Pilgrimage to Here
A card from the Vessel Oracle in Epidaurus, Greece
When you meet me, it doesn’t take long to learn that if I could snap my fingers and make something happen, I would transport myself to Greece and never leave. Even though I know I’m a magical being, it’s one of those things people say but rarely do, so it doesn’t worry me to reveal my dream.
However, it is also very possible that I never will.
And it is definitely true that I haven’t.
I’ve been thinking about this dilemma—the one where I am here and not there—and I was reminded by a phrase that came up during doctoral dissertation fieldwork. I was studying an arts scene in the city where I lived, and while writing the chapter on secular pilgrimage, I realized something:
I was on a pilgrimage to here.
Interesting side note: at that time, if I could have snapped my fingers, I would have transported myself to England and never leave.
Glastonbury Abbey, England
It’s a pattern.
To not want to be where I am.
And then look back fondly—nostalgically—about where I’ve been.
Just this week, an old friend sent me a photo from those grad school days of a group of us standing outside an old factory that had been turned into artist studios. I’m the one in the middle.
In Hamilton, Canada
If I could have snapped my fingers last Thursday, right then and there, I would have transported myself back to those days — to when all I had was time, and it felt like my whole life was in front of me.
Whether it’s a place or a time, I have this tendency to want to be anywhere else but here.
But for months now, I’ve been going to sleep and waking up to a single phrase: Pilgrimage to Here.
What if I stopped trying to be there and decided—wholeheartedly, devotedly—to be here?
Pilgrimage to Here feels like the title of the memoir I’ve always wanted to write. (I’m not sure I’m supposed to say that out loud, but hey — I just did!)
Pilgrimage to Here feels like a doorway. A soft beginning. A perspective I can live by. A way of staying — staying with myself, with my longing, with my life as it is.
It’s already stayed with me for a couple of decades, so I know it’s not going anywhere.
I might always want to snap my fingers and be somewhere else. But for now, I’m learning how to be right here — in the longing, in the beauty, in the becoming.
