I don’t consider myself a flighty person, but I do notice my pattern of ‘grass is greener’ syndrome. If I’m in Denver, I long for Paris. In Paris, I grow weary of the urban attitude and wish I were in Colorado with friends and space instead of strangers and bustle.
The boomerang way
From 1993 to 1999 I worked at Capitol Hill Books in Denver. I wasn’t there contiguously; instead, I came and went as I explored writing, teaching and the world. My co-workers finally stopped throwing going away parties. I dubbed myself ‘Boomerang’.
Do you, too, long for something other than what you have? Perhaps you’re a boomerang too, whether in your thoughts or actions.
In the studio, you have a tug to be with friends. With loved ones, you want to be back home working on that piece you’re obsessed with. This desire to be elsewhere seems common for creatives.
My work as a coach is to keep posing this question: what do we need to do our best creative work? The answer will be different for everybody and will change over time.
Boomerang lifestyle loses its allure
Back in July, it seemed like a good idea to pack everything up and move to Paris. I had travel plans that took me to Europe and a seven-week dog sitting gig for a friend. I thought I might as well stay over the winter and come back in spring to launch my novel, Chasing Sylvia Beach.
In August I discovered that wasn’t the best idea. For a number of reasons.
Since I packed up my things and decamped to Paris, I’ve realized a lot. Spending 10 of the last 15 weeks alone gave me a lot of time to reflect. I’ve taken the hero’s journey again, leaving home to gain perspective and unearth vital new truths.
I discovered that I do not want to live in France. I had this sense when I was here in 2008, but it’s solidified now. My lifelong dream to follow in Sylvia Beach’s footsteps and be a Frenchy isn’t true for me anymore. I can visit France when it feels right.
I also realized how much help I will need to publish and launch my novel. I’ve lived in Colorado for twenty years and have developed solid relationships with writers, editors and artists. It occurred to me that distancing myself from my network at this crucial time would be nuts.
Sure, we all connect online, but that’s not the same as running into someone at a gathering and catching up in person. This is something that location independence lifestyle can never replace – near and dear connections with your local community.
It also costs one third more to be in France. I believe the energy required to live in a foreign country is also at least one third more. I am publishing my novel in June and I want all my vital resources (energy, time and money) going to that project.
Settling in to focus
I am learning how to be where I am without yearning for another place. I have had this sense of ‘wanting elsewhere’ my entire life. As a child, I wanted to be free to explore. I found this freedom in books. Now I look for the ‘be here now’ approach to relishing and appreciating my life no matter where I am.
I’m back in Colorado and will be settling into a new home in Denver. I’ll always be asking the question: What environment best helps me complete my creative projects?
Do you feel this boomerang (back and forth) pattern in your life or creative work? How does it help or hinder you?
I’ve been a boomerang for a long, long time, too, Cynthia. That’s a good name for it. I cherish your vulnerability in sharing this story. For the past 10 years I’ve wanted to transplant to Buenos Aires but I knew somewhere in my heart, and for many rational reasons, it wasn’t a good idea. Even though I called it my heart home. And then I moved to Florida for some health reasons, and almost immediately wanted to turn around and go right back to Denver and to Colorado. Now that I’m back, I feel completely at home. I spent 25 years here and they were good years. There’s so much for me to love about Denver – people, places, natural environment, attitudes. And I will find a way to write. Something. I don’t know yet, but I trust in that. Welcome Back, my fellow Boomerang and Creative Energizer. You’re such a great inspiration to me. And we’ve known each other a long, long time, too. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Cynthia.
Dana
Thanks, Dana, for your kind comments! I suspected this was common for creatives – this sense of belonging in different places.
I’m glad you’re happy back in Denver. I look forward to seeing you in person in 2012!
Thank you for the love and support of my creative adventure.
Thank you, Cynthia, for sharing your journey and process. I guess finding the resting place between where we are and where we long to be is a spiritual journey of sorts. At times I too, find I bump from one place or idea to another. In a way, searching to define myself. I’m willing to bet, when you were alone and reflecting in Paris, there was a sense of loss associated with letting the French dream go…and some liberation with it as well. How courageous! How courageous for sharing a process that many of us live in our parallel lives, but no one ever talks about. At least I feel somewhat normal now.
