On occasion, especially when the pace of things quickens beyond your control, you are propelled by premonitions, vague enthusiasms, and cozy expectations to places you know well, such as your home or office, where you imagine you will find a form of wellbeing you crave for. Of course, this haven of yours is always elsewhere, where you are not. It is rarely an unreachable place, though. You finish up whatever you are doing almost feverishly, because this blissful place is beckoning ever more clearly, and you set out on the journey at last, eager to the point of pain. The steady glow of your destination feeds your confidence and you ultimately become convinced that everything will be well in the end. And then, when you finally arrive to the place that has suggested absolution, you discover that it has been but a mirage. Cold, empty, dark, the place offers little more than shelter from the weather. And you feel cheated, bereaved, because you always manage to forget that the place in question had already given you so much more than you had any right to expect.

Addendum (December 18, 2014)

As of late, the pull of elsewhere often involves quite a bit of travel. One elsewhere is in Motovun, and the other is in Zagreb. Predictably, the two compete for my attention all the while. But this piece came to mind in connection with yet another elsewhere that popped up out of nowhere earlier today—Bon Island in Thailand (“Bon Island,” December 18, 2014). Close to Phuket, where I stayed for about a week in 1989 together with my second wife to be, as well as my second wife to divorce in the fullness of time, the tropical island became surprisingly real to me. The memory of the place is still with me, and its pull came my way out of the blue. The colors, the warmth, the peace… Elsewhere incarnated, as it were. The unexpected pull I experienced was so strong that I almost panicked. For I know exactly what would happen if I ventured all the way there. Of course, Motovun and Zagreb would beckon from afar. And ever more strongly. In short, elsewhere be damned. Embrace here and now, if only you can. Or so I try to admonish myself one time too many.