Adventurizing Stability

I'm still a foreigner to my homeland.

"I need a home.  A home of the necessary details.  With instruments and organized places. With our collection of each others material goods.  With space.  With quiet places and a room for love plenty.  I need to live for God, for others.  Have a career that does 'right and beyond' in communities.  A place where our love is under no pressure of deadlines.  Where my new patience can let our unity flourish slowly as it is intended.  Where the 'first times' can begin.  My first home, first journey through this difficult reward attained."


These were my own written words between two distinct lifestyles in a month far far away.  One of which was living suspended 250 feet in the air in a 27' capsule with a young flourishing and sometimes confusing love....and the other of which was a worldwide wandering in a very un-lost sense through mayhem and language barriers as a married pair growing into ONE with each passing trial and error.  

The point is, no matter how "free" we were, in the midst of it all, we longed for a home and relative stability.

Here we are.  Mid February...and not enough snow to make biking across town something to shudder about.   The whole 'job thing' has been a slow start process for us both.   We're fortunate enough that Corey has his MBA courses to keep us half-sane and filled with a dash of purpose. 

So how DO free spirits continue to survive in such bland circumstances?

1. Do something EVERY DAY that scares you.

example: I don't have a cell phone.  

Part of that is simply a young rebellious thing because everyone else is doing it....the other is because it keeps me from getting too comfortable in ordinary circumstances.  I find myself talking to strangers all the time "might I borrow your phone for a moment please," I find myself walking into buildings I've never noticed to ask for a phone...and you know what...  Sometimes when stuck on main street alone in the dead of a winter's eve with no phone and no-body to busy oneself with....one might just enjoy a quiet moment of admiration for the way the snow tumbles from rooftops...and that just makes all the phone-less difficulties worthwhile.  

example: Sing in public settings, even when you aren't very good at it

Pretty self explanatory.  Try it once, I dare you.  It's exhilarating. Nobody hates anybody for being happy in themselves.

                                                    

2. Pretend that driving is new to you.

I've been catching on to the manual car set up.  Want to know something?   25 mph is a thrill when you act like you did when you were first seated behind the wheel long long ago in the 15 year-old lifetime.  Make complete stops at stop signs, check your mirrors redundantly, focus on your driving and not all the other "stupid drivers" who "get in our way."    It's kinda fun.  If you're paying for gas, you might as well enjoy the ride.

3.  Let things be a big deal, quickly

example: Errand running.

When in another country, going to the market to pick up a satchel's worth of bananas....is NEVER JUST going to the market to pick up a satchel's worth of bananas.   There are people to meet, languages to exchange, still frames to remember, and memories to form. 

So travel light.  As a former exchange student, there are always and only 3 things you need: money, camera, phone.  (In this case phones are acceptable hooha to hypocritical :-P....in my case it's a phone book with all the necessary phone numbers)   Let anything potentially new or exciting happen to you...don't avoid uncomfortable situations...THOSE are what makes the satchel's worth of bananas a proper excuse to get out and about in the world!!!!!  And if something was worth remembering, the typical exchange student, would make a digital record of that particular place....or a written record.  

When I say written record...I do not mean with grammatical beautification across the pages of your journal. NOO!  I mean a linear word bank that sparks your memory (example) "Empty satchel for banana gathering, 14 stranger smiles exchanged, and happily home today.  Red shirted gal glowed from smile exchange."

You get it.  Take these ideas and let them manifest themselves in your actions a bit.  Spontaneity has many forms and it works for everybody.

So while I squish in the cotton filler of this couch I'm on whilst I share my foreign thoughts of my homeland...that doesn't mean that I'll next go to the black hole eye catcher (TV) nor will I douse my mouse clicking on acquaintance FB pictures...I intend on either scribbling with oil pastels...screeching with passion into my microphone....or reading some of Einsteins thoughts on the "Special and General Theory of Relativity" (who cares that I average 1 page per 10 minutes!).....working my way through the "Holy Bible" over the next year....or even preparation and maintenance of keeping a house a home and not just a place for food inhalation and rest deprivation!  

There is something beautiful about growing into a young adult.  We have the best of both worlds.  Still young enough to add an 'orange hue' to all our aspirations and ideas but adult enough to see things realistically.  We're not bobbing around trying out the infinite array of trendy dreamy ideas nor are we stuck in a "How to Start Living Again" self-help book on salvation from some kind of humdrum adulthood. 

We're just plain living.   Happy in the simplest sense.  Absolutely infatuated and dizzy in our young adult matrimonial love.  

Keep on dreaming, Keep on screaming, Keep on learning, Keep on journaling 

Truly yours truthfully,

M