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.

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 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.