Dear friends,
I am writing to you from a McDonald's in Montpellier, France. I've been in this city for almost three days and have spent much of that time in this McDonald's, since it is the only place with reliable internet that I have found so far. That's a long way away from the couch in Kalamazoo where I wrote the last update. Let me fill in the gaps.
Escape to a Small World
A month and a half ago I began my LandSea experience. There were many wonderful elements to the experience, and some that were challenging as well. One of my favorite elements of going on LandSea is the people I get to interact with. Even before leaving, I already knew all of the other people who were filling the same position as me, that of logistics leader. I also knew I liked all of those people, and one of the things I was most excited about in anticipation for LandSea was the prospect of working closely with all of them. I did not know most of the trip leaders going in but felt confident that I would get to spend time with many wonderful people, which proved right. The program creates an atmosphere that is very appealing to me, one that encourages reflection and introspection; intentional communication, interaction, and personal growth; overt displays of emotion, affection, and caring; and it encourages strength through vulnerability and independence through interdependence. I am a big proponent of all of these but often feel unable to act on them as much as I would like because of contrary pressures from other elements in society. Because LandSea breeds this atmosphere, it also attracts people who are appreciative of it, so we had a small community of people who espouse the above traits in a setting that encourages them.
I also had my fair share of challenges. In my role there was a lot of downtime. However, the program is designed to have endless tasks, and most people around me were busy round the clock. I felt that having downtime meant I was being lazy, and would look for tasks that I could not find. Much about the program was very new and very different from what I had known in the past. New policies, new park, new leadership team. There was a lot to learn and get used to. Somethings I understood well and just had to get accustomed, even if I didn't like them. Other things I did not understand and either had to try to figure out on my own, which only went well some of the time, or I would begin asking questions. Everyone on the logistics teams had a different level of experience and history with the program. Some had done the program in the Adirondacks before, had worked as logistics leaders before, had worked in the LandSea office for months or years, and/or had worked closely with the director. I didn't have any of those benefits. I was going in after three years of no interaction with LandSea, and two years of very brief and remote interaction with Kalamazoo College. As a result, our group was hardly ever on the same page, and had wildly varying levels of information. I felt like I knew less of what was going on then most, and so felt like I was always catching up. But also, I take a very critical view of things. When things didn't make sense to me, I would ask about them, try to understand them, or offer other solutions. Ultimately my frequent inquiries and critiques began annoying others and created some friction. But that too was an important learning experience. How to work with other leadership styles in another capacity, and starting from very different positions.
The best part of going out on LandSea is getting to take a break from the big world. Most of the time I want to do everything, everywhere, with everyone, all the time, and I often find myself disappointed when I come face to face with the impossibility of that desire. That was a reoccurring issue I encountered last year. Both in Israel and in Thailand, I was consistently plagued by a feeling of not doing enough, or not doing the right things. I was regularly restless because whenever I would start one thing I would think about how I should be doing another, or about the three other things that I know won't get done that day. LandSea is an opportunity to live in a very small world all of the sudden. In my position I actually had a decent amount of access to the outside world, but I made a conscious effort not to take those avenues, to concentrate only on what was directly around me. For a month I did not access the internet, did not read any books, did not put on any music, did not read or listen to news, did not make any contact with anyone I know who was not in the program. Instead I connected. I connected with the 90+ people who were on the program, and especially with the 20-30 who were in leadership roles. I connected with my surroundings, with the lakes, the trees, the earth. And I connected with myself, and spent lots of time listening to and learning from myself. Finally, I was not restless, I was at peace.
When I talk about this with some people, they ask me why I don't disconnect all the time, get off of facebook, stop checking my email, don't read the news. If I enjoy it so much, why not bring it into the front country? But I enjoy it as a respite, as a quick escape. I love the mashing together of so many people and so much information that makes up our social connections in the big world. I truly enjoy the connections that rely on these tools and the information I can get from the internet. I would be much less effective at what I am doing and not at all happier if I were to disengage form internet life entirely. I think the trick is to remember that the internet and digital communications are tools that can be useful but also harmful, and not diseases themselves. Refusing to use the tools because they drive me crazy sometimes is like refusing to use knives because I cut myself with them sometimes. The trick is not to remove myself completely but to learn how to carry the calm and the peace of the small world into the big world. I know it's possible, I've experienced it. I'm just not very good at it yet. And when I need a reminder, I can escape to a small world for a time, to remind myself and to recharge.
