A change in plans

The more you plan, the more can go wrong. This little piece of advice has proven itself to me to be more than a slick aphorism time and again. On the other hand, there are few things I like doing more than anticipating the different lives that lie ahead, dependent on whether at the next turn I will decide to take a left or a right. Or reviewing all those decisions - conscious or unconscious as the case may be - that were taken in the past... and where I might have ended up, had I done the opposite just then. Mostly, I stare back in wonder, and thank my lucky stars,that everything turned out just the way it did – and find that most of the times life dealt me a hand I could not have anticipated anyway, thus rendering all planning and deciding useless.

When thinking about all the options for my sabbatical, several plans distilled themselves in my imagination, all of which had a certain charme, and all of which would have doubtlessly influenced my post- sabbatical life to an immense degree. In the end, as some of the more loyal reader might recall, I decided on a picture-book plan for discovering South America, with Tango, learning Spanish and surfing included. All things decided, I did leave a small amount of leeway by reminding myself and my readers that the only stable thing, at least in my life, has been change, and that perchance I would meet the woman of my dreams and finally fall in love for real. And as things go, just this has happened.

What to do with my year then, now that everything has turned around? Well, the truth is, nothing is decided. There are certain elements (writing, surfing, travelling) that form the core. Then there is the as of yet also uncertain path of my newfound love, with whom I will spend as much time together as possible, and find a new semi-permanent home until August 2010. There is the longboard workshop, there is a drama project in Stuttgart, there is Morocco, Maledives, Madagascar - and, who knows, perhaps the old plan for Tuvalu will have its day. So, my year will be a puzzle – with pieces here and there that already stick out and are more or less fixed in the finished picture, and others still turned over or presumed missing.

In fourteen months time I will look back on my sabbatical, and hopefully can congratulate myself on another year well spent – wherever and whoever I will be by then.