Walking back home through Krakow one last time, I contemplate the concept of time and whether it is flying. I carry a liter of laundry detergent from the organic shop as I walk in light rain with the teenagers. We have been in Krakow for a month; this is the last full day. Tomorrow, we will spend the day packing, and we will leave in the early afternoon.
This morning, we saw the Maria Cathedral on the main square for the second time; this time, we saw the opening of the altar, a most beautiful experience: the colors of this cathedral, the nun and her prayer, the presence of whatever it is that is bigger than us.
I hope to share a blog post this time. The more I wait, the harder and more complex it becomes—as if I have to catch up with everything I have thought and everything that happened when I do it again—a catch-22 that makes it impossible for me to start writing again.
We decided to spend a month in Krakow because many of our Worldschooling friends would be there, and we spontaneously invited two extra teenagers with us: close friends of our own teens. The month is coming to an end, and it has been everything we dreamt of and more.
I feel the essence of nomadic identity as I walk back. I visited a cathedral and had a final coffee with all my friends, tears in our eyes as we said goodbye until we realized we would see each other next week in London! The essence is symbolized by the laundry detergent, a symbol of the adventure and the show going on, and I am aware that I will bring it into the final cathedral of Krakow, the only one we have not seen yet.
We have seen many cathedrals in Krakow and even the one in the adjacent Salt Mine, all made of salt and far underground!
Do they blend? Not really.
Is time flying?
There is this saying: The days are long, but the years are short.
Similarly, the chunks of time in the nomadic life sometimes seem short, like glimpses, yet the days, the moments, are long, fulfilled, present, and rich. I am carrying laundry detergent as there is a thread running through it all: The life that goes on, all the practicalities we all know of. I might be wrapping up a great adventure in Krakow with extra teens and a community in town, but MY life, OUR lives, go on, and I know there are more adventures around the corner, more to see, more to do, more to learn, more to take in. I might feel nostalgic today, but my six+ years of experience tell me I will not miss this: I will look back with great gratitude and love, but I will not wish my life was different.
We will all need clean clothes wherever the road takes us, even tomorrow, even after wrapping all this up.
Is time flying?
I remember when we were in the process of becoming nomadic; we would talk to everyone we knew who had done extensive traveling or moved to another country. One of these friends told us that when he decided to pull the plug, he had sat down on New Year's evening with his wife and talked about the past year—only to realize they could remember every moment of the three weeks they had spent backpacking Thailand and two to three major events of the year—the rest was a blur.
The rest was getting up Monday morning and pressing “repeat.”
It is easy to fall into the trap of falling asleep spiritually and as a human, as life goes on and on in its comfortable path, unfolding predictably and safely. What I love about my nomadic life is the change, the wrapping up, getting up, and showing up.
Especially the showing up. For what is important.
There is urgency: you are here NOW. Not next month. So what do you want? What is really important? In reality, we should all think like that all the time and learn to prioritize our hours and our energy to focus on what is most important. Allways.
I like the urgency. The scarcity. It is real. It makes me stay alert and awake. It makes me prioritize with sharp choices. As a cancer survivor, I feel the rough edges of the moments passing, knowing their true value. My urgency is full of gratitude for each of these moments, full of love for life, full of passion.
Visiting Krakow combined visiting a cultural powerhouse, hanging out with a large group of friends, and making new friends. As we are very social and also very culturally interested, it has been intense. We have absorbed like sponges. Cathedrals, the history of Krakow (and Poland and Europe), the horrors of the holocaust, the beauty of the artwork we have seen here, the communist era, the architecture, and the culture. And all the poems we read. And all the discussions we had. And all the insights we had about ourselves in this life.
We have walked so many times from the beautiful main square and crossed the walking bridge decorated with balancing sculptures to return to the area on the other side of the river Wisla into what used to be the Jewish Ghetto - as it has been home for us for 4 weeks.
The Da Vinci piece is clear in my mind—so light, so present. And the first weekend, All Saints' Days, the 1st and 2nd of November, with the graveyards full of candles. It was so full of beauty, all the love, and all the memories people lit candles for; the experience was profound. I got to mourn my mother, my grandmothers, my niece who died right before her first breath, and my grandfather … It was healing and powerful. What an opening!
Is time flying? It is primarily a question of presence. Meaningfulness. Values. Seizing the moment.
There can be so much wrong with the way we talk about time—that it is flying is just one of them. We all have the same amount of time every day. There is no urgency or limit; we don't run out. It is not flying or disappearing; it is ours—flexible, eternal, overwhelming, and precious.
Time is something we fill up; we make our hours meaningful and beautiful by staying in tune with what is truly important, with the big picture. Scarcity makes that picture clearer. Traveling makes us sharper.
Our hearts beat—all of them. For as long as we live, this is the only true pulse, the best connector to real guidance, the place to live our lives. In the heartbeats, with the heart in the forefront. The heart knows. The beats measure time, the moments filled with life in all its glory.
I spent a month in Krakow, which has been overwhelming and amazing. We have all grown, learned, and enjoyed.
The whole matrix of what is essential has lined up perfectly, as it always will if we pay attention. Relationships have evolved. We have experienced art. We have learned history. We have dived into the darkness to grow as humans. We have celebrated my husband's 50th birthday. We had the car fixed.
Is time flying? Did it go too fast?
No.
It has been perfect. It still is perfect. And it will continue to be perfect.
If we stay perfectly aligned. With the beat of hearts as the only marching drum.
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