On the Road Again
I did not do the best job of bringing that balance with me right out of LandSea. The program ended in a confusing and exhausting swirl when B&W forgot to send a bus to the Adirondacks and I had to drive a van load of participants through the night along with most of the logistics team. Upon arriving in Kalamazoo, I was greeted with the usual front country shock of all of the digital communication that I had fallen behind on over the month added onto all of the things I didn't finish before leaving. On top of that, I had about 5 days to catch up while preparing for a European adventure and trying to see everyone to say goodbye. The days were hectic.
Upon landing in Europe I started off with travel adventures by choosing to hitchhike from the airport in Frankfurt to Aachen where my brother is studying. To keep things interesting, and because this was all happening around Yom Kippur, I had decided to fast and was starting to hitchhike after having fasted about 50 hours, with the airplane food stuffed into my bag just in case. Things were slow but I was feeling upbeat. I didn't make it all the way, primarily because a well intentioned man tried to drop me off in a good location and as a result drove me about 20 km in the wrong direction and dropped me off at a station where it was almost impossible to get picked up. It took me about 5 hours to get back to where the man could have dropped me off in the first place in Cologne, and since I was determined to get to Aachen that day and it was getting dark, I took the train for that last stretch. On the plus side, at the rest station where I spent over two hours waiting, I ran into some people who gave me a slice of cake (which I saved for later), tried to convince me to put my faith and Jesus, and prayed for me.
After a few days of hanging out with my brother in rainy Aachen and trying fervently to prepare as much as I could for my trip to and arrival in Montpellier, I departed on Friday morning. I did not get very far the first day because a Turkish truck driver who picked me up at the Belgian border took me 60 km in the wrong direction after having misunderstood where I was going to in France. It all turned out for the better though. I have this belief that when things go wrong they are all part of a greater conspiracy which is meant to lead me to particular things that will ultimately benefit me. I think I hold this belief more for entertainment purposes and to cheer myself up when things go wrong rather than truly believing it, but it provides wonderful fantasies about the chain reaction of things that will happen and how everything will turn out as best as it could. This time the conspiracy really worked. It took me about 5 hours to get back to where the truck driver could have left me, meaning that at 6:30 pm I was in Liege, a city in the French speaking part of Belgium that is only about 50 km from Aachen. I was not sitting at a very good spot and was already spending time looking at the map and planning where I would go to sleep in case no one picked me up. But I did get picked up, by someone who was only going 20 km farther, but who ended up offering to host me for the night. And so I got to spend the night with the Dembour family. Their house was gorgeous, parts of it were built in 1780, and it was in the small quaint town of Sprimont. The couple worked as a teacher and a physical therapist, and Bernard, the teacher, spoke excellent English and helped translate when I had a hard time communicating. I got to have a beautiful dinner and try new food (mussels) with their two younger children. Tom, their 22 year old son, took main responsibility for hosting me and we spent quite a while chatting. Instead of just driving through Belgium, I got to spend a night with a Belgian family, eat local food, try the renowned Belgian beer and chocolate, and meet some amazing people. Thank you Turkish truck driver.
This did mean that I was pretty far from Montpellier at the end of the first day. My second day was slightly less eventful. Highlights were gripping on to the car as some drivers took their vehicles up to 180 kmph (that a little over 110 mph for Americans), a long ride with a Polish guy who took back roads to avoid tolls but ended up getting a speeding ticket as he would go twice or more the speed limit whenever he could. And my last ride of the day, a strange older man who told me about traveling the world (he really had been in many parts of the world) by bicycle in order to study and spread knowledge about solar power. He spoke a lot about the 7 years he spent in Israel after biking there from France. When he dropped me off at the rest stop it was nearly 11 pm. I went to thumb near the exit and joined two folks headed to a rainbow festival. We chatted for a bit, but since they could speak French and were determined to keep going that night, they ended up going and speaking to drivers and found a ride. Meanwhile I was exhausted and nursing a headache, so I pulled out my sleeping bag and slept through the night behind a little wall. I was pretty far south at this point, near Lyon, so the weather was actually very nice for outdoor sleeping, nicer than it was in the Adirondacks on some nights.
Two rides brought me into Montpellier by about one the next day. Since the trip would not be interesting enough as it is, I managed to leave my wallet in my last ride's car. Luckily we had had a great conversation and he gave me his email, so I managed to contact him, and he was coming back through Montpellier later that day anyway, so I got my wallet by the evening. But I had a few hours of trying to figure out how I was going to manage on 7 Euro until I could get some new bank cards, since I had forgotten to move my emergency card to my money belt.
A New Chapter
And now I'm here. I realized on that first day, after walking around the city some and discovering McDonald's for internet and the train station for charging devices, that this is the first time since January when I can look forward to spending 2-3 months in the same place. The feeling is pleasant and welcome.
