Entertaining notions

I’m walking around in a fog of uncertainty and that’s how I like it. I’m a woman of mystery! Suspense! We’re poised on the precipice with 2 weeks to go until D-day, departure day for the Big Scram. Days are spent checking off checklists and sketching out possible itineraries. Not to mention vaccines. So many vaccines.

The best part: we’re not entirely sure where we’re going and we’ve only a hint of an idea of when we’ll be back.

I want to remember this feeling, all gleeful daydreaming and not knowing; to enjoy suspended time, before things get fixed and nailed down. Anticipation is a lovely thing, when everything is possible, even probable, before it collapses into the Schroedinger’s cat of knowing what happens. When the questions of the day are: what’s it like over there? and how many lives can I live before this one runs its course? I have no idea what I want, I only know that I want to try things on.

Not only have I been thinking of where I’m going, of where I might wind up, I’ve been thinking of where I’ve been. So much of life is a grand detour. You get an idea, you move in the direction of a goal, and then, oh look, something is happening over there! and a new path opens up. A completely random route in hindsight looks well thought out. That stroke of bad luck we massage into meaning. A plum bit of good fortune seems earned, not bestowed. Take a mess of happy accident and coincidence, shake it up a bit and voilà, there you are, your destiny!

So here we are, living in France 7 years already. Destiny or marvelous detour? We set out to test going full nomad, but a damn torn tendon led to a decision to have a base in France, to downgrading the dream to being semi-nomadic. Which means nothing. You’re either rootless or you’re not, there’s kinda no in between. But whatever the definition, for us it meant lots of travel with a small base for refreshing and reloading. Then the goal shifted again. What if we went for permanent residency? To get that golden ticket, we had to set anchor. You can’t accumulate too many stamps in your passport, it shows lack of commitment, of flightiness. My signature traits. We kept our noses and passports clean and settled in to traveling France and Europe. Now we have our cards and our radius is the world.

We keep asking each other, what’s next, accomplice? What’s in your realm of possibilities? I won’t mind winding up back here, but I’m amusing myself entertaining notions. As a friend of my father-in-law’s once astutely said, about every 7 years or so, your needs change. I like that; the idea that change is necessary, natural and cyclical. So here we go, westward ho!

Cheers,

Maer