Getting my head around this



The village, from the helicopter.


So it begins, the next chapter of what has already been a very busy, and adventurous,  life.  This time, the three most important little people in my life are coming with me, and will participate in this adventure with the innocence and wonder of childhood.  That said, I hope they don't hate it.


That is just one of the many conflicting thoughts I've had over the last several months.  It might be that one day, I feel as if I've stumbled upon what is going to be the greatest experience of my life.  But the next day, I might be wondering if perhaps I am overshooting my scope of capabilities and reasoning and am in fact, just having a mid-life crisis and should just take some time to think about this.  Not that I haven't.  Not that I haven't been thinking about it almost 24/7 for the past two months. 

What you see to the left and below are pictures of my trip out there, to interview in person.  They say (whoever "they" are) that the best interviews are the ones in which you're checking out your prospective employers as much as they are checking you out.  So I went, with heart, mind and eyes wide open. 

I owe much to my friends, not the least money, but that which I'll never be able to repay is the unconditional acceptance of my need for fulfillment in unconventional ways.  My beautiful friend Kristin called me from the tarmac of the airport after her flight from Korea had just touched down, just because she'd been thinking of me while she was vacationing there.  I told her I was heading to the Grand Canyon for an interview, and her immediate response was, "I'll go with you." 

The Grand Canyon, from the helicopter.


So indeed, off we went.  Have you ever felt like your best laid plans were actually pretty lame, and that there was a higher force intervening to keep you from having a monumentally horrible experience?  From getting the very last seat on a morning stand by flight to the relief when the car rental agency didn't notice the black scratch marks on the roof of the white car from my camera, I can say there was a compassionate hand guiding us along our way. 

The landscape was amazing.  Kristin pointed out after a few hours that I kept taking in deep breathes, and I realized, "I can breath out here."  We must have looked sufficiently important in my little suit dress shoes, since they let us take the first flight into the village on the helicopter the morning of my interview, and even let me sit in the front.  I got to take in four and a half minutes of the view as we propelled through the canyon to the village.  It was the most amazing vista I'd ever seen in my life, a monument to the forces of nature and brilliance of the color spectrum.

Finally, after a day spent in the village in interviews and mingling with the local kids at a some-what-out-of-the-way swimming hole (far enough from the main drag that the kids froze mid-swandive and head-dunking when we emerged from the brush, until we asked if we could join them), I decided this was the place to go next.  I keep trying to figure out why exactly.  I think I have a few things worked out, but I also know that over the next year or so, I will come to know more reasons why I was called to join the teaching staff at Havasupai Elementary School.