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Live, Love, Laugh, and Learn
This has been my mantra for the last five years since I "retired" from gainful employment, moved to Portland, and started to get my books out in the world. It has served me well to help me balance work vs. play, both of which I enjoy.
I'm pulling it up now and placing it with greater focus now, because, honestly, aside from perusing headlines once per day to see if we've started WW III with our allies or undermined the humanity of our neighbors, it feels right to balance the negative with some positive. We've all heard the announcement on a plane, "Parents, please put on the oxygen mask first before helping your child." (Kids, before you could put on your own masks I always would have helped you first :-)) Nevertheless, I do get the point. If we are not okay, how can we help others be okay? If we are doom-scrolling all day and perseverating about the next stupid edict that gets rescinded the next day, how possibly can we garner the right energy to do the very things we need to do to be sure we gain back our democracy.
Anyway, it was my dear friend Helene Stelian who helped me find these words while trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up in retirement. Thank you Helene! It's also very possible someone else came up with the words before me, but when they "came" to me, they felt totally right.
So, given the state of our country and this mantra, we are off to Sri Lanka for the month of February! Sri Lanka has been on my familial radar since I was about ten and my grandmother traveled there with women friends and raved about its tea country, the warm people, the warm, tropical air, and the terrific (and warm) spices. It never occurred to me that I'd go. It wasn't on our "list". But our great friends Bill Herrington and Charlene Gates wanted to go and we said yes! For Michael it was about the birds, hiking the Pekoe Trail (that runs the length of the country), and going on safaris into five national parks. For me it was all of those plus stepping back into Gram's shoes when, in 1960, she filled me with stories of her travel adventure to Ceylon.
We will LIVE in new ways, let go of the familiarity of our home, watch ourselves meet up with high heat and higher humidity, try every curry we're offered for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, breathe in new air, sleep in new sheets. I'm sure we will LOVE both the people and places we will see. There is both beauty and horror in Sri Lanka's history and we'll become acquainted with both. We'll LAUGH as we endlessly mispronounce things (for starters, is it QaTAR or QATar since we will change planes in Doha), get lost briefly, find our Americanisms silly and myopic inside countries with thousands of years of history. All of this leads to what we will LEARN—more on that when I write to you in March—about Sri Lanka, the US when outside of it, and ourselves in relationship to it all.
Regardless of all its faults, the USA has largely served as a beacon of democracy, for the rule of law, and for great hope. Now, friends from Europe, Canada, and elsewhere are none too happy with us. As I used to do so frequently in consulting with executives, it's always good to put a mirror up and see what others really think. On to Sri Lanka. Thankfully, the four of usl travel well together. We leave tonight (2/4) and arrive there around 2 AM on 2/6. It's only 14.5 + 4.5 hours of flying time on two planes, and 10 different time zones to get there!
Save Big on The Butcher!
Listen to The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy for 65% off through the kindness of RB Media....but hurry as the offer ends on 2/15!
From My Stack
Here's what I'm taking with me:
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave (hope its as good as I was told)
Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow—A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories by Steve Almond
May we find our own ways to live, love, laugh, and learn as we move through the cold of winter into spring and bring others along with us.
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