I have been doing a good job of maintaining the calm I spoke of earlier while I have been here. The mountain of things that there is to do continues to be daunting and never ending, but I am avoiding the anxious negative feedback loops that I fell into so regularly throughout the past year. I have so far been happy with whatever gets accomplished on a given day, and feel ready to tackle the next thing the next day. I think a part of the shift is also a result of reorienting priorities, guided mostly by my experience during the meditation retreats in Thailand and on LandSea. I wrote, a few updates ago, that while on the first meditation retreat I realized that what fulfills me most is commitment, and I decided to continue my nomadic lifestyle at least through the experience that I had promised myself in order to see through that commitment to myself and to the experience. While reflecting on that realization and on calmness vs. restlessness during LandSea, I realized that the restlessness comes from a preoccupation with small picture goals at the cost of the big picture experience. If I obsess over how many people I meet, which organizations I work with, how good I get at speaking the language, how many books I read, etc. then I become overwhelmed with everything I have to do. But once I release the attachment to all of those little goals and learn to accept however well I do or however far I go for any of those goals, I give myself the space to embrace my experience, whatever it maybe. I am able to stay true to my commitment. That's not an easy thing to remember, and it is much easier for me to write than it is for me to truly feel. But I'm pretty happy with the way things have been going these past three days. Things have been pretty slow so far, which sometimes makes it easier. They will start speeding up already later this week. Couchsurfing meeting on Thursday, Food not Bombs over the weekend, and my birthday on Sunday. I feel ready.
Future Destination
I am very excited to be in one place for the next few months. I will most likely stay in Montpellier until sometime in December, perhaps even through the new year, depending on how things go. From there I plan to go somewhere that is at least as warm, if not warmer than here. Morocco and Greece have been my two main contenders for a while, but Spain, Portugal, and Italy all remain possibilities, as well as something else that may pop up. In the spring I hope to go somewhere in southern Germany. And from there the path is truly unknown.
Drop me a line if you find yourself in Europe, perhaps we can meet. And I am always happy to receive updates about your lives, if you find yourself with the time and energy to write.
Have a wonderful time doing whatever you're doing wherever you are,
Leeor
I am writing to you from a McDonald's in Montpellier, France. I've been in this city for almost three days and have spent much of that time in this McDonald's, since it is the only place with reliable internet that I have found so far. That's a long way away from the couch in Kalamazoo where I wrote the last update. Let me fill in the gaps.
Escape to a Small World
A month and a half ago I began my LandSea experience. There were many wonderful elements to the experience, and some that were challenging as well. One of my favorite elements of going on LandSea is the people I get to interact with. Even before leaving, I already knew all of the other people who were filling the same position as me, that of logistics leader. I also knew I liked all of those people, and one of the things I was most excited about in anticipation for LandSea was the prospect of working closely with all of them. I did not know most of the trip leaders going in but felt confident that I would get to spend time with many wonderful people, which proved right. The program creates an atmosphere that is very appealing to me, one that encourages reflection and introspection; intentional communication, interaction, and personal growth; overt displays of emotion, affection, and caring; and it encourages strength through vulnerability and independence through interdependence. I am a big proponent of all of these but often feel unable to act on them as much as I would like because of contrary pressures from other elements in society. Because LandSea breeds this atmosphere, it also attracts people who are appreciative of it, so we had a small community of people who espouse the above traits in a setting that encourages them.
I also had my fair share of challenges. In my role there was a lot of downtime. However, the program is designed to have endless tasks, and most people around me were busy round the clock. I felt that having downtime meant I was being lazy, and would look for tasks that I could not find. Much about the program was very new and very different from what I had known in the past. New policies, new park, new leadership team. There was a lot to learn and get used to. Somethings I understood well and just had to get accustomed, even if I didn't like them. Other things I did not understand and either had to try to figure out on my own, which only went well some of the time, or I would begin asking questions. Everyone on the logistics teams had a different level of experience and history with the program. Some had done the program in the Adirondacks before, had worked as logistics leaders before, had worked in the LandSea office for months or years, and/or had worked closely with the director. I didn't have any of those benefits. I was going in after three years of no interaction with LandSea, and two years of very brief and remote interaction with Kalamazoo College. As a result, our group was hardly ever on the same page, and had wildly varying levels of information. I felt like I knew less of what was going on then most, and so felt like I was always catching up. But also, I take a very critical view of things. When things didn't make sense to me, I would ask about them, try to understand them, or offer other solutions. Ultimately my frequent inquiries and critiques began annoying others and created some friction. But that too was an important learning experience. How to work with other leadership styles in another capacity, and starting from very different positions.
