Last September I travelled to the Scottish Highlands. As my husband was set to join me in the UK following my walk on the West Highland Way, it was critical to find someone who would look after our dog.
Discussions with my neighbour Hilary and my husband’s cousin Carolin led me to learn about a much-touted pet-sitting service. Both Hilary and Carolin are members of Trusted House Sitters, a home and pet-sitting organization for which membership purports to offer pet-owners freedom to travel and pet-loving travellers with live-like-a-local unique homestays around the world.
Carolin is notably a bona fide expert on Trusted House Sitters as she has for the last four years seen the world with periodic cat-sits!
This fall while enjoying a cat-sit with house cat Yoda in New Edinburgh, Carolin visited us in the Hills for the first time. While we never joined Trusted House Sitters (but that’s another story), we were eager to hear of Carolin’s experiences and how she literally closed one chapter of her life and began writing another.
Carolin’s quest for adventure began in Toronto, where she discarded the trappings of a rather traditional lifestyle and began, in effect, wandering. As stated boldly on her website, “Anything is possible when you know how to get out of your own way.”
It gives me great pleasure to share Carolin’s next chapter and latest writing venture…
It had been a month of chaos. I hadn’t planned to leave so soon, but that’s the thing about dreams; once you say yes, things fall into place, often faster and more smoothly than you could plan on your own.
My alarm woke me at 6 a.m. With only four hours’ sleep, excitement and stress launched me out of bed. It was already promising to be another sweltering summer day in Toronto, and I’d given my air conditioner away.
I hadn’t yet started to pack.
Every day leading up to this had been focused on unpacking my life to date and tying up loose ends. Amidst completing a client project, I was downloading years of computer files, sorting through boxes of photographs, and trying to sell or donate books, furniture, and ‘treasures’ that had suddenly lost their appeal once I made the decision not to pay for storage.
I’d given myself an hour, two max. I mean, how long does it take to throw a few clothes in a bag? Five hours later, I was still sorting through what I might need and what shoes went with which outfit, trying to make as many combinations from the least amount of clothes, innerly taunted by the countless mix-and-match articles I’d read over the years while dreaming of trips to England, Europe, and exotic locales — anywhere really.
What DO you take when you don’t know where you’re going or how long you’ll be gone?
READ ON: 1,500 Days as a Mid-Life Nomad by Carolin Rathbun
Follow Carolin’s wanderings on https://substack.com/@carolinrathbun
© Carolin Rathbun Photos “All rights reserved.”
Wandering Wakefield 