Morning thoughts from the Dordogne

It’s half past nine and minus six degrees outside, as promised by my mobile app.
I’ve fed the cats and they are now resting on the floor across the room – big and furry Muphasa on the carpet and delicate feathery Ushi on the warm tiles.

The silence is complete – apart from the ticking of the traditional Dutch clock on the wall which is not unlike a cuckoo clock in shape, but thankfully less noisy and much more intricate in design.

Even the inner dialogue that spilled over from the realm of dreams into my morning haze is finally ebbing down.

What remains is the gratitude for this brilliantly sunny day, how I can go out and take pictures from the frost-covered gravel, leaves and grass knowing I can return to a cozy home and simply relish being where and who I am right now.

For two years I had nourished the dream of traveling but almost gave up on it as the mountain of my family’s belongings I had to work through stratum by stratum appeared infinite and I was so weak that for half a year I experienced one bout of sinusitis after the other. When the tax office knocked on my door assigning an absolutely disproportionate value to my parents’ house from which they would calculate the inheritance tax I was forced to sell it, which turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever done.
Now I am finally allowing myself the freedom to travel again, currently as a house sitter. This allows me to get to know different places with deeper cultural immersion than I would have as a mere tourist while having the rent covered in that I get to live for free in exchange for taking care of the pets and plants in the house (and occasionally the garden), plus I can get a feel for where how I would like to live, experiencing different countries and houses. At the same time, I am free in my work as I only need wifi to give my lessons, sessions and work on my texts. I love being able to fit my schedule around the needs of my sweet charges.

Now I have lived and worked in many places around the world, among others, in Moscow, but the sale of my parents’ house gives me the financial freedom to temporarily only take on the jobs I like and to truly explore new avenues.

It has taken me quite a while to get to this point, since for over a decade I had worked in a schedule that most of the weeks wouldn’t even allow for half a day off – and by week I mean 7 days – since the most work-intensive times would be weekends and nights. In a way, I thrived and was surprised and proud I could make it, but using every free moment – even while traveling, sitting at the hairdresser’s, or taking my breaks in between classes – for translating (which became almost a pastime…) – had alienated me from having normal interactions with people.
Any conversation would need to have a purpose as it was to either exchange work-related information or have the form of a session… and while these sessions admittedly would also leave room to simply vent and get one’s emotional needs met, the framing was always result-oriented and hardly ever spontaneous. Phone calls with friends and family had to be meticulously planned and fit into my overflowing schedule, and most of the time they felt like yet another appointment I had to muster the energy for instead of just taking a rest.

Now I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it.

Having a rather introvert nature I was happy with this setting that allowed for “no-nonsense” interactions that “served a dedicated purpose”. Yet over time, the nagging feeling grew that the purpose was not being achieved – which purportedly was to become free of limiting beliefs and create one’s life as if no relationships, even the ones with friends and family, truly mattered. This became painfully clear to me during the 6 years in which I accompanied first my father, then my mother, and finally my sister during their last months and weeks.

On the one hand, my self-employed status made it possible for me to be there for them in a way I couldn’t have been had I had a “regular” job and a family. Apart from that, a certain detachment resulting from this “session-oriented” mindset also helped me be stronger throughout the whole care-taking process. On the other hand, to put it bluntly, the fact that it took my family to die for me to choose to be fully there for them, had a bittersweet aftertaste.

Now that all of them are gone, for good, and after I’ve taken the time to see them off by taking every piece that belonged to them into my hands and bidding it farewell, this new space has opened up in which I am left to my own devices in choosing – for the first time truly unencumbered – where, how and with whom I would like to live.

The whole process has shown me that I’ve outgrown the session-framed lifestyle. Currently I even experience a slight aversion to the concept of one person meddling about in another person’s soul and emotional landscape, especially when they haven’t been asked to do so. Ironically, I now find people seeking me out for sessions organically – and this is where I like the sessions to remain from now on: within a clearly agreed-upon time and space.
What this process has also taught me is that not all friendships I used to have stood the test of time. Apparently, some of them were just temporary alliances born out of my main occupation during that period. I am grateful for this, and even more grateful for learning to simply be myself – different in each moment – without the unspoken mandate of constantly having to improve. I relish how I am being received by people, especially here in this special enclave of open-minded people from all over the world.

Of course, my current life choices are sometimes met with conclusions due to a lack of understanding how working nomads live (and earn money! :-)), but all in all, what counts and sticks with people is the energy we emanate. So I am making new friends along the way, and first and foremost, I am making friends with myself, with my body, with my needs in respect to all areas of life.

That is an immeasurable gift.
Something I’ve dreamed of all of my life – to be able to be alone and with people without discomfort or second-guessing myself all the time.

So I am sharing with you, dear reader, the peace from my current residence – within and without – still with the ticking clock in the background, but the cats long gone out into the sunshine to explore this beautiful day.