At this time last...

Many people talk about the past two years being a bit of a blur. Many don't remember quite when anything happened as it was spent doing the same thing, often at home during the ongoing Covid changes and uncertain sameness we have all navigated during this pandemic.  As you know that has not been the case for me - for which I am grateful. I am grateful that I have been able to travel and see people and places. I have been thinking a lot about where I have been in the past two years but also in the past several decades... 

30 years ago at this time I was about to wander from Seattle to Pullman and begin my education at Washington State University.

20 years ago at this time, I had completed my Counseling degree and was working at my first counseling/therapist job.

10 years ago at this time, I had just returned from three months in Thailand and was about to move from North Carolina to Washington DC to begin working for USAID and the KonTerra Group.

Three years ago, I had just left DC for four months in the fields of Maehongson to do the whole rice growing season - a long held dream of mine. 

Two years ago today, accompanied by my friend Mark, I left DC in a Budget rental truck to move my possessions back to Seattle - a journey across the country at the height of Covid uncertainty. It was a smaller truck with a few less plants than the East bound journey to North Carolina 13 years earlier. 

One year ago I was in Thailand, locked down for the most part in Bangkok due to Covid restrictions but finding life and renewal in spite of everything.

Two months ago, after a stop in Seattle, two months in the UK, another stop in Seattle and then another three months in Thailand I returned to Seattle again where I'll be based for the next stretch. 

Much of the past fourteen years of wanderings have been documented here in this blog. Thanks for continuing to wander with me and accompanying me on the journey. I don't take it for granted. Over the last three years the following John O'Donohue poem has stayed with me as companion and reminder.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come, to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.

John O'Donohue

Excerpt from the blessing, 'For One Who is Exhausted'

BENEDICTUS (Europe) / TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)

Duncan