I really resonated with your piece on adventure vs. uncertainty. When we sit in uncertainty for too long, it’s so human to press for a way forward. The trouble is, it can push us toward solutions that neither belong to us, nor open our next step. I wonder how we might shape our goals as intentions while using our intuition to remain responsive to life’s Indeterminacy?
Happy to hear more about your Paris adventures and your cottage! I've found that when I let go, when I accept that I can't control the outcome and TRUST that the best solution and situation will find me anyhow, it always does. Your piece was a great reminder of that.
Hi Anne, I really loved this piece. From the first time I came across your writing, I felt like we were living parallel lives.
As a professor of ancient history who also left a 26-year marriage two years ago, I’ve been living nomadically, trying to find purpose, wrestling with the academic system in Canada (which, as you know, is crumbling), surviving on contract work, all the while just wanting to hike mountains and live in a little village house in the Cretan mountains.
Over the past two years, I’ve been travelling for a project I’m funding myself, mapping the ancient temples of Artemis across Greece, Turkey, and soon Sicily. It’s a passion that makes me feel most alive. And while the nomadic life has been deeply liberating, I started to miss the idea of roots, of being able to pause.
Then this spring, a series of unexpected events forced me back to Canada, into a home I’d been renting out. It needs repairs, so now I’m here, setting up an office, trying to create the very “roots” I thought I wanted. And yet, once again, I don’t know what to do. I want to leave. I have offers to speak about Artemis abroad, but now I’m carrying a house financially. The trade-offs are constant. Travel, or contracts? Freedom, or stability? Either choice feels like letting go of something vital.
And the truth is, after twenty years of living in a hyper-rational, cerebral academic brain, it’s hard to even recognize intuition, let alone trust it. We’re trained to question everything, to seek proof, to hedge our bets. So when that small, quiet voice says go it’s hard not to doubt it. Hard not to overthink it. Your piece reminded me that the voice is still there, and maybe it’s wiser than I’ve been taught to believe.
Truly, thank you. You helped me breathe a little deeper today.
Oh Carla, you’ve voiced so well the difficulty of being an academic and living so much in our heads, particularly our left brains. (I really enjoyed reading Martha Beck’s Beyond Anxiety. She made me realize that I wasn’t just living in my head but my left brain. Our whole culture is. And when the right brain speaks we think it’s crazy. It’s like we’re gaslighting ourselves!)
Our big adventure was moving from the US to Portugal almost two years ago. It was part intuition, part planning and also understanding that there might be delays, change of things, and learning to flow with it. My goal is to enjoy the everyday things and live as fully in the now—some days are better than others, but that’s also the gift. Best to you in your move to your cottage!
I treasure the comments by the beautiful elders here who speak from their experiences. Thank you for giving so generously of your wisdom! Anne, I wish you a blissful summer in Paris with your daughter. May you rest, write, dream, and eat and drink your fill!
Inherent in my journey these past couple of years as I reclaim and reignite my faith is taking myself out of the center of my story and centering God. As hard as this is for stubborn, defiant, control-freak me, it is also a relief. It means I am relieving myself of the futility chasing happiness and seeking instead the contentment of meaning and purpose. Grounding myself in faith, I am slowly learning to live more deeply in gratitude for the now and to be at peace with uncertainty. It's a process of unlearning many harmful patterns of thinking and behaving and learning to trust.
I don't see much daylight between uncertainty and adventure—assuming our basic needs are met and we have the agency to make choices—the uncertainty IS the adventure and vice versa. To me, it's the ability to recognize a needed change of direction, the resiliency to right yourself when you fall flat, and the ability to see those proverbial windows opening when the door you were trying to walk through slams in your face.
As someone who arranged her professional and leisure life around frequent international travel, it's been a struggle—in the years since my divorce in 2016—to accept that the best thing for future me is for present me to stay close to home, building my reserves, feathering my nest. The gifts I've been given are a home of my own that I love, a partner who has created gorgeous, thriving gardens, 5 four-legged creatures who bring me laughter and comfort every day, and a nest egg that allows me to envision a future where I am writing from that stone cottage in Provence, if not full-time, at least when I feel called to be there.
So beautiful, Julie! I love this view into your life. I yearn for that as well. You are very blessed to have such a lovely and comfortale nest! I suppose it goes without saying that most of us who leave home do so precisely because it's not nuturing us and helping us thrive. I love as well your vision of a cottage in Province. And your growing faith in God. I've tried a few times now to go back to my Christian roots, but I've instead found solace and hope in the deeper resources within. They certainly seem to be connected to a larger source, which I'm content to let remain a mystery.
