A Pause in Kenya

I’m taking a pause everywhere these days.

I’m sitting on the beach in Diani, Kenya, my feet planted in the whitest sand, looking out at the clear blue sea.

I’m here on the coast of Kenya for the first time, and it’s magic. I’ve been in the country for a few weeks and have been remiss in publishing.

Probably because I can’t sit still. I’ve never been able to. I can’t even sit still at home in Paris for more than a month without some kind of change. (Yes, I am ADHD, but still…)

When I travel to different destinations—whether that is a new town two hours away by train from Paris or another country a 10-hour flight from home—the change always shifts me. My friend Elizabeth said to me once, “It’s not that we need travel; it’s that we need change.”

And I need change.

I’ve changed homes more than 20 times since I graduated from university. I’ve changed jobs over 100 times. I have never stayed at a job for more than three years. I have never had a primary partner for more than seven years.

I have traveled to 27 states and more than 40 countries. Much of that travel was for my job, and it’s a piece of my work that I am very grateful for. And yet, I still itch for more.

I itch for newness. For better or for worse. That’s why Kenya and France are such great countries for me to spend so much time in.

If you explored Kenya for many years, you still would not see all of the different landscapes of the country. Just on this trip, I have been to a remote county that few people ever visit. The Samburu tribe, the light, the cloud formations, the bush—they were something I’ve never seen before in Kenya, though I’ve been coming for years.

And a few days later, I end up on this incredible beach that looks like the Caribbean. New light, the white sand, the sea, different vegetation, different foods. More and more to write about. And for a while, I have satiated my hunger for change.

And yet, I can’t wait to get home. I can’t wait to do errands and cook and go to the market and see my neighbors. I suddenly love the consistency of my simple, daily life. But I know myself. It would be a miracle if I were home in Paris for more than six months a year.

Now I travel to see my parents at our homes in Philly and Jersey, and my son, godson, and friends in New York. I mostly work in the States. And I come back to Kenya because of my friends, but also to see new things.

I realize that in the second half of life, I only want to be in places where I feel like my best self. Yes, I need change, but the older I get, the more I also want the familiar. Like Paris—it’s now familiar but always mysterious. She’s like a lover you can never fully have. I discover something new about her every day and I need that.

Now I’m off to another change. I’m leaving this beautiful country I love to start a new chapter. Thank God I have experience, because sometimes change is not easy. But looking back, I trust that whenever I’ve made a change, it has brought me some bit of magic I could never have expected.

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