When I was growing up, my family would go to our cottage all year around. In the winter I loved the vast open space afforded by the frozen lake and remember one occasion when I wanted to see what would happen if I walked as long as I could, with my eyes closed. I probably only made it a few minutes before getting bored, but I remember the sensation as I walked, that of travelling without overthinking. I didn’t need to follow a set path as one would along a road, I just moved, slowly, consistently, forward. When I finally opened my eyes I turned around and was surprised to see that I had completely changed directions. It wasn’t a wandering line, but a single smooth arc, as though a slow consistent force had biased my travel and set me in a new direction. While walking, the change was imperceptible, I truly believed I was moving in a straight line. It was only when I turned back to look that the change became clear.
It’s a goofy story about a silly experiment I did when I was a kid, but it stuck with me and I remember it today. Change is not obvious in the moment, we need to look back where we came from to see and understand what happened. We then have a decision to make – keep going, or set a new course. This is very much where we, as a family, are finding ourselves this week. The end of of journey is approaching and with the time to sit in one place while we await the possibility of returning home, we are all looking back at the path we took this year and are starting to see the change that occured – slowly, but consistently we have changed direction, changed our perspective and learned so much along the way.
I got on a roll for a little while with this blog, but then everything came to a halt. I just didn’t make the time to sit and consolidate my thoughts because external changes were happening faster every day. Over the past two months we, like everyone else, have become infatuated by reading the daily news – what’s going on? Will this impact us? Do we need to make changes? What changes do we need to make? Where are we going? … Where are we going? There were so many fun stories I wanted to share but didn’t get to them before this transition to reflective end-of-journey posts. I still hope to take the time to consolidate the stories, but in some ways I hope to share them in person because that will mean we are home again and closer to something that feels normal. Although, I’m not sure what normal looks like right now because change has happened – slow, but always there so our new normal will look different. We’re looking forward to coming home, seeing everyone again and learning about the changes you have seen over the past several months.
When we return to Canada, we will be spending a couple of weeks on our own, but then everyone else is sort of doing the same thing so maybe we all will have some time to look back and see what changes have happened while our eyes were closed. Do we like the direction we’re headed right now? That would be wonderful. If we’re not sure it’s the right direction, maybe it’s time to open our eyes again and set a new course.