Joseph Campbell stated that, “if the path before you is clear, you are probably on someone else’s”. It felt like that this week as we stumbled through strange journeys and new beginnings. Any new experience is a mix of arriving and leaving with different states and balances that leave a historical imprint. We caught a train to Nice, got off at a strange station due to a wrong ticket and paid for a stranded older Swedish couple caught arriving, being unable to move on. Continuing our journey, we landed in a huge anti-covid health pass demonstration which had its start at the station with people on the tracks and already at the tipping point of true anger. Surprising and unnerving. Shielded riot police arrived heightening the tension. Taking another train home with a woman running the length of the carriage for her lost child, made returning home feel like a safe haven!
Other journeys are about people who come and go for various reasons and directions. This was a week of connecting with four people in different environments and with the same apprehension of speed dating! What is the first impression? Will they like our stories, interests, conversations? Will we have a second date? The answer is yes this time but we have also ‘kissed a lot of frogs’ as another friend quotes. We are no longer expats but migrants looking to fit into the local community and find our family. Learning the language helps but it is the ‘dance’ of finding friends that creates anticipation, anxiety and either joy or disappointment. The journey continues.
