"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." ...
Five
years ago next month we left Bainbridge Island, WA our home of 20-years with a
plan, or at least guidelines for our new semi-itinerant lifestyle. Our goal was to live our retirement before
retiring and without digging into any retirement savings, to live in
interesting places rather than merely visiting as tourists, to work and pay our
taxes but to not put down roots. The
latter, of course, meant travelling light and moving-on with reasonable
periodicity: a reasonable minimum stay in each country would be one year with a
maximum of two. Five years in, how have
we fared in adhering to these guidelines?
On
the first two points I think we deserve top marks. We’ve succeeded in enjoying a premature retirement having
visited some of the wonders of the world, lived for many months of the year
under sunny skies, shared some fine cultural experiences, and enjoyed a pretty
free and easy life-style, all while keeping our savings account in the black
and on a slight upward trajectory. But
what about our third guideline which stipulates a ‘minimum of one-year, maximum of two’ in each
country? Well here we have been less
successful: we spent two years and three months in Australia, then five months
in Vietnam followed by eight months in China (me), and fifteen months in China
(Steve). My plan on arriving in England
last year was to increase our average by sojourning for two years here but,
sadly, it is not to be – so much for plans…
While I was busy planning, others around me were reaching their own
conclusions about life - Natasha came to the realisation that her university supervisor was never going to
secure funding for her to complete her PhD at Oxford, while Steve discovered
that he doesn’t enjoy living in England.
Too bad because I’m thoroughly enjoying being back in my homeland and
love my job at the Jenner Institute!
And
so, five years into our adventure we are going to loop back and return to the
beginning – to Australia! (We will
follow our daughter who will undertake a CSIRO-funded PhD at Monash University.)
However, we will return measurably
altered by our experiences and, inevitably, our second sojourn in this amazing
country will be different. When we
arrived in Melbourne in October 2008 it was with a sense of adventure but also
anxiety - would we be able to find somewhere to stay? How did banking work in a foreign
country? How would we file taxes and
obtain visas? How did the health system
work? How would we get around? I laugh at these trivial concerns now. Five years on we’ve negotiated a rental in
Hanoi (albeit one with decidedly dubious plumbing); managed to get
non-convertible currencies (Vietnamese Dong and Chinese Yuan) out of their
mother countries; dealt with the tax systems in several countries (or, rather,
our fabulous accountant has); managed to secure a series of rabies shots for
Steve in Hanoi when he got bitten by a
dog, and ridden in, and on, a huge variety of vehicles from motorbikes to
rickety buses to tuk tuks. Returning to
Australia will be easy from the practical perspective! But how have we changed as people, and how
will these changes become manifest on our return? I’m concerned that we’ve lost the ability to
commit to a place. It’s too easy, once
one gets into this peripatetic mindset, to just up sticks and move on when
things get difficult eg. when Steve finds himself missing the exoticism of
Asia. We didn’t want to put down tap
roots in a place, but it was not our goal to become incapable of establishing
rootlets!
On
the plus side, travelling has allowed us to establish what is really important
to us as individuals. I’ve learnt that I
can’t live in an environment without external intellectual stimulus – I thrive
in a city like Oxford where there is easy access to the arts, public lectures
and an educated populace. However, I’ve
also learnt that I can’t handle long, grey British winters! Surprisingly, food is more important to me
than I had thought – endless meals of greasy, stringy chicken, rice, and
fibrous greens in China got me really depressed. I know now that food can affect one’s mental
well-being and it makes me wonder how any child subsisting on rice alone can
focus on their studies in school and be happy at home. For his part, Steve has learnt that he
thrives on the external stimulus of ‘exoticism’. I’ll let him define in a later blog exactly
what this means to him. Will he be able
to cope in staid Melbourne even though it’s an intensely cosmopolitan
city? Will constant interaction with his
EFL students be enough to sate his desire for the exotic? Or will he be forever mourning the absence of
excitement and colour in the street and the sights and smells of street
vendors? I worry that he has been
alienated from the Western world forever!
In
my last blog, written over a year ago, I related my feelings about coming
‘home’ and ended with that timeless Tolkien quote: ‘Not all those who wander
are lost.’ Now I’m forced to the
realisation that we might be! It is common
knowledge that travel provides the traveller unrivalled insights into the world
and, more importantly, into themselves.
(I am reminded again of Tolkien’s oeuvre and of the changes Sam and
Frodo underwent during their journey.)
Knowing oneself and one’s personal priorities in life is a key first
step, but finding a place where one can live once these personal discoveries
have been made is an even bigger second step.
Let’s not forget that in the end Frodo never could settle in the Shire
after returning from his adventures but sailed
away with the elves. Maybe it’s not those
who wander that we should worry about, for indeed, they aren’t lost; instead it’s
the wanderers who return who need guidance!
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