"The ideas of living"

  “Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

- Miriam Beard

Ted. Recently I sat in the cozy guesthouse of our friends, Susan and Kay and contemplated this quote.  The more that Judy and I have traveled, the less important “sights” have become. Rather, we have become preoccupied with “just living.” In March, we were just living in Santiago, Chile and now we are just living in Georgia.

So, how are our "ideas of living" evolving? First of all, we have had some success shucking off our attachment to things. We are content with modest accommodations. A nice walk every day is the foundation of our exercise regimen. Meals are a simple matter and a deck of cards provides much of our entertainment.

Our goal is not Walden Pond. Actually, people are becoming more important to us. The joys of reconnecting with family and friends wherever we roam have grown in significance and we are thrilled when we really connect with new folks that we meet. Fortunately, no one seems to care that we always show up in the same old shirts and pants. At meet ups now, we rarely discuss where we have been. There is no need to rattle off the lists of sights we have most recently enjoyed. It’s more about maintaining a familiarity with the arc of time in each others’ lives.

We work hard to ignore the stress and anxiety that we see in the US. Attending church and volunteering have taken on added meaning. Not only are these activities part of our spiritual journey, they help us to keep focused and to build and maintain a community wherever we happen to be living.

Judy and I are on a pilgrimage; not to a physical place, but to an internal place where we are fully at peace with ourselves, each other and the world around us.