Landing

Have you ever come back from traveling somewhere and thought, “Was I really just in Bermuda/Nepal/ California/wherever or was it all just a glorious dream?”

It’s a feeling that has become so familiar to us over these last years of travel. Each time we settle into a new place, the last one feels like perhaps it was all just a lovely dream.

Did we dream those Alaskan mountains? The frozen streams and snow-covered trees? Or did we reallylive there just 10 days ago? Is that possible?

We have landed in Seattle. 

Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that we are landing in Seattle. It’s taking us a minute or three to get our bearings.

This is different than what we’ve been doing. Justin is still travel nursing. Tessie is still sleeping upside down. But this time we are planning to stay for longer than three months and so the landing looks a little different. 

For one, we aren’t in Kippee. 

We will be spending 2019 living in my Dad’s house while renovating it for him, so we need to buy a few basic pieces of furniture…you know, like a bed to sleep in. Carving out some quiet space in the house while we paint and take down walls and gut a bathroom or two is our first step and so it’s going to take just a bit longer to settle than it did when we just slipped Kippee into a new parking space and started looking for a laundromat.

And being here longer means we have the opportunity to build some community here. Finding a good yoga studio and running group and volunteering for trail maintenance work days and contributing to political and social justice movements…we will be here long enough to be a part of some things here, to invest a bit of ourselves in this area and understand more of its concerns.

We’re missing Alaska. And living with other people is an adjustment. And we’re still not sure where the best grocery stores are or where the best trails to run close by are or even what the parking protocol in the neighborhood is yet.

But we’re landing. We’re getting there. Our little family will figure out this transition just as we have all the others- with openness and a remembering that we are always home in each other.