Seeking Fireflies: Travel, Culture & the Pursuit of Inspiration
Seeking Fireflies is a travel blog I compiled while traveling internationally between December 2012 and November 2013. This journey took place beginning in Belgium, traveling south to Mali, through West Africa and north through Western Europe. Read and enjoy some musings on these experiences. The original blog lives at seekingfireflies.com.
On New Year’s Eve 2009 into 2010 I watched the moon rise from a rooftop in Bamako, Mali. I celebrated the arrival of the new decade with friends, music and a firecracker that either misfired or was just designed to be like one big loud bomb - exciting, explosive, concerning, but fun nonetheless. It made our eyes blind and our ears buzz for a few moments. It was a good stage setting for the decade.
I’ve been telling myself this a lot recently, ‘you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.’ It really started in November with that unbelievable Oregon sunset (this one here). It’s a notion that’s been continuing ever since, mostly signaling itself through natural events, like sunsets, sunrises and moonscapes that are so beautiful I can’t help but be anywhere but exactly there, exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Someone said this to me recently as I was recounting the sudden, unexpected late and breaking plot twists that are showing up here at the end of 2017 for me. It’s a common phrase. But it got me thinking about the trajectory of events in my life over the last few months/years. I’ve wanted to write an update post since my August lay-off, and so here it is.
I wanted to write this a couple of months ago. I wanted to write this 6 months ago. Ok, I wanted to write this a year ago. Well in full disclosure, I wanted to start writing this 20 months ago. Twenty Months. That is how long I have been searching for a full time job in the Portland region.
I was laid off on Monday. I was laid with zero warning off after pouring some good old fashion nonprofit heart and soul into a job I’d been hired for four months prior, which followed a grueling 20-month job search. So, we’re gonna talk about that for a moment.