As someone that is also in the in-between for longer than I thought I'd be, I can't stress enough how this post resonates with me. Unfortunately I don't have answers either, just that the more pressure you put on yourself the less you get to your initial goals. I keep reminding myself that things take time and only looking back, we get to see the path we created. Choose adventure and have fun😉
Such good points, Cristina! Things rarely happen on our time line. And it’s impossible to see the path from the beginning, hence the fear and uncertainty of our anxious minds.
I'm thrilled you have Paris and your cottage by the sea. I am not a goal oriented person though I'm logical and have common sense but hands down intuition has guided me much of my life. Out of familial patterns, into family secrets and on occasion good timing. Some call it luck. The western world is not comfortable with "intuition" but the more we pay attention to our gut and the not knowing mind (or attached to an outcome --) the more graceful our journey. I wrote a meandering piece today that includes some of these same thoughts. Best to you.
This post really resonated with me! I'm spending the summer traveling, which has been a longtime dream, but lately I have felt restless and unmoored. After reading your post and thinking about it for a while, I realized I am probably trying too hard to control the experience, as I'm constantly analyzing my thoughts and reactions. And I'm still trying to figure out how not to be busy every second of the day. I hope you enjoy your time in Paris, and I look forward to reading more abut your cottage by the sea.
Great post! I love the idea of having a cottage with a nearby B and B so that you can do intensive one on one or group editing. That is a great idea! You will be in Paris for Bastille Day! Enjoy that too...I once spent Bastille Day in Lausanne, across from the very cute French town of Evian (so much cheaper there than in Switzerland...). There are boats where you can enjoy fireworks on Lake Geneva (Lac Leman). Just an FYI for any future plans. Really lovely...
Have a glorious trip to Paris and more adventures in moving and writing. Do it while you can. And to your thesis, indeed, we can be okay with now because that's all we get. Everything else is ephemeral. Only today, people and nature are real.
I really resonated with your piece on adventure vs. uncertainty. When we sit in uncertainty for too long, it’s so human to press for a way forward. The trouble is, it can push us toward solutions that neither belong to us, nor open our next step. I wonder how we might shape our goals as intentions while using our intuition to remain responsive to life’s Indeterminacy?
Thank you for your thoughtful writing.
www.thelongingpath.com
Thank you! I’m so glad it resonated with you.
Happy to hear more about your Paris adventures and your cottage! I've found that when I let go, when I accept that I can't control the outcome and TRUST that the best solution and situation will find me anyhow, it always does. Your piece was a great reminder of that.
It’s amazing how the best things for us happen when we stop trying to make things happen!
Hi Anne, I really loved this piece. From the first time I came across your writing, I felt like we were living parallel lives.
As a professor of ancient history who also left a 26-year marriage two years ago, I’ve been living nomadically, trying to find purpose, wrestling with the academic system in Canada (which, as you know, is crumbling), surviving on contract work, all the while just wanting to hike mountains and live in a little village house in the Cretan mountains.
Over the past two years, I’ve been travelling for a project I’m funding myself, mapping the ancient temples of Artemis across Greece, Turkey, and soon Sicily. It’s a passion that makes me feel most alive. And while the nomadic life has been deeply liberating, I started to miss the idea of roots, of being able to pause.
Then this spring, a series of unexpected events forced me back to Canada, into a home I’d been renting out. It needs repairs, so now I’m here, setting up an office, trying to create the very “roots” I thought I wanted. And yet, once again, I don’t know what to do. I want to leave. I have offers to speak about Artemis abroad, but now I’m carrying a house financially. The trade-offs are constant. Travel, or contracts? Freedom, or stability? Either choice feels like letting go of something vital.
And the truth is, after twenty years of living in a hyper-rational, cerebral academic brain, it’s hard to even recognize intuition, let alone trust it. We’re trained to question everything, to seek proof, to hedge our bets. So when that small, quiet voice says go it’s hard not to doubt it. Hard not to overthink it. Your piece reminded me that the voice is still there, and maybe it’s wiser than I’ve been taught to believe.
Truly, thank you. You helped me breathe a little deeper today.
Oh Carla, you’ve voiced so well the difficulty of being an academic and living so much in our heads, particularly our left brains. (I really enjoyed reading Martha Beck’s Beyond Anxiety. She made me realize that I wasn’t just living in my head but my left brain. Our whole culture is. And when the right brain speaks we think it’s crazy. It’s like we’re gaslighting ourselves!)
Our big adventure was moving from the US to Portugal almost two years ago. It was part intuition, part planning and also understanding that there might be delays, change of things, and learning to flow with it. My goal is to enjoy the everyday things and live as fully in the now—some days are better than others, but that’s also the gift. Best to you in your move to your cottage!
