Falling

Just a few thoughts on falling. In my usual 'stream of conciousness'-I promise it's going somewhere-ish style.

Clumsy people literally fall all the time. While I've had a couple slips on the Evanston icey sidewalks and I once dramatically fell up the stairs of my freshman dorm (five flights multiple times a day was rough), I am not that kid who walks into parked cars and falls over midconversation.

The mental falling is what I'm more preoccupied with today. Falling into or out of situations, friendships, hobbies, relationships. Or lifestyles.

A great rabbi once told me you don't just fall into things, you build them for yourself. This was in the context of a long discussion on marriage, divorce, interreligious families, and orthodoxy. That's all for another day of study. Or a lifetime of pondering.

Before I leave for Spain, I have a lot of falling to do. Mostly,  falling out of summer slumping around my house with a megavideo addiction and an overall lazy disposition.

If you think about it, a jump is like an emphatic fall. I should probably think of this all as jumps (or great big leaps of faith and confidence and trust and energy and everything in between)

I have to jump into fulltime speaking a language I barely know, taking adventures from dancing poorly in flamenco lessons down the street to finding out if I can walk up Big Ben a country away. And everything in between. Starting with jumping out of jetlag and into the car of a temp family.

One type of falling is key: Falling in love with Spain, but with all of the jumping toward paella and sangria and men with accents, that should just come along.