I suppose if I had a word for the day, today would be “recalibrate.”
I think of recalibrating as adjusting a setting. Like adjusting a dial to get a more clear signal on a radio station. So as to get frequency. So as to get clarity. Or like adjusting from the feeling of this vastness in the photo above, taken last week looking south to Columbia Lake and the Purcell Mountains, to perhaps some less vast spaces.
Transitions require a certain kind of recalibrating. My version of transition today is the adjustment of having been in Canada for a week for family and vacation time. The recalibrate is returning from that to Utah, to a regular work week, and a significant pile of todos.
Canada was family and friends. Shared cooking and eating of meals. Shared recreation. It was walks, sometimes more than one per day. It was forested mountains. It was deer in the sleepy town streets (and this year, a frequenting black bear). Canada was playing card games and ping pong. I suppose a summary for me is that it was prioritized connection — squeezing a lot in to a short period of time. Including some nothingness, but nothingness together.
Return, and recalibration, is to solo dwelling for me. Needed for my introvert side, but noticeably different too. Return is simplified meals. The last half of a peanut butter and honey sandwich with a few slices of cucumber that need to be eaten. Return is reconnecting to several threads of work. Projects to move along and to prepare for. Return is recalibrating to focus, to meeting times, and to a few deadlines.
All of it is good. It’s just that the shift requires this recalibrating. It’s not a good thing to a bad thing. Nor vice versa. I’m grateful for variety in my life. I’m grateful to family that moves to tears in parting goodbye. I’m grateful for friends that indelibly germinate in my heart. I’m also grateful for work that brings connection and learning to the forefront. For people with imagination and determination to work together in better ways. I’m grateful for this that also grows in my heart.
Recalibrating. I suppose it is a bit of welcoming the past and applying it to the now. I suppose it is a bit of directing a kindness and consciousness, a flow with life, into a different environment.
That awareness alone helps me somehow land just a bit more in to today’s recalibrating. I’m glad for that.