Post Script - The Duck and The Ship

Affixed on a cupboard door in my kitchen were the fronts of two “bon voyage” cards given to me as I was leaving on sabbatical.  Both pictures spoke to me – about my sabbatical, myself, and the adventure that was about to unfold. I looked at these cards every day I was in Firenze. 

Card #1: The black and white photo shows a young duckling on the edge of a small wooden board.  His webbed feet are at the edge, and his small chest and head are leaning forward. He is peering straight down a few inches towards an old white metal pan filled with water. The pan is sitting on a small patch of grass.  The duckling is curious about the water.  His curiosity is instinctive, natural; part of who he is.  You know the next photo would have been of the duck hesitantly falling – wings and feet spread wide open to brace his fall; the next photo would have been the duck contently sitting in the water, having survived what probably felt like jumping off a very high cliff – the longest three inches of its nascent life.

The duck was me before I left.  The duck is me, returning home.

Card #2: The other photo is of a dual-mast schooner, much like the famed Bluenose, framed front and back by large florescent green-white icebergs floating on a calm sea.  Four sails are hoisted and the schooner is travelling towards the sun which illuminates the icebergs and the clouds and the front part of the ship’s spinnaker. Underneath this image is a caption: “RISK: A ship in the harbour is safe…but that’s not what ships were made for.”  The ship is clearly at risk with icebergs in close proximity, but she sails past the danger and journeys forward to oceans yet un-sailed by her. 

When I started thinking about setting sail on my sabbatical, I did not think it was risky in any way. I am a calculated risk-taker by nature.  If risk is defined mostly as the chance of losing something or being in harm’s way, then there were easy ways to mitigate the variety of perceived risks to my finances, career, and relationships with friends and family.  What was unexpected in taking a sabbatical and coming to Italy was the unseen risk to “self.”   My friend Gwen C, who has been following my adventure through my blog, quite unexpectedly wrote me one day way back in March 2012. She said my sabbatical would change me forever.  Naively, I wrote her back and asked, How? How do you think this time away will change me?  This was her response:

“I suspect this experience will make you love more – love life, love the people who mean the most to you.  Things will be totally in perspective.  And while work will be important – so will a balanced lifestyle – one where, every day, you make the time to smell the roses – where you are more observant of the things around you – the things (and perhaps people?) you’ve taken for granted from time to time, the tastes, the smells.  Your heart will be bigger. Your mind open to new possibilities and “what ifs.”  Your life will be enriched forever.  Yes, a changed man.  And with it will come an ache.  A longing.  A longing for Italy and the people you’ve come to know.  And you’re gonna miss Europe!”

 Change is risky because change involves both loss and gain. Changing oneself is also risky because you have to lose a part of who you are to gain new aspects for, and to, yourself.  While I had some goals for my sabbatical – learning Italian, for example, and slowing down and not doing much, I wasn’t quite expecting to lose my “self.” But lose some of my old self I did.  The loss of self was gradual and subtle and took many forms.  Mostly, though, it was about changing, as Gwen so adeptly pointed out to me, and change I did.

I learned to “let go” of a lot of things.  I had to let go of my job and career (at least for a while) and the people I worked with on a daily basis.  I had to let go of my close friends and family, and my apartment, as I moved out of the country to live abroad. I had to let go of my daily schedule, of working out in the morning, of eating lunch at noon, and dinner at 6:30pm. I let go of the structure of my life in Toronto and create a new structure in Firenze.

I had to adapt to change and newness: a new apartment, a new city, a new country, a new continent.  I knew I had to make Firenze “my own” as soon as possible. It meant telling myself on my first day – “This is where you live now!”  I was not a visitor to the city.  This is your new apartment, and these are the cups and dishes you are going to use every day from now on. This is your new gym, and this is your new neighbourhood.  I couldn’t have done this without learning the lesson from moving in June 2011 to live temporarily at Tom & Deanna’s place for 4 months.  That transition was rocky for many reasons and I felt “displaced” even though I was still in Toronto and at work. Making things my own made the transition less frightening and more manageable.  I tossed everything that had been my life to-date up in the air, and let the pieces fall where they were going to fall. Some would say a stupid move, but I rather think it was, as other people repeated told me, quite courageous.

