Sunday, September 2, 2012

What Day Is It?

It seems like we have been traveling for months and when we looked at the calendar it is actually only two weeks since we left Fargo which feels very far away almost like another country. The overwhelming feeling of meeting new people, not knowing the bus routes and taking in so many new experiences can be a bit frustrating. I think that we underestimate the effort that travel of any kind takes. You are in the most basic terms taking everything that your body recognizes as "normal" and changing it all at once.
I remember in China after I has eaten so many wonderful foods and didn't feel well that Jess's suggestion that we eat something that my body recognized as food, like the pasta that we ultimately found was perfect. It was my way of resetting the body clock and reminding my body that with all the new things happening I still remembered those that we all felt comfortable with.
We also lose the sense of time and schedule. This is especially true if we travel outside our time zone or completely stop things that help us keep track of time like work. After I quit my job and had been on the road for about a week I started to forget what day it was. My dad, who is doing his sabbatical in Munich is experiencing much the same feeling and he writes that he is trying to get into a rhythm after having been there a week. I think that we take for granted those things that help us regulate how we view that passage of time and how to plan it.


For the next five months this lifestyle is going to be "normal" for us. Every month or so we will move again to a new place and try something out. Right about the time we feel comfortable and normal again we will move and start again. The trade off for this crazy switch every few months has already started. The opportunity to meet so many new people and try different things has, so far proven completely worth the jolt of taking the whole house with us to a new location. Hopefully soon this place, no matter where it sits will feel like home.


1 comment:

  1. Sounds disorienting! You might just adjust, then have a hard time getting back into the 'grind'! Miss you guys!

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