“Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.” -Paul Theroux
Research
- This is where I will post the items covered in research for the project itself. Understandably, I currently have very little in the way of research, as travel and establishing some semblance of normal sleep and food preoccupied our time and attention. Hopefully much more of this to follow!
Reading
While learning the value of soluble (instant) coffee, I am finding my perch for morning reading. And we’re still opening the bags, so the reading effort was somewhat limited.
- The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School, Neil Postman (Vintage Press, 1996)
- I am not sure that any author has a direct line to my brain quite like Postman. His sharp eye for a culture’s blind spots combine with a not-so-subtle humor for a magnificent read. The End of Education asks whether or not school is for creating worshippers of a culture’s gods, such as consumerism or tribalism.
- John Cotton: Patriarch of New England, A.W. McClure (H&E Publishing, 2019)
- With great difficulty due to his failing health, John Cotton preached a sermon on John 1:14 on Sunday, December 19, 1652. On Monday, ,nowing full well that his death was imminent, he still spent a full day in his study. This apartment, the location of 12-hours per day for decades, was his source of solitude and socialization with the Lord. Upon leaving his study, he took one last look and said “I shall go into that room no more!” He died three days later after a full life of faithful service in both England and the early American colonies. Although this biography certainly comes from a supportive author, it still conveys a story worth encountering.
Real Life
Moving is hard. I love the adventure, but the logistics of actually closing the door on your storage unit, getting on a plane, or walking through the door of a new apartment all have their unique ways of reminding you that you are in a place not your own. It is different, and perhaps good. But it is not yet a place you can call home.
Our beloved dog Lyle is now a resident of Cypress, courtesy of a wonderfully generous set of grandparents.
The goodbyes were also much harder than we anticipated. Perhaps it was because of the distance, or the lack of travel between our location and home. But we felt that these goodbyes were more filled with tears and sadness than were perhaps needed. On the way to the airport, I felt that all-too-known pit of nerves in my stomach at least a dozen times. Perhaps my body knew before my mind what was on the immediate horizon.
The goodbyes were also much harder than we anticipated. Perhaps it was because of the distance, or the lack of travel between our location and home. But we felt that these goodbyes were more filled with tears and sadness than were perhaps needed. On the way to the airport, I felt that all-too-known pit of nerves in my stomach at least a dozen times. Perhaps my body knew before my mind what was on the immediate horizon.
Listening to a conversation between Scott Galloway and two authors from Stanford on life and raising kids, I heard a poignant phrase. Galloway recently admitted to struggling with having sent his son off to college, a time between raising kids and seeing them become fully fledged adults. He said, quoting another author, that grief and anxiety are the receipts of love. They are proof of the depth of love between parents and their children, grandchildren and their grandparents. Even a family and their dog.
I believe that we’re doing the right thing, and that it will even come to feel as such soon enough. But before we can say we’re settled in, I believe it must first be true that we are no longer un-settled.
Final Words
In a house that is missing a good deal of the creature comforts, it is important to remember the key things that make a house a home, and a bunch of people with similar DNA into a family. We’re people in a place, and that grounding helps us to better flesh out a more comfortable concept of home and family.
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