Hearing the Gypsy Song – Traveling the World

by Susan Stiffelman

I suppose the story of the journey I took to Africa and beyond with my fifteen-year-old, Malibu-raised son, began well before we left.  
 
It was a foggy Malibu morning, and my son Ari was still asleep as I read through the e-mails that came in overnight. Reading about the options—chimp sanctuary in Uganda, safari on the Serengeti, working at a school in Tanzania -- I was cozy and warm in my Tempurpedic bed, listening to the sounds of the morning in my comfortable Malibu world. The trash truck was outside, a few dogs were barking, the usual birds were chirping, and not much else. At that point, whenever I talked about packing it up and hitting the road for two-a-half months to travel the globe with my teenage boy, it was as though it were happening to someone else.  I felt almost a curiosity, an interest in how this 40’s woman, very attached to her creature comforts and routines, thought she was going to handle leaving her comfortable life and wandering with her son around the world.
 
I remember being at Ari’s school, running into one of his former teachers, a favorite among all the kids; one of those true teachers who turns kids’ lives around and remain unforgettable for life. Mr. B. was obviously pleased to hear about my insane plans. “So, how do you get to do this?” He knew I wasn’t one of the Malibu wealthy, and was obviously wondering about the cost of the unbelievable itinerary I’d shared with him: Uganda, Ngamba Island and one of Jane Goodall’s chimp sanctuaries, a week with a former Black Panther, volunteering at his compound in Tanzania, a safari, visits with several African tribes . . . and then on to Australia and a month wandering New Zealand. Sheepishly I told him, “I really haven’t figured the financial part out quite yet. Maybe (I’ll) rent my house. Write a book. Speak here and there. I don’t know. I figured I’d work backward: Decide to go and then find a way.”  “THAT’s how you should approach it,” he said.  “Just set your sights and then figure out the steps that will get you there. Otherwise, you’ll never go.”  

This was the advice I got from so many people whose kids were now grown, who had once had a fantasy like mine; to take their kids out to see more than Malibu, more of the “real world”, and share adventures and experiences that would last a lifetime. I felt like I’d drawn the short straw, and somehow been elected to live out a dream that so many people seemed to be secretly harboring.
 
The rhythm of our lives makes it easy to stop thinking about something as radical as just leaving for a while. If you had asked me, for instance, what seemed hardest about the trip, I wouldn’t have talked about the cost of it, or the complexity of the planning, or homeschooling my son on the road. It would have been about not getting to lie in my very own bed on a foggy morning, surrounded by what’s familiar. As adventurous and well-traveled as I considered myself to be, I think it’s the hobbit in most of us that keeps us home, that keeps us safe, that keeps us from venturing out of our comfort zone, both physically, and psychologically.
 
There were moments, after we’d been gone for awhile, living out of backpacks and inventing each day as we went -- “Are we done with Queenstown? Shall we hit the road and head East for a while?” that I would remember that I had a house back in Malibu, and ‘so many things!’ Once we got into the nomadic rhythm of moving every day or two, I developed a sense of wonder at my world back home. Life became so simple. So slow, and so simple and so very in the moment.
 
But indeed, we did come back, filled to the brim with stories and adventure, and a renewed bond of mother and son, co-adventurers and gypsies. Looking back on our trip now, it’s clear that it wasn’t watching the lions a few feet away, or experiencing that ancient and familiar connection with women – mothers -- in the Totonga tribe, or the children running to the side of the road as we drove through dusty villages, hoping for a pen -- because their families couldn’t afford one -- and watching them beam magnificent smiles even when our pens had long run out. It wasn’t the eye-popping green of New Zealand, or the chance to visit a two-room school where kindergartners through eighth graders learn and play happily together in the foothills of “Mordor”, or even landing by helicopter on top of an absolutely pristine glacier.
 
It was all of it. And most of all, it was the chance to share these moments with my son, to give him a chance to understand that he isn’t a citizen of Malibu, or even the United States; he is a citizen of a magnificent world, filled with extraordinary human beings.
 
I can still hardly believe I pulled it together to take that trip, but I’m deeply grateful that somehow, I did. I say that as I write . . . from the comfort of my cozy bed. And once again, I hear my gypsy song . . . Lately, we’ve been thinking a lot about Nepal . . .

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Susan Stiffelman is a family therapist, credentialed teacher, and educational therapist in Malibu, California. Through her private work with adults, couples, teens and children, and her presentations and website, (www.susanstiffelman.com  http://www.susanstiffelman.com she has become a source of advice and support for hundreds of people as they shift to help restore their sense of joy and self-worth in a world that moves ever-faster. Her book on raising passionate, joyful and resilient kids will be out soon! Susan can be reached at osusannaji@gmail.com, or 310-589 7020.