Getting into a Rhythm

September 22, 2019

“Guys, it’s okay. These things take time. I remember reading in the book “A Year Off”, that it took the couple at least a month into their journey to find their rhythm,” said Lila optimistically to our family as we drove from France to Italy a few weeks ago.

I was relieved to hear her say those words as we seemed to be having one unique experience after another but kept feeling like we were continually starting from scratch, and it was wearing us down.

Up until then, we had had months of appointments and boxes to check with regard to Pema being able to stay physically fit, fly in the plane cabin with us, and successfully enter and exit the EU; we moved out of our house and got it ready for our wonderful tenants; we packed all of Pema’s things as well as a duffel and a daypack each for a year of world-schooling, filmmaking, varying climates and activities; sold our cars; said goodbye to our families and friends; drove from Denver to New York; flew with Pema for the first time ever (who miraculously slept peacefully at my feet for the entire seven-hour flight to Frankfurt); got a taxi big enough for the five of us and all of our bags to take us to the 15th century village of Haintchen where we stayed for three days exploring the beautiful fields and forest, playing with neighboring llamas, pigs, horses, and chickens, and experiencing a local street party celebrating the anniversary of the village well with the requisite beer and bratwursts. While using this as a place to rest and recover from jet-lag (Pema asked for dinner at 2am both nights 😊), Jake made the two-hour train trip to Duesseldorf to pick up the camper van that he had rented for our time in Europe while Pema successfully obtained her EU passport from a local veterinarian. The kids were in heaven doing skits, playing outside, feeling free and finally on the other side of the looming question mark…would we really in fact make it? We pinched ourselves for a few days that, after a whole lot of work, things were seemingly coming together.

Back in June we had committed to spending the entire month of September in Slovenia, but we didn’t have anything set in stone beyond that which seemed like a good idea at the time to allow us the flexibility to avoid the crowds and hot weather and find places to camp and explore. What we didn’t take into account was how that would affect our ability to slow down and just be.

We told ourselves to go with the flow, live in the moment, embrace the adventure of it all. But in the back of our minds there was always a little voice that was asking us if it was truly enough of an adventure, were the kids learning enough, was there more we should be seeing and doing? To satisfy those pesky questions, we kept moving from place to place: Strasbourg, Chens sur Leman, Chamonix, Geneva, the Dordogne Region, Paris, St. Julie, Turin, Passo Sella in the Dolomites, and then several different parts of Slovenia. In each new place, Pema has settled in with her amazing travel bed and gone with the flow as long as she has had all of us around her, her bed, her food and water, fresh air, exercise, lots of chin rubs, and of course, new sniffs. Simple, right? Somehow the rest of us have made it more complicated.

It’s now been six weeks since we landed and for the last three in Slovenia, we’ve finally allowed ourselves to slow down, to stop and smell every flower (with Pema’s guidance) and become engrossed in the simple magic that surrounds us. We are at peace with knowing that wherever we go there we are, and it is all enough.

A rhythm at last.