Departure

My goal was to enjoy, or at least get something out of, the prelude to departure. I hoped that the weeks-long process of moving out and leaving would include thoughtful consideration of our values and our attachments to material possessions, contemplative conversations with the kids about our goals, hopes, and fears, and poignant farewell get-togethers with our cherished friends, at which they’d tell me how much they were gonna miss me man and how remarkable it was that I was making this transition with such poise. Nobody said that. Instead it was a shitstorm of decision fatigue with my wife, social and emotional exhaustion with my friends, and generally being shittier than usual to my loved ones.

Our plan was to leave for Boise at 10AM, and I took the final truckload of stuff to the storage unit at 9:16. In the last two trips, I had wasted time I didn’t have being precious about stacking boxes and stuff, lost one glove, and broken Hilary’s filing cabinet slamming it shut. I texted Sam and Casey at 9:45, informing them that I would lease them our truck for the year, because I couldn’t get a buyer to meet my price. Just after 10:00, I got back to our house that we were unable rent long-term. And at 10:13, we left for the Boise airport, in our car that we were selling to a friend who was for the time being, through zero fault of her own, unable to come up with the purchase money. I had what we call in our family “sense of humor failure.” I was frustrated, rattled and fragmented.

Including a Tom Robbins quote in my initial blog post makes me want to slam my hand in a fucking car door. But I’m gonna, for two reasons. The first is that it is undeniably good and right, and has stuck with me with since I read it as an impressionable young man searching the world for meaning. And the second is as a tribute to my recently departed friend Chris Pilaro, who passed away last February, who loved it too, and lived and died its truth:

“The most important thing in life is style…for if man defines himself by the doing, then style is doubly definitive, for style describes the doing.”

Chris viewed that quote not as aspirational, like I do, but as descriptive and self-evident. He did everything his way – not out of effort or as an affectation, but because he couldn’t not. He was naturally, sometimes aggressively, himself. A friend could easily pick him out – or even his track a day later – across a ski slope at a half-mile. And a stranger at the same range would wonder, who’s that guy?

The thing he did with the most style was die. This is not the place to describe that, but suffice it to say, it transcended typical approaches to one’s impending departure, it transformed his community of friends, and inspired me to try to do difficult things with grace and courage and love in my heart.

As I said, I failed to handle my somewhat easier departure nearly as well. And I will fail again – in fact, I already have. But I will keep trying. Because the what is that I’m traveling with my family for a year. What’s important is the how.