It seems only fitting to add the final note of this journey a full year after my last post abroad.
Traveling expands the brain, separates you from mundane worries, broadens the heart, pulls the wings out from beneath tense shoulder blades and creates space where the everyday tends to crowd. My last post was written from a tiny one bedroom cottage in the hills of WA (Western Australia). This entry is written from my couch, in cozy Andersonville, Chicago, North America. My cat is sprawled beneath the window captivated by local birds and a summer breeze. My knees are swollen from yesterday's run along the Lake, and I'm treating then with bags of frozen peas. Pretty fancy.
This past year flew by at lightning speed. Indonesia was the longest year of my life, the hardest, and the best. Since coming home, time has taunted me, flitting forward as I stand still...growing imperceptibly on the inside. At the moment I find myself perched in a major crossroads as I decide what kind of life I want to live. I was utterly elated to return last summer. Everything about Chicago, about this country, made me skip down sidewalks. I drank in my city like I never have. I wore sleeveless shirts and skirts with sneaky mirth, drank my fair share of cosmos, reconnected with beautiful people, and sat in the sun. I moved in with a friend from graduate school, took my cat back, and settled into a wonderful apartment only five blocks from where I'd left back in 2009: a younger, more naive woman.
Fall came (I thanked the Universe for seasonal changes). Teaching once again filled my weeks, leaving me domesticated on weekends, dating, catching up with friends, and re-adjusting. Winter brought initial excitement, and then depression as it dragged on and on. I was assuaged with trips to Oregon, North Carolina, and Boston to visit family and friends. Those were all lovely jaunts, but I've been home bound since January and am ready to claw through what I increasingly feel is a cage.
I chalk my encroaching panic up to two things: being a restless Aquarius, and not having been on stage for two years. I came back to Chicago to be an artist. I was offered the chance to stay in Malang a second year and declined because I felt fraudulent calling myself a full time instructor. And yet, I've chosen teaching as my vocation because I need meaning and purpose in my life. I dislike waiting tables. I've paid my dues in health care. The problem lies in the fact that although I live a relatively sparse existence, I still have champaign taste on a beer budget. And let me tell you: part time teaching ain't lucrative.
Thus, my task for the summer of 2011 is to land a stage role that pays actual money. I've been auditioning, and it's been a luxury. But there are times where I feel like I should have been doing this eleven months ago (where did time go?). Meanwhile, I think about where I've been and when I was most happy. Survey says: 1) with the orangutans in Borneo 2) the last time I updated this blog, on that farm in WA. I look back at those photos and see a face full of bliss. Real joy living behind my eyes, shining through my pores, negating the need or want for makeup. I hardly post pictures now because the woman captured in those shots is brooding, conflicted, and a little sad. What a downer!
I was listening to NPR the other day. Tom Hanks was being interviewed. I have loved that man ever since his two year stint on "Bosom Buddies" so of course I was attentive. The host asked him what he would be doing as a career if he wasn't a world famous movie star. He responded that he would probably be a tour guide of some sort because he's an innate story teller. He then recalled to us listeners how he remembered touring an old Maxwell House plant as a child, and the grandfatherly guide explaining to his group how the smell of the beans would captivate him when HE was a child. Tom explained that as that old man spoke those words aloud, he swore HE could smell that very brew too, in the same way this tour guide had done years before. No longer a coffee drinker myself, I still appreciate the smell (I have been known to inhale my roommate's coffee beans on occasion) and even more so appreciated the nostalgia inherent in this story.
The host then asked Mr. Hanks why telling stories is so important to him. He responded that, for him, stories have the power to transport people in a way that is a direct counter to cynicism. And cynicism is a killer.
I could not agree more.
Moving forward, I've decided to follow my bliss. I have no idea how that will unfold. I do know that teaching one class at each of my Universities is what fits me mentally, but not financially. I know that I have to learn how to manage money for the first time in my life. And although I've known some magical Fairy Godmothers, I'm not one for Sugar Daddies.
I've learned that travel is a non-negotiable part of who I am and want to be. So...I have the somewhat daunting task of figuring "it" out for as long as this summer stretches.
Wish me luck fellow travelers. May we find each other on the flip side.
Love,
Courtney Elizabeth