I learned to “slow down” a whole lot.  From big city to small city, from lots of cars to hardly any, from big full-of-people sidewalks to small sidewalks but full-of-people streets, slowing down was both a goal and a consequence of living in Firenze.  The physical “slowing down” also lead to a mental slowing down, and that created space in my mind for new things like trying to learn Italian.  You never realize how much you think until you don’t have to anymore.

I gave myself some permission not to be so driven, so consumed by work, so “occupied” and fully booked.  As someone who takes things a little too seriously sometimes, giving myself this kind of permission was a big deal.  For so long, there was always something left undone at the end of the day.  But when you have nothing to do, you can sleep soundly each night knowing that there is always tomorrow, and you did what you wanted to, or needed to, do today. No regrets. No pressure. I learned to loosen up a whole lot.

I decided I didn’t need to do everything, and know everything that was going on in the world (although lots of things were happening while I was away).  In short, I UNPLUGGED, and I needed to get away (i.e. move away) to do this.  As I re-entered life post-sabbatical, unplugging because an often-used catch-phrase to describe what I did on sabbatical. It was my shorthand word for what I now realize I did: I simplified my life.  I shopped when I needed food. I slept when I was tired. I bought only the clothes I needed. I communicated with those who communicated with me. I wrote my blog when it felt like I had something interesting to say. I read only a few books and watched very little TV.  In short, I kept things simple, and that allowed me to be more “present” and appreciate being in the moment.

I became a little more spontaneous with activities in the day – and less scheduled.  It didn’t mean losing track of time or being late for appointments with friends, but it did mean that if they day was nice, shopping could always be done later.  If spontaneity is about choice and freedom, I learned to embrace and appreciate both.

Since I was not working, I was not so consumed by my daily schedule.  In fact, I didn’t have a real calendar and constantly had to remind myself what day it was.  After language school stopped, every day felt like the weekend and I noticed now the weekends became more significant because that’s when  everyone else was off and doing things.  But the Italians know how to live each day, and that rubbed off on me.

All this change, all this “letting go” and unplugging and adaptation to the “new” laid the groundwork for the extraordinary positives of packing it all in and moving away.

I did things that I wanted to do, and not the things that I should be doing because I had the time, money, or because I was in Europe.  It became easier to say NO, or maybe, without having to invent excuses.  It meant that I was in control a bit more, and chose to do things that gave me pleasure.  That is a wonderful feeling.

I RECHARGED myself on the sabbatical.  I recharged my mind by emptying it out and filling it with new thoughts and experiences.  I recharged my body by going to the gym most days, and napping every day.  My shoulders relaxed; I walked taller (and slower) and began to understand how much daily stress effects our physical state.

I gave myself permission to try, and fail at, learning Italian.

People take sabbaticals for a variety of reasons. The reason I told myself and others was simple. I needed to stop my life for a while – I needed a pause.  I needed to gather back some energy and gain some new perspectives.  I needed to unplug and recharge, and I did that.  That was the very conscious reason for taking the sabbatical.  A deeper, more unconscious purpose for the sabbatical came to me after about four months:  I had to said goodbye to my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.  This was an unintended consequence of being away and not really something I was looking to do.  But when I realized that it was something I needed to do to move forward in my life, having the time and space to say goodbye to three decades of living felt completely liberating, if not a bit exhausting.

So there I was, that little duckling diving into the pan of water. I dove and I survived to tell the tale.  The schooner also set sail, leaving the safety of the harbour for ports unknown.  That ship is still sailing and the sea is full of gentle swells.  It left port once before, 31 long years ago, for a new land far from home.  It survived all kinds of seas and adventures and travelled far and wide. But now it feels like a new voyage has begun.  The ship is filled with new friends, new experiences, a deeper level of self-awareness, and a stronger appreciation for history, art, culture and tradition.   The ship will sail to new destinations and experience unforeseen threats and sailing conditions.   But the ship is in good hands: the captain is now older, more experienced, and just a wee bit wiser.