The Bigger Picture
This nearly month-long visit to my Massachusetts home place is not as much a vacation as it is a sabbatical from my every day routine and an exploratory field trip to mark the next half of my life. It’s a test of my independence (and also accepting my limitations), as I find myself adapting to new environments and doing things that don’t come natural to me, such as driving a truck and camper, and using new technologies. I’ve learned the routes to all my sibling’s homes and am now preparing to camp on my own, which involves knowing something about propane, fuses, and batteries. This trip is also about my 80-year-old parents. Not about what they can do for me, but what I can do for them. It’s about giving myself the solitude to write and then seeing if I will. It’s about spending long hours at the ocean where I feel most myself, and where the ongoing low energy I struggle with, always rises.
On the beach this morning, with my chair pulled up close to the incoming tide, I finally picked up the book I started several days ago, “A Year by the Sea,” by Joan Anderson. How fitting that this book is about a woman my age (early 50’s) spending time by the sea to figure out the rest of her life, while I am doing something similar. In describing her quest, the author mentions Picasso who said that he spent the first part of his life becoming an adult and the last part learning to be a child.
I feel fortunate that I don’t have the problematic marriage to sort out, like the author did. My marriage (#2) is healthy. My problems are more self-imposed and related to inner fears and being easily distracted from my own needs and desires in the presence of others.
Like the author, my job right now is getting comfortable in my own skin, so that I can expand with the coming changes rather than shrinking from them. With my sons fully grown and my recent retirement from full-time foster care, this trip is a first step in the direction towards the rest of my life.
July 15th, 2005 9:58 pm
Neat post….and now you’ve got me interested in a book! 🙂
Visiting via Michele tonight.
July 16th, 2005 12:48 am
Thanks for your notes! I can identify strongly with the Picasso quote; will keep an eye out for the book. A transformative trip….
July 16th, 2005 9:53 am
It sounds like you have had so many fulfilling adventures and have so many to go.
I am a New Englander as well. While I haven’t lived there since college my parents are in Brighton and Amesbury. NOrth of Hull.
I come via Michele…
July 16th, 2005 10:17 am
Hi. Here again from Michele’s. I tell you what: I’d like to be doing what you’re doing. I have decided to bookmark you blog. You’re very interesting and write well, too. Have a great weekend.
July 16th, 2005 6:04 pm
I just came across your blog — and am really loving it.
July 16th, 2005 7:23 pm
Colleen, a nice post and a good start to finding your center and purpose from her on. Good luck in doing just that.
July 16th, 2005 7:23 pm
That was supposed to be “here on” of course!
July 16th, 2005 7:31 pm
I love your journal. You are doing what I hope to be doing in the near future! Travel and find out who I really am! I’m not sure I am quite as brave as you to venture on my own though. Good luck with your sabbatical!
July 16th, 2005 11:13 pm
This takes guts. More than I’d ever have. I’d probably curl up in a corner and wonder what to do next. Good on you!
Popped in from Michele’s tonight. As always, I’m glad I did.
July 17th, 2005 4:28 am
I have not had a chance to stop by much lately. I missed your blog! I hope you are enjoying your trip and that you are learning those things about yourself that are deep within. I wonder if we ever stop searching. If we ever really learn all there is to learn about ourselves. Its easy to learn about others. Its harder to focus on ourselves.
Enjoy!
July 17th, 2005 6:08 am
I, too, stumbled across your blog from a prior link and enjoy this and your other website immensely. A nice breath of fresh air. Now if I can only find the time to read it all!
July 18th, 2005 1:18 pm
well i thought i was just reading to catch up on you but i must comment too. the above comments alone are the testament of the perfection of you following your guidance to take it on the road. it allows you to strech yourself not just for the benefit of yourself but the myriad others who get attracted to such an endeavor (following ones guidance that is)via your excellent self process writing. why don’t we do it in the road. someone might be watching us. why don’t we all do it on the road. (i found myself singing the beatles tune as i walked along morningdew lane the other morning. realizing i had to pee. and that i was in solitude. i realized i didn’t even have to walk off the road into the bushes. ah the incredible gift of solitude. may all beings find themselves with time to themselves along their safe and self chosen roads of life’s mysterious journey.
p.s. its USB port dear. and i too am playing with new technologies this week. i’m on the campus of the college of William & Mary in historic williamsburg va. lunch lecture was boring so i can sit out in the lobby and open my laptop and instantly connect to you via the wireless hotspot provided by the college.
July 19th, 2005 2:38 pm
Behind every technologically challenged person is one who isn’t and that would be you, Joeyk! Thanks for all your help. You are such a nudist! You’d never get away with that here!