This is a series of posts that will log some of my thoughts in the month leading up to my moving back to New Zealand.
It will all be over sooner than I can imagine. My work at The Outdoor Academy is coming to a close. A month from now, we will once again be getting back on a plane to move our life half a world away.
But some of the reasons I didn’t want to be back in the States have faded. The background tension that I feel in this country has rewoven itself into my being. Once again I am used to my friends and family being nearby, whether I actually get the chance to see them or not. It will be a shock to once again leave a warm American summer and step off the plane into the middle of New Zealand winter. Whiplash.
I love my life, with all it’s crazy twists and turns. Five years ago a loaded down Toyota Matrix left the city limits of Asheville and headed westward. And I have been in near-constant motion ever since. I’ve flown over the Atlantic four times and the Pacific twice. I would have to think hard to remember how many crossings of the United States have occurred during this period of time.
What is it that keeps me aloft? Am I being blown by the winds of my own insecurity? Or is the high of looking down on the world from above just too addictive to me? From up here, I can just observe things and not get too involved, because getting involved requires me to be vulnerable, and I don’t like being vulnerable.
Can anything make me settle back down to the earth?
Will the stillness I sometimes feel within me ever permeate this body in motion?
