Adrienne moved again.
Displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, this 30-something woman relocated to Oxford, MS where she was trying to begin a new chapter in her life. It was a short chapter. She writes in her recent blogs of how her Mother was diagnosed with cancer and recently passed away. The call home to Long Island, NY this winter began for her another chapter in life. Not only is she looking for work, but she is cooking chickens, sneaking into her cousin's hot tub, and planning to keep driving her pickup truck.
I do not know Adrienne, but I am drawn to her writing because it is simple, open and honest. She gets virtually no response to her blogs, but I am struck by her honesty.
But the subject of moving and starting new chapters in life affects families worldwide. Through war, natural disaster, death, divorce and many other reasons, we choose to move on from one chapter in our life to another.
The urge and perceived need to relocate has driven mankind forward since the first days humans inhabited the planet. We are forever searchers --- searching for new beginnings, older foundations and perhaps a new challenge. To keep on moving is a key to life. Only when we become stagnated or immovable, by choice, do we risk living life less than full capacity.
"Keep moving and stay low" is a quip a good friend of mine always uses when saying goodbye at the end of a conversation. I say, "keep moving and may your sails be full of happy winds and contented seas.
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John,
Thank you for your note and this mention in your journal. If your readers are curious, they can find my backstory at www.afterkatrina.blogspot.com
Yes, in response to your post, yes. New chapters. New beginnings. But if I have learned anything these many some-odd years is that pages can turn even if we stay in place.
In counterpoint, I know folks (and was once such a folk) who moved to make change. The thinking was: leaving my problems behind. Well, if you've done this, you know what happens next - yup! you unpack your "old" problems in your "new" place.
What's been striking for me lately is that my new chapters haven't been so much my moving, but the world moving around me (hurricane, sudden divorce, surprising deaths). I'm learning to adapt to a ground forever shifting beneath me. Makes me very grateful to hold onto what I have when I have it.
May everyday be a Sunday,
a.
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