Chapters

The perfection of a clean desk is so comforting in an unknown place. A clean workspace. A clean slate. A place to retreat to. A place to think.

A place.

Places. I think a lot about places, and their meaning. For all the variation in numbers, data, and statistics, there is always an elemental narrative of a place. It doesn't follow a set pattern or routine, rather a gut feeling. It is however divided up much as you would think a chapter is.

Beginning:

And End.

My chapter is coming to a close here. It acts like the gravity assist that sends spacecraft out into the depths. I had an amazing blast off, and as my craft flies towards Jupiter, I can feel it bringing me in faster by every moment, each velocity measurement greater than the past. But the pivot is still astronomically far away.

I've seen this coming for a while now. As I said in my previous post, this place does not resonate with me. This chapter is coming up on the conclusion of it's two year duration. And I have decided that. I don't know where I will go, I just know I will be moving once my VISTA term is up in August.

There is a feeling I get when I go somewhere I resonate. Imagine a yearning; a deep grab from the bottom of your heart; a settling of all of your worries. Your toes curl with the anticipation of being there, and excitement builds to a long *sigh* as you take in the sunset on your landing.

Arrival brings the natural match of your pitch with the cultural and societal tuning fork of the area. Whatever builds that for you, you find it there.

There is nothing like it in the world.

I find this feeling solidly in Baltimore Ohio with my family. In the Blue Ridge of North Carolina with my friends. In small glimpses of places like Spartanburg South Carolina; the massive urban center of Barcelona in Spain; marshlands and swamps around the Nature Coast in Florida; the central rural community of Bedford Pennsylvania.

Most of all, I feel this natural matching of pitch and fork in the very idea of exploration. Of adventuring off to see new places, meeting new people, and experiencing new cultures, no matter how slightly or radically different they may be from my own.

When is settling? I have a feeling it will find me when I want it to.

For now I am destined to wander, live, and experience. Let's give it another round, and see where it leads me next.