Namaste!
For five continuous years I have been drifting from continent to continent, experiencing, learning, and always growing as a person. But this year, thousands of miles from the people I love, marks my first year celebrating the holidays alone. It was a long path that brought me here to Asia, and a longer one still that caused me to travel here on my own, but although I miss my family and friends I am so grateful for the choices I made that lead me here.
Spring brings about change, and when my relationship of three years ended this past April I was suffering from my first lost love. I knew I needed something different, something new. Laying in bed one night, nursing my broken heart I was filled with anxiety and doubt about my future; where to go next, what to do with my life now that I was on my own again, but I placed myself fully in the hands of the universe and trusted that the path forward would become clear. It did, and soon I sailing away from the Caribbean bound for the Mediterranean Sea and the rest of the world, to whatever was waiting for me there.
When you live with an open heart and trust that things will all turn out alright, its easier to take risks; to leave behind all family and friends, all of the support and comfort of home, and venture off over and over again into the unknown. Although constantly adapting to new situations, making new friends is liberating and exciting, the life-blood of traveling, it can begin to wear on you.
I found this to be true as I worked my way around the Med, sailing in Monaco, Italy, France and Greece, freelancing on different yachts. I began miss the freedom, privacy and sanity that “real life” on land gives, and I was also beginning to wonder if it wasn’t time to focus on bringing a bit of balance to my life. So, I packed my bags and set out for Barcelona and an overnight ferry to the Balearic Island of Ibiza.
There I found a job at a yoga retreat set up in the hills overlooking a rocky beach in the north of the island. This fanned the spark that was beginning to grow in my heart, a wish to train my body, to heal my mind and start down a meaningful path. But again, while living in a tepee on a remote beach in Spain was amazing, it was not what I was looking for. My feet had begun to itch again. A trend for this year has been the incredible restlessness that has built up inside me whenever I have stayed put too long. This tendency to always be looking for greener pastures reveled itself again when after six weeks in my Spanish paradise I booked a ticket home to Olympia, to spend some time with the people in the world who love me the most.
Summer in the Northwest is always wonderful. Lush and green, with long bike rides and random skinny dipping missions, piles of blackberries and rainier cherries, camping trips with friends to mountain lakes and the comforting presence of home. I was able to spend time with my family, and for the first time in a long while I felt almost like staying. In fact, when I booked my plane tickets for my next foray into the world, I did so with a pang of regret.
Late summer and fall I wandered from the busy streets of San Francisco and NYC to the upper echelon of American society in the waterways of New England. The jagged mountains and giant waves of Oahu’s North Shore to a Buddhist temple in the jungles of Brazil and finally, I found my way to the quiet beaches in Southern Goa, India.
Here I delved deeper into my somewhat vague desire to pursue a path in healing and bodywork by taking an intensive month-long Yoga Teacher Training course. For nine hours a day, six days a week I sweated and stretched, learning the Ashtanga Primary Series, meditation, yogic philosophy and the anatomy of asana. Upon completion of the course, I was asked to stay and take over teaching classes at the shala on the beach, and a month later I am still here, earning a living teaching yoga in India.
I cant say how long I will spend in Goa, already my mind is wandering to the glacial wilderness of Alaska, and even daydreaming about settling down and going back to university. All I know for certain is that as amazing as the world is I have yet to find my place in it, and I will continue to search until I do.
I am so thankful to all of you for giving me the strength, love and support that makes wandering the world so safe for me, always knowing I have a home to come back to. Merry Christmas to all, and the Happiest of New Years!
Love,
Cadence Tess
