The Both/And Of Travel

TUES., MAY 30, 2000, 6:45 AM
HONOLULU, HAMA’S CABANA

Your pleasant visit here, in this mostly familiar place is coming to an end. You haven’t done all that you could have – even expected to do – but what you have done seems sufficient. For you are now more than aware that your times of traveling and enjoying both the new and the repeated experiences in “other places” are less and less satisfying. In contrast to what? To life on the Farm and in the familiar, comfortable area of “your home”.

Accept this as a natural progression, from the energy and activity of young and middle adulthood to the satisfactions of “permanence” that are more appropriate to your age. You still have some tendencies to respond as you have for most of your life… like “make a list” so that you don’t “waste time”… that everything that “should” be done is at least attempted.

As you compare yourself to your Dad you see that you are coming to feel and act as he did, but he was in his 80’s, at least. Just accept that this earth life of yours won’t last into those truly older years, so this stage in your life is coming at just about the right time.

In your life you had many experiences and in a variety of settings. Most of these were pleasureful, and yet you didn’t long for “more and more”. You can remember and recount the different places… even dwellings… where you have lived. And, basically, you grew up and lived a “settled” life on San Francisco Ave. in Long Beach… then did some “roaming” during Navy and college days… and then came here. So this island, now a place to which you travel, was an early home for you. It was right for you then, but not now, for “both of you” have changed.

Then there was life around Stanford, both as a student and then as a young professor. You had two fine homes, and your professional career, which required some travel continued up. But then came the time to move again, this time, interestingly, just about 2,000 miles east, instead of west, as you had done “before”.

As I have told you often, this was where I purposed you to be for most of your active adult life. Life was good for you on S. Oakland, and Carbondale and S.I.U. were the proper blend for this major phase of your career. And, still, there was one more critical move – to the Farm. This was accomplished (with one short move “back”, for “Matthew’s sake”) and then you developed the “true character” of your teaching mode, with classes and groups out at this rural Farm. You were still traveling, occasionally excessively, having fun and building and reinforcing your reputation as a health educator, one interested in and communicative about spirit as a facet of health.

Those were good years, but you have less and less “need” to “recapture” them. “That was then… this is now”. You have considered going again (once more?) to a professional meeting, and you may… but this is less likely with each passing year.

Travel provided insights and experiences that enriched your young and middle years. What time is it now? Time to muse… reconsider… contemplate what you can remember, with less call for “ever-new” experiences. (You were not surprised that you had no desire to travel to Alaska, an exciting future venture for this family.)

Oh, you do realize that not traveling results in losses of contact with friends, family, and former students. This is the major “down-side” of not traveling, and must be repeatedly considered… for it is a “good” in human life. You hope that some of these, who you do not travel to be with, will come and visit you… and some may… as you came to visit your parents. But you will find, increasingly, that you will be glad when such visits, to you, are over… and life can return to the more quiet, expected “normal”.