I wish you incredible fulfillment and success as you tap into your network and launch “Chasing Sylvia Beach.” I’m beginning to think it’s more important who we are with, regardless of what we’re doing, than where we are geographically. Many thanks for your honest share.
Michelle
Michelle,
You are right. I think the external journey facilitates the inner journey, and the decisions we make define us.
I had a lot of feelings about Paris and my life that I haven’t yet been able to articulate in writing. SO much to say.
You are normal in your uniqueness!
Thanks for the well wishes for my novel. I look forward to sharing it!
I’ve always been perfectly happy to stay in Denver, much to the annoyance of my traveling friends. I think there something to be said for exploring deep instead of wide–not that one is better than the other. They’re just different styles. I appreciate your comments about staying connected with your network of friends and colleagues. I thought of you recently when I read a book that mentioned Sylvia Beach. Good luck with the book.
Dixie,
Why would your traveling friends be annoyed? Don’t they know we all need someone holding the home space, too?
As I mentioned in the post, I think what’s most important is knowing what’s right for us and giving ourselves the gift of honoring that. Travel. Home. Somewhere in between…like Goldylocks, we find the right fit for us.
Thanks for your interest in CSB. I can’t wait for you to read it!
Thank you for sharing this. For years, I thought I wanted to live in London. I even had a hope chest of things I was collecting for my home abroad. Like you, I realized that I was not truly committed to that idea. What I discovered, during my sabbatical, was that what really felt right was to visit London frequently, not permanently. Come to think of it, that may be how I feel about my relationship with all sorts of things and people.
Barbara,
Thanks so much for commenting! You and I came to the same conclusion – a home in the US with frequent forays to places that spark us.
I look forward to going to new places on my future travels.
I love your last line. That’s so true – everything in its right dosage!
Dear Cynthia,
I’m glad you are settling back into a community of familiarity, which I think is what one needs for creative work. Real people, real friends, real motivators. I used to think, beause I was told this a long time ago, that I need three years to call anywhere “home.” Three years, three months, whatever– I think it’s about establishing a sense of safety to unleash & work with the material you’ve gathered & done in travel. Joyce had to leave Ireland to write about it–I wonder if you need to leave Paris to fully engage Sylvia Beach! I’m so glad you will be publishing in June!
Indira
Thanks, Indira!
I always thought it was at least 6 months to settle into a place.
I am fascinated by people who need to leave their culture to create. Sylvia and yes, JJ were both of that ilk.
Oh how I know the feeling. My four months away in 2010 was great but the end result was me being more in love with home. I need to space and moderate my travels, both for work and pleasure. The hardest part for me being home is missing everyone who is far away. But you can’t be everywhere at once. When I moved to Colorado I wanted to live in the same house for 20 years. It’s been 13. I was tempted to cut and run a few times but it looks like I may reach that 20-year milestone before my next major move. In the meantime, travel can be a release when I need an adventure, refilling the well, or a visit with a far-away friend.
Donna,
It’s interesting to look at our patterns and see which ones are really serving our long-term goals.
Travel has such an impact on my life, that I, like you, need to be conscious of where I am going and when.
Enjoy your cozy Colorado nest!
Cynthia,
“…A home in the US with frequent forays to places that spark us. I look forward to going to new places on my future travels.”
As a frequent traveler, travel is how I boomerang. I LOVE Paris, fell in love, wish to move…but KNOW South Florida is HOME. Especially with the new home here…it feels like my body and soul enters the structure daily and says HERE!!! HOME!!!! Feels like that when I get home to the Miami Airport, too…LOL.
Am looking forward to reading Chasing Sylvia Beach. Was wondering about your publishing connections and support – thanks for mentioning in your post. Was wondering why you thought about living in Paris permanently – you were irked about the traffic, crowds, etc. at least briefly while we were together.
Am SO GRATEFUL I took the chance and met you in Paris. That is another boomerang, btw – go out of comfort zone, meet, and at least continue an acquaintance. 😉
Thank you, Angie, for your comments. I love that you associate leaving the comfort zone with a kind of boomerang energy – step out into scary territory, retreat back to the known. That’s the power of travel!
I’m so glad I met you, too. I love knowing that your Paris visit sparked a lot of creative juju for your year!
Keep playing!
