“You don’t know what it will be, but you know it will be great! What a pattern for living. I love that!”
From Deborah: As the latest chapter in our new work (which we are currently writing) is titled: Bittersweet, I can say I found our return home from our travels to the islands of the Outer Banks to be just that, happy but redolent with that misty sense of missing something. I imagine that I missed that sense of adventure of what will happen next. I missed the freshness of a morning somewhere else so far from my home. Now, after reading what Our Teachers have posted: Returning Home, I have learned that I carried all that with me. In the same way that I longed for change and to go adventuring, I also longed for peace and quiet in my heart … and recognition that all is well and I can have a fabulous life wherever I am. Our Teachers confirm that, and I am grateful.
Yet, so much about our experiences there seem to draw something new out of me. A view of trees and plants that don’t grow here in upstate NY, and the ocean spray and mist that we don’t get here, and more intense sunlight than we get here, and the list goes on. However, in each case, when feeling stimulated by those things, I always felt such gratitude to be where I am, at any given moment. Such thanks! I am just as happy here, back home, at my desk writing this to you and having my happy memories.
Back home, I’m surrounded by familiar sights and sounds. My neighbors hoot their horns in welcoming us back, and my dog-walk friends are eager to connect back on the trail. Aggie, our dog, is so happy to be reunited with her furry friends, and Paul and I are happy to be loading up the fridge with veggies, yogurt and fruit we love to eat, and somehow so hard to stick to as we travel. We ate a lot of fast food along the way, despite my best efforts to pack apples and bananas. They simply got buried with everything else in the car! Well, I could recount all our stories along the way, but really this is not a travel blog. Yet I have promised to recount my experiences in which I am learning and uplifted by Our Teachers to greater understanding and happier experiences.
So in this post, I include a photo of a beachscape that left us breathless with joy, and which we adventured over each day. Paul found part of an old shipwreck on the beach and I happily snapped pictures and played and walked for miles with Aggie. We picnicked in the dunes, cold but happy.
I have been planning this adventure for many seasons, and now in this new season of my life, serving as a scribe, I beheld such perfect beauty and had such perfect moments. Timing was startling. Arriving just as wild ponies were grazing nearby (and soon after whoosh… gone!) Arriving just before the big storm and flooding so we were safe and snug in our accommodations. The fabulous ‘just washed clean’ island in the sunlight after the big storm. Connecting with a remarkable artist (who rented us her cottage) and enjoying all her artistry within those surroundings. Wherever we went, things just seemed to turn out great … and unexpectedly. I qualify that by saying I now always expect to be happier because of my work with the Teachers, but the momentary surprise and delight when encountering it, is amazing. You don’t know what it will be, but you know it will be great! What a pattern for living. I love that!