Teach us to care and not to care/ Teach us to sit still

T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday

Haven’t posted in a while (if you’re reading this you already know that) because, frankly, I haven’t known what to say.  Life changes so quickly.  None of my old conversations seemed to make sense in this new life, and I haven’t quite been sure which new conversations I should be having.  Things that seem new and all-consuming to me are either wholly incomprehensible to others, or are so well-known and familiar that they can be of little interest.  I imagine it’s a bit like becoming a parent; it’s all old news to those other parents out there, and your childless friends would probably rather watch kudzu grow than hear that story about the duck-shaped pacifier again.

So.  It’s been a year since Joe’s stroke, and since Chris and I decided to stay in CT and help out.  Did you know that another term for stroke is “cerebral accident”?  Like, “Whoops, honey, I think I just broke my cerebral cortex!”  The medical community , collectively, either needs to get out more, or has a strange, strange sense of humor.

A few things I can say with absolute certainty at this point. It is better to have real, if somewhat mundane, plans than to have wildly exciting filler plans.  Seriously.  Maybe I wouldn’t feel this way if we hadn’t had a chance to travel around a bit before being called home, but I did.  I can say with authority that all those stories about camping out on Portuguese beaches and living for two days off of a bag of oranges are great, but at the age of 25 it’s almost impossible to shut up that little alarm clock in your head.  You know, the one that’s counting down exactly how long you can get away with bumming around the world before it stops being cool and exotic and starts being a bit lame and solipsistic.  I had a Sociology professor once who wore cowboy boots to class every day and chinese coins hanging from his belt by a red ribbon.  He was a decent professor and a very nice guy, but not a story could come out of that man’s mouth that didn’t have something to do with how things were different when he lived in Thailand or what yak-butter tea in Nepal really tastes like.  I wonder if aging multicultural backpackers will be to our generation what aging hippies are to the Baby Boomers?

That being said, I have no intention of turning in my passport or throwing out my backpack (which I adore and anthropomorphize and have named “Lazy Rooster”).  I love camping on beaches, seeing new places, eating strange foods, and in general being more vivid, competent, and daring than I am in everyday life.  It’s just that all of this is improved immeasurably by having a home to come back to and a life that is counted out in something other than weeks or months or passport stamps.  More later on what that life might be.