The Art of Changemaking

Day 0: In Flight
16 July 2010
10:40 AM

As I write this, I am comfortably nestled in seat 20G (an aisle seat) of a KLM flight, somewhere in the skies above Quezon City en route to Amsterdam, with Sophie the iPad on the table in front of me and my dreams and the world opening up ahead of me. I am taking my first solo trip to Europe, a continent with which I have always felt a strong connection, and although I am now 30 years old I feel 17 again, like a little schoolgirl off on her first real-world adventure.

And, indeed, this will be a trip of many firsts. Aside from traveling alone to Europe for the first time, this trip will also welcome me to the doorstep of Eastern Europe via Prague and to the cosmopolitan and laissez-faire lifestyle of the French through Paris and La Rochelle. It will be my first time to attend school in a foreign land, my first time to stay in a dormitory, and my first time to travel to three different countries in less than 2 weeks (counting my return layover to Amsterdam, where I intend to spend a couple of hours taking photos before my flight back to Manila). It will also be my first time to explore my world as a newly married woman.

Oddly enough, the spirit of eager anticipation is subdued by a deep sense of familiarity, of coming home. For one whole week in Prague I will be immersed in journalism, a field I deeply love and respect, and will be swimming quite happily in world of words, ideas, and academic discipline (a world in which I am very comfortable, I have to admit). And for my next week, in France, I will be skipping about with a heady concoction of travel, culture, music, and the arts–things that animate my spirit and fill my life with joy.

The beauty of this trip is that, in leaving the confines of my comfort zone and throwing myself out into the unknown, I shall be reconnecting with many of the things that define me.

I am also relieved that the spirit of angst and anxious questioning are no longer with me on this journey. I have asked my questions, I have swum in confusion, I have thrown myself in a quandary over and over again. Now, at last, I have found my answers.

I had told my husband before leaving for this trip that I felt that it had been given to me precisely because I was no longer in search, precisely because I was no longer desperate for answers. Desperation muddies the mind and confuses the spirit, and this sojourn is not about a desperate escape. It is about living out the answers that have revealed themselves to me, about fully knowing myself devoid of all the security blankets that I rely on for safety, about embracing my identity and my mission as I go forth in my post-thirties world.

It took me quite a while–and many twists, turns, dead-ends, and detours–to get here, but now that I’m on solid ground I know that I can approach life with even more zest, even more confidence, even more passion. This is the spirit of the Europe of my dreams; this is the spirit with which I will embark on this journey.

And, should this mark the end of life as I know it and close the book on the volume of my youth, I will be very content with the knowledge that I shall be concluding a very rich narrative that offers a happy ending… and will be well on my way to penning a brand-new chapter with a marvelous new beginning.

Ended: 12:30 PM
Somewhere above the South China Sea, just before reaching Hong Kong