I have just read a friend’s article here and been inspired to write.
I think I’m in my cocoon. Not quite home, but recognising that a feeling of home is one day possible for me, something I was beginning to think I’d never want to have. I’ve watched friends settle down, start families and decorate homes and I’ve truly felt so much joy watching this happen, delighted in new additions to their families, new lives and new worlds. I’ve genuinely loved experiencing their happiness, but I’ve never felt the desire to do that myself. I think I needed to find peace within first.
It used to be, that being on the move; on the road, in a car, on a bus, on a plane, was where I found peace. The more bizarre the journey, the more far-flung the destination, the deeper the peace. The more I was lost, the more I thought I’d found myself.
When I travelled regularly for work, despite knowing I was taken care of from airport check-in to hotel check-in, I used to imagine I wasn’t; that I wasn’t really travelling for the corporate safety net I relied on for so long to survive, but alone, out there, in the vast wide world. And when my 25 days of holiday came around, I’d do the travelling for real and enjoy it all the more.
That feeling of stepping onto a plane from somewhere safe and familiar, knowing you don’t know how it will be on arrival; that feeling of not knowing was known to me and I loved it. I found peace within it. The lack of routine was my routine. Even when I lived in other countries, I never imagined it would be forever. That would be far too permanent. Impermanence was my freedom and freedom was my joy.
It was peaceful just being on a plane, 35,000 ft in the air, nobody to talk to, no phone to mindlessly swipe through, just my thoughts, my dreams and my heart. Full of hope that this new place I was flying to would bring peace and maybe a new temporary home, or cocoon as I now like to call it. Little did I know I’d meet a strange but familiar soul on one of these trips who filled my heart with such love.
The more different the culture (from my own), the more strange the land, the more peace I felt within. I pushed myself to go alone, speak with people who didn’t speak my language and get lost. And I loved it.
Skip to August this year, and an experience somewhere in the outskirts of Ottawa.
Not that Ottawa, indeed Canadian culture, is that far removed from my own, but it was here – in such a random spot, that I experienced such a moment of peace.
Perhaps it was the proximity to the airport – a haven of peace for me (so ironic, given how noisy airports are). I was sitting in the rear car park of the Hilton Garden Inn, perched in the only patch of lasting sun. Despite the name, there was no garden, or rather I was in the garden, along with the illicit-smoking caterers and a few delivery vans.
I had wet hair from a luxuriously long hot shower, choosing the sun’s rays over the hairdryer, and was scrawling furiously in a notebook. I probably looked not unlike a wandering vagabond planning her next move and how she’d scramble the money together to make it there.
But in fact I was totally at peace. I was safe and happy, with every possible requirement for survival taken care of by Air Canada; my flight, hotel room, food and transport. In fact, by way of apology for not putting me on my scheduled flight, a handsome sum had covered my entire trip.
It hadn’t been a wholly wonderful visit to Canada this time. While I had enjoyed a few days with a good friend, covered a yoga festival and explored a new city, I had also met and known heartbreak, finally realising that I had to let go, and still so reluctant to. And yet, it was precisely the moment I started to let go, that life started to take care of me.
And the feeling of peace? It came from the recognition of that. And, for a brief moment in time, feeling completely anonymous. Because for that short time, no one in the world knew where I was, and I cherished it, safe in the knowledge that the moment I did tell someone of my whereabouts, they would care.
So what is peace for me I wonder. It’s clearly not a location or a destination. It was once the not knowing, the impermanence and freedom. But all of these factors brought peace precisely because I had the known, the permanence and the lack of freedom back at home. Which is why I fled, or rather travelled. The grass is always greener, you always want what you can’t have.
Until now.
Now, I still don’t have a home in the conventional sense, but I do feel at peace more often than not, and I believe I can find it in far simpler places than far-flung destinations (or outskirts of Ottawa). I find peace sitting on the floor of my room, lighting a candle and setting my sankalpa (an intention). Listening to music, meditating, through pranayama or asana practice on the mat. I find peace with my family; laughing with my Mother and playing with my nephews. I’ve found peace in my work; perfecting a sentence, or seeing peace reflected on the faces of those with whom I share yoga. In nature, and walking in the fields around the farm, enjoying a good meal I’ve just prepared.
So I’m not yet at home, perhaps far from it. But in the words of my good friend Jean-Manuel, I’m in a cocoon, from which I will transform.
I might still be on the road to finding peace, but I feel a lot further along it than I was this time last year.
