Got to start somewhere

by measuringcoastlines
0 comment
Metchosin, BC

It’s been about a decade since I had a blog. It’s been ages since I had any kind of impulse to open any aspect of my internal world to strangers, and I’m still leery about it in many ways; I no longer feel that sort of breathless drive to be recognized that I did back then. I’ve been pretty content in the meantime to just share whatever my experiences and thoughts have been with a curated collection of friends and acquaintances on social media, receiving a modest amount of validation for everything in a reasonably safe harbour.

I don’t really know exactly why I’m starting this, apart from that my world has changed a great deal since then and I expect I’ll have lots to talk about over the next several months. I could just write and document it on Facebook, but it doesn’t feel like the right platform somehow.

Right now, I’m at the Krishnamurti Educational Centre of Canada, outside Victoria, BC. I’m a little over a week into a monthlong personal retreat here, and I’ve just finished a weekend workshop on yoga, body meditation, and somatic awareness with Oda Lindner. My partner Matthew is staying here as well for most of the month, apart from a short trip back to Vancouver, where we met almost five years ago. It’s been a very opening week for both of us – in the utter peace and stillness here, with all the richness of life on 32 acres of forest and field and oceanfront, there’s space and time for a lot of emotions and sensations that don’t get a chance to come up when you’re tumbling chaotically through a busy city life.

And the last several months HAVE been unusually chaotic for me. In April, I sold my Vancouver condo, with the simple intention of getting a better one. I knew exactly what I was looking for, I knew what it would feel like, I had researched prices and knew what was reasonable, and it was just a matter of finding something acceptable before I had to move out in July.

A few things happened instead. The housing market dropped to its lowest inventory in two decades, meaning that there was nothing for me to even look at and intense competition for anything halfway worthwhile. Renting would have cost me at least twice as much per month to be in someplace comparable to the home I’d just sold. (Somehow I thought that whole “housing crisis” thing wasn’t going to apply to me.) I made an unsuccessful offer on a beautiful place further from Vancouver, almost in the forest. I was crushed when it sold for a whopping $85k over asking, and found myself rethinking whether I even wanted to be in the city at all. Simultaneously, my four-year relationship went into a difficult crunch phase and almost ended. I found myself at the highest stress point I’d known for about a decade, with all the stability I’d invested in my ideas of “home” and “relationship” simultaneously blown out of the water.

I knew I didn’t know what I wanted any more, and it wasn’t a good time to be making very, very expensive decisions. I also recognized that I’m in an unusually fortunate position as a freelance web developer who can take her work just about anywhere there’s decent wifi. I put real estate on the back burner, and brought curiousity and self-inquiry and exploration up to the front.

I spent most of the summer housesitting in one place or another, and started making plans for the fall. Here’s what the plan looks like so far: September on Vancouver Island, a few weeks back in Vancouver, a month in Bali, and then three to five months in India (mostly in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu).

Why these places, you ask? Oh, lots of reasons! But this blog is going to slowly unfold, as I do. As time goes on, I’ll tell you about my travels, and what I’m experiencing and observing, and why I’m going on these particular journeys. I don’t yet have a clear picture of how much I’m going to post and what I’m going to talk about. I know there’ll be lots of photos because I’ve really been enjoying Instagram lately. Everything else, we’ll all just have to find out together…

You may or may not enjoy