The End of an Era

Merry Christmas! As some of you know, my family sent a Christmas letter and annual family photograph throughout my youth. As the kids aged, we got involved and often invoked a creative writing theme. 2008 recounted the year in numbers 1-12. 2009 presented multiple geographic moves as the Nock Family Adventures. 2010 rode the social media wave with my brother beautifully crafting a “nockbook” profile with a stream of posts. 2011 went back toward print, publishing Nock Geographic with each of us reporting on someone else. 2012 turned inward, as we each wrote about ourselves. 2013 presented a recipe for replicating our year(s).

And that was it. With all the kids graduated and living independently, Mom and Dad sent their own letter, and each kid took their own direction. I’ve continued writing and snail-mailing letters with a sampling of photographs. The past few years have also waxed my existentialist nature and I have questioned the very nature of an “annual” letter. If I believe time is structured abstractly, why do I send a letter according to a socially constructed definition of the “year”?

Update: I don’t.

I’m going rogue.

This week – tonight – marks the official end of my sabbatical. I took four and a half months off from work, with a variety of goals to focus on restoring myself and aligning my doing with my being. Truth be told, I’m still very much on the journey of self-discovery, and I think I’ll stay on this journey – though not unemployed – for the remainder of my life. I’m committed to exercising conscious awareness of how I experience the world. To the chagrin – or delight – of those around me, I can talk at length about the importance of the capital-s Self and the capital-t Truth, contemplate the motivation in human behavior, advocate for verbally communicating emotions, or teach the yogic philosophy. But I digress…

In closing the pre-determined sabbatical and entering into an undefined future, I want to reflect on what I’ve learned throughout the past months’ experiences:

It’s hard for me to just “be”. It’s also “new” for me to be. Hard = New, in many cases. New things are hard. I knew going into this that I hadn’t had four months to myself in… ever, ignoring my pre-kindergarten days when all my time was free. I spent years in school, with 8-10 summer weeks spotted with structured and unstructured time. From the age of fifteen, I held summer jobs and part-time jobs while in school. When I graduated, or changed jobs or cities, I started immediately, without time off in between. I didn’t know how to rest. Now I do, though it’s still challenging to my instinct. And that’s okay. I’m enough for who I am, without what I do.
There are a lot of people who don’t work 9-5 every day. When I sit in parks and cafes, or commute on public transport, or whenever I leave my apartment, I see other people who aren’t at work. (I also see the ones who are at work, but not in offices.) I like that it’s okay to break the mold. It’s only when people ask how I spent my week or weekend that I remember whether it was a conventional workday or not. Every day is equal for me. I am ready to start working, AND I liked detaching from the work routine.
The world is full of distractions. My challenge and growth are in the focus. I remember telling a friend on a run in early 2017 that if I had a superpower, it would be to slow down time. I think I have. All I aspire for is to be aware of what I experience as my life happens. The past doesn’t exist. The future doesn’t exist. I only have the present moment. I exercise constant effort to be present: to be listening to whoever I’m with; to be reading without a wandering mind; to meditate and let thoughts pass; to run, bike, or swim and be in that action. My self awareness is what makes a day fulfilling. I’ve de-activated Instagram, which instinct and data tell me consumed several hours of every week. I’ve shifted away from constantly checking my to-do list and my inbox. I am often trying to make sure that I spend every moment where I am, not guilting the mind for wandering to the past, future, or elsewhere. The first step in focusing is to be aware of distraction.
Living sustainably and non-materially is challenging. In these months, I became more aware of the impact of my consumer behavior and choices on human and planetary health. Sometimes, I feel that I have no responsible option. I learned about the overwhelming emissions generated from flying. I started exploring a non-meat diet almost two years ago. Now I have validated my choice after seeing shocking numbers about the inefficiency of meat as protein. Meat sucks water and nutrients out of the food chain while pumping carbon emissions higher. There are responsible ways to produce meat, but mostly we don’t, and the world has a lot of people to feed. With so much free time, I move more slowly. I don’t jump from thing to thing, place to place. I can be more aware, and I’m shocked about how much non-processable waste I produce and how difficult it is to reduce this. Some things only come packaged in plastic, and it most likely won’t – or can’t – be recycled nor reused. My main choice is to reduce, but I’m only one in eight billion.
Physical movement and breath form the foundation of my well-being. I am more calm, present, and alive when I take time to move my body and focus on breathing. I’ve gone deep into a yoga teacher training, then fluctuated between routine and non-routine practice. I know, from experience, that breathing and moving are the best way for me to start my day. I will continue cultivating and nurturing my physical body for the remainder of my life.
Internal conflict may be eternal. I’ve decided to leave Berlin, and I still feel conflicted and uncertain about where to go. In the past 19 weeks, I’ve traveled from Berlin; to Portugal; to parts of Denmark; to Stockholm, Sweden; to Amsterdam – twice; to Seville, Spain; to Rostock, Germany, on the Baltic Sea; to Boston, Nashville, Toronto, across eastern Canada, and the southern coast of Maine; and I spent many days and hours exploring pockets of Berlin’s beautiful summer. I felt varying degrees of home in all of these places. For me, home is an elusive concept. I feel stimulated, energized, and enriched when I explore new environments. Yet perhaps these are all distractions; if so, from what? I don’t know, and that’s okay. I’m being patient.
I think everyone is afflicted with trauma. Everyone. You. Me. Yes, you. I see it everywhere, especially in Berlin. I’ve explored what trauma could mean in my past and read literature about the varying degrees of trauma throughout society. I want to break the taboo and encourage social dialogue. Maybe I’ll formally study psychology someday? Many people exercise to relieve stress or build self confidence or purely from an addictive habit, and people pay for gym memberships or fitness classes. I will re-iterate a past hypothesis: we might live healthier, more fulfilled lives by investing in mental health (counseling, therapy, emotional awareness) before or alongside physical health. And caffeine and alcohol are drugs, as much as marijuana, cocaine, heroine, you name it. They’re just socially accepted – and maybe less severe – forms of numbing reality.

