Plucked — from Cabrera to Colombia

We’ve been plucked. From Cabrera to Colombia. From the comfort of a small town, we’ve come to know over three months to the thrill (and anxiety, no lies here) of what lies beyond: new city, new country, new continent. Life on the move again.

The contrast between cities, at least at first glance, is astounding. Everything works here in Bogota. The vehicles don’t make strange gurgling noises, and the windows roll down without incantation. The buildings, massive and metal, stand in straight lines, rather than leaning to one side to talk to their neighbors. There are parking lots rather than gravel puddle pits, recycling bins rather than piles of plastic shrugging apologetically in dark fractures along the roadsides, bus lanes, bike lanes, and car lanes that adhere strictly to their designation rather than reinventing themselves around every bend.

We went to Cabrera overlooking the Caribbean Sea for the children’s sake (mostly). Being part of a community of worldschooling kids seemed the perfect antidote to travel fatigue and especially to missing the joys of connecting with other young people. Like so many people, they’ve had little opportunity to build friendships in these past two years. As Jack put it, meeting other travelers for a day or a week (at best) and then keeping in touch with a letter from time to time is not the same; “I like having friends so I can actually be with them.”

But it felt like cheating a bit. The “Beverly Hills of the Dominican Republic” was frankly not on our list of places we wanted to learn about. Sipping cocktails on the beach is not our idea of exploring the world. Taking the same walks, living in the same apartment, seeing the same people every day is not how one broadens horizons.

Or so we thought.

Our chosen work of the past two years was to quest for knowledge in as many places as possible. Learn to live more thoughtfully by witnessing the ways of others from distant perspectives. Twenty or thirty countries was the goal, I recently discovered upon reading my own words from two years ago. I think we are at fifteen. Holding still in one place while the kids go to school every day isn’t going to increase those numbers. And it isn’t work. Maybe for the kids, but not for us.

What to do with all our free time while they are at the school?

Like many folks, we hungered for a dose of self-care. Time to exercise, time to tackle projects we’d put off, time to meditate, refocus, reflect. After all that, though, the hours still loomed. This was the most time we had ever been away from our kids. Ever. So, to fill the days, we started looking outward. We bumped around town, the cafes, the beaches, the shops. And Lo!

We found we were surrounded by several other parents similarly set adrift. And as is always the case with human beings spying their reflection in the soul of another, we were drawn to them. We had our lunches and coffees together, then participated in classes and after-school clubs together, and even went on weekend field trips together. This was another hunger, a worldwide famine, really—that of connection to others. What a void we all had to fill!

And before we knew it, we were part of a community. Through the school and its children, the parents, our hosts, staff, neighbors, gardeners, teachers, and all the people surrounding our tiny little world. Filling our days with people was easy. It was joyful! It definitely didn’t feel like work.

But here’s the lesson I got from Cabrera and the Hive School: creating community IS good work.

It’s one of those forehead-slapping moments, really. A realization that we’ve been wearing the ruby slippers all along our twisty yellow brick road. In our twenties, our best work was building our dojo communities. When the children came, we added to that a community of young parents and neighbors working to build up our nests. Even now, while traveling, the most shining experiences are those enfolded in connection with others in a broad community of travelers. Making relationships, building trust, knotting ties that bind: these are actions as valid as the swing of the pickaxe that carves straight roads or the wrenching of the bolts that fix steel beams. Just softer, subtler.

I confess, it always felt like a happy perk of the requisite labor, never the work itself.

Now I’m convinced.

All those tableside conversations with other parents. All the shared stories. The texts to check in on a hurt foot or an upset stomach. The disagreements and resolutions. The challenge to our ways of thinking (yes, sometimes over cocktails on the beach). The shared goal of raising healthy, resilient children spoken aloud to one another in countless ways, repetitive and various as the iterations of waves on the shore.

That is important work.

To the Hive School teachers: count my gratitude for your patience and resolve as the grains of sand on the shore.

To the friends we made: may our paths spiral back like the curve of the shell; hear my voice whisper to you when you put it to your ear.

To Cabrera: I would trade straight roads and working plumbing for a loving community like yours any and all days of my life.

May Jack’s latest words ring true for all of us, “I don’t fear goodbyes because I know that I will be with my friends again someday.”