I first wrote Departure nearly 30 years ago and have recently returned to refine it. I’m sharing it again here as the opening piece of a new series, The Work of Being Human. For me, it remains a living reflection on what it means to keep crossing into life. Departure A five-year-old boy, suitcase in hand, standing at the edge of leaving. Behind him, a family lifts a camera— the moment framed, the boy already moving. “You were running away. Something must have happened.” For a long time, I believed the story. But I was not running. No— I was learning how to go. Departing. The first pull of the road. Searching. Listening. Discovering what calls before it explains itself. Eighteen years old. A young man leaving a protected house for a place where voices collided before they met. I looked past skin, past raised voices. For a moment eyes meeting something quieter appeared. The spirit within. New Jersey beaches, salt and wind. New York streets, trash pressed into corners, people moving fast, faces already braced. Again— briefly— the same presence. Departing. A farther shore. Asia. Warm water folding the land. Languages crossing. Japanese. Chinese. Filipino. Black. White. Hispanic. Now a young man, watching children’s faces. Listening longer. So many people. So many stories. And underneath— the same voice. I dove into the ocean, hoping it lived in the depths. I found Buddhism instead— and another leaving. Returning home: books stacked, philosophers arguing, teachers pointing toward questions. Mountains. Thin air. The body reminded how small certainty is. Campaigns. Conferences. Festivals filled with hope and exhaustion. Cities pulsing— San Diego. Philadelphia. Washington, D.C. New York. Chicago. Hawaii. Back to Japan— fifty nations in one space, voices layered, translation always incomplete. Everywhere I went, the same quiet current moving through people. Thirty years old. A departure no one applauds. This time inward. No map. Only descent. Someone warned me: “Don’t go there. You might not return.” But the one who listens knows when a door must be opened. It was dark— darker than night. Darker than slogans. Darker than certainty. And then: not the absence of fear, but a light cutting through it. I hadn’t found it. It had been waiting. Thirty-nine years old. Another leaving— this time, not alone. An explorer still, but now turned toward sharing. Sharing breath. Sharing ground. Community— not as agreement, but as a vast, imperfect pool we must enter together. Seeking laughter in a time that mistrusts joy. Seeking reverence without superiority. Seeking the light of God— not above us, but between us, appearing only when we risk listening. Not a conclusion. Each moment a fragile crossing. Each crossing— a departure.
2 Responses
Wonderful, Chuck. I read it with bated breath. Noting how every phrase landed and seated. Especially your New York observation: “trash pressed into corners, people moving fast, faced already braced.” It brought to mind the electrifying vignettes from Gay Talese: “New York is a city for eccentrics and a center for odd bits of information. New Yorkers blink twenty-eight times a minute, but forty when tense. …Gum chewers on Macy’s escalators stop chewing momentarily just before they get off — to concentrate on the last step… (New York Is a City of Things Unnoticed, 1961).
I had no idea you’d lived in New York… when are you coming back to visit and witness all the trash not only pressed in corners but swirling down the street like pirouetting toddlers at their first ballet classes? 😘
Lynette, thanks for your kind thoughts and comments about the unique character of New York City. I didn’t live in New York City; however, I did live in Eatontown, NJ, and was close enough to visit NYC. I returned to New York City in 1986 to be part of the Statue of Liberty’s Bicentennial celebration. I will write a reflection at a later date about my participation in the Statue of Liberty celebration.