Day 40: A pause for perspective
October 16, 2016 
Before I embarked on this trip, a friend of mine told me of taking three years to travel around the world. Like me, she closed her business, left her home, sold most of her belongings. She departed her country eagerly and in high spirits, but a few weeks into her travels, doubts appeared and she began to wonder if she had made a mistake. She told herself that if she still felt this way in another two weeks she could go home. At the same time she also made plans to meet a friend farther down the road. And at the end of those two weeks she had found the confidence she needed to continue her journey.
Her story prepared me for uncertainty. Like her, I have had my share of those kinds of feelings during the last 40 days—doubt, sadness, worry, fear. I have at times felt lost and aimless, uncertain of who I am without my familiar work and surroundings. But thanks to the gift of her story, I can be gentle with those feelings while continuing to have faith in the path I am following.
As Day 40 approached, I realized that it felt like a symbolic milestone for me. I kept thinking of the story of Jesus going into the desert for forty days and forty nights to fast and pray. How at the end of those forty days he was clear enough to know who he was and what was important to him. The silence of the desert helped him not be tempted into thinking he was more—or less—than himself.
As I reflect back on the past forty days I can see that leaving behind my familiar world has brought up many things in my mind that were easier to avoid in my regular life. I can see the patterns and beliefs that arise under the stress of unfamiliarity and close quarters. And I also have the time to see that these are just thoughts, and that these thoughts are not all of who I am.
The gift of these first forty days has been the time and space (and triggering circumstances) to just feel these states of being—to simply know they exist. As I fully experience these well-worn mental pathways, I am not so upset by them when they show up. They may not be pleasant, but they are bearable, especially when I stay focused on what is important to me. I also remember that I have no idea, really, what function they play. Just as a swamp seems muddy and mosquitoey and full of smelly rot when you are in it but is essential to the fertility and renewal of the larger ecosystem, these thoughts that I would like to swat like biting flies are also part of some whole that I can only vaguely comprehend.
So today, on Day 40, as the rain hammers down on the roof of our trailer, I am taking a minute to be thankful for all of it. To realize that when one thought or another tempts me to think that it is everything, I can choose the broader view—to see this thought at home in the Whole, and to feel the peace of knowing who I am.
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(We have been staying in Salem, Oregon for the past couple weeks making several small modifications to our truck-and-trailer-home, and are just about ready to head back out on the road again. This picture is from kayaking on the Willamette River on October 12. Day 40 (October 15) was the day the Big Storm was predicted for the PNW, as the remnants of a typhoon brought high winds and rain to the area. We survived with no damage other than a few minor leaks.)