traveling

I have always loved to travel... it's just in my DNA. Born into a Navy family, I was traveling cross-country from the day of my conception. I married Navy men, I was a Navy woman. I've never lived in one house or apartment longer than a few years. I don't even hate "moving house" like most people; in fact, if I don't move house, I have to move furniture to give me the illusion.

So this whirlwind trip to Wyoming has given me the moving bug again. 

Last night was the first night in a week that I've slept in the same bed twice. Not a problem, the bed-swapping... but the suitcase repacking has been another story. Each day I've had a new group to meet, a new set of materials to organize/bring to the table. And I keep mixing things up and forgetting. Some of what I need is always packed in my suitcase which is stored elsewhere in the back of somebody's car.

It has been a good exercise in letting go of expectations (my own of myself) and working with what I had on hand. My grandmother's words kept echoing in my ears... Yankees make do or do without. 

I prepared a lot for this trip. In advance. I had little speeches, hands-on exercises, audio-visual meditations, booklets and handouts, gifts for the various hosts and hostesses... and then everything just didn't want to work the way I planned it. I could be very smug and say I "handled it well" but the truth is, I have no clue whether I did or not. I got through it. And the best lesson was that I trusted it would be okay, be enough, and maybe it was.

We can only guess at the ramifications of our interactions with each other. I do know I've been given more than I gave, whatever that was... and I've got one more gig to go until I get back on the plane Wednesday. But for now, I'm catching up with what's been going on in the rest of the universe while I've been traveling...