Rhythm Is Gonna Get You

In January of this year, I read a book entitled When the Heart Waits, written by Sue Monk Kidd. I wrote a post about it. It was the perfect book for me, at the perfect time. I was coming off a ‘swing and miss’ job opportunity in Frankfurt, Germany and was trying to figure out how to reassemble the pieces of my life and envision a plan for the upcoming year and half, the amount of time I’d planned on continuing in Germany. I’d flown home for the holidays in Minnesota, then to Guanajuato, Mexico a few months later where I’d hoped to find a place of rest and future contemplation. I’d brought a pile of books with me, and Kidd’s When the Heart Waits was the first I’d chosen from the lot. In her book, Kidd writes that waiting can be a powerful, transformative act. Like the caterpillar in the chrysalis, what we living creatures often need in times of major life transition or challenge is a period of thinking, listening, and waiting. It was the exact right message for me at the time. In Guanajuato, in January, with prior plans abandoned, I wasn’t ready for action. I had no idea what action to take. So, a book convincing me it’s okay, even best, to wait, was exactly what I needed.

Flash forward eleven months. I’m back in Guanajuato, still living what could best be described as a vagabond-like existence, having yet to take any real, concrete, tangible steps of action toward a more sustainable future for myself. And, in many ways, I’m still waiting. But something’s changed since January. My mindset. Kidd’s message of patience and contemplation and listening has challenged me of late as my heart has, frankly, grown tired of waiting. It wants to get moving. It’s grown sick of its chrysalis. It’s ready to break free, ready for action.

A mantra I adopted during my time in Frankfurt was “Forward Momentum.” My job there wasn’t the right fit for me. I felt stagnant. I didn’t believe the opportunities I was experiencing, and the challenges I was facing, were propelling me forward. I was stuck. I craved the feeling that my life was taking me somewhere and that the things I was doing were helping me arrive at some new, happier, more purposeful reality. After Frankfurt, my wish was to never again make a similar ‘mistake,’ and from that moment forward I vowed to follow only those opportunities that would contribute to a new, sustainable, goal-focused life for myself. I wanted forward momentum.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this mantra lately, questioning exactly why I came back to Guanajuato and how any of this experience is giving me momentum toward something new and different and sustainable. And I’ve been pushing back hard on the concept of “waiting.” Honestly, I’ve wanted to bail. Often. As recently as yesterday. I’ve wanted to get the hell out of here, go back to Minnesota, buy a car, substitute teach, and start planting the seeds for a semi-permanent existence in the Twin Cities. Much of me has grown tired of putting these things off, grown tired of being a vagabond, grown tired of the unknowns and uncertainty, wanting a home, cabinets filled with spices, a fridge full with pickles and dressings and condiments. The things of an inhabitant, a resider, a dweller. The life I’ve been living for the past two and a half years is becoming exhausting. And I’ve been continually finding it more and more difficult to come up with reasons exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing, living the life I’m living.

The jolt of last week’s election results definitely didn’t help. Trump’s win left me reeling, put me in a funk I’m just beginning to crawl out of and seriously made me question what the eff I was doing in Mexico. Wednesday morning I contemplated packing up, calling a cab and heading to the airport. Pronto. I needed my people, to be on familiar soil. I needed to feel the momentum of taking action, doing something. Not just “hanging out” in Guanajuato.

As I’ve been writing, sitting on my terrace in the warm Guanajuato sunshine, ironically, two songs have popped up in my Spotify mix. As I contemplate “waiting” Tom Petty just sang these words to me, Every day you get one more yard, You take it on faith, you take it to the heart, The waiting is the hardest part. Wow. Fateful. I mean, maybe not all that fateful considering it’s a Tom Petty mix, but still. Work with me here. Then shit, a few songs later, it was “Your Life is Now.” Mutherfucker. While part of me is wanting to get out of Guanajuato, stop the endless roaming and start putting down roots, start living, John Mellencamp is reminding me that “life” doesn’t magically begin later, down some mythical road in the future. It’s now! In this undiscovered moment, Lift your head up above the crowd, We could shake this world, If you would only show us how, Your life is now. Fuck. Music. Poetry. God damn. Okay Tom. Okay John. I hear you. I get the message.

