29 hour marathon travelthon.

Charlotte and I and everything we have has made it to Singapore.

We’re going to sleep and get some of our sanity back.

From Atlanta we got a bit concerned. The flight went straight North. Ohio, Michigan, Canada, Hudson Bay…ya weird huh? This is the way to tropical Bali? Northern Territory, Arctic Circle, North – yes North of Alaska.. I looked out the window. Absolute whiteness. Snow, ice absolutely everywhere. No sign of life. Jeez. After 16 hours in the air we dropped back down to Tokyo. Still the same daylight we had in Atlanta – but now it has a different date.

I’ve been wearing my Minnesota Viking hat and meeting Minnesotans because of it. The steward on the way to Singapore asked where in Minnesota I was from. I told him a little town north of Minneapolis, Elk River. He was from Mounds View just two counties away. He was so up on Elk River’s awesome hockey team. Said we would have a tough time against Andover. I just checked and Andover beat Elk River in overtime 6-5 a few hours ago to advance to the state championship. Local. Global. Local. These are the surprises that can happen anywhere, anytime. It really drives home the point that no place on this Earth is isolated. We are all so mobile and interconnected.

Charlotte is good at meeting new people. A fellow from Michigan who travels the world doing leadership seminars. A top executive from Idaho with Melaleuca, the largest online wellness company. Everyone has amazing experiences and stories and capacities. A crowd is not just a crowd. Traffic is not just traffic.

 

 

 

From an early age I envisioned my engagement in the world peaking at age 65-67. What happened after that was always blank.

When I met Charlotte in the late 1980’s in Jackson, Mississippi, she was trying to move somewhere else. She stayed in Jackson all these years because of me. And now I’m ready to shift to a global perspective and shift my center of gravity to a place outside the country I grew up in.

A friend of similar age recently said, “I have to figure out what I’m going to do for the next 30 years.”

Baseball analogy: When you’ve reached this ‘retirement age’ it’s like getting to third base. It took a lot to get here. Nobody gets here without getting banged up some. A lot of people don’t make it this far. So here we are standing on third base. Out of breath and hurting in many ways, most are just fine with catching their breath. There are some driven individuals who will take a small lead off and hope for an opportunity to get home. Then there are a few folks, Charlotte and I included, who glance at the third base coach, study the pitcher, take a daring lead off, and with everyone unsuspecting and against the advise of the coach, we take off. We’re stealing home!

We’ve sold or given away everything we had. Retired from jobs. Sold businesses. Vehicles. Household stuff. It’s down to just what we can take on the plane with us. Someone said, “Everything you own, also owns you.”

We step onto the plane in just a few days. Atlanta. Tokyo. Singapore. Rest a couple days. Then Bali. And there we will try to organize settling in.

We started this process over a year ago. I had a six page to do list. Now it’s down to less than 30 items and all  together I think they can be done in a few days.

A friend who teaches personal evolution, says that personal evolution is in large part about opening our lives to greater complexity. Moving from seeing something in black and white, to a rainbow and then to 32-bit millions of shades. Embracing the understanding that there is consciousness greater than our own. That there are causes and effects beyond our horizon of understanding. That mystery and unimaginable possibility are an inherent part of each moment.

So this blog is going to be about the story of two folks setting sail in a small boat, out into an infinite ocean, not trying to reach a shore that doesn’t exist, knowing that at some point the boat will carry us no more, but intent on filling each moment with as much life force as we can muster.

Each morning for now nearly twenty years, we have looked into each others eyes and said “I promise to rededicate my life with you to being loving, kind and present…”. So that will be the rudder of our boat as we steer deeper and deeper toward the infinite.

Enjoy the ride with us.

Charlotte and Luke