Chapter 9

As part of his new direction, John made the decision to move from his small beach town to the much larger city of Auckland, where he would return to his work seeing patients in regular private practice. It had been years since he had been truly engaged in a city, and he wanted to be around people again after several years in semi-isolation. 

Packing up the car, he was reminded of a hundred other such moves he had taken in his life, and he felt that old tinge of excitement. He was going back on the road and starting over again, and it was a theme in his life that always felt hopeful.

Heading north towards the city of Taupo, he saw the giant lake sprawled out in front of him, and thought back to his intellectual mentor Joseph Campbell who wrote about the Hero’s Journey. All great adventures crossed the water somewhere. He was reminded of a trip he took as a 22 year old kid where he had stopped at Lake Tahoe in Nevada for a couple of days when he was driving across the country in his old Volkswagen bus. He had spent 5 bucks on a six pack and enjoyed the lake on a gorgeous afternoon in late summer. He decided he would relive the memory.

He purchased a 6 pack of Crafty Trout beer which was made in Lake Taupo, and found a quiet spot by the lake to relax. He was a few short hours from his new home, but wanted to take a couple of more hours in nature before diving back into the city. 

He fished out a book by Chuck Palahniuk he had been reading called Stranger than Fiction, which was a collection of stories the author had compiled about his life and observations. He read,

“We destroy our lovely nest, and force ourselves back into the larger world. In so many ways, that’s also how you write a novel. You plan and research.. You spend time alone building this lovely world where you control, control, control, everything. You let the telephone ring, the emails pile up. You stay in your story world until you destroy it. Then you come back to be with other people. If your story world sells well enough, you get to go on book tour, interviews, really be with people, a lot of people. People until you’re sick of people. Until you crave the idea of escaping, getting away to another lovely story world. And so it goes..Alone, together, alone, together.”

 It described John’s life so well, he felt an immediate kinship with the author. Alone, together, alone together. It had been the story of his life actually. An intense desire for connection followed by an intense desire to be alone. He guessed everyone felt like this from time to time, but knew he had an extreme version of this dynamic. 

He looked up at his watch and saw he had been reading for most of the evening. The sick pack of beer was now a pack of one, and he made the decision to spend the night in Taupo rather than press on. Maybe it was resistance, or stalling, or maybe he just needed one more night out in nature by himself. He wasn’t sure.

But his journey would continue tomorrow.