I’d planned to write this Christmas letter for weeks and to mail some copies when I was in the US last week, but I didn’t. And I’m following suit with living in the moment. And Brené Brown taught me the importance of shitty first drafts. And this is everything that’s on my mind now.

So, thanks for your support. I’m extremely grateful, despite bouts of uncertainty. And I wish you a moment – however long it may last – of deep presence with your current reality. May we all embrace whatever era we’re in.

Obrigado, Lisboa

I left Berlin in a rush and arrived in Lisbon in a calm state of mind. That’s me in a nutshell: balancing chaos and calm.

After a delayed arrival – no worries! calm mind – I took the metro to my Airbnb and then meandered into the city, where I knew no Portuguese. I didn’t have any problem, but I like to know simple things like “ola” (hello), “fala ingles?” (do you speak English?), and “obrigado” (thank you). Almost everyone speaks English, so once I learned these quick phrases, all parties seemed comfortable in the rest of my interactions.

…

I wrote this much (above) on April 26, then abandoned the draft post while I began my yoga teacher training. Rather than try to recall thoughts from a month ago, I’ll close with some notes out of my notebook and photos of Lisboa.

Beautiful buildings. City blends well into the landscape.
Not much nature. Monsanto was beautiful.
Friendly people. Wonder if they’re hiding a struggle. My tour guide described post-Fascism fear of authority and recommended a book, Dancing Bear.
Tons of sunlight. Fast rainstorms.
Affordable, but not cheap. Suffering economically.
Wonder if they can preserve their culture while welcoming tourists:
— overemphasis of pasteis de nata
— farce of selling tinned fish
— tiles are functional (insulating) as much as decorative

Wednesday

Train from airport
Walked through Bairro Alto, Baija, and Chiado neighborhoods
Rainstorm
Smoothie made by pedaling a bicycle
Rainbow and concert rehearsal almost made me cry
Walked along coast in the sunlight
Into Bairro Alto for dinner, bacalhao (salted cod)

Thursday

Run in Parque du Eduardo to Monsanto
Breakfast at the mill
Walked to Santa Catarinha Miradouro and into Santos, another fast rainstorm
Read my yoga anatomy book on a park bench, annoyed by a senile homeless person
Walked to Praça de Camoes for Sandemann’s walking tour

Important dates: 1 Nov 1755, an earthquake killed 2/3 of the population (est. 90k people), mostly Arabs and Jews survived in the Alfama neighborhood; 25 April 1974, peaceful revolution ends dictatorship, my tour was the holiday they celebrated 45 years of freedom

My tour guide, Pascal, took me to a tiny restaurant where he knows the owners, Davíd and Bella. Great food, some from their farm. They struggle to stay open. She’s illiterate. It’s not a well-known place.
Walked to Alfama. Beautiful live music at the miraduoros, ice cream, poked into shops in Chiado and read my yoga book at a pastelaria
More live music in the streets by a university “fraternity”

The Never-ending Weekend

It took five days to realize that my sabbatical had started. In the repetition of “I’m going to yoga teacher training in Portugal and then I’ll travel for another month,” I forgot about the week of downtime beforehand. I mean, I knew it was happening, but I forgot it was part of the whole experience. In fact, moments of downtime were infrequent. I balanced my time with the required reading assignments for the yoga course, “last” time meetings with friends, being outside, and preparing to sublet my apartment. With the pinnacle experience fast approaching, I almost didn’t realize that I’m one week into my 19 week vacation. My detachment from work started immediately, and I subsequently created a lot of fascinating experiences and emotions for myself.

