Then my car died, which did me the favor of releasing me from my pizza delivery job. The world became the snow-covered field that was common during that cold January of 2000: While I could take it at face value and see it as a bleak landscape, it was also a blank slate, an invitation: Another world is possible. Shawn, you can finally leave this place and start anew. There are no obligations, real or pretend, holding you back.
Finally with a goal in mind, I spent the next few months furiously getting ready for my move to California. Leaving was a bit emotional (my mom really did not want me to go), but I knew that I at least had to give it a shot, otherwise with each passing year it’ll get harder. I spent about nine months living a rough existence in the Bay Area, crashing on friend’s couches, getting swindled by roommates, then living in the spare room of a friend’s mom. Going home was definitely a real possibility, and having that hang over my head scared me into giving a different place a shot before giving up. That place became Portland, where I’ve spent the last twenty-two years.
I know that escape doesn’t always work. Yes, I’ve heard that cliché Wherever you go, there you are. You still need to change who you are, a place won’t magically do that for you. But here’s the thing: It can help. You can try to change yourself while living in your hometown, but you’ll be around people who have known you for seemingly forever, So they may not accept that change, instead remind you of who you used to be, confining you to an outmoded identity. Moving somewhere else can be liberating in that respect, as people in the new place will have to accept who you are now.
When I moved to Portland in 2001 I thought I would be “in motion” again soon. I didn’t think the Rose City would become permanent, merely a place to do things for a few years until another city caught my attention. I was still young, in my mid-twenties, and didn’t necessarily want to limit myself to one place for too long. I really thought I’d spend maybe two or three years here and then move to Chicago. Of course, that plan did not take shape. Portland captivated me, and as the years went on and I moved into my thirties I stuck around. It was too good of a place to leave.
The last time I realistically considered leaving was in 2013. This was two years after The Big Tour, and the return felt like a let-down. I felt a wee bit stifled by Portland and felt that Portland had changed, not necessarily for the better. That summer my four-and-a-half year relationship with April dissolved. I was a “free agent” again. Maybe it’s time to check out another city? I seriously considered moving to Minneapolis for the better part of a year, long winters and lack of ocean be damned.
But I could never motivate myself to actually move. I had spent the previous twelve years building a life in Portland, learning the lay of the land, making connections. It would be hard to give all that up. And throwing yourself into a new situation while in your twenties is relatively easy, but approaching 40? Finally, while there would be a certain thrill in exploring a new city, I felt like I’d try to graft my Portland experience onto the Twin Cities. While I could get into the idea of being a “pioneer” and bringing Portland-style bike culture to the Upper Midwest, would I face resistance and get frustrated? And would I just miss the heck out of my adopted city instead? So I stayed.
Still, I like the feeling of moving. That’s why I like bike touring, and travel in general. I love exploring the world at large, but I also like returning to a home base that I feel a part of. I don’t want to be on a never-ending tour, nor do I want to live in a place that’s unfulfilling so that I have to go elsewhere to feel whole. I’ll call Portland my home indefinitely, but don’t be surprised if you run into me elsewhere!
I guess the advice I’d give is: If you feel that a place is stifling you, if you feel like you can’t do anything else there, a move might do you good. But if you find a place that just fits, hold on to it for as long as you can. Nevertheless travel is never a bad idea!
Urban Adventure League 
Thank you for this beautiful read.
You are welcome!
You are who you are, warts and all, but sometimes a change of context lets you bring out better parts of you and deemphasize less-great parts of you.
That’s a great corollary to the “Wherever you go..” axiom.
I will add that there are times when the simple act of escape is necessary to improve oneself, like when someone is in an abusive or toxic situation. “Self-improvement” is not going to fix that situation.