What's next

To journey without being changed is to be a nomad. To change without journeying is to be a chameleon. To journey and to be transformed by the journey is to be a pilgrim.  (Mark Nepo, The Book of Awareness, p 38)

For a year and a week, I felt like such a pilgrim—traveling 26,000 miles in my RV, another 1,000 on my scooter, and some 30,000 more on planes—across the country and around the world. To call the experience “eye-opening” doesn’t do it justice; “soul opening” is more apt.

My final week on the road took me through the Badlands and Black Hills, to Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial, and finally to the Little Big Horn National Monument. I loved Mt. Rushmore. But the site of “Custer’s Last Stand” evoked the same melancholy sadness I felt at each of the Civil War memorials—an overwhelming sense that we still have a way to go when it comes to resolving differences. After viewing far too many graves at the scenes of America’s bloodiest battles, I wonder when we’ll start building more monuments to triumphs made in the name of Peace?

I knew the trip was over on the morning of April 27 when I walked into a Missoula, Montana bakery and couldn’t force myself to eat one more cinnamon bun. So I grabbed a coffee, hopped into the RV, and drove the remaining 580 miles back to Portland, stopping only for gas and restroom breaks. Occasional flashes of the “Check Alternator” light added a bit of an edge to my waning hours on the road. But frequent calls and text messages from my daughters and grand children urged me on and beckoned me home.

Two weeks later, I’m still catching up on family time—and beginning to get my feet on the ground. While it’s nice to have a bedroom, I do miss the RV. Despite early problems, the vehicle proved surprisingly reliable and resilient. Its eighty square foot interior held everything I needed and was always a comfortable refuge.

Besides adjusting to larger quarters, I’m also getting reacquainted with traffic. Having managed to avoid rush hour travel the entire year, I’m finding Portland a much larger city than the one I left only a year ago. Or so it seems.

“What’s next?” friends ask. “Time will tell,” I reply, surprised by both my ambiguity and lack of angst. Though fiscal realities necessitate an imminent return to work, I’m eager to begin attempting to capture the journey in a way that makes sense, both for me and for anyone else who may be interested. So most of my time in the coming months will be focused on looking for a job and writing a book. In keeping with earlier plans, I’ll spend two weeks in Minneapolis and another in Detroit. Susanne is trying to lure me to the big island of Hawaii for a couple weeks as well, promising that it’s one of the most palpable spiritual destinations in America, and suggesting that its lessons should not be omitted from whatever manuscript eventually emerges.

As I venture onward, I have a sense that my post-journey existence may appear, on the surface, remarkably similar to my pre-journey life. But looks, as they say, are deceiving. Nothing will ever feel the same. And that’s what matters.

“In reality,” my mother reflected on Facebook, “your journey is never over. Going home will be a new chapter and a new beginning.”

She’s right. Despite the fact that this adventure has ended, the spiritual journey is endless. Every day is a new chapter and each moment a new beginning.

“To make an end,” wrote T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets, “is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

I feel remarkably fortunate for all my experiences this past year—and look forward to weaving them into a meaningful tapestry. In doing so, I’m cognizant of Eliot’s further observation: “We shall not cease from exploration,” he concludes, “And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”

I hope that’s the case.

(Portland, OR)