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| You get the idea. No, we did not visit Kyburz this time. |
We’ve been at home for almost a week now and have had a chance to rediscover our “regular” life, the one we left over a month ago. Re-entry was pretty easy and it was great to be welcomed back by our “new” Portland friends. In some ways, it feels like we never left. There are certainly no lasting scars, but the trip changed me. Although it was familiar, being on the road, the experience unfolded for me in a new way. Older? Not employed? Feeling renewed? It is the journey, not the destination, that feels important and, of course, with whom you travel and visit with along the way.
When JD and I moved out to California, some 42 years ago, he quoted an old line while driving through a small town: “Now entering leaving.” I had never heard it before and thought it was very funny. It became one of our go-to sayings that could apply to much more than a small one-street establishment. Life in general seems more like “now entering leaving” and “in the moment” to me these days. Aging has made it so that I think less about the future, and how things might be. I just live for the day. Driving through so much of this country made me realize that there could be many opportunities for a life lived in different ways. There’s a perspective that gets showered down as the miles pass beneath the wheels. I hope to get to travel through a lot more of the two-lane view of life --- surprising twists and unexpected beauty -- bumpy pavement be damned, and double damn to all the politicians and greedy people trying to make life a struggle for the rest of us.
Andrea