The best part of going out on LandSea is getting to take a break from the big world. Most of the time I want to do everything, everywhere, with everyone, all the time, and I often find myself disappointed when I come face to face with the impossibility of that desire. That was a reoccurring issue I encountered last year. Both in Israel and in Thailand, I was consistently plagued by a feeling of not doing enough, or not doing the right things. I was regularly restless because whenever I would start one thing I would think about how I should be doing another, or about the three other things that I know won't get done that day. LandSea is an opportunity to live in a very small world all of the sudden. In my position I actually had a decent amount of access to the outside world, but I made a conscious effort not to take those avenues, to concentrate only on what was directly around me. For a month I did not access the internet, did not read any books, did not put on any music, did not read or listen to news, did not make any contact with anyone I know who was not in the program. Instead I connected. I connected with the 90+ people who were on the program, and especially with the 20-30 who were in leadership roles. I connected with my surroundings, with the lakes, the trees, the earth. And I connected with myself, and spent lots of time listening to and learning from myself. Finally, I was not restless, I was at peace.
When I talk about this with some people, they ask me why I don't disconnect all the time, get off of facebook, stop checking my email, don't read the news. If I enjoy it so much, why not bring it into the front country? But I enjoy it as a respite, as a quick escape. I love the mashing together of so many people and so much information that makes up our social connections in the big world. I truly enjoy the connections that rely on these tools and the information I can get from the internet. I would be much less effective at what I am doing and not at all happier if I were to disengage form internet life entirely. I think the trick is to remember that the internet and digital communications are tools that can be useful but also harmful, and not diseases themselves. Refusing to use the tools because they drive me crazy sometimes is like refusing to use knives because I cut myself with them sometimes. The trick is not to remove myself completely but to learn how to carry the calm and the peace of the small world into the big world. I know it's possible, I've experienced it. I'm just not very good at it yet. And when I need a reminder, I can escape to a small world for a time, to remind myself and to recharge.
On the Road Again
I did not do the best job of bringing that balance with me right out of LandSea. The program ended in a confusing and exhausting swirl when B&W forgot to send a bus to the Adirondacks and I had to drive a van load of participants through the night along with most of the logistics team. Upon arriving in Kalamazoo, I was greeted with the usual front country shock of all of the digital communication that I had fallen behind on over the month added onto all of the things I didn't finish before leaving. On top of that, I had about 5 days to catch up while preparing for a European adventure and trying to see everyone to say goodbye. The days were hectic.
Upon landing in Europe I started off with travel adventures by choosing to hitchhike from the airport in Frankfurt to Aachen where my brother is studying. To keep things interesting, and because this was all happening around Yom Kippur, I had decided to fast and was starting to hitchhike after having fasted about 50 hours, with the airplane food stuffed into my bag just in case. Things were slow but I was feeling upbeat. I didn't make it all the way, primarily because a well intentioned man tried to drop me off in a good location and as a result drove me about 20 km in the wrong direction and dropped me off at a station where it was almost impossible to get picked up. It took me about 5 hours to get back to where the man could have dropped me off in the first place in Cologne, and since I was determined to get to Aachen that day and it was getting dark, I took the train for that last stretch. On the plus side, at the rest station where I spent over two hours waiting, I ran into some people who gave me a slice of cake (which I saved for later), tried to convince me to put my faith and Jesus, and prayed for me.
After a few days of hanging out with my brother in rainy Aachen and trying fervently to prepare as much as I could for my trip to and arrival in Montpellier, I departed on Friday morning. I did not get very far the first day because a Turkish truck driver who picked me up at the Belgian border took me 60 km in the wrong direction after having misunderstood where I was going to in France. It all turned out for the better though. I have this belief that when things go wrong they are all part of a greater conspiracy which is meant to lead me to particular things that will ultimately benefit me. I think I hold this belief more for entertainment purposes and to cheer myself up when things go wrong rather than truly believing it, but it provides wonderful fantasies about the chain reaction of things that will happen and how everything will turn out as best as it could. This time the conspiracy really worked. It took me about 5 hours to get back to where the truck driver could have left me, meaning that at 6:30 pm I was in Liege, a city in the French speaking part of Belgium that is only about 50 km from Aachen. I was not sitting at a very good spot and was already spending time looking at the map and planning where I would go to sleep in case no one picked me up. But I did get picked up, by someone who was only going 20 km farther, but who ended up offering to host me for the night. And so I got to spend the night with the Dembour family. Their house was gorgeous, parts of it were built in 1780, and it was in the small quaint town of Sprimont. The couple worked as a teacher and a physical therapist, and Bernard, the teacher, spoke excellent English and helped translate when I had a hard time communicating. I got to have a beautiful dinner and try new food (mussels) with their two younger children. Tom, their 22 year old son, took main responsibility for hosting me and we spent quite a while chatting. Instead of just driving through Belgium, I got to spend a night with a Belgian family, eat local food, try the renowned Belgian beer and chocolate, and meet some amazing people. Thank you Turkish truck driver.
