50 in 52 Journey

It has been a long time since I have written. For some of you who signed up for the RSS feed you must have been shocked to see this entry come through. It is not that I have not been working on the outcome of the Journey. I have as a matter of fact been very busy developing curriculum, speaking, creating new videos and doing all I can in the name of the Journey to help launch new community solutions nationwide. I have even begun writing my book and would say I am more than half way through my first draft. But it has been a challenge.

The single most frequently asked question I hear is: How do you feel? I cringe every time it is asked. How do I feel? “I don’t know how I feel” is what I want to answer. I waited to feel. I am not sure what I expected, a rush of excitement, a renewed sense of self, an understanding of the universe to it’s very core of goodness and kind acts towards others? Imagine a blank chalkboard. That’s how I felt. I kept looking at that board and waiting for something to appear. I wanted to feel. I deeply wanted to feel. Yet, as I lay may head down each night and closed my eyes, begging for feeling, all I saw was that blank board.

I had this sensation once before in my life. When I was 17 years old I participated in the second March of the Living. I traveled with a few thousand of my peers to the concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland. When I entered the camp I had a very unsettling case of déjà vu. I was so unsettled that after entering a few of the barracks I could not bring myself to enter any more. As we went around and even stood inside of the still functional gas chambers pain filled my body and my mind and my heart went blank. I remember writing in my journal, “everyone around me is crying. Why can’t I cry? Why can’t I feel?” I was so overwhelmed with the magnitude of the reality of the place that feeling was not an option. I had to manage my state of mind first and foremost. As an adult looking back I know that I did not allow myself to feel. Each time I returned to the camps in the following years the sensation of déjà vu was the same. As a result there was no safe space for me to allow myself to feel.

I can almost understand fearing allowing myself to feel as it relates to Auschwitz. What I could not wrap my head around was this same emptiness as it relates to the Journey. I know looking back on the days of frantic preparation and the whirlwind that was each week in a new state that I underestimated the impact each new person I met would have on my life. I looked at it, as a dear friend of mine would say, as project management. I had to get through each state, collect and share amazing stories with you, take care of two beautiful growing children, a boyfriend - now fiancé, Michael - and his teenager who also needed and deserved love and attention. I forgot to program in time to feel.

Last night I sat down with Michael as he was going through the raw footage of my interview of Ma’o Tosi of Anchorage, Alaska. We are editing it down for use with a lesson plan to help others learn about Alaska, about tough choices and to be inspired by one man’s outright care and concern which led him to take action for Anchorage’s youth.

As I watched I remembered and felt every minute of that day. From hearing about Ma’o from my seat-mate on the flight to Anchorage (and the crazy unscheduled pit stop/plane change we made along the way), to my absolute amazement when she followed through and texted me his phone number only to be topped by my astonishment when Ma’o answerd my call and offered to pick me up in the grocery store parking lot and spend the day with me. Sounds crazy and surreal, right? This was par for the course along my Journey.

(Interesting aside: I just looked it up and as I write to you it is exactly one year to the day since I headed off to Alaska to meet Ma’o.)

Listening to Ma’o’s words emanate from the computer my heart began to fill again. This morning, as we sat at a local eatery and I discussed the technical specs of moving forward on our new editing system donated to us by Avid, it hit me. “What an unbelievable experience I had.” I stated to Michael like it was the first time I ever thought about.

Seems like a crazy thing to say, and certainly I’ve said it before. However, this morning, for the first time, as I said it I felt it. My whole body seemed weighed down by the, up to this point, incomprehensible weight of a Journey that I am just now beginning to feel how it has changed my path and altered my future in ways I still have yet to learn.

I think I am ready to answer the question. Now I am beginning to feel…

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For up to date information about the continued work of the Journey please visit: http://www.journeyinstitute.org. To learn more about what I’ve been up to check out: http://www.dafnam.com