I very consciously chose to start this journey on my birthday, and in retrospect, know this was the right choice. Everyone deserves to treat themselves to things that bring them joy. If I owned a company, I’d make birthdays mandatory paid holidays for each employee. I focused on enjoying myself, with a mix of things I love to do, places I enjoy, and new experiences. Perhaps most importantly, I woke up and made a conscious decision to have a good day. With a boost from the change to warm, sunny weather, I had a great day. With the exception of one minor moment of anxiety – which I suspect I know the root of – I felt pure joy on my birthday, the first day of my sabbatical.

Hanging out in my favorite park on my birthday evening

The subsequent day was less of an emotional high, because I was a bit stressed preparing for a birthday picnic. At midnight, chocolate ice cream batter – the third of three varieties – boiled over on the stovetop. I went to yoga before noon, and suddenly felt the day was disappearing, then at 4pm, I fell asleep on a hillside in the park while waiting 3 hours for my apartment key to be copied. I reacted to those stressors by just trudging through and pretending I was fine. I was. In the end, I had a clean stove and a spare key, and lost nothing but energy along the way. Two days of naturally sliding into afternoon nap time tell me that my body needed this break, so I’m grateful for the timing and ability to process time as it comes and goes.

Oops…

I gathered a small group of friends at a park nearby my house for a cozy sunset picnic. Twelve of us snacked and chatted until we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces. (It was dark! I’m in one of my frequent sobriety phases, anyway.) Robin and Peejay’s homemade Dutch apple pie paired especially well with my homemade ice creams. I definitely want you to teach me that recipe, boys! Despite the stress that I created (in my head) in my preparation, the company of so many loving humans reminded me how much our friends enrich our lives.

Impressive Dutch apple pie, handmade with a number 28

Quite an impressive birthday cake candle, nah?

By Friday, I needed a break from my break… okay, kidding! I just needed to get some stuff done and balance the relaxation time. At this point, especially with Germany’s four-day Easter weekend, I lost track of the calendar days. I see no purpose in prescribing attitudes and ways of thinking with certain weekdays. Forget Sunday scaries, Monday doldrums, and celebrating Friday or the weekend. Every day has the same potential. To free up the rest of the weekend, when friends would be free and the forecast called for ideal outdoor weather, I spent Friday morning packing many of the things in my apartment, making space for a friend who will stay there. I felt liberated to sort through physical possessions and realize how much I don’t need, despite the relatively little I own, compared to my American peers.

With the warmth and sunshine continuing to grace all of Berlin, I ran to Volkspark Friedrichshain and met Selene for a few hours of relaxation … but no nap! I spent Friday night at home, procrastinating my yoga readings, and readying my mind for Saturday’s epic canoe adventure.

Sunday was Easter, and by then, I was definitely confused about the weekday. I biked across the river into Kreuzberg, passing many open-air clubs, where the spirit of Berlin still sounded strong at 10am, and met Cinzia at a brunch buffet on the canal. We enjoyed several hours of sunlight glistening off the water, discussing our respective evolutions in life activities and mindsets. As I ready myself for this immersive travel adventure, she prepares for a new job and heavily invests in evolving her world perspectives with admirable reading habits. From there, we cycled across the street to relax in the sun at another park. Yes, there’s a pattern here. Berlin has many green spaces, and Germans embrace time outdoors in most seasons.

I spent Sunday afternoon at another friend’s rooftop terrace, a sort of Easter soirée meets the benevolence of Mother Nature and friendship. Five of us ventured to an open-air club in the evening, where we embraced the vibrations of the sunset late into the night.

Monday… another holiday! I finished packing my bag, read at the park, saw more friends… Tuesday: rinse and repeat, plus some errands, since retail stores finally re-opened. And Wednesday, today, I arrived in Portugal after an only mildly hectic morning of last minute things at home. (Read mildly hectic as: calm, cool, and collected on the outside, but mentally panicking and physically rushing…)

In the constant flux between nothing and everything, relaxation and productivity, being and doing, I gained awareness about my competing calm and chaotic minds. I like the calm one better. I think I won’t have another to-do list for months, and I’m ready to focus on my being, to slow down time, to be where I am, and not to worry about where I’m not nor what I’m not getting “done.”