This did mean that I was pretty far from Montpellier at the end of the first day. My second day was slightly less eventful. Highlights were gripping on to the car as some drivers took their vehicles up to 180 kmph (that a little over 110 mph for Americans), a long ride with a Polish guy who took back roads to avoid tolls but ended up getting a speeding ticket as he would go twice or more the speed limit whenever he could. And my last ride of the day, a strange older man who told me about traveling the world (he really had been in many parts of the world) by bicycle in order to study and spread knowledge about solar power. He spoke a lot about the 7 years he spent in Israel after biking there from France. When he dropped me off at the rest stop it was nearly 11 pm. I went to thumb near the exit and joined two folks headed to a rainbow festival. We chatted for a bit, but since they could speak French and were determined to keep going that night, they ended up going and speaking to drivers and found a ride. Meanwhile I was exhausted and nursing a headache, so I pulled out my sleeping bag and slept through the night behind a little wall. I was pretty far south at this point, near Lyon, so the weather was actually very nice for outdoor sleeping, nicer than it was in the Adirondacks on some nights.
Two rides brought me into Montpellier by about one the next day. Since the trip would not be interesting enough as it is, I managed to leave my wallet in my last ride's car. Luckily we had had a great conversation and he gave me his email, so I managed to contact him, and he was coming back through Montpellier later that day anyway, so I got my wallet by the evening. But I had a few hours of trying to figure out how I was going to manage on 7 Euro until I could get some new bank cards, since I had forgotten to move my emergency card to my money belt.
A New Chapter
And now I'm here. I realized on that first day, after walking around the city some and discovering McDonald's for internet and the train station for charging devices, that this is the first time since January when I can look forward to spending 2-3 months in the same place. The feeling is pleasant and welcome.
I have been doing a good job of maintaining the calm I spoke of earlier while I have been here. The mountain of things that there is to do continues to be daunting and never ending, but I am avoiding the anxious negative feedback loops that I fell into so regularly throughout the past year. I have so far been happy with whatever gets accomplished on a given day, and feel ready to tackle the next thing the next day. I think a part of the shift is also a result of reorienting priorities, guided mostly by my experience during the meditation retreats in Thailand and on LandSea. I wrote, a few updates ago, that while on the first meditation retreat I realized that what fulfills me most is commitment, and I decided to continue my nomadic lifestyle at least through the experience that I had promised myself in order to see through that commitment to myself and to the experience. While reflecting on that realization and on calmness vs. restlessness during LandSea, I realized that the restlessness comes from a preoccupation with small picture goals at the cost of the big picture experience. If I obsess over how many people I meet, which organizations I work with, how good I get at speaking the language, how many books I read, etc. then I become overwhelmed with everything I have to do. But once I release the attachment to all of those little goals and learn to accept however well I do or however far I go for any of those goals, I give myself the space to embrace my experience, whatever it maybe. I am able to stay true to my commitment. That's not an easy thing to remember, and it is much easier for me to write than it is for me to truly feel. But I'm pretty happy with the way things have been going these past three days. Things have been pretty slow so far, which sometimes makes it easier. They will start speeding up already later this week. Couchsurfing meeting on Thursday, Food not Bombs over the weekend, and my birthday on Sunday. I feel ready.
Future Destination
I am very excited to be in one place for the next few months. I will most likely stay in Montpellier until sometime in December, perhaps even through the new year, depending on how things go. From there I plan to go somewhere that is at least as warm, if not warmer than here. Morocco and Greece have been my two main contenders for a while, but Spain, Portugal, and Italy all remain possibilities, as well as something else that may pop up. In the spring I hope to go somewhere in southern Germany. And from there the path is truly unknown.
Drop me a line if you find yourself in Europe, perhaps we can meet. And I am always happy to receive updates about your lives, if you find yourself with the time and energy to write.
Have a wonderful time doing whatever you're doing wherever you are,
Leeor
Trip leaders getting ready for participants
View from one of the most gorgeous campsites I have ever been to
Our "private" beach at the campsite