It’s so helpful to stop and ask oneself the basic questions–who am I? what do I want to do? where do I want to be? Because the answers change. Because living out of touch with the answers is draining and unsatisfying. Because life is better when we’re aligned top to bottom with our purpose and joy. Welcome back to the States, Cynthia–and to the exciting phase of editing and publishing CSB! Looking forward to hearing more.
Thanks, Shelly! You’re right – we change and so do our priorities. It took me a long time to write this post because I didn’t want to feel like I was explaining or back pedaling. I had to come to it from writing from integrity – sharing what was and is true for me, while making it a useful post for others who boomerang.
I’m glad this resonated with you. I appreciate your voice in this conversation!
I so appreciate the concept and explanation of “boomerang life.” I think, though, I have more something like a “Machete Life” or a “Burned Bridge Life” (haha!). My life has a couple of times now, maybe three times, if I think about it, over the past nearly three decades, completely changed direction, and the old way of life become practically obliterated, with no possible way of going back and forth in a boomerang fashion. It’s been a weird and challenging experience. Now in its third incarnation in this Kali-like cycle of destruction and renewal, I am in Paris, with Denver as my former hometown, the place that I identify as being from.
With this kind of life pattern, I am left with the feeling that I have NO IDEA what is next, and if the prior track record has anything to say to the future, it will be something as unimaginable as something like living in Paris would have been to me ten years ago. I do have a peculiar sensation of knowing that Denver is not the place for me to be right now, Paris is, but in many ways can’t imagine my life without Denver sometime again, maybe in another couple of decades at the most. It’s an amazing place. So is Paris — not sneezing at it at all. But I think this post just goes to show that things change. And where you’re supposed to be is where you’re supposed to be, until that changes. I know I can’t picture myself permanently in Paris, either, although that is sort of what it is at the moment.
I’m blabbering a bit here, but it’s in trying to get to the “I get this post” place, and to think about how I am helped or hindered by the process I have with a Machete Life: each of these distinct lifetimes with in a lifetime. I know creatively I have become pretty good at reinvention. 🙂
Thank you for this post, Cynthia, and I hope that you find settling into Denver a wonderful thing.
xx
Karin
Karin,
I like your Machete Life! I think it’s pretty cool to be that open, to know that something unexpected and potentially wonderful is around the corner for you.
One of my guiding principles for this year is ‘wonderful surprise.’ That there will be many wonderful surprises waiting for me…I get to show up and go out and meet them!
Here’s to your wonderful 2012.
Hello Cynthia,
Welcome back! It’s always nice to be home. At least that’s how I feel every time I travel.
But I totally understand where you are coming from…Talking about “Boomerang life” I have felt this way for ever until some years ago. Having left Buenos Aires, my country of birth at the age of 10 the 1st time. Went back at 13 and came to Philly at 15 kicking and screaming… For me there was no place like Buenos Aires. I was miserable. I always had the desire to go back which I did for college. While living there during my college years I had a ball and loved being there..(or thought I did ) but I realize now that unconsciously longed to be back in the USA. , more specifically in Philadelphia where my family had settled. It was just hard for me to know where home was and was never totally happy anywhere. I even got married to an Argentinean knowing I would live there but then ended up here again because he wanted to be here.
I don’t think I really realized that this is home (Philly) until probably after my son was born (and 19 or so years of therapy…). I wanted Jonathan (who will be 28 in Jan.) to have the roots I didn’t have. That’s when everything changed totally for me. And then of course it all got solidified when Heidi & I got together 20 years ago. Now I love to visit Buenos Aires but after about 7-10 days I am ready to come home.
Thank you for this post!
Hope you find a home soon!
Happy New Year!
xo
Dora
*I see that someone else up there wanted to be in Buenos Aires…
Dora,
I love your story. It’s so common these days where we can move and uproot ourselves. I think it takes much more of a toll, or has an effect, on our psyches than we can even imagine.
I also love how you mentioned that things changed for you once you rooted in one place. I wonder if that will be the case for me. We’ll see!
Thank you for your warm welcome and well wishes. I accept them gratefully.
My boomerang hurtles between the high dry desert around Santa Fe & Taos New Mexico, and the verdant vistas of Vermont.
I guess you can throw Peru into that geographical vortex as well, since I’ve spent a lot of time there and I’d love to have a home there.(Buenos Aires is great too, Dora!)