In March of 2023 I had an important decision to make. It was whether to take a job as an elementary school librarian in Frankfurt, Germany or as a teacher of English as an additional language in a school outside of San José, Costa Rica. Frankfurt was the choice. My job there, for aforementioned reasons, didn’t work out, and I resigned after just six months. I can’t help but wonder, now, in what ways my life would be different had I chosen Costa Rica.

I think this not because I feel regret. At the time I made the best choice for me with the information I had, and all things being equal, I have no idea if the experience in Costa Rica would’ve been any better than the one in Frankfurt. But, it is an interesting thought experiment to wonder, “What if?” We can play out these types of thought experiments over and over in our heads throughout our lives, with each and every decision we make. We never know where the path untraveled would have led us had we chosen it. For me, had I picked Costa Rica over Frankfurt I wouldn’t be here now, I wouldn’t have had the incredibly valuable experience I enjoyed here this winter, I likely wouldn’t have done my Biking the Euros ride across Germany that changed my life, nor would I likely have attended the Olympics in Paris this past summer. I also think about the countless people I’ve met since the summer of ‘23, people I’ve gotten to know specifically because of the choice I made to go to Frankfurt. People who’ve shaped my life, with whom I’ve shared amazingly rich experiences and those who have become lifelong friends. This includes a friend in Frankfurt and one in Guanajuato who I cannot even imagine not knowing, both of whom I hope will be close to me until this whole damn merry-go-round stops spinning.

I don’t mind feeling regret. I’m not one of those, “No regrets,” people. I think it’s okay, at times, to wonder about choices we made or things we did or hurtful words we spoke and feel remorse or regret for those things. Accepting regret can mean one has the ability and desire to examine one’s choices and the longing to become a better person. Dr. Brené Brown writes that regret, “is one of our most powerful emotional reminders that reflection, change, and growth are necessary.” So while I don’t mind acknowledging regret, I also do not feel choosing Frankfurt was a mistake. It took me to where I am today, physically, emotionally and spiritually. I was shaped, in an immensely positive way, by that choice. That decision, however, did have some ramifications that have proven challenging, the biggest of which is the lack of consistency in my life since then. The lack of rhythm. What was planned as two years of settled existence in Germany has become a year and a half of travel and continued exploration. The opposite of a settled existence.

I’m a rhythm guy. A structure guy. I like being in a flow, feeling comfortable in my surroundings, with the people around me, with my environment. Feeling grounded in place and time. Bathed in routine. My physical world, my social life, how I spend my days, all of it. They all contribute mightily to my ability to feel centered, what Dr. Diana Raab refers to in Psychology Today as, “our mental and physical state of mind…the place we know we have to get back to when we’re not feeling like ourselves.” She continues, “When we’re not centered, we might feel lost or out of touch with ourselves.” Lacking this centered feeling describes much of my life over the past few years, and especially since beginning, then resigning from, my job in Frankfurt. Every move, every new location and new experience have required days and sometimes weeks for me to discover my flow, to feel like myself, to feel centered.

I recall learning about a particular disposition cats possess when my family adopted our beautiful Pici from the Humane Society many years ago. Before taking her home we were told, “Put her, her food and litter box in one room to begin with. Close the door and let her get accustomed to that space for a day or two. Then, after that, let her explore a couple of other rooms. Eventually, after a week or so, you can give her free reign of the house. Exposing her slowly to her new home in this way will alleviate any anxiety she might experience and will help her feel safe.” I’ve often thought back to this and wondered just exactly how much cat DNA runs through my veins. Change, for me, takes time. Adjusting to new places can be challenging. 

