“As Bokonon says: Peculiar travel suggestions
are dancing lessons from God.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

For the umpteenth time in my life, I realize that I light up when I explore new places, meet new people, experience new cultures, and leave my safe zone.

There are so many benefits to leave what you know and your established routines, to make the effort — and it is a big one, to organize yourself and your responsibilities in order to travel away from your day-to-day life, whether for work or for play.

If my travel is for work, I push through the stress of packing, preparing the house and dogs, completing all the projects, and making the arrangements because it is necessary. If it is for play, I find myself canceling or rescheduling breaks and vacations because the breaking away is too complicated — or a more pressing situation interrupts, like a pandemic, a pregnant dog, illness, or other.

Yet, each time I commit, do the heavy lifting to jettison my day-to-day, and pause, I am rewarded with surprises, challenges, fresh lessons, new experiences, and friendships.

I am grateful for the gift I have been given: being open to people, happy to engage, and able to make friends everywhere I go. My collection of friends is vast, deep, diverse, and greatly prized.

It was in 2004, on an overseas trip initiated by a friend, that I met Louie and individuals in the field of systems cybernetics on the island of Bruni, in Croatia. Everything about that trip was new and expansive, frequently putting me beyond my depth. But it was the start of a lasting friendship.

Louie was new to the field, a true explorer, and a fellow in finding friends. He adopted me and my pal, Stephanos, immediately. We spent a week learning, eating, laughing, and exploring how we fit in the world and how we could contribute. Four years later, Louie visited me in Cleveland.

Now, twenty years after we met, he invited me to a convening in Washington D.C., back into the community of systems cybernetics.

Know that when it comes to systems cybernetics, I am still in the deep end of the pool, paddling in a room of thoughtful individuals, figuring out what systems and cybernetics means and how it can be used in the world for good. Though twenty years older, I still had the experience of being one of the youngest in the room, though I wasn’t, and newest to the table.

So how would I behave?

I tried to be compliant with some success. I was helpful and gracious. I couldn’t contain my energy or all the thoughts and questions bubbling up. I thought I was to be in a large conference hall where I could sit unobserved and quietly do thinking work while listening to lectures. This was not to be — the picture in my unprepared mind did not match the day.

Big surprise. A room of fifty learners, flip charts and markers at small tables, for a day of dialogue and process was the plan. No hiding for me. 

(insert picture of the mapping exercise.)

This whole trip, and I hadn’t left Cleveland since February, and it was now June) has been an eye-opener and what I am learning by being open to the surprises and lessons is this:

• • • • I don’t have control over all or even many things. 
      • I do have control over my responses and my responsibilities.
      • I embrace surprises with grace. 
      • I find the humor in every situation.
      • I am going to take my responsibilities seriously, but lighten up on life, on myself, and on others.
      • Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness. 
      • Being a helper is immensely satisfying.
      • Having people around who want to support you requires being able to accept their love. 
      • There is balance and great reward in both giving and receiving.
      • Behind every situation — easy or hard — is a lesson.  
      • Grab opportunities and dance into the future with new awareness and ability. (My friend Louie describes himself as a ‘Happy Cork’.  I like that.)
      • Even the change of venue can be filled with new opportunities to learn, stretch, and discover your abilities — or inabilities.
      • Though I know how to drive a car and take directions from the GPS system, if I am too involved in a phone conversation, I will miss the exit and arrive two hours late. 
      • I have lost the ability to pack efficiently, and I don’t care if I am driving.

The friend’s home in which I stayed has different sounds at night and different technology. Siri wouldn’t answer because she was actually Alexa, or vice versa. Yet it was a safe harbor in which to land, filled with love and thoughtfulness. Aren’t I lucky? It required me to adapt and assert my flexibility. Not only is that more challenging as you age but if you haven’t left the nest for a while, it requires effort.

It may take me three weeks to prepare for a trip and three weeks to recover, catch up and resettle, but while I am still in the middle of a jaunt, I am find myself slowly melting — while still maintaining my routines and staying connected with responsibilities — and rediscovering my simplest self who loves an adventure, surprise, and lesson.

I will soon be on the road back to Cleveland, the dogs, and picking up all the responsibilities of my life, work; as well as the new responsibility of having a pregnant dog due to give birth to her first litter of puppies. 

I am renewed and ready. 

This quick trip has slowed me down (somewhat!), woken up parts of me that go to sleep when I am home, helped me to enjoy summer and new places, connect me with old friends and family, and make some new friends along the way.

It started with an invitation, from which followed a world of unexpected and unplanned surprises.

• What might you invite into your life? 

• What change might feel disruptive but end up being just what you needed?

Please let me know that I am not the only person who gets silly and giddy about discovering new, simple pleasures.  

What have you delighted in this summer that was planned or unplanned?

Leslie

“So many things are possible
just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.
Expect everything, I always say,
and the unexpected never happens.”

— Norton Juster