STAYING OFF THE TREADMILL: A Journey continues

I started this blog as a way to record, observe and remember our travels. When Tim & I returned to Canada, I assumed that our travels and adventures were over. There were no journeys and I had nothing to write about. Yes, I was that depressed.

We’ve been back for 6 months now and some of the lessons from the trip are only just sinking in. What I am beginning to understand is that adventures are all in how you look at them. Every day holds something new. I may not be travelling, but I am still on a journey.

I read an article the other day about the number of life forms in 1 cubic foot of earth, and it made me remember that life is infinite in all directions (to quote Freeman Dyson). My geographic scope may be small, but against the microcosm of my day the adventures are still writ large.

But most importantly, we have not stepped back on the treadmill. Tim and I are balancing on a wire without a net. Our lives are irregular, surprising, unsettling, disconcerting, challenging, risky and often exciting. So I think that writing about “Stepping off the Treadmill” is still valid. At the risk of becoming a self-absorbed-navel-gazing blogger, I have decided to continue to write as I did when we were on the road. If it gets too ghastly, you’ll just have to un-follow.

But I hope you’ll travel with me for a while. There’ll be some great recipes, travelogues and photos of slightly less exotic locales. Perhaps we’ll all appreciate our own backyards a bit better.

“…if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!” 

Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz

Author: Amanda West Lewis

Amanda West Lewis combines careers as a writer, theatre creator, calligrapher, and teaching artist. She is the author of nine books for youth and young readers, including "Focus Click Wind," a novel about youth activism in 1968, and "These Are Not the Words," a semi-autobiographical novel about the jazz era and growing up in New York City. Her novels have been nominated for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, the Silver Birch Award, the Red Cedar Award and the Violet Downey IODE Award. Her recent collection book "A Planet is a Poem" has received a EUREKA! 2024 Excellence in Children’s Non-Fiction Award, is a California Reading Association HONOR BOOK, a NCTE Notable Poetry Book and a Cybils Award nominee 2024. She has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. In her theatre career, Amanda has acted, directed, produced, and written for theatre, as well as founded The Ottawa Children’s Theatre, a school dedicated to theatre education for young people. A freelance calligrapher for over 20 years, her calligraphic artwork has been exhibited in numerous shows and she has written books on calligraphy and the development of writing. Born in New York City, Amanda moved with her mother to Toronto, Canada as a teenager. She now lives with her husband, writer Tim Wynne-Jones, in the woods near Perth, Ontario, where they raised their three children. View all posts by Amanda West Lewis