travel

Walking Into The Unknown

09/14/2017 by John Leave a Comment

Tonight, I am taking a red-eye flight into the unknown. I am going to Everglades City to do what I can to clean up my parent-in-law’s house in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. Will there be electricity? Running water? Gas to put into the rental car? How bad will the damage be?

The unknown fills me with anxiety and dread. I don’t like not knowing what I’m walking into, especially when I have to face it alone. The thought of all that needs to be done and the obstacles I am likely to face is overwhelming. I am going to have to continually remind myself to just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Update from Portland: A Fresh Start

09/01/2017 by John Leave a Comment

One of the beauties of living an untethered life is the possibility to make a fresh start on a regular basis. Every few months (at the most) for the past few years, we have changed locations, jobs, or both. Though there are plenty of challenges associated with this mode of living, right now I’m feeling grateful for the opportunity to once again reinvent myself.

I’ve been living in Portland, Oregon for just over two weeks now. Mary is working a 13-week travel assignment at a local hospital and I am…not sure what I’m doing. For me, it feels like a chance to think about my work life, and decide if it is still working for me instead of me working for it. Other than travel for fun, we have stayed on the East Coast since we stopped living full-time anywhere in 2015, and that has meant that I was able to pick up enough work with Carolina Tailwinds and North Carolina Outward Bound to keep me busy. But now, that work is an expensive plane flight away, making the income not worth the expense. But more importantly than that, I have been feeling the urge to make some changes for a while now.

There have been times in my life where I have felt stuck in a rut. The deepest one I fell into was a period while I was still living in Tuscaloosa four years after finishing my four-year degree at The University of Alabama. I knew I needed change, but I did not know how to make it happen where I was. I needed a fresh start, and fortunately, I was able to find one at Outward Bound.

I feel like I am at a similar point in life. I know I want to alter my work life, yet I’ve found it difficult to make it happen while it has been so easy to keep doing what I’ve been doing. Sometimes, I need a radical shift to happen in order to spark change in my life, and right now, being in Portland feels like it could be such an event. So here I am, with an opportunity to try something else.

So what will I do with this fresh start? I don’t know, but I’m open to ideas…

Anyone?

Hurtling Across Spain

07/21/2017 by John Leave a Comment

Written last week while on a train traveling from the northwest to southeast of Spain

Last year, we traversed Spain from east to west using only our feet to carry us. Over the past few days, we have been reversing that journey via bus, feet, car, and train. Very soon, an airplane will carry us over the ocean again and back into the familiarity of our own country.

The terrain and vegetation are changing all around us. High, craggy mountains are giving way to low hills, carved by the wind and the scarce flow of water. But it seems that in Spain, the mountains are never too far away, always out there looming on some not so distant horizon. We have been from the coast of Galicia through the Meseta of Castile Y León, across Basque Country, and I can only assume will be entering Catalonia soon if we are not already within it. So much variety, culture, and language packed into a country that can be crossed in one day by train.

Slipping in and out of the semi-consciousness of travel. Wide-eyed and wide awake one moment, lulled into sleep by the motion and the blur the next. Half awake and asleep, we hurtle across Spain. Soon the wash of smashing through time zones will be added to this cocktail, further numbing and enhancing my senses.

As I travel, I find myself afraid and fascinated simultaneously. The fear comes from the unknown. Where will I sleep tonight? What does that sign mean and is it telling me something I really ought to know? What happens when I have to ask someone a question and will I be able to understand the answer? The fascination comes from a childlike wonder of experiencing something new and the excited anticipation of what might come next.

Ironically, as we near departure (and enter a region of Spain that doesn’t like to speak Spanish), I feel that I am finally getting a glimpse of listening comprehension. The conversations I have listened to over the past few days have not seemed so opaque. I seem to pick up enough words to at least get some sense of what the subject matter is and how people feel about it. It is as if while still remaining in a thick fog, there are moments of its parting, allowing me to see what is hidden. If only this had happened sooner. I could have used the encouragement.