Finding Paradise

Eight years ago I was in the midst of planning for a long-anticipated sabbatical six months in Venezia. I was looking for time to write and I was looking for some measure of paradise. I found both but the trouble was that when the sabbatical was over, I had to relinquish the paradise part. It felt wrenching. I had come to so appreciate living so close to water, in a walkable city, with constant interactions with other people.



But, I think, that experience of loss (Paradiso perduto) helped me to ask some profound questions about what I wanted out of life. Would a sense of paradise be saved only for vacations or sabbaticals?

I know I began to search for ways in which that paradisical spirit could be found in my old ways. That was a time of painful learning, for while I wanted to change others did not want me to change. I would open doors and others would slam them shut. But then it dawned on me that I was just dreaming new dreams set in old settings. What if I let go of trying to make my hopes and dreams fit my situation? What would it take to try to have my situation fit my hopes and dreams?

It would mean letting go. Letting go of the familiar anchors of life. Letting go also of the well-constructed hopes and dreams which had become caricatures of themselves.

It would mean letting in. Letting in possibilities without restrictions. Letting in options that might not seem like the perfect dream realized.

Not worrying about set outcomes, but looking more for process. Giving up control in search of experience.

So, two years ago we were in the final planning stages for the move here to Mile Marker 0. It was very different from the sabbatical planning of 2001. In 2001, I was frantically trying to put the final touches on all of the details. In 2007, I was admitting I didn't have a clue where it would all take us, but I knew I wanted to go wherever that was.

And when I let go of the outcome, and put my faith in what would unfold in a place where I could again be close to the water, walk to where I needed to go, and interact with people, people of all kinds, on a regular basis, I found something.

I found paradise. It's not a place. Rather it is any place where you can live the life you have found or imagined as being the best for you. Each visit somewhere tells you something about what is essential to you. You go away from each place, each experience, saying to yourself, "Now, I really liked that."

Finding paradise is not about finding any certain place, but rather finding a place where all the things you really, really, really liked while being elsewhere can become the everyday reality of your life. And if you are lucky, you will find a place where you can live and work and learn and play . . . so that everyday even when filled with life's work and stresses you feel like you are on vacation or sabbatical.

Paradise is where the core of who you are feels at home, and only you know where that is.