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Ten years ago, I had just returned to my parents’ house after working on an organic farm on the coast of Maine, and I was about to join my brother on a road trip down the Rocky Mountains from Calgary to Grand Teton. In my downtime, I was learning how to slackline in my backyard, putting heel in front of toe, my arms and legs swinging wildly as I tried to balance my way from one tree to the other.
That summer shaped many of the values I still hold dear today. At the farm, my colleagues were mostly older folks who had spent much of their lives building communities. They weren’t rich, but they were happy and lived intentionally in alignment with their values. I pulled weeds and sifted compost until the sun was high, and I planted and harvested the strawberries, succulent greens, and fresh eggs that we ate. Evenings stretched out with belly laughs and thoughtful discussion, and everyone slept well after a hard day’s work. It was a good, happy life, making a positive impact in a little corner of the world.
When I joined my brother for his road trip, I had no idea how it would go, but I love and trust him, and I made the leap. We put hundreds of miles on the car and a bit less on our shoes. He introduced me to a cool “podcast” called “This American Life”, we ate Clif Bars and bread with the moldy bits peeled off, and I took pictures of him taking pictures of jagged peaks and furry wildlife. Our age gap was finally small enough for me to feel like his peer, and our relationship as adult brothers began through the grand crucible of that journey through some of the most stunning regions in America.
That summer helped me to identify three critical ingredients for my happiness: exploration, meaningful work, and healthy relationships with loved ones. That’s it. The rest of my 20s have been an effort to find a sustainable balance of those three. I joined and made lifelong friends among the outdoors group at CMU (appropriately called the Explorers’ Club), and I’ve wandered the Alps, Andes, and Himalayas, and many of the Seven Seas. I learned how to teach from the best teachers I could imagine, and through my work, I’ve been able to continue exploring, learn more about capital-E Education, and keep time for my health, my favorite hobbies, and my friends and family.
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It’s hard to separate my last ten years from the 2010s in America. At the start of this decade, Obama was in the second year of his term after being elected on the slogan “Change We Can Believe In.” Now, by any measure, the country is divided and still yearning for change, and people are realizing that we didn’t get here accidentally, and we won’t get out accidentally either. It is a monumental task to repair America’s wayward institutions and right the wrongs perpetuated daily across the country; with today’s turbulence, it’s impossible to predict how things will shake out.
On the slackline that long-ago summer, I would jump onto the neon webbing, take a step, lose my balance, and flail my arms and free leg to try to claim a second step before falling off. I got much better once I realized that huge, arcing swings of my limbs could be replaced by subtle variations in my ankle. By keeping a strong yet flexible root, I could calmly walk from one end to the other in an act of responsive balance rather than heavy force. This is what I want from the place I call home: a healthy foundation that is both stable and flexible, ready to face the unpredictable and global challenges of the 21st century.
As an immigrant, I feel like it’s natural to look around the world and go wherever you and your future family might have the best shot. It’s hard to tell where that might be right now, and while the US is a strong contender, it’s certainly not the only one. Leaf and I visited Copenhagen in 2015, and I’ve been to over 20 countries since then. I’ve realized that the American way of life is a particular one, and it’s not for everybody. Who knows where I’ll be on my 40th birthday, but between now and then, I hope that I can keep exploring and learning from new places, people, and experiences. I hope that I can nurture a generation of kind, competent, young people and be a connector and model for teachers around the world. And, I hope that I continue to grow as a husband, son, brother, friend, and eventually, a father.