Love this - it is all about listening to our Intuition!!
I treasure the comments by the beautiful elders here who speak from their experiences. Thank you for giving so generously of your wisdom! Anne, I wish you a blissful summer in Paris with your daughter. May you rest, write, dream, and eat and drink your fill!
Inherent in my journey these past couple of years as I reclaim and reignite my faith is taking myself out of the center of my story and centering God. As hard as this is for stubborn, defiant, control-freak me, it is also a relief. It means I am relieving myself of the futility chasing happiness and seeking instead the contentment of meaning and purpose. Grounding myself in faith, I am slowly learning to live more deeply in gratitude for the now and to be at peace with uncertainty. It's a process of unlearning many harmful patterns of thinking and behaving and learning to trust.
I don't see much daylight between uncertainty and adventure—assuming our basic needs are met and we have the agency to make choices—the uncertainty IS the adventure and vice versa. To me, it's the ability to recognize a needed change of direction, the resiliency to right yourself when you fall flat, and the ability to see those proverbial windows opening when the door you were trying to walk through slams in your face.
As someone who arranged her professional and leisure life around frequent international travel, it's been a struggle—in the years since my divorce in 2016—to accept that the best thing for future me is for present me to stay close to home, building my reserves, feathering my nest. The gifts I've been given are a home of my own that I love, a partner who has created gorgeous, thriving gardens, 5 four-legged creatures who bring me laughter and comfort every day, and a nest egg that allows me to envision a future where I am writing from that stone cottage in Provence, if not full-time, at least when I feel called to be there.
So beautiful, Julie! I love this view into your life. I yearn for that as well. You are very blessed to have such a lovely and comfortale nest! I suppose it goes without saying that most of us who leave home do so precisely because it's not nuturing us and helping us thrive. I love as well your vision of a cottage in Province. And your growing faith in God. I've tried a few times now to go back to my Christian roots, but I've instead found solace and hope in the deeper resources within. They certainly seem to be connected to a larger source, which I'm content to let remain a mystery.
As someone that is also in the in-between for longer than I thought I'd be, I can't stress enough how this post resonates with me. Unfortunately I don't have answers either, just that the more pressure you put on yourself the less you get to your initial goals. I keep reminding myself that things take time and only looking back, we get to see the path we created. Choose adventure and have fun😉
Such good points, Cristina! Things rarely happen on our time line. And it’s impossible to see the path from the beginning, hence the fear and uncertainty of our anxious minds.
Intuition instead of goals — yes, this! I love it, and it’s also the hardest part: letting go of what the mind thinks should happen
It’s super hard. But liberating!
I'm thrilled you have Paris and your cottage by the sea. I am not a goal oriented person though I'm logical and have common sense but hands down intuition has guided me much of my life. Out of familial patterns, into family secrets and on occasion good timing. Some call it luck. The western world is not comfortable with "intuition" but the more we pay attention to our gut and the not knowing mind (or attached to an outcome --) the more graceful our journey. I wrote a meandering piece today that includes some of these same thoughts. Best to you.
This post really resonated with me! I'm spending the summer traveling, which has been a longtime dream, but lately I have felt restless and unmoored. After reading your post and thinking about it for a while, I realized I am probably trying too hard to control the experience, as I'm constantly analyzing my thoughts and reactions. And I'm still trying to figure out how not to be busy every second of the day. I hope you enjoy your time in Paris, and I look forward to reading more abut your cottage by the sea.
Do you mind me asking if your vertigo was linked to peri menopause? I’ve had the same issue along with other symptoms?
Great post! I love the idea of having a cottage with a nearby B and B so that you can do intensive one on one or group editing. That is a great idea! You will be in Paris for Bastille Day! Enjoy that too...I once spent Bastille Day in Lausanne, across from the very cute French town of Evian (so much cheaper there than in Switzerland...). There are boats where you can enjoy fireworks on Lake Geneva (Lac Leman). Just an FYI for any future plans. Really lovely...
Thank you, Anne. As I always told my kids, now my grands, "Learn from my mistakes. You need time to make your own!" Life really is what you make it.
That is a wonderful saying!
Absolutely! I give you the phrase.
Enjoy! I could have used a few details about the cottage by the sea, it sounds so charming!
Maybe once I move in I can share more. :)
Have a glorious trip to Paris and more adventures in moving and writing. Do it while you can. And to your thesis, indeed, we can be okay with now because that's all we get. Everything else is ephemeral. Only today, people and nature are real.
Thank you, Georgia! And here’s to enjoy the beautiful now.