It’s hard being emotionally pulled towards and rooted in different places.
I was sure I would leave VT when my son finished 6th grade. Now he is 30 and lives in Hawaii and I’m still more VT than anywhere. LOL!
I’m headed to a 3 month residency in Taos in a few weeks. Alone. (Not with 18 students in tow like my last two sojourns in NM.)
Random thoughts.
Differing landscapes and cultures inspire and energize. Is there a limit to that empowerment?
Time will tell.
best to you & happy new year to all,
liza
Liza,
What a wonderful gift you have to open…three months in Taos. I am sure it will be a magical time for you and will open you to the next phase of your life. You’ve had an intense time of it and this space will be such a gift for you to listen and trust what’s right for you now.
Enjoy that and enjoy your abundant creativity!
Aloha Cynthia
and Cheers to you and the New Year!
I am just catching up with life after trips to Paris and Calif and came across this post. As with many of your post, it resonates with me. Angline-Marie wrote what I feel, except its Hawaii not Florida…especially when she wrote “Am SO GRATEFUL I took the chance and met you in Paris. That is another boomerang, btw – go out of comfort zone, meet, and at least continue an acquaintance.”
It was wonderful to meet with you, but way too brief…I wanted a do-over-the night went by sooooo fast! The best to you in this New Year. I will be in touch soon.
Dianna,
What a treat it was to meet you and peggy in Paris! I felt like I had a peek into your world, and what a rich world you inhabit!
The evenings do go fast in Paris when you’re sipping wine and engrossed in good conversation.
Here’s to more creative exuberance for all of us in 2012!
I found this blog post the other day, just after I came home from writing in my journal on this very subject : thinking that life would be so lovely were it only taking place in a fantasy elsewhere. I was writing while perched comfortably on a rock facing the ocean, bright winter sun shining down on me, off the Southern coast of France in one of the top 10 most beautiful spots on this earth (according to the guide books). I live here half of the time. And there I was thinking that maybe if I lived in Santa Fe, or New York, or San Francisco, or Big Sur, or Italy, life would unfold like in a magical creative dream. Everything would flow, I would be centered, stimulated and always at peace I tell myself. It’s a strange thing. I think it dates back to being a lot younger, when all of life felt ahead of me and in a dream bubble. I think there is also the illusion (mixed in with some nostalgia for the US- have been in France 24 years) that another space will make the ups and downs of our struggles and victories somehow lighter. Anyway, I burst the bubble and realized that life is really happening now and it’s also really pretty wonderful ! Thanks for the blog post !
Andrea,
You write so beautifully about your place and circumstances. Thank you for sharing the power of your realization.
Maybe that’s why some of us like writing and art making so much – being in the creative zone is like being transported elsewhere. Safely and inexpensively, too!
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Hi Cynthia,
Thank you for sharing your story about your ‘boomerang’ lifestyle. I can so relate, and have always gone back and forth between envy for your nomadic lifestyle and relief that mine is not as nomadic. Being in Salida for about five years now – I know this is home even though there are so many times when I miss some of the ‘metropolitan’ things that the Front Range offers and also long for ‘exotic’ travel adventures (and really I have them in the southwest – I just often thing that other people’s are more so). I realize that a small community is where I can feel most at home and trust in the friendships right here.
The internet community some times has the same affect as the nomadic lifestyle. It has an allure and I have met so many wonderful friends and fellow creatives. Yet I need so much to be off the computer, moving my body and interacting in a community of people. It is an interesting transition into a world where we live part of our lives virtually. I love being part of it, yet I am also glad to be grounded on the dirt, too. I hope that makes sense.
I hope that we can connect in person this year – especially since you will be in Colorado ‘more permanently’ – at least for now. I am excited about your book launch – I look forward to hearing more about it.
Cheers to our most creative year ever,
Lisa
Lisa,
I love what you’re saying. I do think we watch others and live vicariously through them so we can experience things but from our own comfort zones. That’s what reading and movies do for us – for me, at least!
Your need for both on-and off-line life makes complete sense. I love both and also see that I need real world contacts and connections.
Speaking of which, I know we’ll see each other this year! I feel it! I hope you will be able to make it to my Chasing Sylvia Beach launch party. I do not have a date yet, but I’ll announce it as soon as I do!
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I am grateful that I am part of your online time!