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Pausing day | Day 219 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Aug 8, 2023· 3 minutes

When our friends went back to Denmark, we decided to rent the lovely house for an extra day just to have some peace and quiet.

Since the beginning of April, we have been surrounded by people every day, except for 3 days: 2 Driving days from Rome to Normandie and one single day in Copenhagen.

We love people, and we thrive in social living. But to be honest: We have overdone it this year. Somehow it is like a pendulum. In the winter in Sicily, we felt a bit lonely, longing for time spent with friends, trying to plan a year of more social adventure. Now, all we want is a humble house near a market and a beach, time to rest, study, do yoga, and enjoy each other for at least a month.

It is never that simple, is it? We would totally be social in a house like that; of course, we would meet people, host dinners, and go out. When we did the one day in Forest of Bowland, just resting in the house and getting silent things done, it took a lot of the craving away. We are okay, actually. We just also need to be just us sometimes, and equally, we need some days with no plan. Quite a lot of them, it seems.

It is interesting to be nomadic this way. We always have to choose what we want, as we can organize our life in any way we want. Do we want to play or be spontaneous? Where do we want to be? All of this is up for debate, and we learn from the different contexts we live in.

We all agree; we enjoy the flexibility, the fact we don’t have to choose one thing and stick to it. We like the change. And we like the challenge.

The pausing day we spent planning mostly. The rest of the road trip in England, how and when to drive to Spain in September, and how to get to Central America in the fall.

Planning takes a good chunk of time for a nomad, and getting everyone involved is key. We had fun doing it, and were rejuvenated by the silence of it, and by all of the downtime just reading, walking, thinking, and the yoga we found time to do between planning stages.

Ready to move on.

Love and light

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

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Unschooling and Parent consulting, conversations, blogposts, and podcasts on family life and learning

Hi, I'm Cecilie Conrad. I'm a trained psychologist, mother of four, radical unschooler and full-time traveller. I have lived with unschooling for over a decade and help other families find their own path – whether it is about homeschooling, unschooling, or the bigger question of how you want to live as a family.

I offer guidance, conversations and talks. I call my work grandmothering – not coaching in the traditional sense, but presence, professional insight and concrete help navigating motherhood and finding your way home to your own values.

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