we are elsewhere.

A few days ago, I heard about this writer, Colleen Kinder. Jennifer took some travel writing classes with her last year and told me about her new book project. Ms. Kinder is traveling around the world meeting with Americans who are living abroad. She wants to know why. She basically asks people,

"Can you tell me in one word why you are living abroad?"

I really started to think about this, as I reminded myself that this is the second time (for Kevin too) that I have lived abroad for a period of time. I usually had answers for "Why are you going there?" or "What are you going to do there?" But I never really thought about the trips like a residency, even though they are. I never considered my travels to be part of a larger migration pattern of Americans that leave the "land of opportunity" to pursue something elsewhere.

My friend Joe also created a super neat program, based on Facebook info, that shows you a map of where all your friends are located. I started to think about where a lot of my friends are today, and they are at all corners of the globe. For real- New Zealand, Korea, London, Oregon, Ecuador, Texas, Halifax... And in the last few years, people I know are constantly traveling. I'm thrilled to be living in a time where I can know these things and still communicate with friends thousands of miles away. I'm also lucky to know such marvelously talented and interesting people that share my fascination with different cultures/time zones/languages/etc.

Kevin and I came up with some words... and in all honesty, our words for this time in Guatemala are entirely different than words we might have chosen for our time in Peru or the Netherlands. That's what is so neat about traveling, living abroad or even just leaving home. I don't believe that anyone needs a reason to do these things. And it's almost impossible to make concrete plans.

That's the beauty of it: being abroad forces you to learn flexibility, patience and tolerance. It allows you discover your personal limits and boundaries in a way that school and the workplace can never teach you. Traveling away from home allows you to truly live and learn what makes your life unique, and how to best cultivate your decisions to adapt to your surroundings.

Does that even make sense?? I don't know. Just something I've been thinking about recently. And also- wanted to graciously thank my parents and family for allowing me to pursue my life abroad and supporting me every step of the way.

So the three words I came up with were "space to think." Which is not one word at all, but these things happen when you live abroad and your English vocab starts to slip down the tubes.

I had written a bit more on this, but blogger deleted it. Which is probably a good thing, because it sounded a lot more pompous than I intended (using a blog for personal reflections is not really my thing). But yeah, living in Guatemala, with a substantially different lifestyle, has given me the chance to step back and slow down from the rhythm I had in DC, and think about life a bit more, instead of just rushing to a next shift, errand, or destination.