A sense of peace is falling over me. At least for this moment. As I look toward getting on a plane and heading out.

I know where I will land. Where to go to stay the night. It will be in the morning around ten local time, so I will have time to get settled and look around a bit. It will be a Saturday night and maybe I will head across the street to the northwest style brewpub.

The next day I am guessing I will awake to the sounds of a church bell. A good day to  walk around the neighborhood and watch the rhythm of a city as it goes to church.  I will stay in Quito for a week -- flying out to Cuenca at 9 am on Saturday. It is a 55 minute flight down the Andes. Pila -- my landlady -- is arranging for someone to pick me up at the airport.

For at least the next week, I will stay in Pila's home in El Centro, the oldest part of town. I am starting  to know the layout of Cuenca and expect by the time I arrive -- it will seem almost familiar. Hence a sense of peace.

Shit's becoming real

Just two months now until I head off by myself to someplace I've never been before.

It is scary. That's one reason I am doing it.

This past year has seen a lot of change. Things over which I did not have control. And there were times I hated it.

It's a funny thing, human nature. Do we prefer when things stay the same? Or at least stay the same by our choice. And yet, life is not about choice. We choose not to age. For the most part, choose not to die.

And there is pain in that, in life itself. Jung and Buddha intersected on the one point: we need to face pain. Experience it fully and not deny it. For to do so, is to become crazy, they both said.

My daughter reflected on someone's behavior that I didn't understand and she ever so wisely said, "people do what they think will make them happy."

So profound. Invoking the ancient wisdom of Socrates who said, people don't do bad things because they are bad people. They do bad things because they think it will make them happy.

So back to my trip.

I am reminded of an exercise by self-esteem expert Tom Peters.
He brought several people on stage and taught them to say:"no matter what you do or say, I am still a good person."
He asked them to repeat it after each sentence he said.

He began:
"I don't like you"
They repeated the sentence: no matter what you do or say, I am still a good person."
"You are dumb"
The refrain.
"You are fat"
The refrain.
"You are fired"
The refrain.

At the end of the exercise, Peters told the audience that each time he has run this exercise, the same thing happens. As his comments become more critical, without any coaching -- the participants speak louder and more clearly.

Peters' point, I think, is that it's not just our physical skin that can toughen up with regular work or exercise. It is also our metaphorical skin.

I am tired of the universe saying at random times things I didn't expect or didn't want to hear.
In the past year, I've felt alone and lonely.
I don't want to feel that way any more -- even when I am alone.

Travel, in itself, is its own reward. But somewhere in South America I am counting on being more lonely and alone than I've ever felt before. I want to embrace that as an innoculant. When I return to familiar places and sounds and there is a breeze that before would have invoked a sense of dread and loneliness, I will be able to say (like Dustin Hoffman said in Wag the Dog), This? This is nothing. You should have seen.....

why

Someone asked me why I am going to south America.
I wondered why it was hard to give an answer.
After thinking on it, I have the answer to why it's hard to answer, though perhaps not the reason I am going

It may be an act of faith.  
That there is something out there.  Something I don't know. Perhaps about myself.  Waiting to be learned.

I can't be sure. Or can't imagine what it might be. I've often quoted the Zen line
The way in, is the way out.  

Perhaps for me, this time, the way out is the way in.