My life since Frankfurt has been a series of new rooms, a series of new homes for me to get accustomed to. Had I chosen Costa Rica, or had I been offered a job at another school or in another country, or had Frankfurt played out differently, it’s quite possible I’d still be in that place, living my flow, steeped in routine, feeling centered. I wouldn’t be Pici, still discovering more and more rooms of some enormous, labyrinthian mansion. And perhaps, if my life had included one, stable location over the past 18 months, I’d feel stronger today and more able to consistently find joy and beauty. These things are there, and have been there throughout my wandering time, but they haven’t been consistent. I’ve lived many, many joyful and beautiful moments, and it’s in no way lost on me the great fortune and privilege I have to be living the life I’m living. It’s also not lost on me that it was a stifling, disheartening rhythm that led me to choose the wandering in the first place. It’s just that each new transition requires strength and effort and courage to find that emotional place where I’m able to feel centered, to feel fully “in touch with myself.” The reality is, while I’ve had a blast discovering new parts of the world and new parts of myself, I’m quite tired of the tip-toeing from room to room.

I think about the beds, literal beds time, I’ve slept in during these last few years. The number is in the hundreds. And it’s not just beds in comfortable hotels or guest rooms. It’s couches and air mattresses, on floors, in attics, next to washing machines, in garages, in the unkempt living rooms of strangers, in cramped studio apartments, with snoring friends squeezed next to me on double beds, on bunks in dorm rooms, on airplanes and ferries, in airport lounges, in tiny cabins, in camper vans, on cots, in tents. And yes, thank God, every once in a while in lovely guest rooms or on luxurious king-sized beds in three star hotels. Exciting? Yes. Exhausting? Also yes.

Let me give you a taste of the exciting. Since arriving to Guanajuato in late October I’ve immersed myself in Day of the Dead festivities, I’ve learned to make tamales and paper flowers, I’ve watched two raucous parades, I’ve taken Spanish classes at a really fun school with really fun people, I’ve attended a “hamburguesada” (think Mexican bbq), I’ve accompanied a friend to her students’ art exposition, I’ve run a 10K night run, I’ve attended two concerts, and yesterday, while sitting on the steps of Teatro Juárez, I witnessed pure beauty. Two young women, running to greet each other, screaming, arms waving. A minutes-long hug. Tears. Crying. Laughing. A full, tight embrace. They couldn’t let go. Pure love.

But the exhaustion is real, too. I can’t deny it. I’m tired.

I don’t deny that oftentimes I ask myself, “Why?” Why this life? Why this journey? Why have I willingly placed barriers in my path, willingly made my life harder, lived in a home with so many rooms, chosen to dance to an irregular rhythm rather than a steady beat? Then I think about another mantra I adopted recently. It’s not a complex one. It’s just a single word. “Courage.” The decisions I’ve made over the past few years, the good ones, the bad ones, the difficult ones, the extremely fortunate ones… they’ve shaped me and will shape who I become in the future. In addition to that, they’ve all required courage. I needed to go down a different road, and it’s been courage that’s allowed me to do that. I co-opted this mantra. I stole it from “Men in Blazers” soccer crazed, all-around awesome guy, Roger Bennet. He says it at the end of each podcast, the end of each interview. It’s so simple. Yet so brilliant. I absolutely love it. We all need courage, and we all, in ways large and small, practice courage each and every day. I strive to live a courageous life. While I muddle through each day, often wondering what the hell I’m doing, I remember that I’m practicing courage. While the wheels may at times be spinning in the mud and while the clouds may sometimes descend, through it all, I’m choosing courage. That, enough, gives me the strength and power to keep doing what I’m doing, and it helps me remember that while the answer to “Why?” sometimes confounds me, that the answer is now and the answer is the future.

The funny thing is, this exhaustion I’m currently experiencing actually feels good. This sense of urgency, to feel slightly frustrated being here in Mexico, feeling like my wheels are a bit stuck in the mud. These feelings of frustration and feeling slightly stuck convince me I’m ready to chart a new path, ready for what’s next. Finally ready for spice-filled cabinets and condiment-filled fridges. Ready for steady, forward momentum. Ready for the rhythm of a four-part symphony.

In the meantime, before I head back to Minnesota in time for Christmas, before I begin the first movement of this hours-long symphony, and while the urge is to run, I believe Guanajuato still has something left to give me. There’s forward momentum here, too. A little more waiting can’t hurt. My life is in the future, but also, as my friend John tells me, “My life is now.” While I’m ready for action, ready to capitalize on all the waiting, and while I’ll be ready to start that journey soon, I’m not ready to return home and start that new journey just yet.