It Starts...

Well here I go again. I'm sitting on the big green couch in Dover Rest looking out on Lake Temagami and trying to wrap my head around the fact that in 17 days I will be winging it over the Atlantic and landing in China once more. For the next few months I will be based in Kunming- a city famous for its diversity, weather (the name means eternal Spring), and crossing-the-bridge-noodles, a delicious soup slick with oil and served steaming in lacquered bowls. I was in Kunming once when I was 21 and the memories that float when I recall the city include lots of mist, a temple wall covered by a carved fresco depicting bodhisattvas emerging from waves on the backs of sea creatures, Uyghur raisin vendors stationed on either side of the city's numerous bridges, a colorful swirl of a weekly event called the bird and flower market, and the smell of jasmine blossoms that open at night in moonlit courtyards. 

These images are far from my current reality of Temgami's red and white pine, miles of sparking water, and an island full of childhood and family. My heart is in both places at once, absorbing every minute of time here in this place it calls home, and leaping forward in anticipation of that post-take-off moment when you can feel the familiar being left behind with the old horizon line as you hurl into newness. Times of transition offer an opportunity for me to hit pause on my life and hover somewhere between past and future that isn't quite the present. I feel like a time traveler. 

In the coming couple of weeks I will be making the rounds in Canada and the US to visit loved ones and say some goodbyes. Quebec and Chicago and Boston are home to friends and family I will drive for hours to hug. Some of these places are also home to some of my 12 students I will meet in Kunming. It's neat to think about them in their homes saying their goodbyes and preparing to meet me and build an adventure together- maybe in a few years we'll be making the rounds to hug each other. 

At any rate, off I go and it feels like it is certainly time to be moving again. These past few years in the States have been full of such growth and learning- I'm excited to head back to Asia and view it through these new lenses tinted by study and change. I look forward to jotting down bits of what I take in and mull about for your consideration. It's nice, this little blog, as a space to transmit my thoughts to all of you who might be interested in what I'm seeing of our world. I hope to receive your thoughts as well- and so I'll be posting my contact information as soon as I find out what it is!! My love to you-

xj