Finding the Ground When the Wheels are Almost Always Turning

We’re into Month 3 on the road, and my healthy vegan lifestyle seems to have shot out the window someplace in North Dakota. I’ve been hitting the sugar, salt, grease, and dairy HARD, and I can feel it. I even ate chicken in Wisconsin, and the other night I had a Brat! I don’t know what my Kidney numbers are doing, but I know that the old IBS is really, well, irritable. Beyond that, my anxiety about what I’m eating is starting to rise into the red zone.

I know why. I’ve been here before. The first time I remember it, I was 7 years old sitting on a kitchen counter eating chocolate milk powder with a spoon - in secret.

I feel unsettled.

I am ungrounded.

Let me be clear: I am happy with our choice to be nomadic. I am enjoying the delightful challenges out here on the road. I like meeting new people and animals, feeling new lands under my feet, and learning and growing in all the little ways that this life requires. I am not unhappy. And yet…

I feel unsettled.

I am ungrounded.

I recognize that part of the issue is the vacation essence of it all - that delicious liminal feeling that I get in airports and in new countries.

Even though I’m working from the road, my schedule is even more shifty than it was at home. This is made even more challenging by the fact that wifi is shaky. Sometimes I can’t work at all. I’m taking steps to work this out. I’m slowly adjusting my client schedule to two days a week so that we’re better able to find wifi, and I’m also figuring out that I CAN and SHOULD do writing and artwork off-line, uploading when and where I can. It’s coming together, but it’s slow.

I need help NOW.

None of my friends have lived this life. My parents, who traveled with the military might have had some insight, but they are both dead, and to be frank, they weren’t the healthiest folks when they were semi-nomadic.

So I did what I do. I went searching other spaces, other worlds, you might say. I tuned into the drum beat, shut my eyes, and Went. (If you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, it might help to visit my website. The About Page is as good a place as any place to start!)

I won’t bore you with the whole journey, but I’ll tell you what I came back with and what I’m doing with the information. Maybe, if you’re feeling unsettled out on the road or somewhere else in your life, it’ll be of some use to you.

Here are the words that I heard:

“Find the ground under your feet. The Earth that you are walking on today is the same Earth your feet touched yesterday. Only the land looks different. The Earth that you are walking on today is the same Earth that we walked on. Only the land looks different.

Look up to the sky. The Sun warming your cheeks today is the same Sun that warmed your cheeks yesterday. It is the same Sun that we sang to all those years ago. It’s just another day older.

Look to the ever-changing Moon. Remember that it is the same Moon. It just changes its face.

Ground into Earth and Sun and Moon.

Ground into the moment at hand.

You are not lost.”

And I'm taking this advice. I'm leaning on this wisdom. I am taking things slow- putting my feet on the ground and feeling the Earth, looking to the sky, feeling Sun and gazing at Moon. I am taking one breath and the next breath and the next and finding the solid flow that is breath moment-to-moment presence.

And I’m still eating Skittles.

But I’m not losing the thread of what’s happening as it happens. I’m not shoving the whole bag in my mouth, and I’m rediscovering that when I slow down and listen, my body, rather than my mind, tells me what to eat.

I’m grounding. Even without solid roots, even while the wheels are almost always turning.

*Image by Pexels on Pixabay